a cat's 'wool eating' as stimming?

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As far as us humans, stimming is sometimes a distraction. Other times, it helps to maintain concentration or deal with sensory issues, as well as adding joy of life.

And yes, I do make a public-private distinction and try to stim less obviously in public. And yes, stimming is generally an embarrassing topic.

I believe so. Cats do many things to stim and that's one of them. Other cat stims are post scratching, jumping onto objects, chasing toy mice and chasing toys that go around in circles.

Cats do not all have autism, therefore their actions are not performed to alleviate anxiety, therefore are not "stims."

I also stim for such reasons as really getting into an activity (although admittedly I am self-diagnosed).

And the point about cats is well taken. Yes, the cat is an animal, a pretty neat animal at that, but we do not want to overpush the analogy with autism. I mean, the cat is just itself.

What I do want to do is to start to bridge the gap and illustrate stimming as more 'normal' than it is commonly regarded. For example, after some intense basketball play, NBA players will sometimes pop out their mouthpiece just using their mouth and chew on it a little. And for all the world, this looks like stimming. It looks like a break and a relaxation after the intense play.

And I've seen tennis players at the French Open, which is played on clay and often has long rallies, after a long intense rally, stare at their racquets and adjust strings. And I don't think it's really that vital to adjust the strings. Rather, I think it kind of provides a shift of focus and a break. Again, it seems a lot like stimming.

It's not just autistics who have anxiety. And stimming doesn't have to be motivated by anxiety. (Mine isn't.)

Besides, an argument could be made that all cats have autism. The original definition of autism was low sociability. Cats are a solitary species by nature - ergo, they have low sociability.