✨ Looking for new stim-friendly items, like some of those mentioned in the video? Here’s a list to get you started: chrisanddebby.mykajabi.com/pl/2148303953
Love your videos, So relatable. I was first diagnosed with ADHD when I was maybe like 5 years old and put on a bunch of horrible meds that made me feel like total crap. Then throughout my life I was diagnosed with many other different things... Then in my 20s I think was the 1st time autism was brought up, but me & my family only knew of severe cases so we dismissed it... Then in my 30s in hospital autism was brought up again & later in my late 30s I learned more & everything made a lot of sense! Now I'm 41 & still trying to learn about myself. I have anxiety for sure & been diagnosed with that many different times. I've been anxious as long as I can remember. Anyway, Thanks for you videos, Very relatable! ✌🏻😎👍🏻
I have a personal theory soem may have a tough time understanding. I think my autistic need to stim amplifies my cigarette smoking. I used to do a lot of 'typical' stim stuff when I was a kid, but as a teen, after I had started smoking, it subsided. Thing is my addiction to cigarettes has always been much more strong than most can even comprehend. I smoke a LOT, despite such societal backlash all these years. (I stared in 1981, when you could smoke everywhere) over 40 years later, I still smoke several packs a day. I do not think it is entirely the chemical addiction to nicotine driving this. None of the nicotine replacement methods have worked. It is the actin of smoking, vaping doesn't even work for me. There is a very complex sensory environment around smoking, and I think that is all my "stim". I do not think it is possible for me to quit tobacco, it would be too traumatizing. Nobody understands. They just hate me for being a smoker. So, I hate everyone who hates smokers. And I just wait for my physical end, why do think I smoke?
I do that too. Last time my man walked in and asked me who I was discussing with and I said, with you. And he said, but I didn't answer anything. And I said well you did, in my mind He was really confused
I didn’t even notice that I quietly say “boop” when setting something on the counter or handing something to a coworker until recently, and then I noticed that my other neurodivergent coworker has picked it up and started doing it too, which makes me incredibly happy, especially when we do it at the same time
Omg, I say "boop" randomly while doing things too. 😆 I also say "bean" in a high pitched tone when something jumps like my cats "beaning" onto the sofa or even when when watching wrestling and the wrestlers jump off the top rope. 😂
@zombiiesque the opposite for me haha! I told her I was late diagnosed, she has a masters for teaching SPED...after I told her she goes 'do you normally bite your cheek?' I didn't realize I was doing it, but noticed I was and was like ope😂👀 But then she's like its okay, I do it too!🤣
I've always done this as well but the last decade it's gotten a little out of hand. I chalk it up to the fact Im a stay at home mother of 4 and if I wasn't conversatingwith myself I could go weeks without an adult conversation lol
I am house sitting now and the items in the door of the refrigerator are every which way, you can't see what anything is. I am resisting the temptation because it's not my stuff.
@@recoveringsoul755 ooof. That's a tough one, I'd grapple with that for HOURS! Oh sure, the "simple helpful innocent turning of containers so all labels face forward" is ok tho, right? RIGHT?? Which inevitably morphs into an all-consuming every cabinet & pantry, then laundry area, washroom, garage 🥵😟😶🌫️
Omg my brain can't function with clutter and disorganization and I feel compelled to clean and organize in order for my brain to calm down. Visual sensitivity overload. I Never knew or thought that was a stim, I thought it was my ocd. 🤯 I get so triggered and overwhelmed with dirt and clutter.
idk if this is a stim or not, but i’ve always been incredibly fascinated by rain. every time it rains, i have to go out and just enjoy the sounds, the smells, the visuals. it’s sensory heaven. watching rain feels like releasing tension, im so mesmerized by it.
Tip for harmful stim of skin picking: i got a backpack with those mermaid sequins that change colors when you flip them. It helps to pick at the sequins, flipping them one by one, to distract from picking my skin.
Such a good idea. Scratching when I was stressed turned into self harm for me. Fidget toys (like your sequins) and slowing down, wearing gloves etc were finally able to break me free of it. I'm officially 2 months sober as of yesterday 😊
I've found that autistic individuals with strong affinity for echolalia can excel in foreign language learning as far as pronunciation. Once attuned to the shapes and feelings and audial quality of making the sounds, we can mimic native speaker pronunciation.
This is true! I’m not diagnosed; in fact I have only recently realized that I have always had a ton of autistic traits. But I’ve always been interested in “decoding” other languages and mimicking sounds. My bachelors degree is in foreign languages but I have always dabbled in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. This is such an interesting observation that I haven’t thought of before. Thank you for sharing!
@TsunamiRogueWave for sure, it's an interesting thing. I was diagnosed as a young child, but have never had treatment, intervention or anything throughout my life. My parents believed in raising me without the cultural idea of being different in my mind.
This makes so much sense. I'm remembering my years in choir where we'd have to learn to pronounce multiple different languages, and I often would be humming or softly singing whatever songs we were learning as I just walked through the hallways.
@NeenjaFruitcup 100%. It can make audial understanding much simpler for some of us. It can also pose its own challenges, of course - if and when we focus on sounds we LIKE or that feel right to us, instead of the correct sounds!
i'm crying at this intro because i noticed the cream on your face and after you sat down i just accepted it as some kind of face mask chat or something and even as you said you got everything done without needing any reminders i believed you 🤣
The bonus stimming method is similar to one I do and have done since before I suspected I was autistic: When I feel overwhelmed, I catalog my cats. I have a population of five cats in my home. 80% are tabby. 60% are female. 40% have orange eyes. 20% have all black toe beans. 40% have white splotches on their faces. 60% are lap kitties. 40% play fletch. And so on.
That’s really interesting. I like to catalogue movies and books. I go into loads of detail on runtime, disc number, genre, what shelf they’re on… even what kind of binding they have (paperback, hardcover, magazine). It’s always been really fun to me. (It’s also very useful, since I like to buy movies at a used book store, and need to be able to check which ones I already have at home)
I sorted my entire collection of loose LEGO bricks by colour and type while having an insomnia episode once when I was 12. Found out I had somewhere in the region of 40k bricks at the time. Loved doing it so much I then jumbled it all back up in the box and did it again the next time insomnia happened. These days, I spend a lot of time making graphs of stuff like my weight, waist size, bank balance, I have a 1-10 pain rating for every single day since I woke up from the surgery after snapping my arms in half (today's a 6, I hit a 9 on Sunday because of the heavy lifting at work), I have a log of every penny that's left my bank account and my wallet dating back to when my old housemate started telling my family I wasn't paying the bills he refused to pay, the list goes on and on.
I just LOVE your idea of categorizing by percentage various traits of your kitties! Since I only have two felines right now, I may use all the cats I've ever owned (7) and do the same! Thanks for a fun idea! Sometimes when I can't fall asleep, I will try to think of animals or trees or flowers or insects or... that start with the letter A, B, C... Z. Helps me relax (not think about worries) but focus on something fun. If I can't think of anything for a particular letter, I just move on, but come back to that letter later... It almost always helps me fall asleep.
I love that the word crisp is exactly the right looking and sounding word for the things it describes in every single case. It is concise. You always know exactly what is meant within the context it is being used as a descriptor.
I do that sometimes, and have heard autistic children do it too. Maybe it's a bit different than echolalia. Perhaps onomatopoeia? It's effective to get chickens out of the road - "buh-gawk!" quite loudly. Seems to mean "threat" to chickens. They run.
My daughter repeated what I say. Before her diagnosis, I used to get so angry about it. But she isn’t trying to aggravate me, she is stimming and that is totally okay.
I like to watch the way the light plays in the falling rain on a puddly city street at night, it's so sparkly but it's so calming. I can stare at it for hours. It's like a meditation sometimes.
You'd probably like being on a lake in a rowboat, canoe, or yacht. The water can be smooth like glass or a small breeze can make it look like lots of diamonds.
@@recoveringsoul755 i do like that! Both the flat stillness and all the ways the surface is turned into ripples and waves. I also like watching the wind blow through fields of tall grass or wheat or similar because it looks a lot like wind waves on water. The patterns are fun to watch as they continuously shift and flow into new patterns. It's all visually simulating in an enjoyable way.
@@SachiJones yes!! The wind on tall grasses!!! From your first comment I thought maybe you were more of a city person, but happy to know you get nature too
This video had me crying in relief that others are fascinated by tiny details as well and have beautiful and intricate words to express it. The comment section feels like a group chat of my new family to me.
I've had to regulate it, but I've found that I like to be particularly attentive to the words that I use, because words have meaning, you know? Etymonline has been a vital tool.
Listenning to a song over and over and over and over...for hours or days Touching my face around the mouth or rubbing my scalp Fidgeting with the tip of my fingers Folding a bit of paper over and over until it's a stick, then trying to fold the stick tight as well, and then just fidget with the rolled thing
What song have you listened to on loop recently? For me, it's the whole album Grief Chapter by Mother Mother, specifically End of Me. I'm not sure why that song hits so hard but i keep coming back to it
@@anna-fleurfarnsworth104 The last one was Put down that weapon by Midnight Oil (I looped it for days). I remember looping Hero by Family of the Year. Also Shallow by Lady Gaga. I actually found a version of Hero that was already it on a loop. I don't know if it's something about the songs themselves, or their melody, or if there is something comforting to me about them.
When I was a child I was always spinning, rocking, flapping my hands, humming and singing by myself and mulling nice words in my mouth. I had all the marks of an autistic in the textbook but autism was back then seen as a very serious defect and I was not recognized as autistic. Even though I had enormous difficulties with socializing I was ”too bright”. I had to stop stimming when I started school and I become tense, stressed and depressed. I hid my autistic traits through my chilfhood and youth and suffered from anxiety, depression and eating disorders. I never knew that I was autistic and had ADHD until my son was diagnosed with both of then and he was just like me. Then I finally got a diagnosis. Now I know why I pace around when I talk to the phone. And I have started to flap and hum again because it helps me to relax - and I am no longer ashamed of myself and think that I am a freak.
I doodle a lot and looove swings growing up and even in my late life.. it’s that rocking sense I like besides the air when I like to go for big swinging.
I knit & crochet too. Just the mindless repetition of a simple repeating pattern is so soothing. My hooks & needles have gotten me through some dark times.
I write lists. If I am stressed and things seem out of control, I write a list or several lists. It could be groceries, what I have to do the next day, renos that need to get done, books I would like to buy, health foods I want to start eating, things I am thankful for. There are so many things I write lists for. My father whom I realize now was probably autistic told me the trick of writing a list when things get too much. I write a to do list every night right before I go to bed, then I don't have to worry about forgetting something. Always on paper, always with a favourite pen.
Not quite the same, but I like to list things like DVDs and books. I have a complete catalogue of all my DVDs and books, and it was so fun to make. Plus several lists of the cheapest way to collect every episode of a given show on dvd (for certain old franchises, like Looney Tunes, a list is needed). It’s fun to just spend hours researching it and finding the DVDs on Amazon, typing it all out in a comprehensive spreadsheet (complete with price and runtime of each dvd), and then never actually buying the show because I don’t have $500 to spend on Scooby-Doo. 😅
I know someone who makes lists of video games characters and levels. He draws too. I have asked him what would happen/how he would feel if he left the list incomplete or didn't draw every character he wanted to and if he does it because he wants to or because he needs to. He said he would be very stressed if he didn't complete it and he feels like he has to do it but also does enjoy it.
Since i was a child i loved the lava lamps, glitter lamps, aquariums and basically everything that has water inside where any object or liquid is constantly forming new parterns... i also enjoy so much to see the tiny little rainbows and sparkles that came out from a cristal when its close to a window and the sunlight its falling on it! ❤🎉
My youngest son who has been diagnosed started humming from birth. I know how it sounds. I had to point it out to the nurses and then they were like, hmm strange” I never thought about that before. He only did it the first few days. He now has a bunch of different stims. I am late diagnosed and have 3 children with autism and I absolutely adore their excited hand flapping, spinning, and jumping because the joy is so real and palpable that I join in. They are the sunshine of my life.
@@PollyHistorI'm currently in a diagnostic phase and try to have clear examples of behaviour. Do you hum predominantly when you're stressed/nervous/uncomfortable? Basically, when do you do it? 😂
I accidentally switched the radio to AM this morning. Usually it's this really annoying distracting static noise. But this morning there were at least two or three stations clearly layered over each other, and it was making such a unique combination of sounds that my brain just TINGLED and I sat there mesmerized, listening.
My dude just single handedly explained why I collect pretty things, especially rocks, and organize them over and over on shelves. Then sit and stare at them for hours. Probably while humming/singing or making noises with my mouth. Idk how to feel about this.
Not to tell you how to feel, but I know for me it provides a ton of calm. I now know what to call it, how to explain it to others, and (most importantly) it gives me more feeling like I'm not the only one who does this. Definitely hum/sing to myself, visually stim, rock/sway, and pace. A lot. 😂
You should buy a 3D printer and watch it create things that you either designed or downloaded from others. Sometimes I like to print fidget toys, which is a double win, because I get to watch it's creation, then get to play with it after. Plus, you can make objects in all of your favorite colors, in sizes that fit your hands better than things you can buy.
I do this as well…always have just didn’t know why until my adhd diagnosis. Like the same movie for MONTHS!! I knew it wasn’t normal just didn’t know why🤷🏽♀️ And oh boy, the Harry Potter movies…because there are eight of them, I literally watched them one after another over and over again for well over a year🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️ I think I literally drove the others in my household crazy!!
3 years of university I had 5 shows on DVD on repeat until I left. Friends Season 1-10, Smallville, Grey's Anatomy, Charmed and The Matrix on repeat. I acquired them as I went through the years. I was there eating cheesecake on the floor with Rachel and Chandler 😅😂 Piper Phoebe and Paige where my sister's lol Clarke, Chloe, Pete we never trusted Lex 😅 still doing it now but now with Cdramas that are like 30-60 episodes long.
Im sitting here trying to learn what stimming is... I'm thinking "I don't do it... I don't do it... I've never done it..." Then he mentioned "painting your cheek with your hair"...and had a childhood flashback. Touché.
Omg, I'm not diagnosed autistic, (yet) just really really ADHD ( my kids and grandkids are tho), I'm seeing all these autistic traits that I totally relate to and I used to twist ny hair severely my whole life really. It's usually down to my butt. I recently cut it and it's almost twirling length again 😭😭@@LeoLover-l9e
Ready? No? Too bad, here's my looooong list: Visual: - Glittery, sparkly, shiny, or holographic objects - Lining up or organizing items (for example, I have a sticker collection) - Snow globes - Hourglasses - Sensory Lamps (anything colourful and fun) - Observing shadows - Observing patterns - Spinning stuff - Lights - Bathbombs - Rain/water Taste/Smell: - Crunchy foods - Biting (Inedible objects, more often than not) - Chewelleries - Tea & Coffee - Minimal to no scent items Vestibular & Proprioceptive: - Hand flapping - Spinning - Swings - Hanging upside down - Twirling - Bouncing (either a leg while I'm sitting, or in my seat as a whole) - Rocking - Finger tapping/drumming - Bumping into someone (on purpose, repeatedly; sometimes I even say "boop" each time I do; usually do this to my mom XD) - Swaying (I do this while sitting at my desk all the time; usually a circular motion) - Pacing - Scratching Auditory: - Tapping sounds - Fireplace, campfire, chill rain - Snapping fingers - Echolalia - Listening to the same songs over and over - ASMR - Fizzing or popping sounds (Sparkling water, pop, or other) - Humming or tunes - "Boop" Tactile: - Braiding - Soft Cloths - Animal fur (preferably alive, lol) - Soft plushies - Walking on moss - Playing in water - Bean bags - Bubble wrap - Fidgets - Slime - Silly Putty - Epsom Salts - Baths ... Can you tell that one of my special interests is autism? My own in particular. Also, thanks for actually reading this if you did. You're awesome for that :D
I bump into people I really like when walking with them. My husband and I both do this and we can barely walk down the sidewalk. 😅 I also do circular swaying when doing TM. And also love listening to certain songs sometimes 5-10 times before getting my fill. The Moola Manta by Deva Premal is one such song.
I love to stare at the night sky. I can see the red or blue tint of each star and can see each star “blink” or “pulsate”. It’s like I can’t look away 😩
if I can find a flat enough area with little light pollution, to where my vision and periphery are unobstructed I feel like I can see the depth of the sky, like it stops being a flat background thing with dots of light on it and becomes amazingly 3 dimensional despite the lack of the usual foreground midground etc to portray the depth. I can just feel how far it goes and how far away the stars actually are. love star gazing one of my favorite things to do ever (this actually also applies to clouds if I look at them long enough my brain starts to feel the depth of them the height and distance and shapes. I hage about a million pictures and videos of clouds and storms on my phone)
I love the matrix screensaver with all the code falling down! I would set and watch it for long periods of time when i had the screensaver and didnt realize how long I was engrossed over it!
I have "Mystify" set in Windows 10, and I have the bad habit of NOT closing my laptop even when I know darn well I'm not going to be using it more any time soon, just so I can watch the shifting curves/ mesh/ colors for a bit whenever I glance in that direction.
I forgot about those! My favorite was the pipe that just kept going and forming a more and more complex "structure." I always thought of it like a jungle gym and loved watching it.
That shaving cream bit is no joke for me, once I almost went to the mall without realising I was still wearing a shower cap, I even looked in a mirror too
Huh this video explains a lot .. I've always loved watching tires spin on cars, and stirring coffee.. Starring at the stars at night.. Watching certain things moving.. singing / humming, fidgeting, pacing, rubbing / scratching / rocking etc.. so many of these ways to stim .. I guess stimming in ways I never knew were stimming..
Have you seen the 'wagon wheel effect'? Maybe that's just part of wheels spinning for you, but it's specifically when a wheel looks like it isn't moving despite rotating relatively quickly (mainly on camera, but looking through narrow vertical bars really close together can do it too). I specifically enjoy when the wheel looks like it's rotating 'backwards' slowly, while looking stationary is more uncomfortable. :) Sadly there doesn't seem to be many videos on TH-cam of it, at least specifically compilations of the effect rather than people trying to explain it.
This may sound weird, but I used to play animal crossing city folk all the time as a kid and I’d hold the pinwheel item and walk around for HOURS. They have a pinwheel in the newest game, but it doesn’t make that satisfying clackity clack sound anymore :(
That just set off my mental jukebox of near-constant music that flows through my head… I am now playing the theme music from the children’s show Pinwheel (from ‘70s/‘80s) in my head. Will likely come out as humming/whistling along with it at some point (and singing the couple words of it that I know). 😁
Nice to hear that you also have a mental jukebox! So many songs cycle through my head during the day, I don’t mind it though. I thought most people did this, I also remember the pinwheel shout at the beginning of that song, you just reminded me. Then my brain jumps to reading 🌈. Please don’t kill me 😂
My favorite way to stim is cross-hatching. I have filled up notebooks with pages and pages of nothing but cross-hatching in my never-ending quest to make the perfect pattern. It combines repetitive motion, scratching, and visual fascination in a way that synergizes more effectively than any one method alone.
I loved how you described echolalia! I’ve always told people “it’s like I hear something that sounds really tasty - and I have to say it to “taste” that word or phrase myself”! Great video 👍🏼
This could also be Synesthesia. I have a colleague who used to say ‘shy’ a lot and I couldn’t help but repeat it… a lot. It bothered her, but it was really hard for me to stop. I actually stopped going into the branch where she works because I didn’t want to bother her. When I say ‘shy’, I can actually feel it like a wave through my whole body. It’s like a warm tingle and I love it.
Like Chris said it might have a synesthesia-type component to it with the way you described it if you’re literally experiencing other senses at the same time, but even if not it’s also just a great example of why it can feel so nice to repeat something! It’s satisfying in a way that’s quite similar to the satisfaction of a food texture being absolutely perfect.
@@samsmom1491OMG meeee literally yesterday I was investigating neurodivergence and I loved to say NAUR it’s just like your mouth it’s so open and the sound of r it’s so relaxing
Just recently diagnosed with asd1 and adhd at age 49. I think this might fall under echolalia, but I visualize and replay select scenes from movies and tv shows in my head over and over. They’re from my childhood and teenage years. TH-cam is such a great resource for media so I’ve searched for those 30+ yr old video clips and rewatched the scenes that I had kept repeating in my head for decades. I have been surprised to find my memory is a carbon copy.
I once saw a video of a home that was for sale. I was instantly obsessed with it. I watched the video over and over and over...well, you get the point. Once I memorized the entire layout, whenever I get stressed or are trying to fall asleep, I will imagine myself walking in to the house and exploring it, room by room, opening every door, looking out the windows. Literally and figuratively my dream house.
@@samsmom1491 ohhhh I completely understand this. For me, it's sort of trauma related due to my childhood, but I used to put myself to sleep by dissociating - I'd imagine a different life in a nice little house. Then as an adult, I saw the perfect house one day, and I have thought of it so much while putting myself to sleep. It's not the same thing, but I very much relate to your story! 💜
My sweet 5yo used to stare at the ceiling fan as an infant, then he found the analog clock which he likes to look at to this day. Then his interest went to real or toy cars and trains, especially the wheels. He lines up toys in very specific and orderly ways. He hums and sings all-the-time! And he asks for back and arm rub every night before sleep and morning when he wakes up, the sweetest times. Love my incredible, sweet boy so much and would change nothing about him! All his little quirky ways make him so very precious.
My ex son it was diggers. He was obsessed. Drew them played with. Every time we were in the car he and I would look for yay a digger! It took me years to not say DIGGER! Every time I passed one
My son did the same thing. When he was a toddler he would spin everything he could gets his hands on. He would keep staring at Wheels of toycars of trains. He loves to hum and sing ❤️ but he also can be repeating the same question from 6AM till 7PM. That can be so tiring.
@@Art_by_Nicole the same question can be very tiring! That happens here too. Then I try to answer in different ways hoping that he will accept one of the answers and put it to rest :) it works sometimes, other times we just have to keep hearing it….
@@cecibarbosa8328 we are learning to draw our answer. I write a short sentence next to the picture which means that my husband and I say the same thing. So every time son asks the same question we both take the card (with pictures) and give the same answer. It really does help but it takes a lot (!) of patience, because son isn’t used to ‘each time the same answer’. Before we used different words, and meant the same answer like you said, but…our son ‘heard’ a different answer each time. We were unpredictable for him which lead to an overstimulated brain and a meltdown.
@@cecibarbosa8328 Thank you for the response, by the way. It feels good to see that I’m not alone. I love my son with all of my heart, but I find it very hard. Other people don’t get that everything is different in our household. From eating at the dinner table to the things we must do (and prepare) before going on a family holiday. A family holiday means for us: working our butts off. Our son can’t fill in his (spare) time. He totally depends on us for that.
I got some mad echolalia-if I hear a line in a movie or video that sounds real nice, I have to repeat it under my breath. I love how different words, accents, or sounds feel in my mouth. I hum and sing constantly too. I also love to tap/jiggle my foot and sway. I grew up in a fairly strict household and was not allowed to be loud or rambunctious, but at church on Sundays I was allowed to sway and move my arms during the singing portion, and I only realized as an adult that that was less of the Holy Spirit guiding my worship time and more of a feeling of release because I was stimming and getting pent-up energy out.
Foot tapping and swaying are constant in my life. My childhood play largely involved organizing toys. I had a toy room and a toy closet as an only child. My mother would invite kids over, they would make a mess, and then I would love straightening and putting things back even more.
I spin. Not around in circles, but take fiber and turn it into yarn/string. The spindle going round and round with the fiber twisting makes me excessively happy.
Bingo. There's something about it. Do you have any spinners, or maybe weavers, in your genealogy? It's tricky because at one point most poor people were spinning or weaving so if there are poor people in the family tree they might have had to spin or weave. I think it's a decidedly autistic manifestation, though. I've now become a bit obsessive with the concept of Lachesis (in my reading of it - Lachesis is the one that takes the thread and makes something from it) and the battle between existence and entropy. I do crochet. That's my version.
To go right along with this, I think the process of knitting. Specifically, the basic knit stitch over and over again is very comforting, especially with some soft sock yarn, particularly if it has variegated colors that mix and has pops of colors via speckles.
@batintheattic7293 to the best of my knowledge, there were no weavers or spinners in my genealogy other than what would have been common practice. Fiber arts are one of my special interests, and while I knit and crochet(both also work as stims), I spin more. Weaving and fiber within language and mythology are fascinating and I hope you get to spend many hours enjoying learning.
Spinning away on a wheel is a form of "physical mediation" for me. And I _love_ watching film of other people spinning, there is something about the rocking motion of the footman and the wheel going around that is very satisfying.
Omigosh, yes! I got SO into spinning fibers into yarn as a special interest. I have three spinning wheels, several drop spindles, and LOTS of fiber. It’s so meditative. I also knit with my yarn I’ve made. Mostly smaller items for faster gratification-socks, mittens, hats, and such. I like pattern/textured knitting more than color knitting.
I like to repeat things multiple times in conversation, sometimes I just feel like it needs to be brought up again and again, it annoys my parents sometimes but it helps me to feel like I’ve gotten out everything I wanted to say
At work and at home I have a very bouncy stool behind my desk (a Swopper) and I'm bouncing constantly. I love the feeling so much, just thinking about it makes me happy! And I have a few glass objects with flat surfaces in my window sill; everytime the sun shines on them, there are little rainbows all over my room. I love watching the rainbows.
As you described how saying "shy" has to FEEL exactly right, like it's not about just saying it but about getting the word into that "place" that precisely "does it" for you, I immediately related and, in my own way, knew exactly what you were talking about. It's like the feeling I need to get from bringing the corner of my gaze into union with the corner of some exterrnal object. It's not about simply seeing something, not at all. There's something you're viscerally compelled to make HAPPEN by seeing. Like you are viscerally compelled to make that thing happen that comes from manifesting "shy" just the way it needs to come out.
You've described this very well, thank you! I understood it as a proprioceptive thing with sound-making, not just with words (verbally), like others here have mentioned, I also really enjoy imitating/repeating non-verbal sounds to 'place' myself sensorially, like echo-locating myself. I have to get the sound just right too. I call it 'tuning'. I thought my lifelong affinity for verbal mimicry and repeating sounds was childish behavior, but I later realized that even as a child, it annoyed and confused people, and often got me into trouble b/c classmates thought I was teasing them or couldn't stop 'being weird'. I learned to control it/mask but even among writers/poets (peers) much later in adult life (I went into the literary arts in college), I was called 'incessantly punny', though I don't much enjoy puns in particular. Like the previous phrase shows, I enjoy alliteration, assonance, consonance and stim w/ them basically all the time. I wonder how many ASD people like poetry for this reason?
I went to a voice liberation workshop yesterday! Very intense, but also really good. EVERYONE making their own "weird" sounds and moving freely😊 Most were struggling with self censoring, working through that together was really cool
@@SachiJones that's what I've heard, although wind instruments also have this same effect, if you're not feeling as confident on the singing bit. Sadly, I no longer have my clarinet, flute, or even a piano (I do miss the baby grand), so during the pandemic I took a queue from the Italians and started to sing just because music has always been very dear to me, but I didn't have any instruments... Or so I thought. I've never been very good at art/music, but I have been intrinsically drawn towards it for as long as I can remember. Felt good to reconnect to this part of me. Thank you for listening to my impromptu Ted talk 😆
I stim by rubbing my fingers and hand with my other hand. I also scratch and pick at my skin in order to sleep or calm down. I love visual stimming, especially if it’s glittering or shiny.
Yes, skin picking! Sadly, I seem to have relatively few stims that I recognize as inducing pleasure - most surface in anxious bursts. But one version of skin picking has always felt good. I tend to take baths too, and when my skin gets soft, I love dragging my nails across certain areas, and accumulating white, doughy dead skin cells under them. It feels like exfoliating, and I also love to roll the accumulated skin between my fingers, the texture is weird but nice.
Do you think maladaptive daydreaming is associated with autism? I have a lot of physical traits attributed to being autistic, but MDing is something I especially can’t live without, and the illusions are powerful and vivid. It reminded me of how it puts me in a trance-like state similar to, say, sand art or glitter visuals.
I can literally do that for hours 😂 i think i lived a whole movie once just staring at the wall and i dont remember blinking once but eyes didnt feel dry and no pain. It was like i went into standby.
Some of my happiest times is watching stuff. Not TV, but drapes moving in the wind, the reflection of pool water on the ceiling, staring at the stars. I too have that neck cramp, frequently. I have a chair now and try to remind myself not to get lost when taking out the trash late at night, but it's just so danged... amazing, soothing, reassuring.
Oh my god, I’ve just discovered your channel. THANK YOU! I’m 51 and just diagnosed ADHD with autistic traits… I knit. I knit EVERYWHERE I go! Everyone knows I can’t hear them if I’m not knitting! 🥰
Omg me too, I'm 51 and just diagnosed. I used to crochet all the time in my 20's and I've just taken it up again because I'm going blind, and you probably know already, if you do it enough it's muscle memory and you don't need to see what you are doing, it's all by feel. My stimming is a bit destructive and I have carpal tunnel from it, so I need to find something to destructive me from my bad stimming.
Oh yes, needlework is so calming! I embroider compulsively. I'm not kidding when I say that I'm actually designing an entire damn tapestry, because I want to stitch it all!
I loved watching you fidget with that cube during the whole video. I was a fidgeter in school back in the 60s, undiagnosed as autistic back then. My teacher dealt with it by tying my hands together!
Me too I pace a lot. When stressed or excited or just thinking, it feels good to b moving, helps the mind it feels like. I hate to have to stay still while on the phone, always pace
The answers to why I’ve been so weird all my life and feeling like a foreigner keep coming with these kinds of videos. Once my boys were diagnosed, and after checking most of the boxes during their assessments, I knew I probably have ASD and ADHD. But only now have I dove in to better understand myself. Such a relief to have answers to many of my behaviors.
Im having similar discoveries. I now am convinced that my mom is autistic and untreated her entire life. She excuses her behaviors and irrational thoughts/actions (different condition) away as “that’s just who I am” or “other people have it harder so I try to not get so depressed”……and then my dad just has this ancient view of mental health as something that only “crazy” people seek out-and in his mind the treatment is shock therapy. So I am coming to terms with the fact that my parents were NOT addressing mental health issues, that I grew up with multiple issues that were never addressed, and that it’s no shocker to me now, why my life has been kind of a flop-even though I’m pretty smart. My mind can just simply not organize itself well enough to understand and complete tasks like other people seem to do easily.
Dancing!! Dancing is one of my favorite ways yo stim! Ot helps me get my energy out when I'm feeling hyper, it gets the anxiety out when I'm overwhelmed, and it makes me happy when I'm sad. I love to put my headphones on and put my thumbs up playlist on shuffle and let the music guide me. 🥰🎧🎶
This word, "stimming," is less than a week old for me. I have suspected for well over a decade that I might be a bit autistic. This awareness came after attending one of Temple Grandin's talks while living in Fort Collins. Everything she said deeply resonated with me. I felt conflicted about that because I was made fun of for being different, slower, shy, and in my head. No one cared when i voiced this observation, not even my best friend at the time who worked with autistic adults. I was actually accused of wanting to be autistic because it was suddenly cool. It wasn't. I was tormented as a kid by other kids who relentlessly called me a retard. They called out on all of these stimming activities you mentioned as proof of my retaredness. I was even in special Ed for speech therapy. It was awful. I wanted so badly to be normal and likable. I was forced to stop behaviors and learn new ones in order to be more normal. Even then, I could never pass. I was just a fake. In high school. I had to make drastic changes to my social life. Only then, did I begin to pass as normal. Until I had to jump.states and live with my dad. Then all the social awkwardness returned until I could figure out the masking thing all over again. I am fifty-two now, and I live alone. Since being on my own, many behaviors I had growing up have begun to return. Things I felt super self-conscious about. Most of these are in your top ten. I had forgotten about some of them, like running the ends of my hair across my face. As soon as you said this, I did it. And it felt SO GOOD. Which reminded me of something else I used to do all the time. Paint my nails. I learned to paint my nails for the love of color, like a normal person. What I actually loved, however, was the way those painted nails felt when dragging them across my lips. It was so calming. I want to go out and buy some clear polish now. Something I haven't told anyone in a very long time was something I do in my head in the car. My one and only confession left me feeling exceptionally stupid, and so I have kept it to myself. In order to make drives feel shorter, I would count all of the metal posts along the sides of the road. In addition to that, I would also fold and squeeze my toes while squeezing my fingertips together as we passed each one of these posts. I also did it with divided lines between lanes. If I missed one, I would actually feel anxious. I actually still do this when I am a passenger. Sometimes, I will even count them. As a kid, we would watch trains pass through town and count the cars. I still do this, especially if they are long and I am trying to get somewhere. It helps me not stress over time. It puts me in a bit of a trance. I don't know if this is normal or not. I have never asked anyone. Anyway, thank you for this video. It has helped me to remember a lot of the things that were beaten or bullied out of me when I was young. Now that I don't care so much about fitting in anymore, many of these things you mentioned are making their way back. I don't feel the need to hide them.
@dorothythornton4993 she is fascinating and so easy to listen to. The talk I saw focused mainly on how autistic children learn. I never related so well. After failing to get through to my best friend, I stopped talking about it for a good ten years. I do not live in Fort Collins anymore. I haven't kept up with her, so i'm not sure if she is still there. I left in 2013, but it's a great little town. I've heard it's not so little anymore. Still, I would highly recommend a visit.
When I get anxious while driving, I count traffic lights and the seconds between them turning from red to green. I do a lot of toe scrunching and playing with the button on the parking brake, or even just wiggling the gear shift while in neutral. I also masked a lot in high school and as an adult out in public. I allowed myself to quit doing that after having my child at 34 years old. I was exhausted and overwhelmed and it wasn’t worth it to me anymore. However, I did not seriously consider anything different about myself until I was 38. I was 39 when I was assessed by a counseling service as having ADHD. And now at 40 I’m realizing I have always had very autistic traits. I have no idea where or how to be evaluated for that. I just know that most of my life I have lacked the tools to effectively cope with who I am. But now that I know, maybe that can change. Not caring about what others think about the things that make us peculiar is a good things, as long as we aren’t harming ourselves or others. We deserve to live authentically too.
@@Slayyyzian we do! And I can't believe you do some of the same things I do. I always thought I was the only one and felt like such an odd ball. I masked a lot in high school. If anything showed up on the autistic spectrum, it likely got accused as being on drugs or being drunk. I went super wild in high school. It was the only way I thought I could handle my life and stop being seen as a freak or a reject. As an adult, the masking took on deeper layers. I love not caring anymore.
I am sort of in the same situation, I am 48 now, but have always suspected I might be autistic all my life. And the more I learn about it, the more I do believe that and should be tested for it. It’s very hard to be tested in the city I live in. I live alone now too, for the first time in my life. And I think it is just the first time I have ever felt free to be my unusual self, maybe. I most definitely have always had sensory processing disorder. I think I have always known this, even prior to knowing what it is. I just always knew that the world is too loud, and things smell too strongly, and my clothing feels odd on my skin. I started to listen to music in public anytime I was in public, back in the 80s with a Walkman, then with an iPod, then with an iPhone. I tap my feet to calm myself but I do it as if I’m playing a kick drum, with the heels part. I count things like you do, just different things. But I have counted train cars before too, I used to live right by the train tracks. If a train was blocking the street and we had to wait, I’d count the train cars otherwise I’d freak out. I have a very difficult time with people or things getting in my way, wasting my time, holding me up on time. I have a very specific way of doing things within my own apartment, that I was never free to do living with others before. It’s very free to be able to be unusual by myself. I also run the ends of my hair over my skin, and I also run the tips of my fingers over the insides of my arms. I used to do this in school. As a child once, another person in my classroom asked me why once and I told her, try it it feels good. And she tried it and told me it tickles too much for her. But I was never really questioned too often about weird behavior in my childhood. Not by other children, or my parents, who knew I was strange, but they were too. My mother had agoraphobia, and hoarding disorder, my father was extremely social but accepted that my mother didn’t want to be social with him. My grandmother had OCD. It was after I became an adult that I felt judged. I feel much less judged today, living by myself. Even if I find a new relationship I might want to just keep living separately. I like the privacy, I like being able to control my environments sound and temperatures. I like being able to just sit and rock back and forth without anyone asking me if something’s wrong. I understand what you are saying here.
My favorite vocal stim is repeating "okay, alright" over and over and over. I've been made fun of and a lot of people don't understand. But there's something about repeating those two words, especially when I'm anxious, that helps me. It feels like playing catch with myself. Passing the words back and forth with myself. It may not make sense to others, but but makes me feel good
Omigosh. I do this too, though usually not repeated back to back. Maybe one round of "ok, alright"... Almost as a reset when I'm trying to focus, or when one task at work is complete and I move to the next. Or when I'm really tired and I'm trying to make myself keep going. But I do it so much it bothers me, (so if someone is around me, I'll tell them that I'm telling myself "ok", not them). I supervise at work, so I still mask a lot too, and try to let them know I'm not saying the tired or impatient ok to them. It's to myself to keep moving. When I was a teen I said "Like" a lot. It took so long to root it out of my speech. But I guess I still say, ok and alright a lot throughout my day.
OH MY GOD. I have so many phrases that I've just sort of accumulated over the years from shows and stuff that I just keep repeating and repeating, over and over again... the big one for me at the moment is just the phrase "Spongebob Patrick!" My friend of a friend keeps telling me to STFU when I say it lmao
I rock all the time. It gets more intense when my emotions are high. It was the first sign that made me really think about the possibility of my autism.
Anyone else use crocheting as a stim? I find that crochet when overwhelmed or anxious along with rocking and humming at the same time lol helps alot. I really enjoy counting and numbers but I am horrible at math and still count on my fingers
Sounds nice. :) Sewing and humming it is here or counting things around like the books in a bookshelf or so… I just wondered the other day if I only was told that I was not smart enough for mathematics and if I could start again to learn to like/ to use it in a relaxed way…
Yes yes yes! Crochet is an amazing way to channel my nervous energy. It was very difficult for me to learn, though. My autistic traits make it very difficult for me to watch someone perform a task and be able to replicate it.
It made me happy to hear you talk about getting your hair cut and what an uncomfortable experience it can be. I've never understood why I don't like getting my hair cut. I have long hair not so much because I like it long, but because I don't like to get it cut. I had no idea this was a common thing for autistic people. I've only recently realized I'm probably autistic and this is just one more reason to think I'm right. I have an assessment scheduled for next week but I'm already pretty sure of what the results will be.
wow...your description of echolalia is unlike any I have ever heard. A huge chunk of my mental health history just fell into place. Something that was once classified as OCD was almost certainly a stim...wow....thank you so much for sharing
i absolutely love ❤️ you-made me realise i'm not the only full grown person with theses kinda stims--i actually have physical pain if someone keeps complaining about my stimming and i try to stop it my mom tells me to get out in the garden when i pace-she says it makes her feel sick
Omg yes everything but physical touch. I don’t like physical touch. If it’s a romantic partner I can only do it in 10/15 min sessions because I need to feel separate. Idk idk that’s just me
My gf and I have watched multiple videos and we just wanted that cube so much, we came to this video because we knew would get the details! We would just watch a whole video of cubes moving around.
This makes me feel so lucky to have a partner whose stims bounce off mine really well, we sing back and forth all day long 😅 or if I'm singing he'll add a beat and vice versa. We also have a chair we spin each other round on!
Thank you for your lovely comment! ☺️ The good news is: us neurospicy folk tend to gravitate towards each other so it's quite likely your daughter will find relationships/friendships with people who 'get it'. Out of all my friends, I'd say over 75% have ADHD or autism (or both) and nearly every single one of these people in a long-term relationship has a neurodivergent partner! And in most cases, we were diagnosed later in life so it's not like we were actively looking for others with the same thing, we just attract similar people. (My partner wasn't diagnosed until about 2 years of us being together, and we were like 'that makes so much sense!' Haha) The thing that helped me the most in making connections with others was to stop masking and just be myself. I do get odd reactions occasionally, but it filters out a lot of people and leaves me with the ones who accept my quirks Anyway, all the best to you and your daughter! It's amazing you're watching videos like this, great mama ❤️
It's calming for me! My husband is neurospicy, too, and he's definitely a rocker. You mentioned doing it while standing, and we have a huge tree just outside our door. There's a big chunk of root sticking up from the ground, and he will rock one foot on it and then switch. He does it a lot
My 3 known stims - you've given me a lot to think about my behavior with this vid though - are singing, scratching, and finding and fixing patterns in data(which I do at work, which is why I LOOOOVE my job). Pay me to stim for 8 hours, with benefits? And they wondered why I was happy to do so much OT I was working 80 hour weeks before I got sick. It was glorious while it lasted. I could afford to pay others to cook my meals and clean my apartment and laundry and lived an 8 minute indoor walk from my work. Wake up for a 5 min shower and dress - eat breaky at my desk so prepping to leave took me literally 10 minutes so I would be AT work 18 minutes after waking up, 12 hour days every weekday and then 2 hours less each weekend day so I could spend time playing video games with my autistic friends. Heaven on earth.
Can't remember doing that in school, but at home in the kitchen. Probably the chair there was better for that. And there was wall right behind, so it wasn't too risky.
When i was a kid i would stare into the box fan for hours. I liked the sound, the feeling of the wind on my face, to try to keep my eye on the separate blades when they were spinning too fast. Turn it off and start again. Sometimes i would get into removing the dust from each rectangle in the screen of the fan.
I play Spider Solitaire because of sorting the 4 suits and reordering them from high to low is soothing and apparently I have been stimming this entire time and had no idea. Good job me, finding something that won't get me endlessly ridiculed!
I am a sewist and I have old tins of used buttons, saved by folks who didn’t waste things (usually in the 1940’s and before). I love sorting the buttons, mostly by color but also material (metal, plastic, mother of pearl, glass, even WWII pressed paperboard). I have ADHD.
@@ChrisandDebby that does sound delightful. The buttons get kind of dusty, so they need to be rinsed and dried before they would feel good in a bin. They usually come in metal cookie tins. Sometimes they’re not deep enough to put a hand in really. And quite a few of them will be sets of buttons from maybe a discarded shirt or something. It was common practice to take those matching buttons and string them together with thread in a loop so you would know you had six of the same thing. That wouldn’t have the yummy feeling your imagining. I would have to take all those strings out. But I have I think three button so if I was willing to unsort them and put them in a nice glass jar, after rinsing them, I think it would feel really good. Older buttons have more weight to them than the modern plastic ones. That would even feel better. Imagine shell and smooth glass.
@@ChrisandDebby if you are interested in pursuing this idea, try some estate sales and look for sewing supplies. Either that or go to antique stores where they have purchased essentially the remnants of estate sales. Lots of times they have sewing stuff tucked away because they’re not fast sellers.
@@ColorJoyLynnHI have saved buttons for decades. But I keep them in old pill bottles, sorted by color and size. Except for the weird ones. They all live together in one jelly jar.
I’m a back scratcher and a huge hummer and singer 😅 always have my arm wrapped over my chest whilst seated just scratching away at my back. RELAXING. love being in water too and wash my hands far too often because it feels nice. Just get lost in thought 🧼 all the love to my fellow NDs x
I love your sense of humour 😂 For me, I knit a lot to keep my hands busy. I used to pick at my nails and the skin around them. I'm a finger tapper too. I roll my thumbs a lot when I'm reading and don't need to hold the book. I also bite my cheek too much when I'm concentrating, and it really annoys me when I realise I'm doing it. Lights bring me so much comfort and I have loads in my room. I had one of those sand pictures in my youth and recently saw one in a shop. It came home with me and I can't stop watching it. I'm always playing with and watching my daughter's bubble/gel toy, like the one you mentioned. When I'm reading I often stroke my nose and I find that wonderfully soothing. I've done it for years now. I love sitting on a swing and let it gently rock. I used to sit for hours on the one I had as a child. It's so nice to be able to say that these things I do are stimming and are perfectly normal now. I used to do other things, like hand flapping, but had a parent 'correct' me (I was slapped when I did it) in that activity at a very early age. Most of the things I did were seen as bad habits and I was regularly shamed for them. Now I know that even though they may be bad habits, they may also be because I was trying to self regulate in a world that I didn't understand. Thank you for doing your videos, they bring me so much pleasure xx
The merry go round was my favorite playground item. I’d almost always be on that or the rocking animals that some playgrounds had. I think it was me trying to get more spinning and rocking in in a socially acceptable method.
I was known for spinning the tire swing the fastest. As a kid I'd get in the middle part, someone else would sit with just their legs in the middle and I'd spin them. There was usually a line of kids waiting for me to spin them at recess.
I tap or bounce my foot or leg. All The Time. Once when I lived in an apartment on the third floor, my downstairs neighbor came up and knocked on my door and asked what all the pounding was. He said a photo fell off the wall downstairs! I was shocked. I had no idea it was making the apartment below vibrate like that. I made up some lame excuse and got rid of the neighbor and then was soooo embarrassed. I was also really stressed and wanted to go back to this stim, but I didn't dare! I twirl my pen or pencil a lot and have several fidget toys. My favorite stim is rubbing a certain kind of vintage blanket binding between my fingers, right along the edge. Sweet relief, and great while driving.
My baby basinette was fitted with yellow satin bedding. The fitted sheet was satin, the little pillow and the comforter all satin. I started constantly pulling the satin between my index and middle finger. When I outgrew the basinette my mom always made sure I had a blanket with satin edges on it. By 3 I could do it with one hand and every morning my little hand would race back and forth across the edge of my blanket. Then by 5 my toes got involved in the fun too. I just absolutely adore the sensation of satin between my fingers and toes. I like how it quickly becomes cold to the touch again. I'm 41 now and can't imagine trying to get to sleep without a blanket with satin edges.
I just bumped into this video and just wanted to say, 'I LOVE YOU GUYS!'. Thank you for making these videos! I am learning so much and appreciate you two!
I’m not diagnosed but my psycoligist (is that what it’s called) said that i show symptoms of autism. I do a lot of rocking, spinning, humming, rubbing, skratching, fidjeting and i also love tapping my feet/toes, i always try to walk on the beat if i'm listening to musik.
Ooooh the beat to music walking is SO relatable. I use to listed to Bynn the Breaker from the Bastion soundtrack bevause the Cello was perfect walking pace. Just turn it on loop and I can walk for miles.
Hiya! Just wanted to say, using terms like symptoms of autism kind of makes it sound like a disease, usually its best to say sm like autistic traits :) /lh
@@kailuvkats thanks for pointing this out. My first language isn’t english and we say syptoms so i just translated it 😅. But thanx for letting me know 👍
LOL .....I coined the term "lyricette's". Like Tourette's it's the involuntary use of lyrics in connection with what is currently happening to or around you. It can seemingly be contagious.
I read that listening to the same song over and over is a stimming technique, and boy do I do that a lot! Also tongue-clicking, nail-biting, hair-twirling, whatever didn’t get on anyone’s nerves and I could hide easily
Whenever I have been super distressed to the point of too overwhelmed, I scratch my arms until they leave red marks cuz the bloodflow warms your arms up and that is soothing to me. To replicate this in a calmer and safer headspace, I would just make a cup of cocoa and then hold the mug, then press my warm palms against my arms and it helps soothe me in a safer way
When I was in primary school (in England) I went to a planetarium where there are stars 360° above your head. I didn't like it and I cried. Now I love anything visually stimulating my favourite is rain falling on the floor or in puddles and the ripples it makes
I heard that autistic people don't like to be told what to do. After I got my diagnoses, I started trying to rationalize things, like "why are you so mad at your mom asking if you got your keys if you're leaving and you don't have them on you?". I think I feel mad at myself but project it on her. Just a theory, but doing all this helps.
I love the night sky but also am very prone to motion sickness (thankfully just feeling yucky and not actually getting sick) so the planetarium with all the stuff moving around on the ceiling was hard for me.
I use music to calm me down, I have a play list of music that makes me feel calm, and there's one particular song that feels like an aural weighted blanket. I didn't even realise it was a form of stimming till you mentioned watching the glitter in your bathbombs...that's how that song makes me feel!
I have a piece of satin that I always have with me. When I was little, I had the blanket with the satin edges. I self soothed then and now. I have it wth me when I go to bed as well. I carry some in my pockets as it's easy to slip my hands in a pocket while I'm a car, bus etc. and grab my satin and feel it and nobody knows. I just subscribed to you. You made my day! ❤
for me it's two silver half-dollars, nice and round and smooth but texture and i'lll hold them in one hand and spread them apart like a book and then close them back together and the sound of silver coins clinking is just mmmmmmmmm
I remember the blankets with the satin edges! Haven't seen one for a long while. Cold satin feels really nice. Oooh, that just reminded me how when I was little, I had a blankie with a thin piece of lace around the edges, and I would rub the lace edge on my thumb knuckle to the point where I'd get blisters and sometimes they bled if I didn't let them heal enough. I think I'd alternate hands so they both wouldn't have blisters. This was late '70's/early 80's when a lot less was known about ND - they just called me "hyper" and "nuts" and eventually, "gifted". Didn't get diagnosed with ADD until a few years ago, in my 40's. I sometimes wonder what life would be like if I had been born a few decades later and gotten evaluated and treated at an earlier age.
I have one too...! Silky edge of blankets . I go all sleepy when I have mine. Had since a baby and im almost 49 now. My.mum tries to pinch it to wash it, if she gets a chance😅😅
I also have a silky edge blanket. When I was little, my granny made me a small piece of silk on a cotton backing to carry with me bc it was easier than carrying my whole blanket.
Love this video. Here’s a whole list: Visual stims: bird watching, paint mixing videos, looking at hour glasses Tactical stims: pop-its, roller ball, gooey putties, tapping my fingers against each other, petting my cats, playing with sand - especially colorful sand, deep pressure hugs, swaying side to side. Interestingly swaying back and forth helps when I’m anxious, but side to side is the fun kind for me Oral stims: crunchy snacks, spicy food, sour candy occasionally Audio stims: thunderstorms, wooden soup videos (it sounds weird but look it up!!), same songs Ugh there’s so many. Thank you for that question. This was fun
I chewed through so many pens/hard plastics up until my mid 20s. I still allow myself the pleasure of chewing a plastic clothing tag from time to time. You have no idea how soothing it is.
As someone with self-diagnosed asd, my biggest stimming method is biting my nails. Everyone that doesn't know me much tells me I should have grown out of it by now, but every time I'm bored, in a stressful situation, or just generally want to, I bite my nails. I have been doing it forever and don't plan to stop.
I've been doing it for 39 years and stopped for the person I cared about. Now I always have a small nail file near me (Victorinox Classic). So as soon as I feel some notch or uneven length I can file them, before they got destroyed.
If I’m waiting for someone I repeatedly count to 10 in my head (sometimes backwards). Certain songs I can listen to on loop and get the same enjoyment every time. Some objects, like my coffee tamper, are just a really nice weight and it makes me feel calm when I hold them.
11:20 When he giggles and says "thank you so much, Debbie" it was just pure happy and love, delight in the small things. EDIT: I do worry about the glitter putting microplastics into the water system.
There are dissolving glitters available, but I’ve only ever seen them in the more expensive bombs. The cheaper bombs definitely don’t use eco-friendly glitter 😢
Autistic stimming + non-autistic stimming ! So interesting to understand ! I believe i am a non-autistic adult who stims a lot (!!) due to : a predisposition to chronic muscle pain xx I am pain free since i started to stim regularly + found the diet that works for me (removed my allergens + heal the gut.) + take magnesium and vit. Bs + yoga (gentle stretching) and nutritious movement. I am looking forward to learn more about the other types of stimming! 😊
Thanks for sharing this - I also have a lot of muscle tension and pain and still am learning how to let myself stim more often. Your other points about figuring out how to help gut health is something in the middle of now too. Already going (mostly) gluten free but figuring out what works is taking some time. Appreciate your ideas!
@@ChrisandDebby I have less muscle pain, and better digestion, if I eat less sugar (processed/ refined)- or things that act like sugar in the body (fermentables, including gluten). Fresh fruit bowl is OK (couple times weekly), with lots of plain yogurt and protein (like nuts). More protein rich snacks (pickled hard boiled eggs; celery/ carrot sticks/ apple slices with almond butter; cheese sticks). More veggies/ fiber/ protein, and less carbs (chips/ crisps, cookies, etc), plus vinegary pickled veggies, helps balance my body. Hope it helps you too.
@@ChrisandDebbymagnesium at bedtime helps ppl sleep (most ppl are deficient in mg). I just got Kalvitamins that are separated into 2 bottles (1 for am & 1 for pm). After a bout with RMSF (rocky mtn spotted fever, tick borne illness tho I live in NY), I dove into special interests of vitamins & genetics, including an individual's ability to process folate & B12 (not all forms are readily processed in every person) with MTHFR (methyl-tetra-hydro-folate-reductase, an enzyme).. I can info dump on this. Look into your biological ability- it may help you discover some of your missing puzzle pieces. I am >1/2 century & recently inclined to believe I am AuDHD since relating to so many of your vids & commentors. Many ppl have an MTHFR genetic variant & among them, there are various symptoms just as Autistic ppl have various traits. It would be interesting if a study were done on folate intake, MTHFR & B12 abilities of participants & other dietary journaling. Journaling my food, drink & symptoms (serious neuropathy, exhaustion..) helped me navigate from being on disability for Lyme-Complex to restoring health to get back to work..
I sort of combine stims. Most days I wear a ring especially if I’m going out to do things that stress me. When I start to feel overwhelmed I will use my thumb to wiggle the ring and it makes me feel more grounded. If I’m wearing a ring with a sparkly gemstone I will get lost in just watching it sparkle as my thumb wiggles it. Without a ring my thumb just brushing back and forth where a ring usually is will help. As a little girl I had hair long enough to sit on. Taking little bit of it and brushing my face or lips was a constant, as was putting it in my mouth and twirling it with my tongue. Right up until the moment a teacher said if I was going to “eat” in class I had to share it with everyone. You can imagine how horrific the thought of everyone crowding around and putting their mouths on my hair was. To this day the thought makes me gag. Never put it in my mouth again. Instead I twirled it on my finger…under the desk where no one could see!
I just finished telling my husband that I paint my face with my hair and that people would call me weird for it. Then he gave the example of his autistic friend doing the same thing and I was floored.
Love your teaching style.. very engaging and wonderful sense of humor. Re behavior.. from a body worker perspective.. we are energy, so those behaviors rocking, shaking hands, etc) are actually healthy natural responses.. When you shake your hands you are releasing energy. Rocking naturally calms the nervous system and comforts.. we just live in a repressed society that generally wants people to sit still, repress emotion and expression. So thank you!
✨ Looking for new stim-friendly items, like some of those mentioned in the video? Here’s a list to get you started: chrisanddebby.mykajabi.com/pl/2148303953
👍🏻
Love your videos,
So relatable.
I was first diagnosed with ADHD when I was maybe like 5 years old and put on a bunch of horrible meds that made me feel like total crap.
Then throughout my life I was diagnosed with many other different things...
Then in my 20s I think was the 1st time autism was brought up, but me & my family only knew of severe cases so we dismissed it...
Then in my 30s in hospital autism was brought up again & later in my late 30s I learned more & everything made a lot of sense!
Now I'm 41 & still trying to learn about myself.
I have anxiety for sure & been diagnosed with that many different times.
I've been anxious as long as I can remember.
Anyway,
Thanks for you videos,
Very relatable!
✌🏻😎👍🏻
Yaaay!! For completing task all on your own!! 💓💓🥳🥳
Bravo!!!
I have a personal theory soem may have a tough time understanding. I think my autistic need to stim amplifies my cigarette smoking. I used to do a lot of 'typical' stim stuff when I was a kid, but as a teen, after I had started smoking, it subsided.
Thing is my addiction to cigarettes has always been much more strong than most can even comprehend. I smoke a LOT, despite such societal backlash all these years. (I stared in 1981, when you could smoke everywhere)
over 40 years later, I still smoke several packs a day. I do not think it is entirely the chemical addiction to nicotine driving this.
None of the nicotine replacement methods have worked. It is the actin of smoking, vaping doesn't even work for me.
There is a very complex sensory environment around smoking, and I think that is all my "stim".
I do not think it is possible for me to quit tobacco, it would be too traumatizing. Nobody understands. They just hate me for being a smoker. So, I hate everyone who hates smokers. And I just wait for my physical end, why do think I smoke?
I hate
I practice conversations out loud. I don't know if it is stimming, but it helps me feel more regulated.
I do this especially if I’ll be going into a new situation or in places that make me feel a bit worried - like doctors offices
hi! I think this is called scripting.
I do that too. Last time my man walked in and asked me who I was discussing with and I said, with you. And he said, but I didn't answer anything. And I said well you did, in my mind
He was really confused
Me all the time
@@nuni6158 thank you.
I didn’t even notice that I quietly say “boop” when setting something on the counter or handing something to a coworker until recently, and then I noticed that my other neurodivergent coworker has picked it up and started doing it too, which makes me incredibly happy, especially when we do it at the same time
Omg, I say "boop" randomly while doing things too. 😆 I also say "bean" in a high pitched tone when something jumps like my cats "beaning" onto the sofa or even when when watching wrestling and the wrestlers jump off the top rope. 😂
Hahaha I do this too!
Samesies!
My MIL, I've noticed, picks up so many of my little sounds/noises. She's definitely neurospicy, but undiagnosed.
@zombiiesque the opposite for me haha! I told her I was late diagnosed, she has a masters for teaching SPED...after I told her she goes 'do you normally bite your cheek?' I didn't realize I was doing it, but noticed I was and was like ope😂👀
But then she's like its okay, I do it too!🤣
I talk out loud. Especially when I am upset. I am not talking to anyone, just speaking my thoughts out loud. This helps me calm down.
I've always done this as well but the last decade it's gotten a little out of hand. I chalk it up to the fact Im a stay at home mother of 4 and if I wasn't conversatingwith myself I could go weeks without an adult conversation lol
Same
my mom does this a lot
and it's a problem because it's a trigger for me x-x
so I have to do my best not to tell her to stop
I do that A LOT. That, and singing along to music. Especially in the car. It makes driving so much more bearable...
I do that too!!!! Thank you for sharing!
The compulsion to organize, align, group up, etc is strong and incredibly soothing 🤷♀️
Yessss
I am house sitting now and the items in the door of the refrigerator are every which way, you can't see what anything is. I am resisting the temptation because it's not my stuff.
@@recoveringsoul755 ooof. That's a tough one, I'd grapple with that for HOURS! Oh sure, the "simple helpful innocent turning of containers so all labels face forward" is ok tho, right? RIGHT?? Which inevitably morphs into an all-consuming every cabinet & pantry, then laundry area, washroom, garage 🥵😟😶🌫️
OMG! 😱 I have got to make order out of chaos or I can’t function! I didn’t know that was stimming!
Omg my brain can't function with clutter and disorganization and I feel compelled to clean and organize in order for my brain to calm down. Visual sensitivity overload.
I Never knew or thought that was a stim, I thought it was my ocd. 🤯
I get so triggered and overwhelmed with dirt and clutter.
idk if this is a stim or not, but i’ve always been incredibly fascinated by rain. every time it rains, i have to go out and just enjoy the sounds, the smells, the visuals. it’s sensory heaven. watching rain feels like releasing tension, im so mesmerized by it.
Rain is my thing too, for all the reasons you mentioned.
Rain makes me so happy because it’s absolute sensory bliss.
Yes! Rain is calm... And for me, thunderstorms (so long as I know I am safe) are amazing too.
@Mr.TamOShanter-em6jm YES THE AIR PRESSURE IS A HUGE PART OF IT!!!
@@JeskaDax Yes, I love thunder and lightning too!
I play soundtracks of rainfall with rolling thunder at night when I can’t sleep.
@@MissAndyAUS SAME! So good! =^..^=
Tip for harmful stim of skin picking: i got a backpack with those mermaid sequins that change colors when you flip them. It helps to pick at the sequins, flipping them one by one, to distract from picking my skin.
That's a really creative idea! Thanks for sharing that 😀
Thank you I'm going to try this for my daughter.
Such a good idea. Scratching when I was stressed turned into self harm for me. Fidget toys (like your sequins) and slowing down, wearing gloves etc were finally able to break me free of it. I'm officially 2 months sober as of yesterday 😊
@LegendOfMoonDragons congrats!!!
🤍🩷❤️🧡🤎💛💚🩵💙💜🩶🖤
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I'm gonna try this w/ my youngest daughter!
I've found that autistic individuals with strong affinity for echolalia can excel in foreign language learning as far as pronunciation. Once attuned to the shapes and feelings and audial quality of making the sounds, we can mimic native speaker pronunciation.
This is true! I’m not diagnosed; in fact I have only recently realized that I have always had a ton of autistic traits. But I’ve always been interested in “decoding” other languages and mimicking sounds. My bachelors degree is in foreign languages but I have always dabbled in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. This is such an interesting observation that I haven’t thought of before. Thank you for sharing!
@TsunamiRogueWave for sure, it's an interesting thing. I was diagnosed as a young child, but have never had treatment, intervention or anything throughout my life. My parents believed in raising me without the cultural idea of being different in my mind.
This makes so much sense. I'm remembering my years in choir where we'd have to learn to pronounce multiple different languages, and I often would be humming or softly singing whatever songs we were learning as I just walked through the hallways.
@NeenjaFruitcup 100%. It can make audial understanding much simpler for some of us. It can also pose its own challenges, of course - if and when we focus on sounds we LIKE or that feel right to us, instead of the correct sounds!
True!
i'm crying at this intro because i noticed the cream on your face and after you sat down i just accepted it as some kind of face mask chat or something and even as you said you got everything done without needing any reminders i believed you 🤣
I kept telling him in my head "You forgot to wash the cream off of your face!". Lol.
Just realizing that this is the same trait that leads people to believing that we are gullible. Hm. Much to think about.
@anna-fleurfarnsworth104 to be fair, I have this trait and AM gullible 😂
Same 😭
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
The bonus stimming method is similar to one I do and have done since before I suspected I was autistic: When I feel overwhelmed, I catalog my cats. I have a population of five cats in my home. 80% are tabby. 60% are female. 40% have orange eyes. 20% have all black toe beans. 40% have white splotches on their faces. 60% are lap kitties. 40% play fletch. And so on.
That’s really interesting. I like to catalogue movies and books. I go into loads of detail on runtime, disc number, genre, what shelf they’re on… even what kind of binding they have (paperback, hardcover, magazine). It’s always been really fun to me.
(It’s also very useful, since I like to buy movies at a used book store, and need to be able to check which ones I already have at home)
I sorted my entire collection of loose LEGO bricks by colour and type while having an insomnia episode once when I was 12. Found out I had somewhere in the region of 40k bricks at the time. Loved doing it so much I then jumbled it all back up in the box and did it again the next time insomnia happened. These days, I spend a lot of time making graphs of stuff like my weight, waist size, bank balance, I have a 1-10 pain rating for every single day since I woke up from the surgery after snapping my arms in half (today's a 6, I hit a 9 on Sunday because of the heavy lifting at work), I have a log of every penny that's left my bank account and my wallet dating back to when my old housemate started telling my family I wasn't paying the bills he refused to pay, the list goes on and on.
I just LOVE your idea of categorizing by percentage various traits of your kitties! Since I only have two felines right now, I may use all the cats I've ever owned (7) and do the same! Thanks for a fun idea! Sometimes when I can't fall asleep, I will try to think of animals or trees or flowers or insects or... that start with the letter A, B, C... Z. Helps me relax (not think about worries) but focus on something fun. If I can't think of anything for a particular letter, I just move on, but come back to that letter later... It almost always helps me fall asleep.
this is probably the single best paragraph i’ve read in the last year lmao thank you
I LOVE THE WORD “CRISP” BC IT MOVES FROM THE BACK OF UR MOUTH TO THE FRONT OF IT AAAAAHHHHHHHHH
I love the word six. It moves from the front to the back.
Crisp.
Yes, that’s lovely ❤
napkin. napkin.... nap kinnn
Grin
Kin
Cop
Grain
Copper
Geese
The list is endless.
I love that the word crisp is exactly the right looking and sounding word for the things it describes in every single case. It is concise. You always know exactly what is meant within the context it is being used as a descriptor.
I often imitate sounds around me. “Talk” back to animals, “honk” in response to cars, and so on. Is that echolalia or something else?
I do that sometimes, and have heard autistic children do it too. Maybe it's a bit different than echolalia. Perhaps onomatopoeia? It's effective to get chickens out of the road - "buh-gawk!" quite loudly. Seems to mean "threat" to chickens. They run.
Yes that's definitely echolalia! I do it ALL the time and have been teased for it all my life! 😂
@@lisawanderess Thanks! 😁
My daughter repeated what I say. Before her diagnosis, I used to get so angry about it. But she isn’t trying to aggravate me, she is stimming and that is totally okay.
I do this too!
My favorite stimming is pacing, I do it when I am on the phone, have a conversation with a loved one etc. I have done this my entire life.
Me, too! And I'm grateful that my job is understanding cuz I pace in circles all around my cubicle area anytime I have a phone call with a client. 😛
Me too
Sitting for hours is incredibly bad for you, so it is easy to justify standing and moving, especially on a call with a wireless headset.
I like to watch the way the light plays in the falling rain on a puddly city street at night, it's so sparkly but it's so calming. I can stare at it for hours. It's like a meditation sometimes.
Yes! Or an oil slick on the wet blacktop. Or watching the swirling on bubbles until they pop!
You'd probably like being on a lake in a rowboat, canoe, or yacht. The water can be smooth like glass or a small breeze can make it look like lots of diamonds.
@@recoveringsoul755 i do like that! Both the flat stillness and all the ways the surface is turned into ripples and waves.
I also like watching the wind blow through fields of tall grass or wheat or similar because it looks a lot like wind waves on water. The patterns are fun to watch as they continuously shift and flow into new patterns. It's all visually simulating in an enjoyable way.
pure joy 🌬🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🙂
@@SachiJones yes!! The wind on tall grasses!!!
From your first comment I thought maybe you were more of a city person, but happy to know you get nature too
visual stim for me is looking at patterns 0n floors ,walls,and ceilings when i get overwhelmed
I do this too. Also I make my own pattern with my eyes on the wall and follow it all the time
@@Amylaemia cool how do you do that?
@chaote2069 just create a movement with my eyes without even realizing and then repeat it over and over again
@@Amylaemia awesome gonna ry it ty
I used to do that when I was a child.
This video had me crying in relief that others are fascinated by tiny details as well and have beautiful and intricate words to express it. The comment section feels like a group chat of my new family to me.
We’re glad you’re here!! 😊😊
I've had to regulate it, but I've found that I like to be particularly attentive to the words that I use, because words have meaning, you know?
Etymonline has been a vital tool.
Listenning to a song over and over and over and over...for hours or days
Touching my face around the mouth or rubbing my scalp
Fidgeting with the tip of my fingers
Folding a bit of paper over and over until it's a stick, then trying to fold the stick tight as well, and then just fidget with the rolled thing
What song have you listened to on loop recently? For me, it's the whole album Grief Chapter by Mother Mother, specifically End of Me. I'm not sure why that song hits so hard but i keep coming back to it
@@anna-fleurfarnsworth104 The last one was Put down that weapon by Midnight Oil (I looped it for days). I remember looping Hero by Family of the Year. Also Shallow by Lady Gaga. I actually found a version of Hero that was already it on a loop. I don't know if it's something about the songs themselves, or their melody, or if there is something comforting to me about them.
Omg. Touch my face often when nervous
I do the same thing with songs, so I can pick up the lyrics and feel really comfortable with them. ❤
Oh yeah..... I can listen to the same song over and over again... Forever. 😅
I hope you thank Debby ever day. Some of us don't have a Debby... and a Debby would be nice.
My husband and I are both autistic. We support each other, but it's amazing that we get anything done.
@@TashaRansomArtmy husband and I are both AuDHD. Thank goodness, honestly. It's nice to be with someone who gets me.
@@zombiiesque I feel that. We speak the same language!
@@TashaRansomArt yessss!
Some of us have to both be a Debbie for someone, and also might could have used one in their life at some point😊
When I was a child I was always spinning, rocking, flapping my hands, humming and singing by myself and mulling nice words in my mouth. I had all the marks of an autistic in the textbook but autism was back then seen as a very serious defect and I was not recognized as autistic. Even though I had enormous difficulties with socializing I was ”too bright”. I had to stop stimming when I started school and I become tense, stressed and depressed. I hid my autistic traits through my chilfhood and youth and suffered from anxiety, depression and eating disorders. I never knew that I was autistic and had ADHD until my son was diagnosed with both of then and he was just like me. Then I finally got a diagnosis. Now I know why I pace around when I talk to the phone. And I have started to flap and hum again because it helps me to relax - and I am no longer ashamed of myself and think that I am a freak.
One of the ways I stim is knitting. I also doodle lot if I can’t knit. When I was child I loved to swing in playground.
I doodle a lot and looove swings growing up and even in my late life.. it’s that rocking sense I like besides the air when I like to go for big swinging.
I knit & crochet too. Just the mindless repetition of a simple repeating pattern is so soothing. My hooks & needles have gotten me through some dark times.
@@peekaboo7424 It's one of the defcon one things I fall back to, also, when I feel shrink-wrapped.
Yes! Since I took up knitting again, it is definitely something I do often.
@@peekaboo7424- same. Stockinette stresses me out,but cables and lace I love.
I write lists. If I am stressed and things seem out of control, I write a list or several lists. It could be groceries, what I have to do the next day, renos that need to get done, books I would like to buy, health foods I want to start eating, things I am thankful for. There are so many things I write lists for. My father whom I realize now was probably autistic told me the trick of writing a list when things get too much. I write a to do list every night right before I go to bed, then I don't have to worry about forgetting something. Always on paper, always with a favourite pen.
Im trying to do that too. It really helps my stress.
Lol... me too. My diaries are mostly just filled with lists 😂
Not quite the same, but I like to list things like DVDs and books. I have a complete catalogue of all my DVDs and books, and it was so fun to make. Plus several lists of the cheapest way to collect every episode of a given show on dvd (for certain old franchises, like Looney Tunes, a list is needed). It’s fun to just spend hours researching it and finding the DVDs on Amazon, typing it all out in a comprehensive spreadsheet (complete with price and runtime of each dvd), and then never actually buying the show because I don’t have $500 to spend on Scooby-Doo. 😅
Me, hugging everyone who relates in the comments: 🫂
I know someone who makes lists of video games characters and levels. He draws too. I have asked him what would happen/how he would feel if he left the list incomplete or didn't draw every character he wanted to and if he does it because he wants to or because he needs to. He said he would be very stressed if he didn't complete it and he feels like he has to do it but also does enjoy it.
Since i was a child i loved the lava lamps, glitter lamps, aquariums and basically everything that has water inside where any object or liquid is constantly forming new parterns... i also enjoy so much to see the tiny little rainbows and sparkles that came out from a cristal when its close to a window and the sunlight its falling on it! ❤🎉
My youngest son who has been diagnosed started humming from birth. I know how it sounds. I had to point it out to the nurses and then they were like, hmm strange” I never thought about that before. He only did it the first few days. He now has a bunch of different stims. I am late diagnosed and have 3 children with autism and I absolutely adore their excited hand flapping, spinning, and jumping because the joy is so real and palpable that I join in. They are the sunshine of my life.
Humming is my predominant stim.
I hum constantly, people have told me my whole life!
I've noticed my 5 mo old humming while eating and needing to fiddle with stuff while he eats lol I'm late diagnosed but I'm keeping my eye out
@@PollyHistorI'm currently in a diagnostic phase and try to have clear examples of behaviour. Do you hum predominantly when you're stressed/nervous/uncomfortable? Basically, when do you do it? 😂
I find myself humming ( totally involuntary) to block out a painful or embarrassing memory that comes into my mind...
Me watching this video out of curiosity only for it to be too relatable and leave me questioning my entire existence
Same!!
Me too
Been there five years ago….now diagnosed lvl 2 Autistic and severe ADHD 😂
Oof and singing, that’s me (my poor dog lol)
Fr, I just found out that I have adhd and I’ve been wondering if I have autism
I accidentally switched the radio to AM this morning. Usually it's this really annoying distracting static noise. But this morning there were at least two or three stations clearly layered over each other, and it was making such a unique combination of sounds that my brain just TINGLED and I sat there mesmerized, listening.
My dude just single handedly explained why I collect pretty things, especially rocks, and organize them over and over on shelves. Then sit and stare at them for hours. Probably while humming/singing or making noises with my mouth. Idk how to feel about this.
Same!! I’m also an artist so I can’t believe I never picked up on how often I visually stim
Not to tell you how to feel, but I know for me it provides a ton of calm. I now know what to call it, how to explain it to others, and (most importantly) it gives me more feeling like I'm not the only one who does this.
Definitely hum/sing to myself, visually stim, rock/sway, and pace. A lot. 😂
@@madisuniesame!
I like pebbles, the smoothness is just amazing.
You should buy a 3D printer and watch it create things that you either designed or downloaded from others. Sometimes I like to print fidget toys, which is a double win, because I get to watch it's creation, then get to play with it after. Plus, you can make objects in all of your favorite colors, in sizes that fit your hands better than things you can buy.
Watching the same movie on repeat to create a predictable social environment and calm over stimulation of unpredictable social environments
I do this as well…always have just didn’t know why until my adhd diagnosis. Like the same movie for MONTHS!! I knew it wasn’t normal just didn’t know why🤷🏽♀️ And oh boy, the Harry Potter movies…because there are eight of them, I literally watched them one after another over and over again for well over a year🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️ I think I literally drove the others in my household crazy!!
Yes. This is something I do too. Predictable and calming👍
I call them comfort movies or programs @@Muggleborn72
3 years of university I had 5 shows on DVD on repeat until I left. Friends Season 1-10, Smallville, Grey's Anatomy, Charmed and The Matrix on repeat. I acquired them as I went through the years. I was there eating cheesecake on the floor with Rachel and Chandler 😅😂 Piper Phoebe and Paige where my sister's lol Clarke, Chloe, Pete we never trusted Lex 😅 still doing it now but now with Cdramas that are like 30-60 episodes long.
Oh my goodness! I do this all the time: tv series and movies. It's so calming.
So interesting how it is adjacent to anxious behaviors, but instead of leakage from anxiety it’s a purposeful coping skill.
Im sitting here trying to learn what stimming is...
I'm thinking "I don't do it... I don't do it... I've never done it..."
Then he mentioned "painting your cheek with your hair"...and had a childhood flashback.
Touché.
Mine is twisting my hair…
Yep 😂
Omg, I'm not diagnosed autistic, (yet) just really really ADHD ( my kids and grandkids are tho), I'm seeing all these autistic traits that I totally relate to and I used to twist ny hair severely my whole life really. It's usually down to my butt. I recently cut it and it's almost twirling length again 😭😭@@LeoLover-l9e
@@LeoLover-l9eI've over shared 😬😬
😂😂
@@AngelofMelee Me too! 😂
The “shy” segment made me laugh out loud - “she’s going to know how shy I am” 🥺💞
Ready? No? Too bad, here's my looooong list:
Visual:
- Glittery, sparkly, shiny, or holographic objects
- Lining up or organizing items (for example, I have a sticker collection)
- Snow globes
- Hourglasses
- Sensory Lamps (anything colourful and fun)
- Observing shadows
- Observing patterns
- Spinning stuff
- Lights
- Bathbombs
- Rain/water
Taste/Smell:
- Crunchy foods
- Biting (Inedible objects, more often than not)
- Chewelleries
- Tea & Coffee
- Minimal to no scent items
Vestibular & Proprioceptive:
- Hand flapping
- Spinning
- Swings
- Hanging upside down
- Twirling
- Bouncing (either a leg while I'm sitting, or in my seat as a whole)
- Rocking
- Finger tapping/drumming
- Bumping into someone (on purpose, repeatedly; sometimes I even say "boop" each time I do; usually do this to my mom XD)
- Swaying (I do this while sitting at my desk all the time; usually a circular motion)
- Pacing
- Scratching
Auditory:
- Tapping sounds
- Fireplace, campfire, chill rain
- Snapping fingers
- Echolalia
- Listening to the same songs over and over
- ASMR
- Fizzing or popping sounds (Sparkling water, pop, or other)
- Humming or tunes
- "Boop"
Tactile:
- Braiding
- Soft Cloths
- Animal fur (preferably alive, lol)
- Soft plushies
- Walking on moss
- Playing in water
- Bean bags
- Bubble wrap
- Fidgets
- Slime
- Silly Putty
- Epsom Salts
- Baths
...
Can you tell that one of my special interests is autism? My own in particular.
Also, thanks for actually reading this if you did. You're awesome for that :D
@@LiseWrigley Thank you
All sounds pretty normal!
You're awesome fir sharing such detail. Thank you
Have you ever heard of a Koosh ball? They were popular in the 1990s. I used to love to roll them around in my open palm.
I bump into people I really like when walking with them. My husband and I both do this and we can barely walk down the sidewalk. 😅
I also do circular swaying when doing TM. And also love listening to certain songs sometimes 5-10 times before getting my fill. The Moola Manta by Deva Premal is one such song.
I love to stare at the night sky. I can see the red or blue tint of each star and can see each star “blink” or “pulsate”. It’s like I can’t look away 😩
if I can find a flat enough area with little light pollution, to where my vision and periphery are unobstructed I feel like I can see the depth of the sky, like it stops being a flat background thing with dots of light on it and becomes amazingly 3 dimensional despite the lack of the usual foreground midground etc to portray the depth. I can just feel how far it goes and how far away the stars actually are. love star gazing one of my favorite things to do ever (this actually also applies to clouds if I look at them long enough my brain starts to feel the depth of them the height and distance and shapes. I hage about a million pictures and videos of clouds and storms on my phone)
Can everybody see the red and blue tint of stars twinkling or is it just ASD people?
that dose sound relaxing just be carful not to spend to many all-nighters staring at the moon i hear that can mess with your head
Nothing is as great for visual stimming as the windows 98 screensavers! 🤩
I love the matrix screensaver with all the code falling down! I would set and watch it for long periods of time when i had the screensaver and didnt realize how long I was engrossed over it!
The morphing frog!
I have "Mystify" set in Windows 10, and I have the bad habit of NOT closing my laptop even when I know darn well I'm not going to be using it more any time soon, just so I can watch the shifting curves/ mesh/ colors for a bit whenever I glance in that direction.
I forgot about those!
My favorite was the pipe that just kept going and forming a more and more complex "structure." I always thought of it like a jungle gym and loved watching it.
Now I want it back! When I used to play the Microsoft solitaire game I had to watch all the cards fall and bounce off the screen when I won.
That shaving cream bit is no joke for me, once I almost went to the mall without realising I was still wearing a shower cap, I even looked in a mirror too
lol. My husband has spent many years pointing out when I’ve put on stuff inside out even after I double checked where the tag was. 😂
Huh this video explains a lot .. I've always loved watching tires spin on cars, and stirring coffee.. Starring at the stars at night.. Watching certain things moving.. singing / humming, fidgeting, pacing, rubbing / scratching / rocking etc.. so many of these ways to stim .. I guess stimming in ways I never knew were stimming..
Yes, many ways to stim. Appreciate your list/ comment, and Chris' clarification on this. I think stroking my dog is a stim, too.
Have you seen the 'wagon wheel effect'? Maybe that's just part of wheels spinning for you, but it's specifically when a wheel looks like it isn't moving despite rotating relatively quickly (mainly on camera, but looking through narrow vertical bars really close together can do it too). I specifically enjoy when the wheel looks like it's rotating 'backwards' slowly, while looking stationary is more uncomfortable. :)
Sadly there doesn't seem to be many videos on TH-cam of it, at least specifically compilations of the effect rather than people trying to explain it.
@@markwright3161 cant say I have but not im super interested in finding out about it. it sounds really relaxing just thinking about it
I am in the same boat. I have been stimming and didnt realize it!
Pinwheels were my favorite when I was a kid. The noise, visuals of spinning, breathing , and shiny colors met so many needs. Best ever!
This may sound weird, but I used to play animal crossing city folk all the time as a kid and I’d hold the pinwheel item and walk around for HOURS. They have a pinwheel in the newest game, but it doesn’t make that satisfying clackity clack sound anymore :(
The noise of a pinwheel being blown is wildly underrated!
That just set off my mental jukebox of near-constant music that flows through my head… I am now playing the theme music from the children’s show Pinwheel (from ‘70s/‘80s) in my head. Will likely come out as humming/whistling along with it at some point (and singing the couple words of it that I know). 😁
@@cosievee I love that, mental jukebox! Definitely going to use it. I do the same thing. There's music going on constantly.
Nice to hear that you also have a mental jukebox! So many songs cycle through my head during the day, I don’t mind it though. I thought most people did this, I also remember the pinwheel shout at the beginning of that song, you just reminded me. Then my brain jumps to reading 🌈. Please don’t kill me 😂
My favorite way to stim is cross-hatching. I have filled up notebooks with pages and pages of nothing but cross-hatching in my never-ending quest to make the perfect pattern. It combines repetitive motion, scratching, and visual fascination in a way that synergizes more effectively than any one method alone.
I cross-hatch too!
I would make starburst or fireworks explosions with 1/4 inch lines in an expanding circle
I loved how you described echolalia! I’ve always told people “it’s like I hear something that sounds really tasty - and I have to say it to “taste” that word or phrase myself”! Great video 👍🏼
This could also be Synesthesia.
I have a colleague who used to say ‘shy’ a lot and I couldn’t help but repeat it… a lot. It bothered her, but it was really hard for me to stop. I actually stopped going into the branch where she works because I didn’t want to bother her. When I say ‘shy’, I can actually feel it like a wave through my whole body. It’s like a warm tingle and I love it.
Like Chris said it might have a synesthesia-type component to it with the way you described it if you’re literally experiencing other senses at the same time, but even if not it’s also just a great example of why it can feel so nice to repeat something! It’s satisfying in a way that’s quite similar to the satisfaction of a food texture being absolutely perfect.
I used to have a list of words that I adored saying out loud because the sounds just vibrated with a pleasing and soothing resonance.
@@samsmom1491OMG meeee literally yesterday I was investigating neurodivergence and I loved to say NAUR it’s just like your mouth it’s so open and the sound of r it’s so relaxing
@@april3950 Ha ha! I had to try it out and you're right. That's another lovely tasting collection of letters and sounds!
Just recently diagnosed with asd1 and adhd at age 49. I think this might fall under echolalia, but I visualize and replay select scenes from movies and tv shows in my head over and over. They’re from my childhood and teenage years. TH-cam is such a great resource for media so I’ve searched for those 30+ yr old video clips and rewatched the scenes that I had kept repeating in my head for decades. I have been surprised to find my memory is a carbon copy.
I also do this!
I do this too, and it's like my brain memorized it, I don't even know how! Really cool.
I once saw a video of a home that was for sale. I was instantly obsessed with it. I watched the video over and over and over...well, you get the point. Once I memorized the entire layout, whenever I get stressed or are trying to fall asleep, I will imagine myself walking in to the house and exploring it, room by room, opening every door, looking out the windows. Literally and figuratively my dream house.
@@samsmom1491 ohhhh I completely understand this. For me, it's sort of trauma related due to my childhood, but I used to put myself to sleep by dissociating - I'd imagine a different life in a nice little house. Then as an adult, I saw the perfect house one day, and I have thought of it so much while putting myself to sleep. It's not the same thing, but I very much relate to your story! 💜
I do this my personal holodeck of the mind
My sweet 5yo used to stare at the ceiling fan as an infant, then he found the analog clock which he likes to look at to this day. Then his interest went to real or toy cars and trains, especially the wheels.
He lines up toys in very specific and orderly ways.
He hums and sings all-the-time!
And he asks for back and arm rub every night before sleep and morning when he wakes up, the sweetest times.
Love my incredible, sweet boy so much and would change nothing about him! All his little quirky ways make him so very precious.
My ex son it was diggers. He was obsessed. Drew them played with. Every time we were in the car he and I would look for yay a digger! It took me years to not say DIGGER! Every time I passed one
My son did the same thing. When he was a toddler he would spin everything he could gets his hands on. He would keep staring at Wheels of toycars of trains. He loves to hum and sing ❤️ but he also can be repeating the same question from 6AM till 7PM. That can be so tiring.
@@Art_by_Nicole the same question can be very tiring! That happens here too. Then I try to answer in different ways hoping that he will accept one of the answers and put it to rest :) it works sometimes, other times we just have to keep hearing it….
@@cecibarbosa8328 we are learning to draw our answer. I write a short sentence next to the picture which means that my husband and I say the same thing. So every time son asks the same question we both take the card (with pictures) and give the same answer.
It really does help but it takes a lot (!) of patience, because son isn’t used to ‘each time the same answer’. Before we used different words, and meant the same answer like you said, but…our son ‘heard’ a different answer each time. We were unpredictable for him which lead to an overstimulated brain and a meltdown.
@@cecibarbosa8328 Thank you for the response, by the way. It feels good to see that I’m not alone. I love my son with all of my heart, but I find it very hard. Other people don’t get that everything is different in our household. From eating at the dinner table to the things we must do (and prepare) before going on a family holiday. A family holiday means for us: working our butts off. Our son can’t fill in his (spare) time. He totally depends on us for that.
I got some mad echolalia-if I hear a line in a movie or video that sounds real nice, I have to repeat it under my breath. I love how different words, accents, or sounds feel in my mouth. I hum and sing constantly too.
I also love to tap/jiggle my foot and sway. I grew up in a fairly strict household and was not allowed to be loud or rambunctious, but at church on Sundays I was allowed to sway and move my arms during the singing portion, and I only realized as an adult that that was less of the Holy Spirit guiding my worship time and more of a feeling of release because I was stimming and getting pent-up energy out.
Foot tapping and swaying are constant in my life. My childhood play largely involved organizing toys. I had a toy room and a toy closet as an only child. My mother would invite kids over, they would make a mess, and then I would love straightening and putting things back even more.
I spin. Not around in circles, but take fiber and turn it into yarn/string. The spindle going round and round with the fiber twisting makes me excessively happy.
Bingo. There's something about it. Do you have any spinners, or maybe weavers, in your genealogy? It's tricky because at one point most poor people were spinning or weaving so if there are poor people in the family tree they might have had to spin or weave. I think it's a decidedly autistic manifestation, though. I've now become a bit obsessive with the concept of Lachesis (in my reading of it - Lachesis is the one that takes the thread and makes something from it) and the battle between existence and entropy. I do crochet. That's my version.
To go right along with this, I think the process of knitting. Specifically, the basic knit stitch over and over again is very comforting, especially with some soft sock yarn, particularly if it has variegated colors that mix and has pops of colors via speckles.
@batintheattic7293 to the best of my knowledge, there were no weavers or spinners in my genealogy other than what would have been common practice. Fiber arts are one of my special interests, and while I knit and crochet(both also work as stims), I spin more. Weaving and fiber within language and mythology are fascinating and I hope you get to spend many hours enjoying learning.
Spinning away on a wheel is a form of "physical mediation" for me. And I _love_ watching film of other people spinning, there is something about the rocking motion of the footman and the wheel going around that is very satisfying.
Omigosh, yes! I got SO into spinning fibers into yarn as a special interest. I have three spinning wheels, several drop spindles, and LOTS of fiber. It’s so meditative. I also knit with my yarn I’ve made. Mostly smaller items for faster gratification-socks, mittens, hats, and such. I like pattern/textured knitting more than color knitting.
I like to repeat things multiple times in conversation, sometimes I just feel like it needs to be brought up again and again, it annoys my parents sometimes but it helps me to feel like I’ve gotten out everything I wanted to say
I do that to, were you diagnose with autism, this explains alot
At work and at home I have a very bouncy stool behind my desk (a Swopper) and I'm bouncing constantly. I love the feeling so much, just thinking about it makes me happy! And I have a few glass objects with flat surfaces in my window sill; everytime the sun shines on them, there are little rainbows all over my room. I love watching the rainbows.
As you described how saying "shy" has to FEEL exactly right, like it's not about just saying it but about getting the word into that "place" that precisely "does it" for you, I immediately related and, in my own way, knew exactly what you were talking about. It's like the feeling I need to get from bringing the corner of my gaze into union with the corner of some exterrnal object. It's not about simply seeing something, not at all. There's something you're viscerally compelled to make HAPPEN by seeing. Like you are viscerally compelled to make that thing happen that comes from manifesting "shy" just the way it needs to come out.
You've described this very well, thank you! I understood it as a proprioceptive thing with sound-making, not just with words (verbally), like others here have mentioned, I also really enjoy imitating/repeating non-verbal sounds to 'place' myself sensorially, like echo-locating myself. I have to get the sound just right too. I call it 'tuning'. I thought my lifelong affinity for verbal mimicry and repeating sounds was childish behavior, but I later realized that even as a child, it annoyed and confused people, and often got me into trouble b/c classmates thought I was teasing them or couldn't stop 'being weird'. I learned to control it/mask but even among writers/poets (peers) much later in adult life (I went into the literary arts in college), I was called 'incessantly punny', though I don't much enjoy puns in particular. Like the previous phrase shows, I enjoy alliteration, assonance, consonance and stim w/ them basically all the time. I wonder how many ASD people like poetry for this reason?
I like meowing. It fills me with joy
Yes! And singing songs with meow instead of the lyrics
YE
singing is absolutely the best stim
Singing also activates the vagus nerve, making it beneficial for mental health :)
I went to a voice liberation workshop yesterday! Very intense, but also really good. EVERYONE making their own "weird" sounds and moving freely😊 Most were struggling with self censoring, working through that together was really cool
@@SachiJones that's what I've heard, although wind instruments also have this same effect, if you're not feeling as confident on the singing bit. Sadly, I no longer have my clarinet, flute, or even a piano (I do miss the baby grand), so during the pandemic I took a queue from the Italians and started to sing just because music has always been very dear to me, but I didn't have any instruments... Or so I thought. I've never been very good at art/music, but I have been intrinsically drawn towards it for as long as I can remember. Felt good to reconnect to this part of me.
Thank you for listening to my impromptu Ted talk 😆
my primary stim.
@@bvgg2630mine, too. I've always loved music and always am singing or humming a song!
I stim by rubbing my fingers and hand with my other hand. I also scratch and pick at my skin in order to sleep or calm down. I love visual stimming, especially if it’s glittering or shiny.
Yes, skin picking! Sadly, I seem to have relatively few stims that I recognize as inducing pleasure - most surface in anxious bursts. But one version of skin picking has always felt good. I tend to take baths too, and when my skin gets soft, I love dragging my nails across certain areas, and accumulating white, doughy dead skin cells under them. It feels like exfoliating, and I also love to roll the accumulated skin between my fingers, the texture is weird but nice.
Meowth!! (Sorry I really had to)
Does your vision also get blurry when you look at glittering things?
Do you think maladaptive daydreaming is associated with autism? I have a lot of physical traits attributed to being autistic, but MDing is something I especially can’t live without, and the illusions are powerful and vivid. It reminded me of how it puts me in a trance-like state similar to, say, sand art or glitter visuals.
Literally came to the comments section to see if this was being discussed. I think it might be a stim for me but few ever talk about it.
I can literally do that for hours 😂 i think i lived a whole movie once just staring at the wall and i dont remember blinking once but eyes didnt feel dry and no pain. It was like i went into standby.
My sister says I could easily survive solitary confinement because I live on n my head so much.
I always thought i had that too, and my husband thinks im autistic , what about OCD,
Some of my happiest times is watching stuff. Not TV, but drapes moving in the wind, the reflection of pool water on the ceiling, staring at the stars. I too have that neck cramp, frequently. I have a chair now and try to remind myself not to get lost when taking out the trash late at night, but it's just so danged... amazing, soothing, reassuring.
You should look into getting an aquarium with fish. I'm not autistic but always found watching fish swim around relaxing.
Oh my god, I’ve just discovered your channel. THANK YOU! I’m 51 and just diagnosed ADHD with autistic traits… I knit. I knit EVERYWHERE I go! Everyone knows I can’t hear them if I’m not knitting! 🥰
Have you ever considered spinning wool?
aw thank you… I’m a full on yarn spinner too x it’s the BEST! ❤❤❤
Omg me too, I'm 51 and just diagnosed. I used to crochet all the time in my 20's and I've just taken it up again because I'm going blind, and you probably know already, if you do it enough it's muscle memory and you don't need to see what you are doing, it's all by feel. My stimming is a bit destructive and I have carpal tunnel from it, so I need to find something to destructive me from my bad stimming.
Oh yes, needlework is so calming! I embroider compulsively. I'm not kidding when I say that I'm actually designing an entire damn tapestry, because I want to stitch it all!
@angelawossname yes! I crocheted like a fiend for many years. Whenever I was stressed, it was like a lifeline.
I loved watching you fidget with that cube during the whole video. I was a fidgeter in school back in the 60s, undiagnosed as autistic back then. My teacher dealt with it by tying my hands together!
Me too I pace a lot. When stressed or excited or just thinking, it feels good to b moving, helps the mind it feels like. I hate to have to stay still while on the phone, always pace
I am such a pacer.. yet I have to be energy conservative at times because my spoons get real empty due to fibromyalgia.
@@SunshineGrove04 o no that sucks, my sister has it too
@@heedmydemands 😞 not easy GI see you sibling in such dire need.
For me I pace on personal cellphone calls only, as I had a landline at work and it makes t tricky to pace....so I doodle instead.
Always on the phone, I can't help it. Hubby does it, not just when he's on the phone, too.
The answers to why I’ve been so weird all my life and feeling like a foreigner keep coming with these kinds of videos.
Once my boys were diagnosed, and after checking most of the boxes during their assessments, I knew I probably have ASD and ADHD. But only now have I dove in to better understand myself.
Such a relief to have answers to many of my behaviors.
Im having similar discoveries.
I now am convinced that my mom is autistic and untreated her entire life. She excuses her behaviors and irrational thoughts/actions (different condition) away as “that’s just who I am” or “other people have it harder so I try to not get so depressed”……and then my dad just has this ancient view of mental health as something that only “crazy” people seek out-and in his mind the treatment is shock therapy. So I am coming to terms with the fact that my parents were NOT addressing mental health issues, that I grew up with multiple issues that were never addressed, and that it’s no shocker to me now, why my life has been kind of a flop-even though I’m pretty smart. My mind can just simply not organize itself well enough to understand and complete tasks like other people seem to do easily.
Dancing!! Dancing is one of my favorite ways yo stim! Ot helps me get my energy out when I'm feeling hyper, it gets the anxiety out when I'm overwhelmed, and it makes me happy when I'm sad. I love to put my headphones on and put my thumbs up playlist on shuffle and let the music guide me. 🥰🎧🎶
This word, "stimming," is less than a week old for me.
I have suspected for well over a decade that I might be a bit autistic. This awareness came after attending one of Temple Grandin's talks while living in Fort Collins. Everything she said deeply resonated with me. I felt conflicted about that because I was made fun of for being different, slower, shy, and in my head.
No one cared when i voiced this observation, not even my best friend at the time who worked with autistic adults.
I was actually accused of wanting to be autistic because it was suddenly cool. It wasn't.
I was tormented as a kid by other kids who relentlessly called me a retard. They called out on all of these stimming activities you mentioned as proof of my retaredness. I was even in special Ed for speech therapy. It was awful. I wanted so badly to be normal and likable. I was forced to stop behaviors and learn new ones in order to be more normal. Even then, I could never pass. I was just a fake.
In high school. I had to make drastic changes to my social life. Only then, did I begin to pass as normal. Until I had to jump.states and live with my dad. Then all the social awkwardness returned until I could figure out the masking thing all over again.
I am fifty-two now, and I live alone. Since being on my own, many behaviors I had growing up have begun to return. Things I felt super self-conscious about. Most of these are in your top ten. I had forgotten about some of them, like running the ends of my hair across my face. As soon as you said this, I did it. And it felt SO GOOD. Which reminded me of something else I used to do all the time. Paint my nails. I learned to paint my nails for the love of color, like a normal person. What I actually loved, however, was the way those painted nails felt when dragging them across my lips. It was so calming. I want to go out and buy some clear polish now.
Something I haven't told anyone in a very long time was something I do in my head in the car. My one and only confession left me feeling exceptionally stupid, and so I have kept it to myself. In order to make drives feel shorter, I would count all of the metal posts along the sides of the road. In addition to that, I would also fold and squeeze my toes while squeezing my fingertips together as we passed each one of these posts. I also did it with divided lines between lanes. If I missed one, I would actually feel anxious. I actually still do this when I am a passenger.
Sometimes, I will even count them.
As a kid, we would watch trains pass through town and count the cars. I still do this, especially if they are long and I am trying to get somewhere. It helps me not stress over time. It puts me in a bit of a trance. I don't know if this is normal or not. I have never asked anyone.
Anyway, thank you for this video. It has helped me to remember a lot of the things that were beaten or bullied out of me when I was young. Now that I don't care so much about fitting in anymore, many of these things you mentioned are making their way back. I don't feel the need to hide them.
Thank you for sharing. I want to meet Temple. Do you like Fort Collins. I always knew I was different but learned to mask really young. ❤
@dorothythornton4993 she is fascinating and so easy to listen to. The talk I saw focused mainly on how autistic children learn. I never related so well. After failing to get through to my best friend, I stopped talking about it for a good ten years.
I do not live in Fort Collins anymore. I haven't kept up with her, so i'm not sure if she is still there. I left in 2013, but it's a great little town. I've heard it's not so little anymore. Still, I would highly recommend a visit.
When I get anxious while driving, I count traffic lights and the seconds between them turning from red to green. I do a lot of toe scrunching and playing with the button on the parking brake, or even just wiggling the gear shift while in neutral.
I also masked a lot in high school and as an adult out in public. I allowed myself to quit doing that after having my child at 34 years old. I was exhausted and overwhelmed and it wasn’t worth it to me anymore. However, I did not seriously consider anything different about myself until I was 38. I was 39 when I was assessed by a counseling service as having ADHD. And now at 40 I’m realizing I have always had very autistic traits. I have no idea where or how to be evaluated for that. I just know that most of my life I have lacked the tools to effectively cope with who I am. But now that I know, maybe that can change.
Not caring about what others think about the things that make us peculiar is a good things, as long as we aren’t harming ourselves or others. We deserve to live authentically too.
@@Slayyyzian we do! And I can't believe you do some of the same things I do. I always thought I was the only one and felt like such an odd ball.
I masked a lot in high school. If anything showed up on the autistic spectrum, it likely got accused as being on drugs or being drunk. I went super wild in high school. It was the only way I thought I could handle my life and stop being seen as a freak or a reject. As an adult, the masking took on deeper layers.
I love not caring anymore.
I am sort of in the same situation, I am 48 now, but have always suspected I might be autistic all my life. And the more I learn about it, the more I do believe that and should be tested for it. It’s very hard to be tested in the city I live in.
I live alone now too, for the first time in my life. And I think it is just the first time I have ever felt free to be my unusual self, maybe.
I most definitely have always had sensory processing disorder. I think I have always known this, even prior to knowing what it is. I just always knew that the world is too loud, and things smell too strongly, and my clothing feels odd on my skin. I started to listen to music in public anytime I was in public, back in the 80s with a Walkman, then with an iPod, then with an iPhone.
I tap my feet to calm myself but I do it as if I’m playing a kick drum, with the heels part. I count things like you do, just different things. But I have counted train cars before too, I used to live right by the train tracks. If a train was blocking the street and we had to wait, I’d count the train cars otherwise I’d freak out.
I have a very difficult time with people or things getting in my way, wasting my time, holding me up on time.
I have a very specific way of doing things within my own apartment, that I was never free to do living with others before. It’s very free to be able to be unusual by myself.
I also run the ends of my hair over my skin, and I also run the tips of my fingers over the insides of my arms. I used to do this in school. As a child once, another person in my classroom asked me why once and I told her, try it it feels good. And she tried it and told me it tickles too much for her. But I was never really questioned too often about weird behavior in my childhood. Not by other children, or my parents, who knew I was strange, but they were too. My mother had agoraphobia, and hoarding disorder, my father was extremely social but accepted that my mother didn’t want to be social with him. My grandmother had OCD. It was after I became an adult that I felt judged. I feel much less judged today, living by myself. Even if I find a new relationship I might want to just keep living separately. I like the privacy, I like being able to control my environments sound and temperatures. I like being able to just sit and rock back and forth without anyone asking me if something’s wrong. I understand what you are saying here.
My favorite vocal stim is repeating "okay, alright" over and over and over. I've been made fun of and a lot of people don't understand. But there's something about repeating those two words, especially when I'm anxious, that helps me. It feels like playing catch with myself. Passing the words back and forth with myself. It may not make sense to others, but but makes me feel good
Omigosh. I do this too, though usually not repeated back to back. Maybe one round of "ok, alright"... Almost as a reset when I'm trying to focus, or when one task at work is complete and I move to the next. Or when I'm really tired and I'm trying to make myself keep going. But I do it so much it bothers me, (so if someone is around me, I'll tell them that I'm telling myself "ok", not them). I supervise at work, so I still mask a lot too, and try to let them know I'm not saying the tired or impatient ok to them. It's to myself to keep moving.
When I was a teen I said "Like" a lot. It took so long to root it out of my speech. But I guess I still say, ok and alright a lot throughout my day.
OH MY GOD. I have so many phrases that I've just sort of accumulated over the years from shows and stuff that I just keep repeating and repeating, over and over again... the big one for me at the moment is just the phrase "Spongebob Patrick!" My friend of a friend keeps telling me to STFU when I say it lmao
@@Meebkin_Ur_bestieI call them my pop culture phrases, from movies and commercials! It's a huge part of me. 😂
@@zombiiesque most of mine are from Spongebob or other random shows/fandoms/videos I've seen over the years!
@@Meebkin_Ur_bestie yes!
I rock all the time. It gets more intense when my emotions are high. It was the first sign that made me really think about the possibility of my autism.
Anyone else use crocheting as a stim? I find that crochet when overwhelmed or anxious along with rocking and humming at the same time lol helps alot. I really enjoy counting and numbers but I am horrible at math and still count on my fingers
Sounds nice. :) Sewing and humming it is here or counting things around like the books in a bookshelf or so… I just wondered the other day if I only was told that I was not smart enough for mathematics and if I could start again to learn to like/ to use it in a relaxed way…
Me too!
I use embroidery!
Yes yes yes! Crochet is an amazing way to channel my nervous energy. It was very difficult for me to learn, though. My autistic traits make it very difficult for me to watch someone perform a task and be able to replicate it.
Me too
It made me happy to hear you talk about getting your hair cut and what an uncomfortable experience it can be. I've never understood why I don't like getting my hair cut. I have long hair not so much because I like it long, but because I don't like to get it cut. I had no idea this was a common thing for autistic people. I've only recently realized I'm probably autistic and this is just one more reason to think I'm right. I have an assessment scheduled for next week but I'm already pretty sure of what the results will be.
wow...your description of echolalia is unlike any I have ever heard. A huge chunk of my mental health history just fell into place. Something that was once classified as OCD was almost certainly a stim...wow....thank you so much for sharing
Iridescent, luminescent, phosphorescent...always love the sound and feel of these words.
I'm glad you mentioned scratching. I scratch a lot, usually my hands and arms. I may be itchy, I may not.
i absolutely love ❤️ you-made me realise i'm not the only full grown person with theses kinda stims--i actually have physical pain if someone keeps complaining about my stimming and i try to stop it
my mom tells me to get out in the garden when i pace-she says it makes her feel sick
I love the exaggerated, scripted joke at the beginning. It made my day.
I subscribed because of it... I need more of the funny in my life.
Me, too!
Pressure: scrunching toes, squeezing finger tips, big solid hugs, etc.
Dang I was literally scrunching my toes as I read this and stopped😅😅
scrunch my toes too and grind my teeth when I am stimming
Omg yes everything but physical touch. I don’t like physical touch. If it’s a romantic partner I can only do it in 10/15 min sessions because I need to feel separate. Idk idk that’s just me
@@ctsmith1388 I crave physical touch, but only in the big pressure ways. Small tickling and such puts me on edge.
I specifically clicked on this video to see if this was considered stimming. I’m always pressing my feet against something
My gf and I have watched multiple videos and we just wanted that cube so much, we came to this video because we knew would get the details! We would just watch a whole video of cubes moving around.
This makes me feel so lucky to have a partner whose stims bounce off mine really well, we sing back and forth all day long 😅 or if I'm singing he'll add a beat and vice versa. We also have a chair we spin each other round on!
I truly hope my daughter will find someone to share her life with in the same way.❤
Thank you for your lovely comment! ☺️ The good news is: us neurospicy folk tend to gravitate towards each other so it's quite likely your daughter will find relationships/friendships with people who 'get it'. Out of all my friends, I'd say over 75% have ADHD or autism (or both) and nearly every single one of these people in a long-term relationship has a neurodivergent partner! And in most cases, we were diagnosed later in life so it's not like we were actively looking for others with the same thing, we just attract similar people. (My partner wasn't diagnosed until about 2 years of us being together, and we were like 'that makes so much sense!' Haha)
The thing that helped me the most in making connections with others was to stop masking and just be myself. I do get odd reactions occasionally, but it filters out a lot of people and leaves me with the ones who accept my quirks
Anyway, all the best to you and your daughter! It's amazing you're watching videos like this, great mama ❤️
That’s so incredibly cute omg 😭❤
❤❤❤❤❤
I find myself rocking back n forth sometimes too but I cant pinpoint what brings it on. I feel very peaceful though.
I rock back and forth and if I’m standing I rock from foot to foot. I love to rock
It's calming for me! My husband is neurospicy, too, and he's definitely a rocker. You mentioned doing it while standing, and we have a huge tree just outside our door. There's a big chunk of root sticking up from the ground, and he will rock one foot on it and then switch. He does it a lot
My 3 known stims - you've given me a lot to think about my behavior with this vid though - are singing, scratching, and finding and fixing patterns in data(which I do at work, which is why I LOOOOVE my job). Pay me to stim for 8 hours, with benefits? And they wondered why I was happy to do so much OT I was working 80 hour weeks before I got sick. It was glorious while it lasted. I could afford to pay others to cook my meals and clean my apartment and laundry and lived an 8 minute indoor walk from my work. Wake up for a 5 min shower and dress - eat breaky at my desk so prepping to leave took me literally 10 minutes so I would be AT work 18 minutes after waking up, 12 hour days every weekday and then 2 hours less each weekend day so I could spend time playing video games with my autistic friends. Heaven on earth.
I used to LOVE tipping back in school desk chairs. Balancing the center of mass was so helpful for focusing in class.
Me too! But I always got in trouble for it 😂😂
Can't remember doing that in school, but at home in the kitchen. Probably the chair there was better for that. And there was wall right behind, so it wasn't too risky.
When i was a kid i would stare into the box fan for hours. I liked the sound, the feeling of the wind on my face, to try to keep my eye on the separate blades when they were spinning too fast. Turn it off and start again. Sometimes i would get into removing the dust from each rectangle in the screen of the fan.
Sorting. I buy mixed bags of tiny beads just to sort them into their different colours. Its so soothing.
I play Spider Solitaire because of sorting the 4 suits and reordering them from high to low is soothing and apparently I have been stimming this entire time and had no idea. Good job me, finding something that won't get me endlessly ridiculed!
I forgot about Spider Solitaire - that sounds really relaxing and I used to love that game! Will need to find it again
Omg, yess
I play it all the time to placate nerves and stress. @@ChrisandDebby
I play spider solitaire, but I'm not good enough to do 4 suits 😂
I can only do 2 haha
I am a sewist and I have old tins of used buttons, saved by folks who didn’t waste things (usually in the 1940’s and before). I love sorting the buttons, mostly by color but also material (metal, plastic, mother of pearl, glass, even WWII pressed paperboard). I have ADHD.
I think I’d love sticking my hand in a jar filled with different buttons. Have you ever tried that?
@@ChrisandDebby that does sound delightful. The buttons get kind of dusty, so they need to be rinsed and dried before they would feel good in a bin. They usually come in metal cookie tins. Sometimes they’re not deep enough to put a hand in really. And quite a few of them will be sets of buttons from maybe a discarded shirt or something. It was common practice to take those matching buttons and string them together with thread in a loop so you would know you had six of the same thing. That wouldn’t have the yummy feeling your imagining. I would have to take all those strings out. But I have I think three button so if I was willing to unsort them and put them in a nice glass jar, after rinsing them, I think it would feel really good. Older buttons have more weight to them than the modern plastic ones. That would even feel better. Imagine shell and smooth glass.
@@ChrisandDebby if you are interested in pursuing this idea, try some estate sales and look for sewing supplies. Either that or go to antique stores where they have purchased essentially the remnants of estate sales. Lots of times they have sewing stuff tucked away because they’re not fast sellers.
@@ColorJoyLynnHI have saved buttons for decades. But I keep them in old pill bottles, sorted by color and size. Except for the weird ones. They all live together in one jelly jar.
We don’t have these kind of options in Taipei.😫
I’m a back scratcher and a huge hummer and singer 😅 always have my arm wrapped over my chest whilst seated just scratching away at my back. RELAXING. love being in water too and wash my hands far too often because it feels nice. Just get lost in thought 🧼 all the love to my fellow NDs x
Me too with handflapping with excitement. When I got bafly teased for it as a teen, I learned to stop it.
It feels so embarrassing when you get caught lol like I can never be comfortable when someone’s watching
I love your sense of humour 😂
For me, I knit a lot to keep my hands busy. I used to pick at my nails and the skin around them. I'm a finger tapper too.
I roll my thumbs a lot when I'm reading and don't need to hold the book.
I also bite my cheek too much when I'm concentrating, and it really annoys me when I realise I'm doing it.
Lights bring me so much comfort and I have loads in my room.
I had one of those sand pictures in my youth and recently saw one in a shop. It came home with me and I can't stop watching it. I'm always playing with and watching my daughter's bubble/gel toy, like the one you mentioned.
When I'm reading I often stroke my nose and I find that wonderfully soothing. I've done it for years now.
I love sitting on a swing and let it gently rock. I used to sit for hours on the one I had as a child.
It's so nice to be able to say that these things I do are stimming and are perfectly normal now. I used to do other things, like hand flapping, but had a parent 'correct' me (I was slapped when I did it) in that activity at a very early age. Most of the things I did were seen as bad habits and I was regularly shamed for them. Now I know that even though they may be bad habits, they may also be because I was trying to self regulate in a world that I didn't understand.
Thank you for doing your videos, they bring me so much pleasure xx
love these rich, informational and authentic videos man. thanks for making them so openly :)
The merry go round was my favorite playground item. I’d almost always be on that or the rocking animals that some playgrounds had. I think it was me trying to get more spinning and rocking in in a socially acceptable method.
I was known for spinning the tire swing the fastest. As a kid I'd get in the middle part, someone else would sit with just their legs in the middle and I'd spin them. There was usually a line of kids waiting for me to spin them at recess.
I would spin on the swings to get the chain to twine together - then as fast as I could pull them apart to get a speed spin.
I tap or bounce my foot or leg. All The Time. Once when I lived in an apartment on the third floor, my downstairs neighbor came up and knocked on my door and asked what all the pounding was. He said a photo fell off the wall downstairs! I was shocked. I had no idea it was making the apartment below vibrate like that. I made up some lame excuse and got rid of the neighbor and then was soooo embarrassed. I was also really stressed and wanted to go back to this stim, but I didn't dare!
I twirl my pen or pencil a lot and have several fidget toys. My favorite stim is rubbing a certain kind of vintage blanket binding between my fingers, right along the edge. Sweet relief, and great while driving.
it can also be just "restless legs syndrom" which can maybe be reduced with some magnesium supplements.
My baby basinette was fitted with yellow satin bedding. The fitted sheet was satin, the little pillow and the comforter all satin. I started constantly pulling the satin between my index and middle finger. When I outgrew the basinette my mom always made sure I had a blanket with satin edges on it. By 3 I could do it with one hand and every morning my little hand would race back and forth across the edge of my blanket. Then by 5 my toes got involved in the fun too. I just absolutely adore the sensation of satin between my fingers and toes. I like how it quickly becomes cold to the touch again. I'm 41 now and can't imagine trying to get to sleep without a blanket with satin edges.
@@assimilateborg It's not, though I do take magnesium anyway. This has been since I was very young. I'm nearly 60 now.
I just bumped into this video and just wanted to say, 'I LOVE YOU GUYS!'. Thank you for making these videos! I am learning so much and appreciate you two!
Thanks for this and for being here!! ❤️❤️❤️
I’m not diagnosed but my psycoligist (is that what it’s called) said that i show symptoms of autism. I do a lot of rocking, spinning, humming, rubbing, skratching, fidjeting and i also love tapping my feet/toes, i always try to walk on the beat if i'm listening to musik.
I like walking to the beat of music and get really frustrated when the beat is too slow. I will spend hours trying to find the perfect walking music.
Ooooh the beat to music walking is SO relatable. I use to listed to Bynn the Breaker from the Bastion soundtrack bevause the Cello was perfect walking pace. Just turn it on loop and I can walk for miles.
Hiya! Just wanted to say, using terms like symptoms of autism kind of makes it sound like a disease, usually its best to say sm like autistic traits :) /lh
@@kailuvkats thanks for pointing this out. My first language isn’t english and we say syptoms so i just translated it 😅. But thanx for letting me know 👍
@@FindusSliceOfLife no problem! :)
too shy shy, hush hush, eye to eye....got that song in my head now
Ahh! I love that song 🤣 I'm so thankful to Sims 2 for exposing me to it lol.
That was the first thing that came to mind for me when he started repeating that - it's now stuck in my head also!! 🤣
LOL .....I coined the term "lyricette's". Like Tourette's it's the involuntary use of lyrics in connection with what is currently happening to or around you. It can seemingly be contagious.
@@caprimungeam662 i am constantly blurting out lyrics, mostly dont even notice I'm doing it
YES! My brain finds a song lyric or movie quote for a hundred things each day. My high masking means that I only speak it aloud twice a day.
I read that listening to the same song over and over is a stimming technique, and boy do I do that a lot! Also tongue-clicking, nail-biting, hair-twirling, whatever didn’t get on anyone’s nerves and I could hide easily
Whenever I have been super distressed to the point of too overwhelmed, I scratch my arms until they leave red marks cuz the bloodflow warms your arms up and that is soothing to me. To replicate this in a calmer and safer headspace, I would just make a cup of cocoa and then hold the mug, then press my warm palms against my arms and it helps soothe me in a safer way
When I was in primary school (in England) I went to a planetarium where there are stars 360° above your head. I didn't like it and I cried. Now I love anything visually stimulating my favourite is rain falling on the floor or in puddles and the ripples it makes
I heard that autistic people don't like to be told what to do. After I got my diagnoses, I started trying to rationalize things, like "why are you so mad at your mom asking if you got your keys if you're leaving and you don't have them on you?". I think I feel mad at myself but project it on her. Just a theory, but doing all this helps.
I love the night sky but also am very prone to motion sickness (thankfully just feeling yucky and not actually getting sick) so the planetarium with all the stuff moving around on the ceiling was hard for me.
I use music to calm me down, I have a play list of music that makes me feel calm, and there's one particular song that feels like an aural weighted blanket. I didn't even realise it was a form of stimming till you mentioned watching the glitter in your bathbombs...that's how that song makes me feel!
I have a piece of satin that I always have with me. When I was little, I had the blanket with the satin edges. I self soothed then and now. I have it wth me when I go to bed as well. I carry some in my pockets as it's easy to slip my hands in a pocket while I'm a car, bus etc. and grab my satin and feel it and nobody knows. I just subscribed to you. You made my day! ❤
for me it's two silver half-dollars, nice and round and smooth but texture and i'lll hold them in one hand and spread them apart like a book and then close them back together and the sound of silver coins clinking is just mmmmmmmmm
I remember the blankets with the satin edges! Haven't seen one for a long while. Cold satin feels really nice. Oooh, that just reminded me how when I was little, I had a blankie with a thin piece of lace around the edges, and I would rub the lace edge on my thumb knuckle to the point where I'd get blisters and sometimes they bled if I didn't let them heal enough. I think I'd alternate hands so they both wouldn't have blisters. This was late '70's/early 80's when a lot less was known about ND - they just called me "hyper" and "nuts" and eventually, "gifted". Didn't get diagnosed with ADD until a few years ago, in my 40's. I sometimes wonder what life would be like if I had been born a few decades later and gotten evaluated and treated at an earlier age.
I have one too...! Silky edge of blankets . I go all sleepy when I have mine. Had since a baby and im almost 49 now. My.mum tries to pinch it to wash it, if she gets a chance😅😅
I also have a silky edge blanket. When I was little, my granny made me a small piece of silk on a cotton backing to carry with me bc it was easier than carrying my whole blanket.
Love this video. Here’s a whole list:
Visual stims: bird watching, paint mixing videos, looking at hour glasses
Tactical stims: pop-its, roller ball, gooey putties, tapping my fingers against each other, petting my cats, playing with sand - especially colorful sand, deep pressure hugs, swaying side to side. Interestingly swaying back and forth helps when I’m anxious, but side to side is the fun kind for me
Oral stims: crunchy snacks, spicy food, sour candy occasionally
Audio stims: thunderstorms, wooden soup videos (it sounds weird but look it up!!), same songs
Ugh there’s so many. Thank you for that question. This was fun
OMG 13 seconds into a wooden soup video, my shoulders relaxed & my breath deepened. THANK YOU for that! (ps, I also stopped rocking)
Moving at my glitter-y polished nails and watching the colors refract light ✨✨✨ Love a glitter manicure to distract from everyday stress 💕💕
Leg bouncing, fidgeting, and singing are probably my top stims. When I’m at home, a good rocking motion is very satisfying. 🙌🏻
I chewed through so many pens/hard plastics up until my mid 20s. I still allow myself the pleasure of chewing a plastic clothing tag from time to time. You have no idea how soothing it is.
As someone with self-diagnosed asd, my biggest stimming method is biting my nails. Everyone that doesn't know me much tells me I should have grown out of it by now, but every time I'm bored, in a stressful situation, or just generally want to, I bite my nails. I have been doing it forever and don't plan to stop.
I've been doing it for 39 years and stopped for the person I cared about. Now I always have a small nail file near me (Victorinox Classic). So as soon as I feel some notch or uneven length I can file them, before they got destroyed.
just be careful not to break skin, cuz that introduces the risk of infection (especially because mouths are NOT clean)
I bite the inside of my cheeks. Wrecked my teeth.
If I’m waiting for someone I repeatedly count to 10 in my head (sometimes backwards). Certain songs I can listen to on loop and get the same enjoyment every time. Some objects, like my coffee tamper, are just a really nice weight and it makes me feel calm when I hold them.
11:20 When he giggles and says "thank you so much, Debbie" it was just pure happy and love, delight in the small things.
EDIT: I do worry about the glitter putting microplastics into the water system.
There are dissolving glitters available, but I’ve only ever seen them in the more expensive bombs. The cheaper bombs definitely don’t use eco-friendly glitter 😢
Autistic stimming + non-autistic stimming ! So interesting to understand ! I believe i am a non-autistic adult who stims a lot (!!) due to : a predisposition to chronic muscle pain xx
I am pain free since i started to stim regularly + found the diet that works for me (removed my allergens + heal the gut.) + take magnesium and vit. Bs + yoga (gentle stretching) and nutritious movement.
I am looking forward to learn more about the other types of stimming! 😊
Thanks for sharing this - I also have a lot of muscle tension and pain and still am learning how to let myself stim more often. Your other points about figuring out how to help gut health is something in the middle of now too. Already going (mostly) gluten free but figuring out what works is taking some time. Appreciate your ideas!
@@ChrisandDebby I have less muscle pain, and better digestion, if I eat less sugar (processed/ refined)- or things that act like sugar in the body (fermentables, including gluten). Fresh fruit bowl is OK (couple times weekly), with lots of plain yogurt and protein (like nuts). More protein rich snacks (pickled hard boiled eggs; celery/ carrot sticks/ apple slices with almond butter; cheese sticks). More veggies/ fiber/ protein, and less carbs (chips/ crisps, cookies, etc), plus vinegary pickled veggies, helps balance my body. Hope it helps you too.
@@ChrisandDebbymagnesium at bedtime helps ppl sleep (most ppl are deficient in mg). I just got Kalvitamins that are separated into 2 bottles (1 for am & 1 for pm). After a bout with RMSF (rocky mtn spotted fever, tick borne illness tho I live in NY), I dove into special interests of vitamins & genetics, including an individual's ability to process folate & B12 (not all forms are readily processed in every person) with MTHFR (methyl-tetra-hydro-folate-reductase, an enzyme).. I can info dump on this. Look into your biological ability- it may help you discover some of your missing puzzle pieces. I am >1/2 century & recently inclined to believe I am AuDHD since relating to so many of your vids & commentors. Many ppl have an MTHFR genetic variant & among them, there are various symptoms just as Autistic ppl have various traits. It would be interesting if a study were done on folate intake, MTHFR & B12 abilities of participants & other dietary journaling. Journaling my food, drink & symptoms (serious neuropathy, exhaustion..) helped me navigate from being on disability for Lyme-Complex to restoring health to get back to work..
I sort of combine stims. Most days I wear a ring especially if I’m going out to do things that stress me. When I start to feel overwhelmed I will use my thumb to wiggle the ring and it makes me feel more grounded. If I’m wearing a ring with a sparkly gemstone I will get lost in just watching it sparkle as my thumb wiggles it. Without a ring my thumb just brushing back and forth where a ring usually is will help.
As a little girl I had hair long enough to sit on. Taking little bit of it and brushing my face or lips was a constant, as was putting it in my mouth and twirling it with my tongue. Right up until the moment a teacher said if I was going to “eat” in class I had to share it with everyone. You can imagine how horrific the thought of everyone crowding around and putting their mouths on my hair was. To this day the thought makes me gag. Never put it in my mouth again. Instead I twirled it on my finger…under the desk where no one could see!
I had a spinner ring for a wedding band at one time as did my wife but it drove her bat crazy cause I couldnt stop spinning it!
Oy, the "if you are going to eat it you have to share" brought up some *feelings.
I just finished telling my husband that I paint my face with my hair and that people would call me weird for it. Then he gave the example of his autistic friend doing the same thing and I was floored.
Love your teaching style.. very engaging and wonderful sense of humor. Re behavior.. from a body worker perspective.. we are energy, so those behaviors rocking, shaking hands, etc) are actually healthy natural responses..
When you shake your hands you are releasing energy. Rocking naturally calms the nervous system and comforts.. we just live in a repressed society that generally wants people to sit still, repress emotion and expression.
So thank you!