Can stims ever vanish completely?

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I'm kind of depressed because I went from not stimming for about 2 months to stimming again. I felt a major urge to stim last night while listening to music, so I started to tap my feet while concentrating on the numbers on the display of my music player (a very common stim of mine). Will I ever overcome my stims, or is it highly unlikely? I get depressed when I stim because I feel flawed. Stims don't bother me as much as they did before I knew that I had aspergers, but they still bother me to a certain degree.

Did any of you guys feel disturbed by your stims before knowing that you had aspergers? Also, did anybody out there ever overcome your stims completely?

Thanks,



Patrick

Before I knew I was autistic, and what autism meant, I thought that they were shameful addictions that were evidence of my weakness of character and to be hidden at all costs, and then found to my dismay that I could never completely hide them, and became able to hide them less and less.

I don't think of it that way anymore, and don't get depressed about being unable to hide them. Even when I hid them though, I still did them, just more hidden or in private.

Some people do learn to stop them entirely, or at least stop them in public, though.

My son doesn't do them anymore or he has found a type of stim that doesn't look like a stim-I suspect jumping jacks is one of them. We never taught him that they were wrong and I don't believe anyone else did either. I never stimmed either but I hide spinning within dancing. My son does this sometimes too but I don't know if he is consciously hiding it or just like to dance.

I think I also came up with the idea at one point (fueled by my brother's explanations of psychology, as I remember, which were pretty Freudian) that my subconscious had it in for me, because I kept doing those things even when I tried not to, and I thought that maybe a "subconscious" was what made you do them.

I never knew I "stimmed" until I knew.

I "stim" pretty much all of the time, and the only time I've been called out for such is by curling my hands up in high school; said person just thought it was weird, and teased me for such. I didn't even think much of it other than wondering why that'd be something worth pointing out to me.

When I stand I'll sway
I "wring" my hands as if I'm shaking water off of them when I take them out of my pockets, then I'll put my hands back in my pockets, then I'll shake them again as I remove them
I open and close things repetitively
plus a zillion and more little "funny" things I've always done.

"Stims" don't, and never have bothered me, it's one part of autism that's of no consequence to me.

I've always done certain things that I ASSUME are stims because of the strangeness of them. For example, I usually run up stairs rather than walk up them, because this somehow gives me a feeling of pleasure. Other things that I do that I assume are stims are:

Skin biting (I bit the skin on my fingertips)
Pacing (I will often get up and pace for no reason)
Rubbing my hands together
Feeling to urge to utter an obscenity (I don't know if this would be considered as being a stim, can stims be mental? I get the stim "feeling" when I have this though)


Those stims that were listed are only stims that I assume are stims, but just am not sure about. Some stims that I've done are jumping, hand flapping, clapping, clearing out my throat, making animal sounds, concentrating on objects that I find visually stimulating, etc. Does anybody out there know if stims can be mental? Or are they only physical? Most of my stims are either mentally or physically stimulated by a picture or an object that I find extremely visually stimulating (but NOT always, I can perform stims without thinking or looking at something). This will cause me to concentrate on the object (either mentally or physically) for a long time and go into "stimming mode" and it's tough to get out of it. I will sometimes spend over an hour concentrating on the object and tap my foot, flap my hand or just plain stare at the object and get the stimming "feeling". I've been like this since I was a little kid. Tell me if any of you guys have anything that is similar to me.

Some of those sound like they could be tics or compulsions, rather than stims.

As far as tics and compulsions, they're a mixed bag for me. Some don't bother me much, and some I'd rather not do.

This is the best FAQ about tics I've seen, and that might be what you're dealing with for some of this. For a lot of people, tics, unlike stims, do tend to be inherently disturbing to the person doing them, rather than just socially disapproved of.