Eva Talks Autism: Stimming
Eva Sheils
I stim a lot. In fact, it is through stimming that I feel most connected to ‘my autism’. Although it is something that has taken a while to fully accept and embrace, it is something that I am working towards every day.
But what is stimming?
Stimming or ‘self-stimulating’ behaviour includes arm or hand flapping, finger-flicking, rocking, jumping… and complex body movements. This definition is lifted from the National Autistic Society in the UK, and unsurprisingly I have some issues with the examples they gave. Of course, stimming behaviours include the examples here, but body movements are not the only kind of stimming. Further, stimming behaviour is also fairly common in other neurodivergencies, but also in neurotypicals. But non-neurotypicals have far less control over it.
I would argue that stimming comes in many different categories - yes there are the body movements (known as vestibular or proprioceptive), but stimming can also be;
Olfactory
Visual
Verbal
Tactile
Auditory
Oral
Autistics may seek out sensory information from these categories in order to stim. Some brief examples would be; playing the same song on repeat for hours, repeating words or phrases they hear (echolalia), rubbing hands together, cracking knuckles, tracing fingertips on different surfaces, intensely watching moving objects or coloured lighting, and seeking out a certain flavour or substance.
These behaviours are (usually) a safe way for an autistic person to regulate in situations that may be overwhelming. Shortly after self-identifying as autistic I did struggle with stimming. Firstly, I believed there was a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ way to do it. In part, I believed that I was only beginning to exhibit these behaviours because I thought it was something that autistic people did, and therefore felt some guilt about it and even at times questioned if I was faking it. I know now that a lot of this feeling was because I had actually suppressed my stimming behaviours as a child, so much so that beginning to allow it felt like losing control of my surroundings.
Secondly, stimming is more often done when an autistic person is feeling distressed, even just slightly. However, it can happen in any situation that creates overwhelm, even positive situations. For me, while working through stimming and getting more comfortable doing it, I found that because it is more often used in situations of distress, any time I caught myself stimming without realising I believed something was wrong, either with me or the environment. I was also hyper-aware of how it looked to other people, and I still supressed it heavily, which just makes the need to stim more intense. I use the word ‘need’ here very intentionally, as for many autistic people, it is not something we like or want to do but it is a need.
Therefore, it took a lot of time and energy to trust my body enough to recognise which stimming meant ‘you’re in a stressful situation, leave’, which allowed me to exist in a situation with more ease, and which stimming was ‘happy stimming’. In the beginning of this process, I operated under the thinking that all stimming equalled ‘you’re in a stressful situation, leave’. But happy emotions also result in stimming, and the way I express joy when I am ‘happy stimming’ has become one of my favourite things about being autistic.
Stimming in general has allowed me to have a greater connection to my body, as I now no longer suppress what it wants to do like I did as a kid; instead I listen to what my body is communicating. It also means that those close to me are also more aware of my internal world. When in especially stressful situations, I may go semi-verbal or non-verbal in short bursts. My family’s ability to read my stimming cues can mean that the situation is addressed without me necessarily having to say anything about it.
I have also reached a point where when I realise strangers don’t really attune to my stimming and even if they do, I don’t care about what they’d think. Why should it bother them. Stimming is for me and stimming is good.
Eva Sheils is a Health & Lifestyle columnist at The Scoop and an MA Film student at Queen’s University Belfast