Until I started paying attention, I thought I didn't stim much. Then I payed attention. I flap and rock and fidget a lot. Huh. And I spend a lot of time playing with silky stuff, too. Huh. Maybe I do stim a decent bit.
Then a friend of mine started asking, "Is X stimming?" He didn't care which way the answer was, and it wasn't like he was trying to get me to stop or anything, so I thought about it. Usually, the answer was yes. Apparently, I have a LOT of stims, and I stim almost constantly.
And that's OK. I stim almost constantly, and because I am perceived as merely weird, nothing is done about it. Because no one spends time trying to get me to stop, it's a non-issue. That's true of pretty much any non-dangerous stim. It's only an issue if people decide that it is, and when people decide that it isn't, there really is no problem. (I made chainmail out on my desk in AP Biology and AP Chemistry my senior year of high school and it wasn't a problem because the teachers decided that as long as I got my work done as well, participated in class discussions, and wasn't distracting the other students, it was OK. There was no formal accommodation involved in this. As far as I know, they don't even know that I'm autistic. It was just a non-issue because no one made it an issue.)Then a friend of mine started asking, "Is X stimming?" He didn't care which way the answer was, and it wasn't like he was trying to get me to stop or anything, so I thought about it. Usually, the answer was yes. Apparently, I have a LOT of stims, and I stim almost constantly.
- Flapping
- Rocking
- Tapping on tables
- Playing with hammers
- Playing with doors
- Playing with silky fabric
- Doodling
- Pacing
- Jiggling my leg
- Picking at plastic tablecloths
- Humming
- Singing
- Tapping on tables
- Jumping up and down
Besides the fact that it's really only an issue if people decide to make it one, there are reasons that allowing stimming really is the way to go:
- Stimming can make the difference between melting down and not. I prefer not.
- Stimming can help me calm down when I am stressed.
- Not stimming takes thought and energy, and even then, it's not always going to work. I have better things to do with my time than worry about stimming, and so does pretty much every autistic person ever.
- I shouldn't need to justify using my body in a way that comes naturally and doesn't hurt anyone.
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