Stimming Myths
I really didn’t like seeing stims being mimicked in Sia’s new movie trailer, so I thought I would talk about some stimming myths. A stim is a repetitive behavior that helps a neurodivergent person self regulate. This brings me to my first myth: stimming is something bad that needs to be stopped so an autistic kid can be ‘normal.’ No! Stimming is a way for autistic people to maintain control of their body and their emotions. It’s a way to neutralize negative emotions and express positive emotions. Please, teach your kids how to stim in situationally appropriate ways, because it is a form of self-care.
I stim all the time. I never sit still. I even stim while I’m falling asleep. In middle school, before I was diagnosed, I suppressed my stims and disguised them as neurotypical fidgets. I bounced my leg, I tapped my fingers, I clenched and unclenched my muscles. I still use those stims in some situations, but at the time, those were not the stims I wanted to be using. In school, stimming is often penalized, and I got told to “sit still” a lot. Forcing myself to sit still resulted in intrusive thoughts and body-related compulsions. Now I know I was experiencing understimulation which made room for undiagnosed OCD to emerge. Here’s another myth: Autistic people can just stop stimming whenever you want them to. No! Forced stillness can have serious consequences.
After I was diagnosed, I started to explore stimming and allowing myself to do what my body was asking me to do. I’ve always been an athlete so I had an outlet for the big movements I was suppressing. I started by ‘dancing’ badly to music. I watched how dogs shake after a stressful experience and realized that I could do something similar. I’m still getting used to stimming in public. I often want stim in grocery stores because they are kind of overwhelming, but I also get excited when I find food I like. Lots of strong sensory experiences happen in the grocery store, so I want to use some of my more obvious stims, but I still struggle with being stared at.
The next slide is a video of me happy stimming because I found the perfect quote for a research paper. Yes, the stimming is authentic, because every time I reread the quote I got excited again. I really like this stim because it engages my fingers, biceps, shoulders, wrists, and it changes the way air moves around my face.
