Changing your stim to something more socially acceptable?

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My original topic title was going to be "Can you change your stim to something more socially acceptable? But there wasn't enough space...

So, can you do this and have you ever done it?

I'm not diagnosed with an ASD. But I do things which could be considered 'stims' and I've had to alter them at much difficultly so as to not annoy people who are in the same room. It's a difficult process as I don't know when I'm doing it most of the time so I need it pointed out, but I have managed it - it's still noticeable but not as loud/disruptive.

My "main" stim is drawing letters on my thumb with a finger, so I don't think that bothers other people very much.

What exactly is yours, if I may ask? Is it noisy? Because I don't think a quiet stim would really annoy anyone.

Yes, you can. And I did.
Its much easier to use rubberbands as a stim, then waving strings/rags/etc in the air, flapping my habds. I still pace, but I can use my job to cover that also.
"Stealth" stim? I like it!

Sincerely,
Matthew

not so easy for me since most of my stims involve very fast rhythmatic swinging and jerking of my arms, head and often my whole body. I could easily take someone out if they were close enough :p. Sometimes I will smack myself repeatedly as a stim, but that's not very socially acceptable either, and I have bled from it... Thankfully I don't need to stim constantly.

From about age 2 to 8, I would twist my hair around my finger and pull the hair out all the time. The teachers would complain to my mom about it, so I began to pick the skin around my fingernails instead. I've done that ever since. Now people just assume it's something I do when bored or anxious, if they even notice.

I don't know if I have Asperger's, but it seems rather likely.

When I was a kid, I used to stand on anthills and watch the ants run around.

I got so many bites at a church picnic in the 1950s when I was something like 2 or 3 that they took me to the emergency room. That time, I crawled into the anthill and sat there watching the ants until someone saw me and got me out of there. I assume that I was crying quite loudly but was not very willing or able to move away from them.

Once I eventually learned to stand to the side to watch them, they didn't bite me as much.

Some of the things I do now is count things like lights, ceiling panels, seats, people, ... . In additon, at church, they post the numbers of the songs we are going to sing in front. I'll factor each number as well as add them together and factor that number as well. If the numbers aren't posted, for example at Christmas time when there is a big tree in front of the place they post the songs, I feel quite uncomforable about it.

When watching tv, I play with the remote control. This mainly involves touching each button in sequence on the remote control over and over again and also repeatedly tracing out closed paths from button to button that don't cross themselves. The Dish TV remote was far superior, in my opinion, to the Direct TV remote.

I also like to drum my fingers on whatever is available in a specific pattern. Starting with the thumb counting them in sequence from 1 to 5, the pattern is 1-3-5-2-4. It's always this pattern. The reason for the pattern is that at no time do you go from one finger directly to the previous or next finger -- you always skip one finger in the process.

My socially unacceptable stim is to twirl a string in front of my face. I did this in public (including public school) until I was about 10 , at least 9 and then started to just do it in private when I started middle school. I still do it in private even though I find it embarrassing. Nothing replaces the feeling of that for me...nothing is as satisfying. In public I pick my skin, wiggle/shake my foot, and pick at things (like erasers or a paper wrapping on a juice bottle etc.). I've seen lots of other people doing these things in public so I think they are somewhat socially acceptable but I never made a decision to do these things in public to replace my string twirling......I just started doing them in public. Now the skin picking has gotten to be an issue for me............