do u stim without realizing it

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i do sometimes.

Yes.

If you don't realize that you're stimming, then how do you ever know that you stim?

ik its hard to explain.

but its like a automatic response for the brain.

but eventually u do realize u are stimming.

I only became aware of my stims because people told me about them.

WIth my hand/finger stim, a friend pointed it out to me when I was about 16 or 17 and described it as something I do all the time.

With rocking, I was at a work meeting when I was 20 and some workmates of mine mimed my rocking at me .... I can't actually remember how the whole interaction started, but it was one of those situations where people are laughing or having some other reaction and I know it has something to do with me but beyond that I'm lost; So I ask them what's funny or what's going on...or, in this case, nonverbally express bewilderment at them until they realize I don't understand. (I don't think the mimicry or the laughing were mean-spirited -- the mimicry was an explanation, and I guess I must have just looked funny to them.) It took some time, and some additional gesturing/pointing before I figured out they were imitating me and that I had been doing this without noticing.

Now I sometimes become aware of the fact that I'm stimming after I've been doing it for an unknown amount of time. I think I become aware of it when my attention shifts, or when it affects some other movement that I want to do, or when I suddenly have reason to think about my own stimming (e.g. I read a question about stimming on WP).

I'm not sure if I would be aware of it at all if nobody had ever brought it to my attention -- because it wouldn't be something I'd ever have any reason to consciously take notice of. I guess it's a little bit like how most people aren't constantly aware of breathing, in that they only become aware of it if there's some reason to be aware of it.

All the time. I don't realize it until I realize it. And I've gotten laughed at too because of it.
It seemed so natural to me that I didn't know there was anything wrong with it until I found out it was an autism symptom.

All. The. Time.
I pretty much stim constantly unless I am eating, talking, and possibly but not necessarily sleeping, because I do it with my tongue. Just non stop, whether I'm aware I'm doing it and focusing on it, or not. It is actually a consistent conscious effort for me to stop stimming.

I thought about that - mostly it's that I have no awareness of starting to do so, yet I am, implying that I started doing it without realising.

all the time. i stimmed as i walked down the aisle on my wedding day. it shows in the video.

All the time. Usually someone in my family will start caressing my shoulders and back when it starts getting too intense to help calm me. I know how I behave because I ask my family to tell me what kinds of things I do.

I'm usually stimming on purpose cuz i feel like it.

Yes. But only certain ones. And I know because other people have commented on them.

Yep, dont even know I'm doing it the majority of the time

I constantly take the backs (the part that covers the batteries) off remote controllers, it drives my family mad, and we always lose batteries now oops