Can you control your stims?

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In case you haven't caught my other posts I am new to the whole AS thing but am learning (and identifying with) more and more as I read up on it.

I just read about "stims" and realize that I have a few of them myself. However, I've learned to control the ones that people have pointed out to me over the years. I'm definitely not perfect but I can stop myself from my odd, repetitive movements if I really concentrate. Doing so, however, drives me to distraction and takes the focus off of what is going on around me and, sometimes, removes me completely from the situation I am in. I seem to focus better (and am calmer) when I can move or sway or rock as I please.

Can anyone else control their stims?

XD
Doing one right now.
Yeah, I guess I can control it if I think about it.
Usually I see no reason to stop.

Like, currently, I like moving a little in my rolling chair as I'm on the computer.

Maybe it bothers people? I didn't notice that it bothers people much.
But, I guess now that I think about it, they don't do it. XD

Actually, I just realized that I'm doing one too. XD

The first time that I was made aware of extraneous movement a friend in undergrad called me out in class. "Oh my God, STOP it with the legs!" I had wrapped my ankles around my chair and was bobbing my legs up and down, creating a squeaking noise. I was so self conscious after that.

If I want to do nothing else I can control my stims. Otherwise, I go right back to them once I do something else and focus on that instead.

I have stim toys I use to redirect my stims, although I don't remember to use them all the time.

I think now that I am on my third month of zoloft, my overall stimming has reduced in intensity. I am not actually sure that I like this development.

Interesting that your medication has had an effect on stimming. My cocktail has had no effect on it whatsoever. It has taken care of that pesky, violent desire to kill myself, though.

The Zoloft is having all kinds of effects on me - Less anxiety, less depression, less pain from fibromyalgia, and halved my appetite. I am rather amazed at how effective it's been. Despite the stimming alteration, I am not likely to stop.

My therapist said I was more emotionally demonstrative yesterday and suggested it might be the Zoloft, but I think it may have had more to do with talking to my paratransit ride about my special interest (video games) for about an hour and a half beforehand, plus having had a ton of caffeine beyond my usual daily amount.

One of the side effects of the "less anxiety" is that I tend to speak more bluntly to people, which comes off as more autistic.

I'm so glad that you are seeing an improvement in your fibro symptoms! I do not suffer from that myself but I hear that it is absolutely horrible.

Once you see your therapist a few more times on your current dose (s)he will be able to better assess your overall depressive and anxious symptoms. I've got my fingers crossed for you!

I have shown a marked improvement with my meds - but this new AS dx seems to be having a large affect on my treatment as well. I'm viewing things in a new light - shutdown/meltdown instead of my atypical mania, for example - and I'm hoping that it will help me attain the stability I need so I can move into my own place again.

I risked fate this morning by going to bed without my flexeril (muscle relaxer) and went right back to sleeping for 90-120 minutes at a time and waking up in severe pain. I'd been worrying that I was over reliant on it because I take it every night, but now I don't think so.

I hope you get the stability you're looking for.

Oh, stim toys: I find that toys that can engage my senses (touch, especially) can focus my stimming on the toy rather than on everything, which keeps me from flapping, etc. if I have the toy out. Usually, I have these slinkyesque plastic party bracelets that I just rotate over and over, although I also have these weird balls with fake eyeballs inside that rattle nicely when I shake them.

It's not so much control as redirection. I mostly only care if I'm bothering someone - otherwise how I stim doesn't really matter to me.

Nope. My body likes to move and I'm happier when it moves. Some stims are really hard to control like hand flapping. The finger movements are easy to control, though sometimes it's better to just let them happen. Not stimming builds up the stress. The larger movements are hard to control, like with whole limbs.

Yeah. I'm only really cautious about my stims when it's making a repetitive noise.
I bother people enough as it is, I don't want to bother them further.
(Usually, I either stop or try to do another thing that is quiet.)

chewed my hair in grade school. stopped when i got a bad grade in "is neat and clean" for it.

also used to swing my crossed leg under my desk at school. i guess i just grew out of that. i thought i was just fidgety, a nervous type. only recently have i recognized it as a stim.

if i'm feeling very emotional, i rub my hands together like someone who is trying to warm their hands. it usually happens when i'm alone.

wiggling the first three fingers of my right hand happens all the time. you can see it in my wedding video as i walk down the aisle. it doesn't cause me much distress to stop it, but if i'm not thinking about it and if my hands are not busy, you can bet i am doing it, like right now when i stop to check for typos. i can fold my hands in my lap "like a lady" and that stops it, say, for a job interview. one of my co-workers made fun of it. he has no idea i'm on the autistic spectrum, though. i used to think it was a med side effect. ever since i figured out i have asperger's, lots of things are falling into place.

If I think about them, yes, but I've been called out at work, and I just tell them as nervous habits. My verbal stims . . . well, those I attempt to cover as best I can.

I can't control my stims. Lately, I've started saying things automatically, especially with repeating words and phrases from TV shows or what someone just said to me, but not even the last bit like with my normal echolalia, but some random middle word. It's kind of disturbing that I would start doing this new thing for no reason, but then again, I also went around snorting constantly for several months when I was a kid.

I can't control them and I am not going to try-to exhausting and they do not hurt me or anyone else so why try.

I spent two decades not knowing what ASD or stimming was. So, that was pretty much hell.

I would say that, now that I know what is classified as stimming, I can control it, but cannot stop it.

I pretty much stim all day long; body rocking, hand flapping, meowing, mental or verbal echolalia not associated with what I'm currently hearing, leg jiggling, purposely tearing my nails, head rocking or swirling, arm swirling, making random sounds, humming, singing, moving my fingers, purposely cracking my knuckles, and a bunch of other things.

The control factor comes in when I attempt to do it when no one else is around or will notice. However, if I am standing, I am going to rock from side to side. That is impossible to stop. I've tried because my mom doesn't like when her children (of which there are two of us that stim) rock.

I am very traumatized from always being told to stop doing this and stop doing that, so I am very self-conscious. Even when I'm alone. My mom calls all of us that live with her mentally or emotionally disturbed. She's verbally abusive. So, even when I'm alone, I think to myself "I'm not supposed to be doing this. It isn't normal." Other times, I think to myself "It's okay. It's a part of me and I should be able to do this."

But, generally, the verbal ticks and most of the minor bodily gestures happen randomly, and it's always stopping after I start. Never preventing.

As someone with Tourette's, it's sometimes hard to tell them apart. I didn't used to be able to control either (and didn't know what they were on top of that), so it was pretty hard to deal with and accept myself. However, I started meditating an eventually taught myself how to control them without giving it much thought. Some days I can't though, if it's really bad.