do you stim, what is your stim?

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why do you do it, does it calm you down? do you do it when you're stressed?
i pace and flap my finges or a sock/handkerchief. i dont have to be stressed in order to do it, it helps me concentrate and does help me to calm down. i do this several times a day, but only in private. at work, i flap a pen six/eight hours straight. my supervisor said he'd never see anyone moving so fast and he'd probably drop it. i do have a lot of experience. i flap the pen with one hand while holding the phone with the other. i'm very experienced and talented. why should i be ashamed of stimming?

My stim from childhood is twirling a string or something long and tapering that dangles in front of my eyes. I scrunch up my face like a bunny rabbit when I do it. It looks really weird. This I only do in private as an adult. Also, I pick at and scratch my skin which I really want to stop doing. I used to flap my hands and sometimes that comes back when I'm REALLY agitated.

Besides those I do a lot of little socially acceptable stims. I have a lot of nervous energy so I'm always doing something: picking at something with my hands like an eraser or Styrofoam cup, picking lint, rubbing material, shaking my leg, clicking a pen, pacing ect. These are just things I do all the time, probably more when nervous or exited.

Why do I? For body awarness and too much emotion. Does it calm me? Sometimes. I do them more when frustrated.

Why do I? For body awareness and too much emotion. Does it calm me? Sometimes. I do them more when frustrated.

Picking at my fingernails and stroking my dolphin plushie, rocking, bouncing while seated when happy.

I stim like crazy. For anything and everything, except when in public. I have a suite a conscious tricks I use to quiet the fidgeting in public or social situations. I also have developed my "in plain sight" stims for work environments. Almost everyone I work with knows I play poker, so I can flip chips around in my fingers without it looking too out-of-place. Pen twirling is another, or just foot shaking under my desk.

I hide my flapping, my favorite relaxtion stim, in a concealed gesture of cracking my knuckles and stretching my fingers. Everyone stopped asking me if I needed to go to the bathroom when I disguised it as a virtuoso about to go to town on his keyboard.

I estimate I take in about 2200 Calories per day, and I've weighed 165# (~75kg/12 stones) for 30 years. It never occurred to me to wonder where my calories were going prior to diagnosis. I don't exercise regularly; I just thought I had a high metabolism.

Skin picking -- my thumb is a mess but I seem to be calmed by doing it so I give myself a break on that one.

Twirling strands of hair until they form little tiny dreadlocks (hairline started falling out from that during one point in my teens!! !). Also kicking my foot up and down really fast while sitting (used to do this in tandem with the hair twirling).

Pacing around my home usually accompanied by talking out loud to myself/the four walls, and the talking is usually agitated rehashing of a conversation I just had with someone else, that I feel went badly/I embarrassed myself/I didn't stand up for myself. I practice what I wish I'd said, or what I want to say in the future. Not being able to break out of that anxiety and settle down. This pacing and self-talking always happens when I've just gotten back from a social encounter that became too much for me for one reason or another.

Rocking mainly.
Rubbing my hands together a lot.
Pacing.
Hand flapping if I'm especially worked up.
I wear a lanyard at school and twist it around my fingers a lot.

when i was younger i used to hit my head on walls, fall down purposely and roll, now i twirl back and forth and stick m tongue through the gaps in my teeth

Foot tapping.

I notice if I have something in my hands (e.g. water bottle, paper, pen..) I will fiddle with these things. I may also play and stroke with the ends of my hair. A lot of my 'stimming' behaviour was curbed when I was a child and I felt too self-conscious to do anything too extreme in public. So, I developed more healthier ways to express and relieve stress. When I am excited I may jump around or pace around, and I may hand twirl or flap in excitement. I add in excitement stimms because I consider both as excess nervous system energy wanting to discharge. So, whatever is repressed comes up ugly (explosions/melt down).

The main thing I do that I now recognise as a stim is twist my fingers together and then bang them against my top lip. I do this mainy when anxious or stressed. I quickly learned as a child that it drew negative attention and so I only do it in private now although I can still twist my fingers a lot as I can hide that under the desk or in the cuffs of my coat.

Others I do are:

- foot tapping
- chewing the inside of my lip and mouth
- grind my teeth
- talk to myself - sometimes narrating my actions like telling a story
- I start to speak very quickly when excited and will clap my hands
- when feeling very emotionally overwhelmed I will shut myself in the bedroom with all the lights off, cuddle my soft toy I've had since a kid and rock.

Pacing, moving, wringing hands, etc.

I pace a lot. In the past, I also rocked and cracked my finger joints whenever I was stressed, but I've stopped doing that.

I'm 48, so most stims were left behind by early adulthood. However, I still do tuneless humming through my teeth when thinking -- mostly catch myself when I'm alone, but occasionally get caught out in public. I foot tap when stressed or nervous. Right now I'm trying to make myself stop rocking back and forth in the computer chair -- I'm in the library and afraid I'll disturb neighboring patrons.

Does anyone stim by putting stuff in their mouth? I like to constantly have cigars or lollipops or gum. It's very calming. If it wasn't socially inappropriate I would probably nom on those soft baby chew toys all day. I'm so weird