I've started stimming.

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Ok so before I joined the wrong planet community I had never heard of stimming and had never done it (aside from RAPID nonstop compulsory pen clicking) but now I do it all the time, I make a fist, my thumb on the outside, and tap m thumb against the side of my fist, rapidly. Is just starting stimming normal? Also should I be worried about a RMI (repeated movement injury)?

I've never heard of someone stimming out of the blue when they haven't done it before. I have heard of it getting better or worse, but not sudden. However, I've been diagnosed for only a month, and have only known about ASD for 7 months, after I was first told that I may have it, so my knowledge is limited and comes from my own research online. I've personally always stimmed, and right now it seems to be worse in public than it has been in the past.

Was there a point in your life when you were made fun of/reprimanded for making repetitive movements? Stimming can be repressed or replaced with less obvious stims (such as pen clicking) during childhood. This was so in my case. Now I stim as much as I please.

Here is an article you might find helpful or comforting. In it she brings up a good point that taking on autistic coping strategies is not a bad thing if they are helpful to you. And that we have been conditioned to believe that stimming more is a sign of regression or maybe some sort of "autism hypochondria". Another thing she says is that even if you can remember any stims you had as a child, you are older now and are not the same as you were then and it's okay to change over time. I have trouble with this myself. I think, "I didn't do this stim when I was younger so I must be faking it now or delusional or something." People pick up new habits all the time in reality. Our minds, bodies, brains, emotions, needs, wants, nervous systems, everything changes over time and it's okay. Another thing, you might stem more than you realize and may not even realize something is a stim because you do it so much and don't even know it and if you're like me, you might be easy to forget you were stimming. And if you have suppressed more obvious stims, it's okay to deliberately take on and try new stims. If it helps prevent meltdown/shutdowns, helps you talk, and helps you live, it's not something to be ashamed of.

http://archive.autistics.org/library/more-autistic.html

It's possible you stimmed before without realizing it. Right after my diagnosis, I was convinced that I didn't stim. Then I started paying attention and realized that I was stimming without realizing it. I play with my teeth and tongue practically all the time, but I didn't realize how much I do it until I really started paying attention. It's constant; when I'm watching TV, when I'm talking to someone (listening to them talk), when I'm driving, when I'm washing dishes, reading the news, when I'm doing anything, I'm also playing with my teeth. That's a stim.
I also think I was conditioned by my parents not to stim. They didn't know what it was and had the best of intentions, but I learned to suppress my urge to move most of the time, to my own detriment. I've found recently that when I let myself stim, or I do something as a conscious effort to stim, I'm much less anxious and I feel a lot better.

I might also point out that baseball players, basketball players, and poker players stim. And I think they do it for reasons similar to why we on the spectrum stim: to manage stress and to maintain concentration.

But it's like we tend to feel stress in times which are statistically uncommon, and so we can get labeled as 'bad' for stimming. Or some more complex label which might be intended to mean something more helpful, but often comes down to simply being a negative label.

And I'm all in favor of more low-key stims for public.

[quote="QuiversWhiskers"]And if you have suppressed more obvious stims, it's okay to deliberately take on and try new stims./quote]
Well I used to pick at hangnails and anything that was darker than the rest of my skin on my fingers (still do sometimes). and have been trying to stop lately because it has caused major scarring over the past 6 years as well as infections and other issues. The picking is/was compulsive and when I stop doing it when someone tells me I was picking it makes me feel very weird and takes a major conscious effort to stop, sometimes I have to sit on my hands till they're numb to stop picking them. Is that stimming?
Also my major question I want answered is am I at risk for a repeated motion injury in my hand by doing this?

I have been told that a lot of us are unconscious of when we are stimming. It is just an automatic response in a way.