Stims

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Does every autistic have stims?

This word reminds me of Fallout 3. Stimpacks!

But really, I don't think every autistic person has one certain thing.

The many I've known have at least one stim. (Most have more.)

IMO the heart of Autism is the social disabilities that impair interaction with other humans. In our species functional interaction is critical to survival, therefore social inabilities = survival anxiety. Constant survival anxiety cannot help but lead to some outward physical expression, thus if one has Autism at a diagnosable level, some type of stim is almost inevitable.

However, as the DSM states, a stim is a 'body movement' - rocking, swaying, hand flapping, etc, NOT hair twirling, finger drumming, nail biting, nose picking or any other small nervous fidget. All humans do those little things. Only select humans sway and hand flap constantly.

I don't think it's completely necessary that all autistics have stims.. But most do. I think it's possible that people could deal with their anxieties in other ways and not stim.. I think the other things in that category of criteria can serve a similar purpose.. Like someone might have an excessive use of routine in their life to deal with their anxiety and not stim and still be diagnosable.

Even my NT mom has some mild autistic-like stims though(i mean she actually rocks and sways, not just the nail-biting type things). Her social skills are too good for her to be autistic, though. So it seems like if even some NTs do it, it would be pretty rare for an autistic to not to do it at all... But everyone's different.

I didn't stim much as a kid... I remember maybe sitting in an odd position at the table, and sometimes repeating a movement when by myself, but it wasn't something my parents ever worried about. I did have a lot more routine in my life then, and even developed some OCD-ish rituals back then though.. So that might have served the purpose of stimming. Mine have gotten progressively more pronounced as i've gotten older. I think it's due to increased stress and decreased routine. Plus the SSRI i'm on has taken away a lot of the OCD-ish tendencies i've had with little rituals and stuff, so that's kind of my only stress-reliever now. That's my theory, anyway.. I don't actually know for sure why it's worked out that way.