“Self-stimulatory behavior” or “stimming” is repetitive movements, anything from repeating a phrase aloud to tasting a certain flavor to repeating a song to stroking your hair. Stimming is often important to understand when writing autistic characters. Stimming is often important to understand when writing autistic characters. It’s very common among autistic people; it’s actually part of the diagnostic criteria, as one of the options in a category you need two out of four options of to meet.
A lot of articles will tell you what stimming is, and that it’s used to cope with or express emotion. However, they don’t tell you what stimming feels like, which is something that is important to learn if you’re writing from an autistic character’s point of view.
Also, you can learn about stereotypical stims like rocking and hand-flapping anywhere, but unfortunately not many other options. Though some real autistic people have those stims, they’re overused in fiction. So, you can’t just rely on these, especially if your character is high-masking, which I will get into later. But either way, you need to have a variety of stims to choose from.
So let me give you the inside scoop into what stimming is like in my life.
Before My Diagnosis
I wasn’t sure I was autistic before my diagnosis at age 22. In fact, until the few months before the appointment, I was pretty sure I wasn’t. Therefore, I didn’t recognize my stims. I thought I just played with my hands and hair out of anxiety or boredom because that’s what everyone did.
While part of this was how unaware I was, the other part was that my stims weren’t the more stereotypical stims because of how high-masking I was. Masking is when an autistic person “masks” or attempts to hide their autistic traits. It’s especially common in AFAB people because of how girls are socialized compared to boys—there’s more pressure to conform.
People who are high-masking often have smaller, more “socially-acceptable stims.” These are ones that won’t draw a lot of attention, as they are hidden, small and quiet, or just not that different from what allistic (non-autistic) people do. Some examples are wiggling your toes, tapping your fingers together, and braiding your hair.
Because I was high-masking, and I didn’t know to try to unmask, I didn’t do the bigger stims I could more easily recognize as stims.
After My Diagnosis
After I was diagnosed, however, I analyzed myself a lot. Along with trying to uncover my “true” stims, I figured out my common stims and common reasons I stim: anxiousness, boredom, or happiness.
Anxiousness:
I don’t typically stim when I’m dealing with acute anxiety disorder symptoms; in fact, if I’m terrified, all my stimming stops. However, I do stim when I’m nervous, most commonly about a social situation. I stim when I’m anxious by playing with my hands—popping my fingers, playing with an object like a rock, rubbing my fingernails with my fingers, and other similar behaviors. The point is these are small and contained, close to my body so I can shrink into myself.
I do my best not to stim when it has consequences (such as in a presentation), but sometimes I physically can’t stop myself from stimming in, say, a job interview, as they are just that nerve-wracking. When that happens, I do my best to stim where it wouldn’t be noticeable. Is hiding my stims optimal? No, but it is something I currently do because of my high social anxiety and my drive to get a job.
Anxious stimming, for me, helps me feel somewhat less anxious and more grounded, like the stimming is a tether I can cling onto for help. So that’s how my stims help me with anxiousness.
Boredom:
I get bored easily. Any time I’m just sitting listening to someone lecture on a topic, no matter how interesting the information, I am bored. I find myself getting the most bored in situations like classes or when listening to educational videos. If the class or video’s online, I can knit or play mindless apps on my phone to cope with the boredom, but if it’s in-person, particularly if I’m expected to look like I’m paying attention, I have to resort to stimming.
For me, bored stims are more “purpose-driven.” I braid my hair, which results in the end product of a braid. I pick at the acne on my face, which results in me no longer having acne on my face. I pop my fingers, which results in my accomplishing popping them. But I also engage in more “patterned” stims, like me tapping each finger on one hand on each finger on the other, or any of the stims already in the “anxiousness” category. Additionally, I occasionally sing parts of very specific songs to myself when driving, shopping, or baking alone—a more rote activity that doesn’t require listening.
Boredom stimming helps relieve my boredom, give me some mild entertainment. My college graduation ceremony was incredibly boring, but once I began braiding my hair, the relief was instant. I had found a way to entertain myself.
Happiness:
This is largely a more recent development. As I hinted at earlier, part of receiving your autism diagnosis and realizing all the ways you’ve been masking unintentionally is finding your “true stims,” the stims you’d have if you resisted the pressure to conform to allistic society. While I’m still pretty high-masking due to social anxiety, now that I’m in a better place mentally and have more time to myself, I’ve been uncovering more of my true, natural stims.
A couple I’ve recently begun doing are wiggling my toes and slapping my hands down on my desk several times in quick succession. I engage in these stims when something in real life is exciting me. Perhaps I just discovered something new to look forward to, or a friend messaged me something that made me really happy. These stims feel like an expression of my happiness, a way of celebrating it, while also keeping the emotion from becoming unbearably strong. They release the happiness a little. At this time, however, these stims I only feel comfortable doing when I’m by myself because I fear judgment from others.
The only happy stim I’ve had for a long time is pacing. Typically pacing while listening to music, I like to do it because it lets me experience my happy thoughts and memories more vividly. So, I typically initiate it when I have I daydream I want to focus on.
For me, different happy stims have different purposes.
As a final statement, autistic people don’t consciously choose their stims; their body simply tells them what it needs. And not stimming when they need to, not getting that soothing input, can cause distress. You should never try to stop an autistic person from stimming unless it’s harmful to them or someone else—if that’s the case, someone should work with them to replace the stim.
Stimming is an inherently helpful behavior; even if the person’s stims are “weird,” they should be accepted like everyone else.
Stimming is diverse. Every autistic person has different stims. As such, each of your autistic characters will have different stims.
It gives you more room to stretch your creativity, create something more than just the autistic stereotypes you see in media today.
I have an article all about autistic stereotypes here if you’d like to learn about them. And once you’ve written a concept or draft of your manuscript, I offer sensitivity reading services for autism, anxiety, OCD, and more; learn more here. Happy writing!
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