Word Stimming?

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Sometimes when I'm anxious or excited I'll latch onto a word or phrase that was recently used and repeat it to myself over and over. It is a type of verbal stimming, and I find the repetition relaxing and reassuring. Sometimes I'll just make a repeated random noise with my mouth like clicking, clucking or popping, it's mostly when I'm excited or overstimulated and need to relieve the pressure. I like long words too. I once had "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" stuck in my head for a while!

Jute, that's a pretty odd-looking signature. Is it in a conlang or something?

I had a certain phrase stuck in my head for ten years or so. Now I've had another one for perhaps three years. It's usually something that puzzles me. It's never really bothered me because it doesn't appear so often, and it doesn't really do anything - so I mainly just ignore it.

When I had a puppy, I got into the habit of saying, "Uh-boo! Uh-boo! Uh-boo!" Much later, when the puppy was grown and I had no excuse, I caught myself counting out change to a taxi driver saying, "Uh-boo! Uh-boo! Uh-boo!" instead of numbers.

I work in a group home, and one of our clients who has autism has word stims. He will repeat the same word or phrase for several hours, knowing full well what it means but not really caring because it feels good to say. I can relate to that, personally, because I experience similar circumstances when I find a word in a second language that I speak that sounds "good" to me even though the meaning might not be so great. So, yeah, I get it.

I have little rhymes that I like to say over and over in my head.

I wish I had that facility; then, I could write in meter, rather than in free verse all the time.

I used to write quite a bit when I was in my 20s.

I always seek to get back into it.

When I'm in the mood, my posts have some degree of metaphor in them.

I wrote very bad poetry when I was a teenager but haven't tried much as an adult. I'm better at prose.

I enjoy writing "prose poetry" myself.

Almost invariably, poetry comes out, at first writing, as clichéd.

The key: to turn the clichés into original thoughts through editing.

That's my method.