Today is the last day to get your snail membership badge (but if you're just a tiny bit late, it's fine, you can still have one!): www.patreon.com/imautisticnowwhat 🐌 If you want to learn more about the Patreon community, I have a video tour! 🐌: ruclips.net/video/ClgG_9J9cTE/видео.html At what age did you start to edit, or try to stop, your stimming? My patrons enabled me to post an extra ‘secret’ video this week 💛 Here’s the link if you missed it: ruclips.net/video/7WkRHnYuY3A/видео.html And if you missed my video on monotropism (the ONLY theory of autism I actually like): ruclips.net/video/3mBbOOzhoGQ/видео.html Whether you’re a patron or not, thank you so much for your support. I love doing this so much and I really hope it's useful.
This is gonna sound funny (hopefully), but as much I'd love to join on patreon, my OCD makes it hard for me to sign up to new accounts. Otherwise I'd be all over that snail. It's so cute. Love your vids, this one was kinda new thinking for me. I definitely fall into the high anxiety, masking category
When I was a child, I probably knew how to stim, but I stopped and forgot. I was bullied in school a lot, which shouldn't come as a surprise. When I went to seventh grade (and different school) I made a conscious decision to not be a target anymore, and that is probably when I stopped stimming at the latest. That's when my mental health decline started, and it culminated about five years later when I hit autistic burnout and stayed home (and mostly in bed) for a week straight. All of this was over 20 years ago, and only this year I've found out why and how I'm different. I'm still pursuing an official diagnosis. I've been learning to stim again, trying different toys, and collecting nice textures, visuals, sounds, and smells (by the way, freshly ground coffee beans smell amazing, and I don't even drink coffee). I still have no idea how I stimmed as a child.
❤all black or white sheep who read my words will receive Jesus healing all old aches and pains will be washed away.an level 1 that is always at 11 07 eastren an 23 seconds because I like Michael Jordan. level 1 is a gift can't be taken away. all the other levels an gifts can 10 levels an 40 gifts in all.level 10 projecting thought an memory
I'm a twin to a sister and she doesn't believe that I ever had any disabilities and she use to say she thought that I might be artistic and this year I was tested for autism and Asperger's and I just had a hard time remembering the word Aspergers it is something that happens to me all the time when I am talking about something and then who ever I am talking with will either start talking about something different or I have had the person say they had to go. I normally feel like there's something really wrong with me and everyone thinks I'm doing that on purpose to get attention like my twin says, there are a number of things that I have noticed but forget really quickly what just happened and I don't know how to remember that things happened but yes I am remembering right now but the thing is if I get nervous and stressed out about whatever is happening to much is going on I start to forget what I was talking about. The same thing happens when I have been at work and I try hind what is happening by staying by myself so no one knows that I'm struggling. I have tried to keep it all under control but it always happens where someone comes up to me and says ( I can't put my finger on what is wrong with you. My response is there's nothing wrong, I'm just like you and I walk away and then they have a weird look on there face and squinting saying I'll find out. I'm like why is it your business to figure out something. I'm doing my work and I m not bother you so just leave me alone. My twin sister thinks that the teachers and our mom told me a lie about myself and I went with it when she has tried even a couple months ago that it was all a lie,...that I was the problem and a burden to our family. She not the only family members that said that and worse to me. She said something very scary to me that she said to our older sister and she started crying and hyperventilating too like I was when I was at her house. I don't understand why she's so hurtful and its painful because I love her..she's my fraternal twin and we have similar feelings and we sound exactly alike..we have the same voice and it sometimes scares me because I sound just like her. I use to dream that we loved each other so much no matter what and nothing would ever stop our love for each other. I dream a silly dream that we were skipping down the street singing our favorite song and dancing a little bit and holding each other hands. We didn't care that we loved different things we just love each other.. I love that she has a love for horses and other animals and would do anything for the wild animals in the world, taking care of a turtle that was hit by a car she found the wild life veterinarian. And she has said she didn't like to be around people which made me think maybe she was more like me too. Maybe she had Asperger's. I'm not sure but I'm do know that it takes me so long to doing everything and sometimes I give up on finishing cleaning or doing something that I need to do like making dinner or breakfast or lunch. I struggle with thinking about what I'm supposed to do everyday so that's aggravating for me. I just wish I had tricks to fix and make my life easier.
The way I describe it, stimming is like a cat purring. It's done for comfort when in pain, but also as a show of comfort when not in pain. Trying to stop a cat from purring means you're either telling it to not show how comfy and happy it is, or telling it to stop comforting itself when it doesn't feel well.
I work at a school for autistic children and most of my stimming is head and hand movement. I caught a couple of my coworkers laughing pointing when I started stimming during a meeting where I couldn’t move around and had to be quiet. You’d think that people that work with kids that have autism wouldn’t make fun of stimming. When I called them out and told them I’m autistic they understood, but they said, “ oh I thought that’s just how you were”. Yeah, of course that’s just how I am, I’m autistic.
It's shocking and kind of amazing how domain specific people's understanding and empathy can be. Rather than thinking "some people have autism and they work differently but deserve the same respect as everyone else" they only understand it in terms of the children they teach and specifically the ones they "know" are autistic. Otherwise they apply "normal" rules and immediately ridicule someone who acts different. It's quite sad.
@@triciad4100 tbf if everyone else is doing it you have no choice so whether you like it or not you will do it thats pretty much all there is to neurotypical behaviour tbh not some desire to do illogical stuff we just stop caring
Either I'm not actually autistic or I don't think your statement is true. Thing is, I was diagnosed so that doesn't sound right. Or maybe my autism makes me wanna be HYPER correct when playing with toys. Or maybe I'm misremembering something. OR maybe adult life hit me and now I'm scared. Okay wow, this is a lot.
I remembered my sister flapping, and no one said anything. Every time I did it, my father would call me girl or say homophobic slurs to me. He thought it wasn't "manly". I was 3 or 4 and had no idea what a lot of what he said even meant. But in many other ways my sister was pushed harder than me to be "normal".
Having your dad call you homophobic slurs at 3 is actually insane 💀 reminds me of that Jehovah’s Witness propaganda video where babies were referred to as little “enemies of God” 😂
@lif6737 yet again its men that are suffering and women that get a free pass to do whatever they want, it fills me with so much hatred i cant even function, seriously there is a big problem with men who have autism being ignored and hated, and we need to fix it by any means necessary. every single time i read about both genders having uphill battles i just want to hurt myself.
@@mpo48👀 Dude, my problems were ignored so long, I only got the official diagnosis at 33 years of age. And my symptoms and behaviour were exactly like that of the most common ADHD Boy, right from an age before I could talk. I'm a female. My life could've been so much easier if I had been a boy, because if I was, my symptoms wouldn't have been ignored and I could've gotten help as a child. Also, try being an autistic girl who isn't conventionally attractive and has poor social skills. I can guarantee an ugly boy with my social skills would still have some friends, or at least buddies. Reality is, that men get better healthy care, because historically, it's men who have been allowed education and chance to study medicine and themselves. There is simply more information on men, because men have been interested in studying men. Only now that female doctors are starting to become more common, we get equal amount of men and females in study groups. Did you know that study about "flight or fight" response had no women on it. Yet every study relying on that consept applied it to women. Only now, in tests with women involved, we know there is also a fear response "fawn", which causes a victim to take care of the one they fear, instead of fighting or running from them. So many women in abusive relationships acted to to protect their abusers, and we had no idea why. Life for everyone is hard. But if you are an ugly man, your chances are still better than ugly woman’s. Certain r@pists go for ugly women precisely because they know ugly women are less likely to be believed, since they are unattractive. So ugliness doesn’t even protect a woman from that. Only makes it really hard to get a job anywhere.
@@puppydogs68I'll do you one better. As a former JW I essentially grew up being taught how Jesus Christ was the perfect masculine role model- which, on one hand, is a decent argument against toxic masculinity actually, but on the other... big shock, it was twisted into "please be a perfect 1950s sitcom family or literally everyone will start gossiping". Everyone had a very fake-nice shell and the sheer fear of anything vaguely "feminine" was communicated in ways just obvious enough to pick up on. By the time I was 12 I hated that I was supposed to be "like Jesus".
It is a real complex subjet. Im thinking in my boy with autism and he is reallly big man now (23 years) and ABA is a real usefull weapon for me in order to protect him against other people. I mean if my son has a stim and he does really vigorous movements ... he may scare people and people you know can interpret this as violence. So in order to protect him from that situation i teached him to not stim out of home.
@@margilvi5890 That's definitely not the right lesson. The right lesson is to use a stim that's less threatening. The need doesn't go away just because he's in public, he probably needs it more. This kind of thing is why so many autistic people are blanket against ABA.
@@margilvi5890 A lot of us neurodivergents can’t regulate our emotions the same way that neurotypicals do. Stimming is how we do that. If we’re not allowed to, then we end up with poor mental states. So, even if you really are just trying to protect your son, by teaching him to only stim at home, you’re doing him more harm than. Teach him to stim in ways that don’t make him come across as a violent person otherwise you’ll just continue hurting him.
Oh yes, flapping hands when you're happy. I masked quite a lot until I got together with my ADHD girlfriend. The only person I feel comfortable around unmasking. When I first started learning about Autism, I thought that I don't flap my hands. But turns out, I do this when I am happy so my girlfriend started calling it "happy flappy" which I find very cute
Funnily enough, I stared being more comfortable stimming *in general* since I met my current (AuDHD like me) girlfriend. Like, she helped me feel better about myself even when I'm not around her. And they say the gays don't have superpowers /j
It can cause us PTSD. I had a severe autistic burnout due to masking and performing way beyond my ability for far too long. I retired early. It took me 2 years of being mostly isolated, a rocking chair, and not masking to be able to finally relax inside.
@@HappyHoney41The pandemic was that for me, as weird as it sounds. I was able to work from home and basically did not leave the house for two years. I live alone, so I was able to have my environment be as soothing and/or structured as I needed it to be for the most part. It was amazingly restorative, in ways I didn’t even realize I even needed. Not coincidentally, it’s also what started me wondering at 53 if I could be autistic.
My grandma I think knew about neurodivergence without having the words to explain it. If you're bothered by another person's stimming, the bothered person could do in another room and do something else because the stimming wasn't a bad behavior. If you liked standing to watch TV, there were places to stand that didn't bother the people that were sitting. My grandma also had a standard alternate meal option all through my mother's childhood, instead of saying you had to eat what everyone else was eating (this was in the 40's to 60's). She accommodated things instead of making kids feel bad. Incidentally, she's the only relative I ever got along with and felt really safe around because I didn't have to alter my behavior. Pretty sure the autism/ADHD came from her family. My grandma would collect little glass figures (and glass stuff in general - she had thousands), always watched the exact same soap operas even if she was visiting someone else (she would insist on stopping to watch those), knew how to fix everything, and was still fascinated with babies and children despite raising 6 of her own.
GOAT grandma. What a crazy world we would live in if more people had that attitude - that if you're bothered by something that isn't hurting anyone, YOU go into another room instead of the person who's not hurting anyone.
I absolutely adore your grandma. she seems so sweet and hospitable, I wouldve wanted to watch soap operas with her whats something cool that she fixed?
I remember standing outside a supermarket, ath the age of 6, consciously, thinking that i couldn't flap may arms because someone might think i was mocking disabled people. Little did I know... 😅
I have discovered recently that the "strike chest repeatedly with T-rex arm" gesture that kids use to mockingly indicate that another kid is a "retard" (or at least did in the 90s) is a fairly comfortable stim, which makes me think that the "retards" being mocked when the stereotype started out were likely autistic.
My stim was origami. My parents asked my school teachers to take away any paper I brought to school that I was folding. I had the teachers encouraging bullying on me to get me to "act normal" on my parent's wishes. I tried to stop stimming, anything, took up nailbiting and ended up with blood on all of my homework and scabs on all of my fingers that would crack and bleed regularly from just anxiety.
This is literally everything wrong with society and why people suffer. "I want them to act this way because anything else is uncomfortable to me and I'll do almost anything to stop it even if I'm not impacted by their existence." We obviously don't know each other, but I want to cry for you, especially because they were more worried about you being artistic than BLEEDING REGULARLY, I MEAN WHAT THE ACTUAL FREAKING HECK?? Child abuse at it's best, YA WANT A MEDAL FOR HOW BAD YOU SCREWED YOUR CHILD UP??
I didn't even consider origami could be a stim. I thought it was a special interest, but reflecting on it I did feel less stressed while folding. Sorry it turned out poorly for you but thanks for the insight
I don't remember what my early childhood stimming was but I'm certain I was discouraged from it considering how concerned my mom was with us acting normal and not drawing attention to ourselves (and therefore her.) By early-mid grade school I had a constant open sore on the back of my head from scratching. And i scratched my earlobe so much I literally scratched away the piece of skin that connected it to the side of my head. School was really hellish in so many ways and it took me a long long time to realize that it was all connected. That like yeah scratching yourself till you bleed isn't normal but I was only doing it because I wasn't allowed to be normal. *MY* normal. I was forcing myself to imitate "normal" behavior. Things no one would call me weird for Everyone scratches themselves sometimes. But you're "disturbing" and "need to settle down" if you're rocking back and forth.
As someone who is possibly neurodivergent (specifically autistic and ADHD) I find people who talk about their experiences as a neurodivergent child helps since I am a possible neurodivergent child.
Hey, i wish you all the best for your journey of discovery if you're neurodivergent. Just wanted to tell you that self-diagnosis is valid and accepted and that you can do quizzes to find out (look up autism testing, there's a lot of the internet). Also, go talk to your general/family doctor. Maybe they could help you as well. Good luck :)
@@noname-vf1ftI know I’m not the one you wrote this for, but that was so comforting to hear. It’s been about 3 years of me doubting myself because I can’t get a diagnosis. It’s really hard sometimes.
I'm pretty sure not stimming(due to bullying) is what lead me into a deep depression when I was 12. I'm 28 now and when I started researching on autism last year, I learned to stop masking and to start stimming again. After 15 years of depression, I'm a whole different person. Or maybe I just reverted back to my old happier self.
When I first started to suspect I was autistic, I didn't really think stimming would work for me. I would look at stim behaviors and stim toys and think they didn't look particularly fun. However, when I tried them, I was really amazed with how effective they are. Like, stimming really does a lot to regulate my emotions and just make me feel better in general.
Stimming is kind of an unlockable ability, but you have to know the right key presses and what situation it's for. Get it wrong and it doesn't really work right.
My mother told me to stop stimming because in those days she remembered what happened to kids like me i.e. they went to institutions. It really messed me up. My oral stimming turned into smoking. Mentally not stimming left my nerves raw and i was suicidal by 16 years old. Im so glad to get a lot of my stims back decades later, feels good.
Yep, I smoke like a chimney to this day :( And that threat of a "group home"... my parents said that too :( I also turned into a cutter who got very good at making sure nobody ever saw the scars.
I think I was lucky in that my preferred stims were more “socially acceptable” - i.e., playing with my hair, biting my nails, colouring - but I still got called out for them and made to feel self-conscious. I can’t imagine how NDs who gravitate towards more noticeable stims are expected to cope. 😢
Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, my family didn’t know anything about autism. I didn’t either. Stimming was not shamed unless I had to focus on a specific activity. I didn’t flap my hands, but I rubbed my skin all the time, rubbed and tugged on my earlobes, rock side to side, played with my books by flapping the paper. As I got older I noticed I did flap my hands, but not in the usual “autistic” manner. My hands were by my hips and I would flap with my palms up. I also shake my leg, usually while sitting or lying down. As a guy, I’m sure I didn’t get as much bullying as women growing up, but the bullying was still there and I never understood why I was bullied.
My primary stim is skipping. It's not that bad; I can just pace or tap my feet if I can't skip around, but usually I can because my parents and school are pretty accepting.
When I was a kid, I would rock forward and back any time I was sitting down. If I was listening to some banger music on car rides, I would slam my back into the seat to the beat of the music. Unfortunately, I was always told to stop doing that by my peers or my parents cause they thought it was weird :/
@@manboy4720 They’re possibly things that a lot of non-Autistic people also do, so they’re less obvious? Biting your nails is a good example, it’s so common that you don’t always know you’re doing it.
I was always a "gifted introvert" as described by people around me, and nobody ever really stopped me from stimming. People didn't really think I had autism, and also didn't stop me from stimming because I had good grades, and, since I didn't really interact with many other kids, that peer pressure part of it didn't really stop me. If I didn't have good grades, then my life would definitely be very different, because then my autism would have been seen as a problem, but, because I did well academically, I was just left alone. My life still probably would've been better if I had been diagnosed, but I'm happy where I am now. Many people aren't as lucky as me, and I'm glad I got what I got :3
Those electric shocks started (at least in Melbourne) in the 50s. It was standard for an 'unusual' behaviour. I still have nightmares about it, and I'm 75. Thanks for your good work.
That preschool story. My “Smile” story. In kindergarten our teacher informed us that the next day was picture day and that we should practice our “smiles.” This caused me considerable anxiety. Nowhere in our coursework were “smiles” taught. So that afternoon I asked that my mother, “Mother, what is “smile?” Replied that is when a person turns the corners of their mouths upwards.” Oh. Okay. So I tried practicing a smile in the mirror. It was a lot of work. Next day I gave it my all. The photographer was not as impressed as I thought he’d be. Looking back he thought I was making a “face”. The resulting photo is interesting.
Smiling the “right way” is difficult. I’ve always had people try to tell me how to do it. “Show your teeth”, etc. I had to start overdoing it when my mom got pissed that I wasn’t smiling in any of her wedding photos. I thought I was doing it right all day, but apparently hadn’t smiled at all.
my mom would get mad that i would smile (often showing my teeth) in a huge grin with my eyes scrunched up and often even closed. I couldn't figure out why that wasn't a smile I could use for photos and stuff. I still don't get it. I looked actually happy in my younger school photos and other photos where I did that, and dead inside in my 8th grade yearbook, when i didn't do that. They either need to give us proper smiling lessons in a gentle and encouraging way, or not expect us to do weird things with our face muscles on command.
It's awful. If I try to force a smile on camera I know it FEELS and LOOKS forced. Can't get it to be natural- and if I don't try at all I'm practically not even smiling. I can smile pretty good if it's genuine, but don't expect me to start smiling if I wasn't doing it in the first place.
I remember being told when I was a kid, specifically in autism therapy, that these behaviors were harmful and I should stop them, and the therapists scolded me for it. That was in the 2000s. Around 15-20 years ago. Haven't done it since, I very rarely find myself flapping my arms or clapping happily anymore. Though the one thing I remember I used to do a lot as a kid and still do is tell myself stories - literally narrate events of my own world inside my head to myself, I just don't do it out loud anymore. I've actually started writing some of it down and refining it a little, and I'm trying to actually get these published as fiction books.
I do that too. I want to write it down but I feel like I’d have to make it sound professional or polished, but I love coming up with story ideas and characters.
I’m in the same boat, I was lectured or yelled at if I stimed to much or did something “strange” to stim. It got really bad as a kid and I used to bite and eat toilet paper when going to the bathroom to satisfy my urges, nail biting turned to picking at scabs and acne after I got braces and couldn’t bite my nails anymore. Scratching arms, subtlety twist my neck and other things like that is what my body did to attempt to satisfy the urge. I’m a new adult now and am attempting to allow myself to stim in my more natural ways like flapping hands, shaking leg, and more. Gotta love 2000s poor research/s
I caught myself stimming and flapping like all day yesterday at work. I didn't stop myself from doing it. While my boss is super supportive and wants to work w me and my autism employment coach, I still am scared that I'll lose my job or have a change in dynamic at work because I won't stop myself stimming anymore.
During that time, the academic literature still considered Autism to be a subset of schizophrenia. This explains (not excuses) the use of "psychotic" during the 70s.
Psychosis is a stupid word to begin with as it suggests it has something to do with psychopathy. Psychosis is a state of detachment from sensory reality, like an altered state of consciousness. Psychopathy is a completely separate issue.
Clarifying for anyone who does not know: Psychosis is the aforementioned state, psychopathy is a general mental behavioral profile characterized by lack of empathy, manipulative behavior, narcissism, other minor characteristics like blunted sensitivity to pain, attraction to bitters, glib superficial charm. Like psychosis it’s abnormal, usually connected to physical trauma to the brain and many with it lead normal lives.
In the past, "psychopath" meant anyone who was mentally ill, not ASPD as we now understand it. It comes from "psycho" = mental and "pathology" = illness.
@@user-nl4ir7cx5r I don't know of any mental health professional who confuses the two. Perhaps non-professionals in the general population (i.e., scriptwriters) would do so, but Autism isn't psychopathy. Hope that clarifies anything.
Not that I'm "Sigmund Freud", "Maslow", or that other dude (Carl Jung), but my theory is that "Aspys" can be often be MADE, not BORN....As a response to dealing with not only the NUMBER of assholes, but the SIZES of a number of the numbers of those assholes, up to and including OTHER "Aspys"???
My parents both had very different handlings to me. My mom was so excited that I tried to stop stemming. My preferred stemming involves use of some nontraditional tools (rubber bands in one hand and small plastic snakes in another, I can't explain it other than that the weight distribution when I'm flapping them is chef's kiss), and I think she was embarrassed. I have a memory of a moment when I successfully seemed to not be stemming anymore, and she was telling my brother that he could stop some behavior of his because, "Look at your sister, she's stopping." After that I remember going into the bathroom and hand flapping and feeling so frustrated and alone and like a fraud. I hid it from her a lot as a kid. Meanwhile my dad was curious in an encouraging way, and would ask questions about why I liked it and actually took my answers seriously. My memory associated with him and my stemming was him asking why I liked it, and when I told him it helped me imagine better, he took that answer seriously and made me feel so understood and never questioned me again. Same with why I used the weird tools I did, and he seemed to totally understand after I explained the weight distribution part of it. I've always been eternally grateful to his approach.
My second memory ever is of my dad screaming at me to look him in the eyes and stop crying while I was hyperventilating. This was when I was about two, so I suppose some of my stimming "issues" resolved pretty early too. In school the teachers also hated me for it and screamed at me often. But I just couldn't stop, adults scolded me, I got punishments, but I was often not aware of it. In middle school I got bullied for it a bit and immediately implemented extreme masking.
@@Totallyneutral Yes. When I started to try to be myself again I could hardly do it. You really loose your entire personality just to please someone. I think a diagnosis can make all the difference for a child, but human decency can also go a long way.
My dad told me to look him in the eyes once and I didn’t understand why. It wasn’t natural for me but not really uncomfortable so I did it anyway. We were talking about a bully at school. (This has nothing to do with your comment but it reminded me of that)
Since I was very young, I've been told to not hold my hands a very certain way, do certain "weird" things, for about 15 years I didn't know anything, until I got a good friend group who pointed out that these are traits of autism, I am very glad to have the friends I do now, most of them are neurodivergent and they're all understanding, typing this I'm no longer stopping myself from stimming whenever I'm alone, I can't get diagnosed yet, but will hopefully soon. RUclipsrs talking about this help a lot, and I apprecite you teaching people about this My friends and partners, my new family are great, hope everyone who took the time to read this (or didn't, because that's fine too!), will be able to stim freely, and be comfortable wherever they may be!
Thank you so much for making this video. My 16 year old son is autistic, what would be described as high functioning. My husband feels that we should "prepare him for the real world" by teaching him to suppress some of his natural tendencies and interests. I feel that we should teach him to educate people around him as to why he does it. It's not harming anyone and it makes him happy. Yes, it doesn't win friends. But, the friends that accept it must be true friends and the kind of people that I want my son to have in his life. Truly, this video is a blessing and so timely. I appreciate it so much. Please, keep making content like this. As a parent, it is so helpful to understanding autism and my child from a personal, rather than clinical perspective. I will be showing this to my son as well. Perhaps it will help him understand himself better. Thank you ❤️
Don’t take this as a dogmatic truth, but in my view and experience: Autistic people will not make neurotypical friends. So there is no point in suppressing things like stims in order to function in society. We will never fit in, and the more most of us try, the creepier or more arrogant we seem. Suppressing stims is only useful for short term, such as in interviews when first impressions are very important.
The times in my life where I forced myself to be "normal" the most were also the points in my life I was the sickest. I'm not just talking anxiety, but also brain fog, weakened immune system, chronic fatigue, fainting spells, temporary spells of full body paralysis, and even TIAs (mini strokes). Things that may seem like a default, easy, everyday thing to you such as working 40+ hrs per week, acting "normal", not stimming, taking less/shorter/no breaks or naps, etc. takes FAR more energy for us to do. Being forced to act like a "normal girl my age" legitimately made me so sick I almost *died.* The only reason I am still alive and fully independent today is because the clots that developed in my brain from overworking myself were small enough to unclog themselves before they could cause brain damage. And I was constantly being shamed for being "lazy" and "not trying hard enough" when my body was so drained it was struggling to keep me ALIVE. Your husband needs to abandon the idea of your son being a "normal adult." Your son is disabled. He cannot waste all his energy that he needs to conquer the day pretending like he isn't. The only reason I'm able to function the way I do now is because I stopped wasting all my energy trying to perfectly blend in with people who thought I was odd anyways.
I think because autism really is a spectrum of varying degrees, no one person's experience is exactly like another's. Thankfully, my son does have both neurotypical and friends on the spectrum. It's the adjustment to adulthood, college, and the workforce that I think about a lot. I do feel that having a strong support system helps. Anyway, thanks again.
@@bridgetphillips7462 I'm a 26 y/o woman. I have adhd, and I didn't know until my adulthood. I was ostracised for being weird in adolescence, inexplicably for me at the time. However, other kids who were different somehow and were open about it, were not bullied (someone had diabetes, someone was adopted from abroad, someone had immigrant parents...) or at least they had friends. In my experience, since learning about my adhd and reflecting back, the best way to get understanding from other people is to explain to people in your everyday life, why you're different or what your condition is, and how it affects you. That way they can get a better understanding, 'an explanation', and they don't have to feel confused and irritated when they notice some of your traits, and try to interpret what they mean (and when people don't know, they often default to negative/suspicion). In stead they know what it's about and can even offer to help/support you. (Like a friend offering me a stim toy when we were having a difficult conversation because we had an argument) Also, they can adjust their expectations of you when they know your weaknesses and strengths. I've been completely honest with people who need to know about some of my traits being weaknesses and others being strengths. And it has been worth it. They treat me better when they have understood that some things (like being on time) are really difficult for me even if I try. I live in a coulture where punctuality is very important and I fret being late a lot, so it helps if other people don't act angry on top of it when I arrive. I also make myself comfortable in chairs nowadays in meetings, and bring things to stim with, and others understand (I hope) that I do it because I respect the meeting and want to be present 100%. The ostracation from my youth has still left me with fear of failure and rejection, which are somewhat present almost every day, even if people are nice to me and understanding towards my symptoms. The years I didn't know and didn't tell anyone did traumatize me. I think your son needs both and he probably has learned both things from you as his parents and people around him; he needs to understand why neurotypicals act the way they do and what the social expectations are, and he needs to have a strong understanding about his own traits and how they are different from others, so he can express to others his differences and needs. Without knowing the social expectations, he can't express when he needs to do something differently from the norm - which means accommodations. Adult neurodivergents need to know how to advocate for accommodations for themselves when they need them. They also need to know what accommodations work, which they never learn if they always try to supress and fit to a mold of normal. We must remember, that for neurotypicals, the way they do things is logical. We must not think they are 'these stupid things neurotypicals do', though it's tempting. We must extend to them the same empathy we want to get from them.
One of the worst parts is nobody believes a small child can be depressed even the professionals wouldn’t diagnose me with depression till I was 12 even though I first started self harm at 7 and tried to take my own life at 9
@@PeterBijkerk-f1k They aren't just underestimated, they are completely excluded. A child's actions are completely credited to the adults in their life, because everything a child thinks, feels, and does is considered the will of those adults. Children are unthinking, unfeeling, and unacting, except when they do something that's _too_ inconvenient for their guardians, in which case they are a defective item and get discarded.
Yes I literally wrote a song when I was 5 to express my emotions and I was talking about how I don't understand why I'm on this earth and I wish I wasn't and everything is just so hard and confusing. Mind you I wasn't old enough to write it was a song I made up in my head that I would sing and my mom transcribed the song for me and knew I was having these thoughts but still some how thought I was fine and didn't need therapy or anything. I know this because I found the paper with the song written on it in my mom's hand writing and with the date so I knew how young I was. It's honestly surprising how we can be so open about things and our parents will just convince themselves that everything was fine
I stopped stimming very early on when I got comments from adults and other children ("what are you doing?", blank judging stare; "your face will stop like this if you keep doing that"; "stop fidgeting around" etc.etc.). I only allowed myself do do it again when I got my official autism diagnosis (in my 40s!) because now I "was allowed" to do it. It's very sad what we do to children and their natural self-soothing behaviors; and it's not only words - a lot of us autistic people _will_ notice your condescending looks, even towards other people, and remember that very well as "something not to do in public at all costs"... 😢
The “look” is done so much around Autistic people and children especially and THAT is what inherently teaches children how to mask. It’s not only people being abusive openly, but also the small behaviors people show that they are uncomfortable with the behavior of someone else that teaches people to mask. Unfortunately, for me, that includes my family that don’t realize I mask because I was taught by them and others. I think my family thinks they didn’t do anything, but in reality they were constantly checking my behavior with “the look”. Autistic people are NOT stupid. We can see your behavior and know what you’re trying to communicate with literally one look AND we know if it’s about us or, if we are being bullied/being judged for the way we are. I’m in the process of learning how to unmask and this is so frustrating because my family basically only knows me as masking me and, that’s not the real me. But, they get uncomfortable when I unmask and, don’t want to talk about how they are affecting me and causing me emotional and mental pain with their expectations of how I am or, how I should be.
I went to a school for the blind, and if you stimmed they would correct you real quick. When I would visit my Meemaw she'd let me stim, and my mom got mad about that because she said Meemaw was spoiling me. I think she was actually the only person in my life who realized I was neurodiverse, even though when I told her I was pretty sure I was on the spectrum, she literally said the dreaded phrase, "You're not autistic." She passed away in 2013, so I really hope that when she got to Heaven, that God whispered in her ear, "Yes she is."
I'm an autistic person who just turned 30 and I'm working on getting a Bachelor's degree in Psychology then furthering that into a PhD in ASD and CPTSD research. I'm grateful to hear you say that we need more autistic adults involved in the research, it really makes me more motivated to keep pursuing my degree. Thanks for the content!
Thank you for what you are doing. Your efforts can bring a much better outcome and life to many like us in the future. You are doing a huge, beautiful cause
I recently started majoring in psychology after being rejected from the acting department. I think I too want to go into improving autism research. Here's to hoping we can make a difference!
Feeling like being in a straitjacket describes it so perfectly. I stimmed a lot as a child. From more harmless stimms, like rocking back and forth ot flapping my hands, to chewing on literally everything and hitting myself. My mother viewed this as intentional attacks on her. In her mind, I was acting like an abused, neglected child to call her a bad mother. She'd freak out if she "caught" me stimming, I remember her telling me to not act like I'm suffering from hospitalism (which is such an odd thing to say to a child). In therapy, any "odd" behaviour of any sort was always simply labeled as dysfunctional. I wasn't in ABA specifically, but there was that same attitude of "getting better" not being a matter of feeling better; the more normal you appear, the better you are. Above all else being normal was the goal. So I of course tried to hide and suppress my stims. For me this lead to a fear of not being in complete control of what my body is doing at all times, even beyond stimming. When I had pneumonia as a child, I refused to cough. I had to be taken to the doctor literally every day for supervised coughing sessions until I got better. It also lead to an eating disorder. Doing what my body wants, even if it was good for me, felt horrible to me. Now, as a diagnosed adult, I'm at least more comfortable to stim while on my own. Especially around other people however, this need to try and appear normal has been hammered into me so deeply that it feels impossible to let go. It's beyond me how professionals and researchers didn't see it coming that trying to bully the stimming out of anyone would lead to this.
I can totally relate to suppressing to the point of not feeling things in my body. It took me years to learn to trust my body again and it's an ongoing process 😮💨
THIS!!!!!!!!!! i’m autistic and have tourette’s and this is so helpful to hear. i lived in pain for years because i’d suppress stims and tics and i always felt so alone because whenever i did those things people stared. both tourette’s and autism are so heavily stigmatized i just want to say i love your channel and thank you so much ❤
I'm late diagnosed and I will say, I started stimming in more obvious ways in private and my chronic untreatable anxiety basically disappeared in some areas and reduced in a lot of areas. I've tried to include it in a lot of different areas of my life and it's incredibly improved my life.
I started biting the inside of my mouth/cheeks as a stim as a way to outwardly appear to be "sitting still" because of being constantly told to do so as a child. It's something I still do to this day and it annoys me that it's such a literally self-destructive habit just to make others more comfortable around me as opposed to hand flapping etc that I used to do before others shamed me into suppressing it.
Same here, and grinding my teeth. I had no idea I was even doing it until my dentist commented on it. I'm trying to channel it back into fun stims like dancing.
@@mictoriaI grind my teeth all the time, to the point where I need to consciously focus on relaxing my jaw, but I never thought of it as stimming before. Or how when I got my wisdom teeth out a few years ago, the spot where my lower left tooth was isn’t completely smooth, so I run my tongue over it because I like how it feels bumpy. If those are stims I guess I never stop stimming, which is fine with me because staying still is so hard!
I liked how you explained about not knowing how to cross your legs because I actually demonstrate and show my 5 and 6 year old students how to do that at the beginning of the year. I show them how to do everything because I can't assume they know. You mentioned not knowing why adults didn't bring you to the group to play, and it is because, developmentally, parallel play is typical up until around 5 years old and every child has different play styles at that point (from a teacher perspective). I also like how you bring up always being tired because I have been always tired as long as I can remember. Only once did they say I had an iron deficiency, but since then, they can not say why I am always tired. I used to have a gooey drawer of squishy sensory things and goo. My parents got rid of it when I was in high school because it was weird. I collect dolls now (which they still don't like). Nothing I like to do is normal enough I suppose.
When I was in Grade School, I was assigned an "Autism Support Aide" by the school district, whose main purpose was to hover over me and stop me from stimming (and also keep me focused on the school-work). Being told to stop stimming was a daily occurrence, I was regularly punished for stimming too frequently, and _even the other Autistic kids in my Special Ed homeroom_ started mocking me for my stimming. By 3rd Grade I had the distinct sense of being treated unfairly, by 4th Grade I was struggling with passive suicidal ideation, by 7th Grade I doubted I would even be able to function in college, and by the time I graduated High School I had become politically radicalized. By the time I entered college, I'd been shamed and punished for stimming, so frequently and so routinely, that I began contemplating using euphemisms for stimming instead of referring to it by name.
I think using euphemisms is fine if that's what you want, but that you shouldn't feel pressured for using the word "stimming." Alas, society.... I am very sorry that you were not in a supportive environment, even in a class where you think other people can relate to you and thus be kinder-- kids can oftentimes be cruel. I wonder if you are currently at a place where you can privately stim, or not be criticized for more subtler stims, and/or have folks you can stim around freely? I find that as an adult, to my experience, people don't tell you what to do as often.
Hmm, the aide thing is eerily similar to what I experienced in grade school as well... I'm curious as to where it took place because I'd like to know how widespread it is or maybe even if we were in related programs in similar areas.
omg. i got a lady fired for basically yelling at me for having an anxiety attack (i only remember one time but i am sure it happened often, i hated her and she often made me cry) in third grade. later on i met the new aide who was at the time 19. i LOVED her. she was my mentor for several years outside of school as well. i am now 23 and whenever i run into her and her kids, we are so happy to see each other. her daughter who i had never met previously (she is five) gave me a big hug. i am so lucky to have found someone so patient and kind, knowing that most other aides i had or knew were not as understanding.
“Social ABA therapy” yep, thank you for saying that, I feel like that’s exactly what happened to me. I didn’t understand how to socialize like everyone else seemed to, and “being weird” isn’t how you made friends, so any time I got a comment about how my behavior was odd or unusual, my brain just went, “well, guess I have to throw that behavior into the trash or at least be more subtle.” I used to walk on my toes all the time, and I never tripped or sprained my ankle walking on my toes like I would when I walked with my whole foot. But my dad heard that’s an autistic thing, so he told me so and asked (without judgement, just a normal parental concern), “can you walk with your heals on the ground?” And that was all it took for me to understand that was a “bad” thing because it was weird and pathological. Trashed it. Which is really sad, because there is a whimsical magic joy feeling that came with walking on my toes, and that source of joy was gone after 1st grade.
I find myself wanting to walk on my toes sometimes when I'm barefoot and don't like the feeling of the floor beneath my feet and I'm trying touch it as little as possible. I especially hate the feeling of a dirty, sticky and grimy floor. Sometimes I'll feel the need to wear socks, slippers, or shoes indoors because I don't like the feeling of some floors. Of course, I'd eventually get tired of having my feet covered and walking on my tiptoes is what I'd end up doing. That's my personal experience with the tip toeing.
The past five or so years have been pretty bad, but I kept assuming it was ADHD. Oddly enough, when the pandemic came through, a lot of things became easier for me due to work-from-home and social distancing. Suddenly I had reasons for not wanting to go to various events. And then I had a child, which is absolutely amazing and wonderful, but my capacity for all sorts of things started lowering. That brings me to a few months ago and I started wondering if ADHD may not fit the bill. In looking at a few things, autism was an explanation that also fit so many of the boxes. So this last week, I finally made a call to a group that does neurodivergent diagnosis. It will still be a few months before I can be seen, but knowing it's in my future has been helpful. Thank you for your channel, thank you for your videos, and thank you for your validation 🙂
I got bullied a lot in school by my teachers for not being able to say the pledge of allegiance correctly. I kept getting sent to the office and told I was a "bad kid" or that I "hated America" to the point where I would just remain in silence for every pledge for the rest of my school years because I figured if I couldn't say it right, I might as well not say it at all. I was 5
Yeah, I had trouble memorizing the pledge of allegiance. I think I would just sort of mumble through it. Fortunately, no one ever called me bad or anything like you experienced. I am so sorry you had to go through that.
I distinctly remember I was six yo when I realized that adults can lack empathy and be as ignorant as children. If teachers are not trained to recognize autism symptoms and act appropriately nor have innate sensitivity there’s little to no chance they will do the right thing.
I’m tearing up more and more as I’m watching this video for a 2nd time. I’m 56, going on 57 in 1-1/2 months, and I’m seeing more and more of my child self in this. My therapist has suggested that I’m Autistic around 8 or so months ago, and since I agree with this 100%, you could say that I’m self-diagnosed. I was teased horribly throughout my grade school years, being around the same kids from kindergarten through high school. I even got suicidal by mid-high school. I remember that my Kindergarten teacher struck me on the back of the hand with a ruler in class, in front of everyone, at my desk, but I have never been able to remember WHY. I was always called weird, and now I’m bit by bit seeing why. I think that I covert stim at this point in my life. The main one that I notice is slight rocking. Such a long post, thank you.
I stimmed a lot in my childhood. Flapping, spinning, walking in circles, chewing on my clothes. All of it. Eventually, when my dad came back into my life at 13, he would tell me to stop moving around so much because it distracted him. And eventually I managed to do so. So age 14 and on, I didnt stim at all. I was constantly sick, constantly anxious, and my life fell apart into a depression because I was always exhausted. I didn't have the tools to help myself regulate, and my only tool up til that point had been stimming. It's only in the last few months that I'm making a conscious decision to stim again that my mental health is FINALLY recovering. I'm 21 now. I haven't been able to work or go to school because I've been bed rotting for three years now just trying to recover from the burnout. I'm only just starting to feel normal again. Stimming has been a significant tool in my arsenal to get to the point im at now. Hell, ive been able to stop my Antidepressants recently because i am genuinely in a much better situation than I had ben before. Stimming is VITAL to neurodivergent people. And I will gladly die on that hill. I've seen how a lack of stimming dug me into a pit. And while I know it wasn't the only factor, I do know it was a significant one.
I started playing with my hair when i was 10. My dad started giving me "gentle" reminders to stop playing with my hair for the next many years. I had to become really concious of when I could and couldnt stim like that, aka, when I was and wasnt around my dad. When I moved out, I still found myself concious of when I was playing with my hair and would make an effort to stop until I learned about autism and realized that I had been stimming that whole time. From then, I allowed myself to play with my hair as much as I liked, and I also found myself allowing myself to stim in other ways as much as I like. My mental health right now isn't perfect, but I definitely feel great when I stim. Unfortunately, I still monitor how much I play with my hair and stim in general when I'm around my dad. Thankfully that's not all that often.
i know you mean gentle but i am Jewish and in my mind i saw gentile reminders and thought of angry italian catholic dad stereotype 😂 definitely not what you were trying to say
I'm late diagnosed autistic, I got diagnosed last year when I was 30 and since then I have been learning to let myself unmask and rediscover my stims. I flap my hands a lot when I'm anxious and I tend to sway a lot too. My oldest stim is twirling my hair, my ma said I've always done that. I'm really happy I know I'm autistic because it just explains so much about me that I always questioned 😌
I’ve been bullied for stimming at school, and I masked heavily for 7 years because of it. I’m only now letting myself stim in front of people again and it is hard to get out of the mindset of “people will think you’re weird for this”
Recently self-assessed AUDHD. Your videos have helped me feel ok being as-is. Also came through a brain injury/infection recently. Your videos are helping me remember misplaced childhood memories. Thank you!
When they started correcting my "noisemaking" and "fidgeting" behavior physically (ca 6 yrs old), i started wetting the bed. They corrected me even more severely for that. I then shut down and disconnected completely until i was away from my parents for almost a year, as an adult with a 6-year-old's emotional development
I used to enjoy putting my arms in these pillow cases and imagine myself as a butterfly flapping my arms about, pacing around the place. I would do that often as a toddler when I could fit my arms into them. I guess one of the things I still do is pace around my room, watch as I’m tossing something up into the air and enjoying the feeling of catching it. I do this when I’m listening to music non-stop and feel the intense urge of zoomies.
On a side note: does anyone else ever..... stay in the bathroom for prolonged periods at a time? Just... sitting there. Either deeply thinking or just..... disassociating? Or even just watching videos on a device, listening to music, or playing games? I think I’ve gotten this habit simply because in my childhood, there was no safe space of privacy for me to just, not be around anyone else, to do my own thing in peace. I grew up in a family with little income so we had to make do with little space, privacy, & comfort essentials.
@@bizarre3228 thank you for the response, helps me feel more comforted on where I’m at & knowing that others may do that too. Gives me relief with what may perhaps be due to my possible autism or something else underlying.😌
@@kodi2329bathroom floor time is a daily requirement for me, or I'll be all sorts of mentally uncomfortable 😂 it's part "third space", part "sensory deprivation chamber" for me.
I think one of the biases i had why i believed i couldnt be autistic was because there are certain stereotypical stimming behaviours that you hear and see. And even later when i got diagnosed i often felt odd and like not "autistic in the right way" ; because my stimming looks different. I always stimmed with my hair by twirling it a certain way, when im tired or stressed i will rock very much. And that is the biggest movement i do in terms of stimming, i sometimes dont even notice that im doing it when im tired and my partner points it out. Its for sure something i masked very intensively as a child and teen, learnt to not rock back and forth when im stressed, tired, in pain or just very focused really. I dont pick my skin or such, i dont like that. But i will scratch my own nails until they are painfully short. And i will like i said play with my hair, a pen or some other item, hairbands or whatever i can find. But its not moving my arms kind of thing. I dont like how my joints feel when i "flap" my arms around at all. The T-rex pose by walking around on tiptoes is one that i do a lot, have done since im a child, and find super comfortable. Its very appearent when im comfortable and in my own safe space i will walk around like this. And mask when im outside; i wont rock, wont play with my hair or a pen, wont walk around with t-rex arms. But at home for sure! I never been a very energetic person, so i think me being introverted and low energy (at all stages of my life) is why i never had the urge to move in big stimming motions. I think the biggest stim would have been echolalia if i were stressed out and tired, or perhaps angry ? I feel big emotions could cause this. Even now when im stressed i can get stuck on repeating the same words or sentences over and over. I also doodle on paper by repeating the same motion, the same word, the same letter, the same doodle, etc. Repetition is very calming but i dont like moving my body a lot, dont like how it feels (beyond rocking) and dont like how it feels when my hands or arms move; i can feel the tension inside, the movement of my joints etc. Its not pleasant to me.
Whoa, I just got to the part where they're comparing autistic traits to zoo animal captivity..... That's foul! If you look at someone sneezing, often the face they make at the beginning looks like anger, does that mean every person sneezing is angry? When you have no context for it, it sure looks that way. Without context, running could be several different things. Are they running just for fun or are they running to get away from an enemy? Someone in a kitchen grabs a knife, are they getting ready to attack someone or make a sandwich? Context makes clarity...
The only pat might be valid might be, if it makes people deeling like caged animal on purpose, why do you punbish stimming :( Why do that cruelty. Thats just cruelty of i dont care, just live with that pretty grave discrimination, because i dont care. Which is not dissimilar with rassism and other . why cant society be less , ok it might be a bit better but it , is as importand as fdealing with rassism. :( And good argument, everyone that sneezes is the the enemy XD Which is also a goofd argument, and funny. But also a good argument And god beware you are lefthanded, which, also has a dark history. wThats so abitrary and unnessesary:(
Mental institutions of all kinds have in the past been hideous places where they torment humans in the name of research. Those poor kids :( breaks my heart. Thanks Meg x
@@mr.x2567 People can be upset about more than one thing at a time. There’s a time and a place to bring up animal abuse, and here is neither. If you want to advocate for animal welfare, please do it somewhere at least somewhat relevant to animal welfare. Have a nice day.
I took a nap the other day right after listening to your video and had a dream where you were telling us cat facts that my subconscious definitely didn't make up. I so vividly remember you excitedly saying "This one's my favorite, cats will EXPLODE if they purr too much!" and I was SO ALARMED both at your enthusiasm and at the purring cat that'd fallen asleep on my chest.
18:53 Humans grin, show their teeth and make rapid, high-pitched, repeating sounds (known as laughing) to express joy, but the same (or very similar) behaviour is in the animal kingdom usually interpreted as a sign of aggressiveness.
Meg!!! I can't tell you how happy it makes me to hear these stories about your son, and how he is demonstrating such empathy with his friend. It's so clear he's being raised by such beautiful people with such beautiful souls who see children for who they are. Allowing them to normalize the behaviors that other children could so easily make fun of, your son is extraordinarily loving and brave, no doubt because of the open and loving environment in which he is allowed to express himself, then turns around and makes others feel comfortable with being themselves. Thank you for the love you're putting into the world❤
Wow. Mind blowing epiphany over here. I had stopped most of my very “disruptive” stimming by 5th grade, but I didn’t know then that I’m autistic and still had a few outward stims. In grade 5, the teacher did “mock trials,” with a video camera on us so we could, “practice public speaking and appearing in a formal, public forum.” (For a bunch of 11 and 12 year olds.) When she pointed out my stim (rubbing the sides of my fingers against the fingers next to them) in the video, the entire class laughed and cracked jokes at my expense. Utterly humiliating. The whole point of the exercise was apparently to shame us into stoically sitting perfectly still at all times. By the following year, I was having major mental health issues and feeling like I would be better off… “not being in the world.” Everything just got harder from there. Didn’t connect the systematic repression of self to the sudden mental health crash until just now. I didn’t get diagnosed until 40 though, and it’s taken many years in and out of therapy to get me to a somewhat stable, emotionally literate, healthy place. Hiding my (undiagnosed) autism absolutely did not help me feel or actually BE accepted by my (allistic/nt) peers at any point. I have always been and will always be autistic. As someone who’s also been dealing with chronic health issues and the medical system (U.S.) for over a decade, I’ve come to this conclusion: “Doctors are some of the dumbest smart people I’ve ever met.” I mainly blame hubris, personally. But that’s a gross oversimplification. And no, I cannot believe attitudes are still so… Victorian, about so many things, including autism, in 2023. It’s beyond frustrating. Just listen to a medical history podcast sometime; attitudes have hardly changed since Hippocrates’ time. Anyway, I’m working on chiseling the mask off. It sometimes feels like trying to remove just the eggs from a cake after it’s been baked. And it’s a bit scary. But feels so much better when I find a little piece of the “real” me again and get to reintegrate that bit and give myself permission to be autistic. Chanels like yours have been hugely helpful as I navigate all this stuff. Your work is greatly appreciated. 💛
It's so crazy that they're investigating how to end stimming and assuming it's harmful, instead of having a three-minute conversation with any autistic adult to find out that it's helpful.
I remember the parachute and remember staring at it inside and thought I was in a magical land and my gym teachers yelled at me. All of my teachers either yelled at me or ignored me. There was no integration or help. Im 27 now. I masked completely until 2021 when my sibling passed and I couldnt handle life anymore. So now I stim A LOT. I had no idea about any of this. I was actually diagnosed a couple months before his passing. Its unfortunate because he was too, and I didnt realize how this diagnosis probably could have helped me earlier, and he would probably still be alive. The mental health care world failed us.
You are doing such an incredible job, Meg- increasing visibility and pushing for acceptance and respect. I am so grateful for all this and happy to have joined your Patreon!
19:07 I believe the core problem here is that stimming is identified as problematic behavior. But instead it is a coping behavior, and something that can improve wellbeing. And yes, we can probably not be sure if it does the same for animals. But I would contend that animals in captivity need a coping behavior just as much as people do. I do not have a problem seeing a similarity there - even though I do not know if the reasons for the behavior are similar enough. I have also seen people in pain use repetitive behavior, like rocking, and I have done so myself. I believe that stimming and coping may be the reason in all of these cases. The problem is the captivity or the pain. The coping behavior is helpful. I guess the reason why people can be disturbed by RRBs may be that the coping behavior can indicate a problem: pain, captivity, some sort of unwellness - for which the coping is the counteraction. But trying to suppress the coping behavior of course only “solves” their own unease watching it, but it doesn’t solve the problems that the person (or animal) has that does the stimming. It rather exacerbates them.
15:11 I did the same thing! Some of those online tests are like “did you make stories when playing” and what they don’t realize is we usually do. It’s just we make stories in our heads. I very rarely acted the stories out. The closest I had to that was I had American Girl dolls and I used to line them up, do their hair and maybe change their clothes and then line them up again.
I think the imitation your son is doing of his friend's "dancing" is the sweetest thing. Oh my word. 😭 How beautiful! And your lovely explanation to him that stimming helps some of us feel happy. Chefs kiss, genuinely. Well done, mama 🫶🏻 Thank you for this video!
Dancing and singing were also a form of stimming that I would get enjoyment and pleasure out of. Stimming to music is definitely something I do. Sometimes I'll rock back and forth or from side to side, or or wave my arms to the rhythm of the music. It's one of my favorite ways to relax and unwind after a stressful day.
This video was LIFE CHANGING. Thank you. My son was diagnosed recently and I suspect I should be too because I can relate so much to all of the behaviours you described here.
I started to suppress my stimming, in early childhood, because I've always been told to stop doing it or I was even called names by my grandma who was very annoyed of my stimming. I developed many severe mental illnesses, some are trauma related though, like my PTSD or DID and not because I wasn't allowed to stim. But not being able to stim definitely caused issues like more depression, anxiety and the inability to regulate my emotions. But ever since I got my autism diagnosis a few years ago, I started to stim again, even in a hospital, where I always get told to stop, even if they know I'm autistic. Since I know more and my family knows more, I don't feel ashamed of it anymore and I don't care if other people get annoyed from it. I need it at times. In public though I'm still suppressing it and it is very exhausting to me. I don't even know why I am doing that. It takes me several days to recover from not stimming while I had to be in public for a long period. Whenever my mom sees me stimming really heavily, she is asking me if something is wrong, because she knows that if I'm more stressed, I stim more.
Not being able to stim can make it harder to process trauma and that trauma becoming a long term mental health thing. So as another autistic person with DID, they are unfortunately related.
I did try to stop stimming in my teens. Absolutely ramped up my aggression levels. Here's the thing about telling young boys not to stim. If you tell them that non-purposeful physical stimulation is unnacceptable, they will find the purposeful acceptable versions. And when you're a young boy, especially an anxious and frustrated young boy who has trouble getting close to people, that includes violence. It's not gonna make you friends, but it's less likely to make people pick on you. Although in retrospect, they just thought I was a sad lad.
I never thought I stimmed because I never saw others who stimmed like me. I would stare at a certain spot for a long time (visual stimming) and I used to chew on my hair and clothes a lot, but graduated to gum (oral stimming). My son is a vocal stimmer (singing, making noises). I never knew this was stimming until I started consuming more autistic content made by autistic people. The only representation I saw in stimming from others was hand flapping and hopping, and so I never thought I was autistic. It definitely helps to see a lot of different types of autistic people - it helps us feel less alone! Also, screw people that don't think we should stim. If it bothers them, they can go in another room. 😜
Ok that visual stimulation part hit close to home, i often do that staring thing alongside following the weird shadow thing you see when you stare too long at a light source :0
I finally got my autism diagnosis earlier this year and it's wild to me how many people feel they need to stop stimming, maybe it's cause it never occurred to me to try to fit in or maybe it's cause I had an example of a stimmer in the 11th Doctor. It also probably helps that my mum likes the way I flap my hands around when talking.
Sorry you had to go through that experience. It's not only a 80's thing. Still happens today. I wish you a good healing journey. Remember that healing is not linear. :)
The history's kind of long and complicated, but I learned/was taught to suppress and hide my stims _very_ early on - like, before primary school. Nowadays, at 46, it comes out as cracking knuckles and stretching joints (shoulders are a particular one, which freaks people out even more than flapping my hands would, because my shoulders are _really_ bendy), and I always have small tools on my desk to fidget with. I still find it weird that we live in a world where cracking knuckles is more socially-acceptable than flapping hands, though.
i think, they subconcious feel that we are different and the fact they so pale, uncreativ, mondane and ordinary makes them hate us. most do not "hate" but they rather see us as the problematic child that gives them to martyr in how diffucalt we are than accepting, their lack of any features or characteristics. at least that way, they are above-making us seem in need of them. so they make shure, you do not wiggle the wrong muscle getting comfortable enough to tap in the potenial of ADHS/Autism. bc we can manage to function if we have to even if it is torture, but they could notm for the love of god, write songs and books while having s*xmagic or get hyperfocused or just stand out. i had the same history, same thing with the shoulders . today, i am 36 i will meet them again, i will stimm the hell out, and if they act, i have science to prove em wrong. like i had with the c-vacc wich they did just bc i was very early against and this killing em is the reason we meet again. it is"yes, i do funny movements to get along but i also breath. with my own lungs. on my own. they cant bc they rather injected substances than tolerate anything besides themself, besides conformity. ^^
The play style you were talking about really resonated with me. A LOT of my play in childhood involved sorting things and lining things up or grouping them, and then making up stories in my head about them. When those things were crayons or markers, I’d then color in graph paper or closed shapes I’d drawn using the colors according to rules that made sense with the story. Pink or red and blue were a couple, and green was with yellow but also sometimes with orange. Purple was with pink or yellow. Apparently, my art supplies were poly, lol! For adult coloring, I notice I very much prefer repetitive or geometric coloring pages, and tend to make up rules that govern what colors go next to each other. Although they are different rules than when I was a kid. I rarely drew pictures like other kids, unless it was a school assignment. I still don’t prefer drawing.
I (28F) was diagnosed this year, but had been self-diagnosed for about a year beforehand. My stims have primarily been auditory/vocal. Basically, I’m always singing. I’m a GOOD singer, too, so I grew up with people telling me to stop showing off when I was just… having fun/soothing myself. I stifled my singing stims just before high school and noticed after a while that I was so much sadder. I’m also big on making random noises vocally, clapping, making other random mouth sounds (not those gross eating sounds). Echolalia is also present. I’d really like to see some research into auditory/vocal/verbal stims - where people have them as their primary stims.
I'm working on re-finding my stims. It's very hard ass an adult. If anyone is around at all I am constantly watching my own behavior. Small shifts have helped, though, Just little things like instead of thinking "stop chewing your cheeks/lip" I notice that it is soothing and I even think I look cute and thoughtful while I do it. And picking at my cuticles and nails. And I have an object that I play with during meetings and long conversations that really helps give me an outlet for social tension. I remember the extreme pressure of trying to appear normal in school. I tried so hard and still was always weird or doing something awkward or weird or gross. The worst wasn't even from bullies, but offhand comments from my friends about the way I'd dress, or pick my hands when I couldn't finish a test. Middle and high school there's an intense urge to have human connection, and you're right that we really do inflict ABA type conditioning on ourselves trying to become something we're not. The story about your son and his friend is beautiful
This is so incredibly interesting and really makes me think about my own experiences. I don't recall ever doing big stims, but I do recall VERY early on feeling very nervous and different from the other kids in daycare (I started there when I was only a year and a half or so). I often sat alone unless any of the few kids I knew really well were there and constantly asking the grownups for reassurance that I wasn't misbehaving, and I do remember looking at the other kids and consciously copying them even then. My nickname as a very young toddler was "Jiggly" and grownups who met me at that age but didn't see me for a few years after literally told me how much I changed from a bouncy kid always telling stories to being so quiet and shy. I also had anxiety develop very young and depression hit hard when I was only 8 years old. It's both validating and very sad to me that this is such a common experience in our community.
I know. It was stunning to me when I first heard Meg mention 7 or 8. Same here. I never imagined it was common. And I never ever wanted to relive my childhood. Once was more than enough.
As a multiple survivor of suicide ideation thanks to the abuse from my family and their inability to accept me 'with autism', this is the kind of video that my family should have seen years ago, who likely still wouldn't accept me even if they did, as sometimes we're just born into the wrong families. This video was genuinely awesome, and is a further testament to understanding that my stimming was often taught to me as bad behaviour or "un-ideal".
Stimming curbs anxiety, if you don’t realize you’re doing it. Once you realize you are stimming, and try to cease, possibly due to the environment. Now you fertilize your anxieties with some depression! It can be a viscous circle.
I stim also. I have plush bunnies that are really soft and usually, I like having a plushie's ear between my thumb and forefinger and rub the softness between my fingers. I also rock myself to sleep, pinch my bottom lip between my fingers, and open and close my hand. I also have heightened awareness when I stim. I was also diagnosed with depression, OCD, and anxiety.
I don't think I committed most of my stims to memory as a kid. I also didn't know I was autistic, so I wasn't looking out for them. In a way, playing the cello was very stimmy. Maybe that counts. I'm always swaying and bouncing and stretching. Oh yeah, beatboxing! Definitely not socially acceptable, that last one.
I feel sad to relate to something like this, because I know now that I use stimming techniques and didn't even notice it was not what other people around me did, and I wonder how many life choices and opportunities were lost for me because I didn't fit in. I'm basically in my own head so often, and pair that with the loneliness and obsession other people have with confomity and I feel alien in this world to a painful degree. That I have to mimic what other people do and say instead of having a way to truly be understood is depressing, and even more depressing when I can't be left alone to do my stimming because it is seen as weird and repulsive for those other people. I spoke once with a friend who had a similar issue, and he couldn't keep a job, not because he didn't want to work, bringing him to destitution without money, but because he felt unusually strong burnout in the workplace, but he had to mask it by himself, because other people would not be tolerant or cognizant of his state of being. I then realize how similar we were, and how I also had to mask in the workplace, hide my thoughts and feelings, because of my anxiety. People think anxeity is made up. I assure you, I myself do not want my anxeity to exist, but it persists in my weakest moments and is a torture on my mind.
When I met my wife in college she would pull hair of her head strand by strand, I would make a weird humming sound whenever I wasn’t speaking and I’d flap my arms around. :/ when we had our first kid we would point out to each other that he would always spin his foot around. Later when we got an autism diagnosis for him I got kind of dark and just blamed the vaccines. Maybe we shouldn’t stigmatize autism anymore. Yea I was the weird kid our whole family was that weird kid in school. But the fear of autism can lead to more dangerous ideas like vaccine denial when it was just kinda obvious we were all in the spectrum and that was ok
The more I think about all of this the more I am deeply saddened that no one caught any of this in me as a child. My childhood was so traumatic while in school. It wasn’t until k found theatre and dance that o was able to stim carefree. However, both teachers and students and even my one mother were relentless in reprimanding me or mocking me for the ways in which I comforted myself in uncomfortable situations, which were numerous.
I remember swimming as pre-teen, spinning my lower arms like propellers, and told to stop. It did get redirected for social integration, but manifested in explosive anxiety/ADHD/ASD meltdowns. Having anxiety atm, tried hand flapping, and it was like an electric current that shot up my arm through my shoulder and neck straight into my brain and went off like an explosion. Only did it for 2 or 3 sec. Had to stop because I was driving. Freaked the snot out of me. I tend to skin pick my cuticles and fingers when I am talking to ppl.
I don’t remember my stimming, I only remember being told to stop growing up. I’ve been coping with anxiety and depression for a very long time, the anxiety has been present since I was very young. I now notice my stims and I’m not sure if they’re new or things I’ve done my entire life because they were always subconscious and me stopping was also somewhat subconscious. I flap my hands a lot now, I rock, I spin, I make odd noises, and I’m still realizing more and more things I do all the time. It became harder to mask constantly as an adult with work, school, and struggling to keep my head above water in this economy. I’m not formally diagnosed with anything but I relate very closely with most of your content and I’ve done a lot of personal research. Hopefully I’ll be able to afford to seek a possible diagnosis soon enough.
During college I developed a particularly bad stim that would manifest during anxiety. I would pick my hair out of my face. It took a while to stop the behavior but I think it was worth it in the long run. Note I have other stims that are less self destructive.
I really appreciate your voice with this. Seriously. I find watching your videos to be super cathartic. I have tried to switch to more subtle stims. Tapping my leg to music for example. But no matter what I do I notice it draws attention. Even if I hold it back I just end up being unnaturally stuff. Its a pain in the butt. At least I live alone. There I can do whatever the hell I want. Spin around, move in weird ways. Make silly sounds. Just let myself relax.
Aw, you don't half look like your mum! I don't really have much in the way of photos and videos of me when I was little, so it's an interesting perspective to see what stimming looks like from an adult perspective. It's definitely something I've suppressed as I've gotten older. Thanks for sharing 😊
The videos of your childhood are so helpful! Thank you for sharing them. I wish I had videos I could go to to see what my behaviors were like as a kid as I don't entirely trust my own memory to be accurate, though I do remember moving around a lot as a child similarly to the way you did in those videos. I've been thinking a lot about my stimming and have noticed that my stims are primarily based on tactile simulation, auditory stimulation, and movement. Not all of my stims are great, unfortunately, though some can feel amazing and provide great relief. I like to break them down this way: Intentional stims: these are the types of stims that I seek out and am doing consciously. These are the ones that bring me the most joy and feelings of relief, but might not be the most socially acceptable to do in public (for the most part). These include things like scratching my skin, singing, dancing/body movements (like hand flapping, jumping, twirling), listening to music, showering (letting water hit my face), rubbing my hands on a blanket/feeling soft textures. Less intentional stims: these are stims that I am aware I am doing but am less intentional about doing them. They are less visibly noticeable and offer neutral to mild relief. They are the types of stims I may do in public. These things include: subtle toe/ muscle movements in my legs, tapping fingers, subtle bouncing movements (like raising feet up and down), playing with my pop socket, twirling my necklace, pinching skin (I also pinch my neck!). Not intentional/harmful stims: these are the types of stims that I am not always aware I'm doing and don't necessarily provide relief. These are stims that I wish I could just stop doing because they seem more harmful than helpful. I think they can also reflect my mental state and feelings of overwhelm. For example, I tend to mindlessly pull at my hair repeatedly. I don't yank it out, just like to feel the textures, but I tend to do this when I am lost in a thought spiral. I also bite my lip a lot and pick at my scalp/skin. I tend to do these things when I'm feeling very uncomfortable in my skin (like the sensation of wearing several layers of very tight clothing) or when I'm very anxious/ feelings of sensory overload. Apologies for the long response! 😅
Your son sounds so sweet and thoughtful, I love that he tried stimming because his friend does it. I pull my hair out and wish I could stop. I also worry for the little kids who are compelled to bang their heads against things (the ground, walls, tables, etc.) Like flapping is definitely harmless, but some stims hurt the shimmer.
when people started telling me to stop whenever i was stimming, i had to stop and over time, I went from discomfort to muscle spasms in the neck, shoulders and occasionally legs
YES! Bullying should definitely be considered a social deficit!! Not sure why so many harmful behaviors are seen as perfectly normal, while playing with one toy for "too long" is seen as problematic???🤨
Subconsciously, I replaced my stimming in public with compulsive skin picking. Most people don’t realize how severe it can be. I’ve definitely had my fair share of moments, looking down to see (unexpectedly) the tips of my fingers bleeding. I fully caused nerve damage, and didn’t even know it. I’m still working to re-replace that compulsion with stims - it’s not a simple undo or a “just stop suppressing it.” It takes a lot of time and be be really dangerous
Welp... this explains a lot. I've always fidgeted a lot, pretty much as long as I can remember. I still do of course, but I used to stim more audibly, usually tapping my fingers on the table, clicking pens, that sort of thing. Several years of getting in trouble for it and it did coincide with the same period of time where my mental health began to deteriorate. I guess I at least have the comfort of my own place now and can stim more comfortably, but still very aware of not doing it in public or around certain people. Makes me wish people didn't feel the need to comment on stimming, especially if it isn't disruptive.
Unfortunately, repetitive noises really trigger me into sensory overload. So, your stimming with sound to soothe yourself causes my sensory processing to overwhelm me. I wish there was a way for us to be, without suppressing or triggering the each other. 😔
Just been diagnosed a little before my my 60th Birthday. Your videos are truly helping me understand how I am and where I have been hiding the things that feel natural to me for fear of drawing negative attention. I have paraphrased a saying I heard for myself. "It is so comforting to learn I am a perfect Zebra not a broken horse" I think I will get that on a tea shirt🤓 From your posts and others I finally am learning it is safe to be that zebra. And maybee some day geting through each day will be a little less exhausting. This one is shocking, that anyone can try linking Stereotypical behaviour in captive animals and Stimming in autistics show how very little they understood the topic of thier research. My life is still much the same as pre diagnosis and at the same time a world away from where I was. It is all very confusing but hey The world has always been a cofusing place. I now alow myself to wiggle of flap my hands and it can so help me focus and my anxiety drops, I have fought it so long it is difficult to let it happen but its only been a few months early days. I will have to figure out this Paetreon thing if I can just stop procrastnating long enuff Thanks Calum
I learned drumming and was obsessed with it. I hated dinner with my family because of my misophonia and so I would drum to cope only for my brother to complain loudly. We weren't allowed to leave the table. I should have been allowed to leave the table and calm down. I went out the other night and decided to drum cos I was distressed but i ended up wobbling the whole table. So yh I need to find a different stim when I'm around others
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
Today is the last day to get your snail membership badge (but if you're just a tiny bit late, it's fine, you can still have one!): www.patreon.com/imautisticnowwhat
🐌 If you want to learn more about the Patreon community, I have a video tour! 🐌: ruclips.net/video/ClgG_9J9cTE/видео.html
At what age did you start to edit, or try to stop, your stimming?
My patrons enabled me to post an extra ‘secret’ video this week 💛 Here’s the link if you missed it: ruclips.net/video/7WkRHnYuY3A/видео.html
And if you missed my video on monotropism (the ONLY theory of autism I actually like): ruclips.net/video/3mBbOOzhoGQ/видео.html
Whether you’re a patron or not, thank you so much for your support. I love doing this so much and I really hope it's useful.
Done ❤ So happy 😊
This is gonna sound funny (hopefully), but as much I'd love to join on patreon, my OCD makes it hard for me to sign up to new accounts. Otherwise I'd be all over that snail. It's so cute.
Love your vids, this one was kinda new thinking for me. I definitely fall into the high anxiety, masking category
When I was a child, I probably knew how to stim, but I stopped and forgot. I was bullied in school a lot, which shouldn't come as a surprise. When I went to seventh grade (and different school) I made a conscious decision to not be a target anymore, and that is probably when I stopped stimming at the latest. That's when my mental health decline started, and it culminated about five years later when I hit autistic burnout and stayed home (and mostly in bed) for a week straight.
All of this was over 20 years ago, and only this year I've found out why and how I'm different. I'm still pursuing an official diagnosis. I've been learning to stim again, trying different toys, and collecting nice textures, visuals, sounds, and smells (by the way, freshly ground coffee beans smell amazing, and I don't even drink coffee). I still have no idea how I stimmed as a child.
❤all black or white sheep who read my words will receive Jesus healing all old aches and pains will be washed away.an level 1 that is always at 11 07 eastren an 23 seconds because I like Michael Jordan. level 1 is a gift can't be taken away. all the other levels an gifts can 10 levels an 40 gifts in all.level 10 projecting thought an memory
I'm a twin to a sister and she doesn't believe that I ever had any disabilities and she use to say she thought that I might be artistic and this year I was tested for autism and Asperger's and I just had a hard time remembering the word Aspergers it is something that happens to me all the time when I am talking about something and then who ever I am talking with will either start talking about something different or I have had the person say they had to go. I normally feel like there's something really wrong with me and everyone thinks I'm doing that on purpose to get attention like my twin says, there are a number of things that I have noticed but forget really quickly what just happened and I don't know how to remember that things happened but yes I am remembering right now but the thing is if I get nervous and stressed out about whatever is happening to much is going on I start to forget what I was talking about. The same thing happens when I have been at work and I try hind what is happening by staying by myself so no one knows that I'm struggling. I have tried to keep it all under control but it always happens where someone comes up to me and says ( I can't put my finger on what is wrong with you. My response is there's nothing wrong, I'm just like you and I walk away and then they have a weird look on there face and squinting saying I'll find out. I'm like why is it your business to figure out something. I'm doing my work and I m not bother you so just leave me alone. My twin sister thinks that the teachers and our mom told me a lie about myself and I went with it when she has tried even a couple months ago that it was all a lie,...that I was the problem and a burden to our family. She not the only family members that said that and worse to me. She said something very scary to me that she said to our older sister and she started crying and hyperventilating too like I was when I was at her house. I don't understand why she's so hurtful and its painful because I love her..she's my fraternal twin and we have similar feelings and we sound exactly alike..we have the same voice and it sometimes scares me because I sound just like her. I use to dream that we loved each other so much no matter what and nothing would ever stop our love for each other. I dream a silly dream that we were skipping down the street singing our favorite song and dancing a little bit and holding each other hands. We didn't care that we loved different things we just love each other.. I love that she has a love for horses and other animals and would do anything for the wild animals in the world, taking care of a turtle that was hit by a car she found the wild life veterinarian. And she has said she didn't like to be around people which made me think maybe she was more like me too. Maybe she had Asperger's. I'm not sure but I'm do know that it takes me so long to doing everything and sometimes I give up on finishing cleaning or doing something that I need to do like making dinner or breakfast or lunch. I struggle with thinking about what I'm supposed to do everyday so that's aggravating for me. I just wish I had tricks to fix and make my life easier.
The way I describe it, stimming is like a cat purring. It's done for comfort when in pain, but also as a show of comfort when not in pain. Trying to stop a cat from purring means you're either telling it to not show how comfy and happy it is, or telling it to stop comforting itself when it doesn't feel well.
This is a lovely comparison!
Oh, I like that comparison
I love this comparison and would like to use it in my essays - is there a name I could use to credit you?
That's the best comparison ever!
I that sense, you could also compare it to a person sighing, as that’s something you do both when you’re annoyed and when you’re relieved
I work at a school for autistic children and most of my stimming is head and hand movement. I caught a couple of my coworkers laughing pointing when I started stimming during a meeting where I couldn’t move around and had to be quiet. You’d think that people that work with kids that have autism wouldn’t make fun of stimming. When I called them out and told them I’m autistic they understood, but they said, “ oh I thought that’s just how you were”. Yeah, of course that’s just how I am, I’m autistic.
Lolz
I’m glad you called them out. ❤️
It's shocking and kind of amazing how domain specific people's understanding and empathy can be. Rather than thinking "some people have autism and they work differently but deserve the same respect as everyone else" they only understand it in terms of the children they teach and specifically the ones they "know" are autistic. Otherwise they apply "normal" rules and immediately ridicule someone who acts different. It's quite sad.
How would "That's how you were" somehow magically justify pointing & laughing at a coworker anyways??
Y i k e s
Neurotypicals: autistic people are so restrictive in their thinking.
Also neurotypicals: you may only play with toys *in the correct way!*
Also also neurotypicals: everyone must do [random social behavior] even though there's no logical need, because it's something everyone does!
So true!
@@triciad4100 tbf if everyone else is doing it you have no choice so whether you like it or not you will do it
thats pretty much all there is to neurotypical behaviour tbh not some desire to do illogical stuff we just stop caring
hypocrits, haven't changed either! They always do the same thing that is unproductive! neurotypicals are WEIRD.
Either I'm not actually autistic or I don't think your statement is true. Thing is, I was diagnosed so that doesn't sound right. Or maybe my autism makes me wanna be HYPER correct when playing with toys. Or maybe I'm misremembering something. OR maybe adult life hit me and now I'm scared.
Okay wow, this is a lot.
I remembered my sister flapping, and no one said anything. Every time I did it, my father would call me girl or say homophobic slurs to me. He thought it wasn't "manly". I was 3 or 4 and had no idea what a lot of what he said even meant.
But in many other ways my sister was pushed harder than me to be "normal".
I can empathize.
Having your dad call you homophobic slurs at 3 is actually insane 💀 reminds me of that Jehovah’s Witness propaganda video where babies were referred to as little “enemies of God” 😂
@lif6737 yet again its men that are suffering and women that get a free pass to do whatever they want, it fills me with so much hatred i cant even function, seriously there is a big problem with men who have autism being ignored and hated, and we need to fix it by any means necessary. every single time i read about both genders having uphill battles i just want to hurt myself.
@@mpo48👀 Dude, my problems were ignored so long, I only got the official diagnosis at 33 years of age. And my symptoms and behaviour were exactly like that of the most common ADHD Boy, right from an age before I could talk. I'm a female. My life could've been so much easier if I had been a boy, because if I was, my symptoms wouldn't have been ignored and I could've gotten help as a child.
Also, try being an autistic girl who isn't conventionally attractive and has poor social skills. I can guarantee an ugly boy with my social skills would still have some friends, or at least buddies.
Reality is, that men get better healthy care, because historically, it's men who have been allowed education and chance to study medicine and themselves. There is simply more information on men, because men have been interested in studying men. Only now that female doctors are starting to become more common, we get equal amount of men and females in study groups.
Did you know that study about "flight or fight" response had no women on it. Yet every study relying on that consept applied it to women. Only now, in tests with women involved, we know there is also a fear response "fawn", which causes a victim to take care of the one they fear, instead of fighting or running from them. So many women in abusive relationships acted to to protect their abusers, and we had no idea why.
Life for everyone is hard. But if you are an ugly man, your chances are still better than ugly woman’s. Certain r@pists go for ugly women precisely because they know ugly women are less likely to be believed, since they are unattractive. So ugliness doesn’t even protect a woman from that. Only makes it really hard to get a job anywhere.
@@puppydogs68I'll do you one better.
As a former JW I essentially grew up being taught how Jesus Christ was the perfect masculine role model- which, on one hand, is a decent argument against toxic masculinity actually, but on the other...
big shock, it was twisted into "please be a perfect 1950s sitcom family or literally everyone will start gossiping".
Everyone had a very fake-nice shell and the sheer fear of anything vaguely "feminine" was communicated in ways just obvious enough to pick up on. By the time I was 12 I hated that I was supposed to be "like Jesus".
ABA sounds like a therapy designed to treat the anxiety of the parents about their children rather than to treat the anxiety of the children.
Sort of, it depends a bit on the specifics, but it definitely can.
It is a real complex subjet. Im thinking in my boy with autism and he is reallly big man now (23 years) and ABA is a real usefull weapon for me in order to protect him against other people. I mean if my son has a stim and he does really vigorous movements ... he may scare people and people you know can interpret this as violence. So in order to protect him from that situation i teached him to not stim out of home.
@@margilvi5890 That's definitely not the right lesson. The right lesson is to use a stim that's less threatening. The need doesn't go away just because he's in public, he probably needs it more.
This kind of thing is why so many autistic people are blanket against ABA.
@@margilvi5890 A lot of us neurodivergents can’t regulate our emotions the same way that neurotypicals do. Stimming is how we do that. If we’re not allowed to, then we end up with poor mental states. So, even if you really are just trying to protect your son, by teaching him to only stim at home, you’re doing him more harm than. Teach him to stim in ways that don’t make him come across as a violent person otherwise you’ll just continue hurting him.
@@rebeccarasberry2459no its teaching him time and place
Oh yes, flapping hands when you're happy. I masked quite a lot until I got together with my ADHD girlfriend. The only person I feel comfortable around unmasking. When I first started learning about Autism, I thought that I don't flap my hands. But turns out, I do this when I am happy so my girlfriend started calling it "happy flappy" which I find very cute
It's very cute 💕 happy flappy 🥰
Funnily enough, I stared being more comfortable stimming *in general* since I met my current (AuDHD like me) girlfriend. Like, she helped me feel better about myself even when I'm not around her.
And they say the gays don't have superpowers /j
awwww that's super cute!
@@witherschatthat's awesome! I'm really happy for you! 🙂
I use ‘happy flappy’ too! :)
Trying to look normal is most abnormal thing one can do. Which may help coping in shorter term but severely harms in longer.
this!
@@anniestumpy9918 Exactly!
It can cause us PTSD. I had a severe autistic burnout due to masking and performing way beyond my ability for far too long. I retired early. It took me 2 years of being mostly isolated, a rocking chair, and not masking to be able to finally relax inside.
correct.
@@HappyHoney41The pandemic was that for me, as weird as it sounds. I was able to work from home and basically did not leave the house for two years. I live alone, so I was able to have my environment be as soothing and/or structured as I needed it to be for the most part. It was amazingly restorative, in ways I didn’t even realize I even needed. Not coincidentally, it’s also what started me wondering at 53 if I could be autistic.
My grandma I think knew about neurodivergence without having the words to explain it. If you're bothered by another person's stimming, the bothered person could do in another room and do something else because the stimming wasn't a bad behavior. If you liked standing to watch TV, there were places to stand that didn't bother the people that were sitting. My grandma also had a standard alternate meal option all through my mother's childhood, instead of saying you had to eat what everyone else was eating (this was in the 40's to 60's). She accommodated things instead of making kids feel bad.
Incidentally, she's the only relative I ever got along with and felt really safe around because I didn't have to alter my behavior. Pretty sure the autism/ADHD came from her family. My grandma would collect little glass figures (and glass stuff in general - she had thousands), always watched the exact same soap operas even if she was visiting someone else (she would insist on stopping to watch those), knew how to fix everything, and was still fascinated with babies and children despite raising 6 of her own.
She sounds like an amazing person! And light-years ahead of everyone else at that time in understanding neurodivergence.
Was she autistic and her special interest was "accommodating humans." So amazing.
I want to know more!!
GOAT grandma. What a crazy world we would live in if more people had that attitude - that if you're bothered by something that isn't hurting anyone, YOU go into another room instead of the person who's not hurting anyone.
I absolutely adore your grandma. she seems so sweet and hospitable, I wouldve wanted to watch soap operas with her
whats something cool that she fixed?
I remember standing outside a supermarket, ath the age of 6, consciously, thinking that i couldn't flap may arms because someone might think i was mocking disabled people. Little did I know... 😅
Oh, the irony in that! 😀
I have discovered recently that the "strike chest repeatedly with T-rex arm" gesture that kids use to mockingly indicate that another kid is a "retard" (or at least did in the 90s) is a fairly comfortable stim, which makes me think that the "retards" being mocked when the stereotype started out were likely autistic.
Argh same lol
People with Down Syndrome can also have autism as well. (18-20%)
Oh, i used to have that thought too. That makes me so sad
My stim was origami. My parents asked my school teachers to take away any paper I brought to school that I was folding. I had the teachers encouraging bullying on me to get me to "act normal" on my parent's wishes. I tried to stop stimming, anything, took up nailbiting and ended up with blood on all of my homework and scabs on all of my fingers that would crack and bleed regularly from just anxiety.
This is literally everything wrong with society and why people suffer. "I want them to act this way because anything else is uncomfortable to me and I'll do almost anything to stop it even if I'm not impacted by their existence." We obviously don't know each other, but I want to cry for you, especially because they were more worried about you being artistic than BLEEDING REGULARLY, I MEAN WHAT THE ACTUAL FREAKING HECK?? Child abuse at it's best, YA WANT A MEDAL FOR HOW BAD YOU SCREWED YOUR CHILD UP??
I didn't even consider origami could be a stim. I thought it was a special interest, but reflecting on it I did feel less stressed while folding.
Sorry it turned out poorly for you but thanks for the insight
That sounds awful I'm sorry you were treated this way. I hope you're doing better now. Origami was one of my stims too for a little while
Do your origami. I know it’s hard but if anybody asks you about it tell em to F off. ❤
I don't remember what my early childhood stimming was but I'm certain I was discouraged from it considering how concerned my mom was with us acting normal and not drawing attention to ourselves (and therefore her.)
By early-mid grade school I had a constant open sore on the back of my head from scratching. And i scratched my earlobe so much I literally scratched away the piece of skin that connected it to the side of my head.
School was really hellish in so many ways and it took me a long long time to realize that it was all connected. That like yeah scratching yourself till you bleed isn't normal but I was only doing it because I wasn't allowed to be normal.
*MY* normal. I was forcing myself to imitate "normal" behavior. Things no one would call me weird for
Everyone scratches themselves sometimes. But you're "disturbing" and "need to settle down" if you're rocking back and forth.
As someone who is possibly neurodivergent (specifically autistic and ADHD) I find people who talk about their experiences as a neurodivergent child helps since I am a possible neurodivergent child.
Completely agree.. Gets me thinking about things in my childhood that I hadn't remembered and analyzes thing I do much differently.
Hey, i wish you all the best for your journey of discovery if you're neurodivergent. Just wanted to tell you that self-diagnosis is valid and accepted and that you can do quizzes to find out (look up autism testing, there's a lot of the internet). Also, go talk to your general/family doctor. Maybe they could help you as well. Good luck :)
Yes😊
@@noname-vf1ftI know I’m not the one you wrote this for, but that was so comforting to hear. It’s been about 3 years of me doubting myself because I can’t get a diagnosis. It’s really hard sometimes.
Me too:)
I'm pretty sure not stimming(due to bullying) is what lead me into a deep depression when I was 12. I'm 28 now and when I started researching on autism last year, I learned to stop masking and to start stimming again. After 15 years of depression, I'm a whole different person. Or maybe I just reverted back to my old happier self.
When I first started to suspect I was autistic, I didn't really think stimming would work for me. I would look at stim behaviors and stim toys and think they didn't look particularly fun. However, when I tried them, I was really amazed with how effective they are. Like, stimming really does a lot to regulate my emotions and just make me feel better in general.
Stimming is kind of an unlockable ability, but you have to know the right key presses and what situation it's for. Get it wrong and it doesn't really work right.
My mother told me to stop stimming because in those days she remembered what happened to kids like me i.e. they went to institutions. It really messed me up. My oral stimming turned into smoking. Mentally not stimming left my nerves raw and i was suicidal by 16 years old. Im so glad to get a lot of my stims back decades later, feels good.
💚🍀
Yep, I smoke like a chimney to this day :( And that threat of a "group home"... my parents said that too :( I also turned into a cutter who got very good at making sure nobody ever saw the scars.
I think I was lucky in that my preferred stims were more “socially acceptable” - i.e., playing with my hair, biting my nails, colouring - but I still got called out for them and made to feel self-conscious. I can’t imagine how NDs who gravitate towards more noticeable stims are expected to cope. 😢
Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, my family didn’t know anything about autism. I didn’t either. Stimming was not shamed unless I had to focus on a specific activity. I didn’t flap my hands, but I rubbed my skin all the time, rubbed and tugged on my earlobes, rock side to side, played with my books by flapping the paper. As I got older I noticed I did flap my hands, but not in the usual “autistic” manner. My hands were by my hips and I would flap with my palms up. I also shake my leg, usually while sitting or lying down. As a guy, I’m sure I didn’t get as much bullying as women growing up, but the bullying was still there and I never understood why I was bullied.
My primary stim is skipping. It's not that bad; I can just pace or tap my feet if I can't skip around, but usually I can because my parents and school are pretty accepting.
When I was a kid, I would rock forward and back any time I was sitting down. If I was listening to some banger music on car rides, I would slam my back into the seat to the beat of the music. Unfortunately, I was always told to stop doing that by my peers or my parents cause they thought it was weird :/
i think i bite my nails too, i haven't really been able to pin point what 'stims' i got. maybe they're just very mild?
@@manboy4720 They’re possibly things that a lot of non-Autistic people also do, so they’re less obvious? Biting your nails is a good example, it’s so common that you don’t always know you’re doing it.
I was always a "gifted introvert" as described by people around me, and nobody ever really stopped me from stimming. People didn't really think I had autism, and also didn't stop me from stimming because I had good grades, and, since I didn't really interact with many other kids, that peer pressure part of it didn't really stop me. If I didn't have good grades, then my life would definitely be very different, because then my autism would have been seen as a problem, but, because I did well academically, I was just left alone. My life still probably would've been better if I had been diagnosed, but I'm happy where I am now. Many people aren't as lucky as me, and I'm glad I got what I got :3
I envy you.
Even Thou my grades were good I was not let in peace.
Those electric shocks started (at least in Melbourne) in the 50s. It was standard for an 'unusual' behaviour. I still have nightmares about it, and I'm 75. Thanks for your good work.
Sorry that you went through that.
Neurotypicals are scary
That preschool story. My “Smile” story. In kindergarten our teacher informed us that the next day was picture day and that we should practice our “smiles.” This caused me considerable anxiety. Nowhere in our coursework were “smiles” taught. So that afternoon I asked that my mother, “Mother, what is “smile?”
Replied that is when a person turns the corners of their mouths upwards.” Oh. Okay. So I tried practicing a smile in the mirror. It was a lot of work. Next day I gave it my all. The photographer was not as impressed as I thought he’d be. Looking back he thought I was making a “face”. The resulting photo is interesting.
Smiling the “right way” is difficult. I’ve always had people try to tell me how to do it. “Show your teeth”, etc. I had to start overdoing it when my mom got pissed that I wasn’t smiling in any of her wedding photos. I thought I was doing it right all day, but apparently hadn’t smiled at all.
I still don’t know how to smile in a way that NTs think is “normal”, my natural smile is a little different to the expectation but that’s okay :)
my mom would get mad that i would smile (often showing my teeth) in a huge grin with my eyes scrunched up and often even closed. I couldn't figure out why that wasn't a smile I could use for photos and stuff. I still don't get it. I looked actually happy in my younger school photos and other photos where I did that, and dead inside in my 8th grade yearbook, when i didn't do that.
They either need to give us proper smiling lessons in a gentle and encouraging way, or not expect us to do weird things with our face muscles on command.
I still don't get why we have to pretend to smile on photos. Wouldn't it be better to show what we were actually feeling in that moment?
It's awful. If I try to force a smile on camera I know it FEELS and LOOKS forced. Can't get it to be natural- and if I don't try at all I'm practically not even smiling. I can smile pretty good if it's genuine, but don't expect me to start smiling if I wasn't doing it in the first place.
I remember being told when I was a kid, specifically in autism therapy, that these behaviors were harmful and I should stop them, and the therapists scolded me for it.
That was in the 2000s. Around 15-20 years ago. Haven't done it since, I very rarely find myself flapping my arms or clapping happily anymore.
Though the one thing I remember I used to do a lot as a kid and still do is tell myself stories - literally narrate events of my own world inside my head to myself, I just don't do it out loud anymore. I've actually started writing some of it down and refining it a little, and I'm trying to actually get these published as fiction books.
That last paragraph is literally my girlfriend nowadays.
I do that too. I want to write it down but I feel like I’d have to make it sound professional or polished, but I love coming up with story ideas and characters.
can we have an excerpt?
I’m in the same boat, I was lectured or yelled at if I stimed to much or did something “strange” to stim. It got really bad as a kid and I used to bite and eat toilet paper when going to the bathroom to satisfy my urges, nail biting turned to picking at scabs and acne after I got braces and couldn’t bite my nails anymore. Scratching arms, subtlety twist my neck and other things like that is what my body did to attempt to satisfy the urge. I’m a new adult now and am attempting to allow myself to stim in my more natural ways like flapping hands, shaking leg, and more.
Gotta love 2000s poor research/s
I caught myself stimming and flapping like all day yesterday at work. I didn't stop myself from doing it. While my boss is super supportive and wants to work w me and my autism employment coach, I still am scared that I'll lose my job or have a change in dynamic at work because I won't stop myself stimming anymore.
yeah I want to do it more too. I felt so much better when I did it as a kid ...
During that time, the academic literature still considered Autism to be a subset of schizophrenia. This explains (not excuses) the use of "psychotic" during the 70s.
Psychosis is a stupid word to begin with as it suggests it has something to do with psychopathy. Psychosis is a state of detachment from sensory reality, like an altered state of consciousness. Psychopathy is a completely separate issue.
Clarifying for anyone who does not know:
Psychosis is the aforementioned state, psychopathy is a general mental behavioral profile characterized by lack of empathy, manipulative behavior, narcissism, other minor characteristics like blunted sensitivity to pain, attraction to bitters, glib superficial charm.
Like psychosis it’s abnormal, usually connected to physical trauma to the brain and many with it lead normal lives.
In the past, "psychopath" meant anyone who was mentally ill, not ASPD as we now understand it. It comes from "psycho" = mental and "pathology" = illness.
@@user-nl4ir7cx5r I don't know of any mental health professional who confuses the two. Perhaps non-professionals in the general population (i.e., scriptwriters) would do so, but Autism isn't psychopathy. Hope that clarifies anything.
Not that I'm "Sigmund Freud", "Maslow", or that other dude (Carl Jung), but my theory is that "Aspys" can be often be MADE, not BORN....As a response to dealing with not only the NUMBER of assholes, but the SIZES of a number of the numbers of those assholes, up to and including OTHER "Aspys"???
My parents both had very different handlings to me. My mom was so excited that I tried to stop stemming. My preferred stemming involves use of some nontraditional tools (rubber bands in one hand and small plastic snakes in another, I can't explain it other than that the weight distribution when I'm flapping them is chef's kiss), and I think she was embarrassed. I have a memory of a moment when I successfully seemed to not be stemming anymore, and she was telling my brother that he could stop some behavior of his because, "Look at your sister, she's stopping." After that I remember going into the bathroom and hand flapping and feeling so frustrated and alone and like a fraud. I hid it from her a lot as a kid.
Meanwhile my dad was curious in an encouraging way, and would ask questions about why I liked it and actually took my answers seriously. My memory associated with him and my stemming was him asking why I liked it, and when I told him it helped me imagine better, he took that answer seriously and made me feel so understood and never questioned me again. Same with why I used the weird tools I did, and he seemed to totally understand after I explained the weight distribution part of it. I've always been eternally grateful to his approach.
My second memory ever is of my dad screaming at me to look him in the eyes and stop crying while I was hyperventilating. This was when I was about two, so I suppose some of my stimming "issues" resolved pretty early too. In school the teachers also hated me for it and screamed at me often. But I just couldn't stop, adults scolded me, I got punishments, but I was often not aware of it. In middle school I got bullied for it a bit and immediately implemented extreme masking.
💜🫂I’m sorry
@@Totallyneutral Yes. When I started to try to be myself again I could hardly do it. You really loose your entire personality just to please someone. I think a diagnosis can make all the difference for a child, but human decency can also go a long way.
My earliest memories are of being bullied in kindergarten for poor social skills and stimming, so i feel you.
@@Aroacerat Me too but in preschool. The boys bullied me a lot.
My dad told me to look him in the eyes once and I didn’t understand why. It wasn’t natural for me but not really uncomfortable so I did it anyway. We were talking about a bully at school. (This has nothing to do with your comment but it reminded me of that)
Since I was very young, I've been told to not hold my hands a very certain way, do certain "weird" things, for about 15 years I didn't know anything, until I got a good friend group who pointed out that these are traits of autism, I am very glad to have the friends I do now, most of them are neurodivergent and they're all understanding, typing this I'm no longer stopping myself from stimming whenever I'm alone, I can't get diagnosed yet, but will hopefully soon.
RUclipsrs talking about this help a lot, and I apprecite you teaching people about this
My friends and partners, my new family are great, hope everyone who took the time to read this (or didn't, because that's fine too!), will be able to stim freely, and be comfortable wherever they may be!
Thank you so much for making this video. My 16 year old son is autistic, what would be described as high functioning. My husband feels that we should "prepare him for the real world" by teaching him to suppress some of his natural tendencies and interests. I feel that we should teach him to educate people around him as to why he does it. It's not harming anyone and it makes him happy. Yes, it doesn't win friends. But, the friends that accept it must be true friends and the kind of people that I want my son to have in his life.
Truly, this video is a blessing and so timely. I appreciate it so much. Please, keep making content like this. As a parent, it is so helpful to understanding autism and my child from a personal, rather than clinical perspective. I will be showing this to my son as well. Perhaps it will help him understand himself better.
Thank you ❤️
Don’t take this as a dogmatic truth, but in my view and experience: Autistic people will not make neurotypical friends. So there is no point in suppressing things like stims in order to function in society. We will never fit in, and the more most of us try, the creepier or more arrogant we seem.
Suppressing stims is only useful for short term, such as in interviews when first impressions are very important.
The times in my life where I forced myself to be "normal" the most were also the points in my life I was the sickest. I'm not just talking anxiety, but also brain fog, weakened immune system, chronic fatigue, fainting spells, temporary spells of full body paralysis, and even TIAs (mini strokes).
Things that may seem like a default, easy, everyday thing to you such as working 40+ hrs per week, acting "normal", not stimming, taking less/shorter/no breaks or naps, etc. takes FAR more energy for us to do.
Being forced to act like a "normal girl my age" legitimately made me so sick I almost *died.* The only reason I am still alive and fully independent today is because the clots that developed in my brain from overworking myself were small enough to unclog themselves before they could cause brain damage. And I was constantly being shamed for being "lazy" and "not trying hard enough" when my body was so drained it was struggling to keep me ALIVE.
Your husband needs to abandon the idea of your son being a "normal adult." Your son is disabled. He cannot waste all his energy that he needs to conquer the day pretending like he isn't. The only reason I'm able to function the way I do now is because I stopped wasting all my energy trying to perfectly blend in with people who thought I was odd anyways.
I think because autism really is a spectrum of varying degrees, no one person's experience is exactly like another's. Thankfully, my son does have both neurotypical and friends on the spectrum. It's the adjustment to adulthood, college, and the workforce that I think about a lot. I do feel that having a strong support system helps.
Anyway, thanks again.
People who like him for himself will find his tendencies and interests endearing. Friends he makes by suppressing his real self are not real friends.
@@bridgetphillips7462 I'm a 26 y/o woman. I have adhd, and I didn't know until my adulthood. I was ostracised for being weird in adolescence, inexplicably for me at the time. However, other kids who were different somehow and were open about it, were not bullied (someone had diabetes, someone was adopted from abroad, someone had immigrant parents...) or at least they had friends.
In my experience, since learning about my adhd and reflecting back, the best way to get understanding from other people is to explain to people in your everyday life, why you're different or what your condition is, and how it affects you. That way they can get a better understanding, 'an explanation', and they don't have to feel confused and irritated when they notice some of your traits, and try to interpret what they mean (and when people don't know, they often default to negative/suspicion). In stead they know what it's about and can even offer to help/support you. (Like a friend offering me a stim toy when we were having a difficult conversation because we had an argument)
Also, they can adjust their expectations of you when they know your weaknesses and strengths. I've been completely honest with people who need to know about some of my traits being weaknesses and others being strengths. And it has been worth it. They treat me better when they have understood that some things (like being on time) are really difficult for me even if I try. I live in a coulture where punctuality is very important and I fret being late a lot, so it helps if other people don't act angry on top of it when I arrive. I also make myself comfortable in chairs nowadays in meetings, and bring things to stim with, and others understand (I hope) that I do it because I respect the meeting and want to be present 100%.
The ostracation from my youth has still left me with fear of failure and rejection, which are somewhat present almost every day, even if people are nice to me and understanding towards my symptoms. The years I didn't know and didn't tell anyone did traumatize me.
I think your son needs both and he probably has learned both things from you as his parents and people around him; he needs to understand why neurotypicals act the way they do and what the social expectations are, and he needs to have a strong understanding about his own traits and how they are different from others, so he can express to others his differences and needs.
Without knowing the social expectations, he can't express when he needs to do something differently from the norm - which means accommodations. Adult neurodivergents need to know how to advocate for accommodations for themselves when they need them. They also need to know what accommodations work, which they never learn if they always try to supress and fit to a mold of normal.
We must remember, that for neurotypicals, the way they do things is logical. We must not think they are 'these stupid things neurotypicals do', though it's tempting. We must extend to them the same empathy we want to get from them.
One of the worst parts is nobody believes a small child can be depressed even the professionals wouldn’t diagnose me with depression till I was 12 even though I first started self harm at 7 and tried to take my own life at 9
It would have surely been written off as an "accident" if you actually died.
People really underestimate kids (and animals btw) in their intelligence and emotions. Kids are people, treat them like it.
@@PeterBijkerk-f1k They aren't just underestimated, they are completely excluded. A child's actions are completely credited to the adults in their life, because everything a child thinks, feels, and does is considered the will of those adults. Children are unthinking, unfeeling, and unacting, except when they do something that's _too_ inconvenient for their guardians, in which case they are a defective item and get discarded.
Yesh, I was there at 8 and only got help at 13.
Yes I literally wrote a song when I was 5 to express my emotions and I was talking about how I don't understand why I'm on this earth and I wish I wasn't and everything is just so hard and confusing. Mind you I wasn't old enough to write it was a song I made up in my head that I would sing and my mom transcribed the song for me and knew I was having these thoughts but still some how thought I was fine and didn't need therapy or anything. I know this because I found the paper with the song written on it in my mom's hand writing and with the date so I knew how young I was. It's honestly surprising how we can be so open about things and our parents will just convince themselves that everything was fine
I stopped stimming very early on when I got comments from adults and other children ("what are you doing?", blank judging stare; "your face will stop like this if you keep doing that"; "stop fidgeting around" etc.etc.).
I only allowed myself do do it again when I got my official autism diagnosis (in my 40s!) because now I "was allowed" to do it.
It's very sad what we do to children and their natural self-soothing behaviors; and it's not only words - a lot of us autistic people _will_ notice your condescending looks, even towards other people, and remember that very well as "something not to do in public at all costs"... 😢
The “look” is done so much around Autistic people and children especially and THAT is what inherently teaches children how to mask. It’s not only people being abusive openly, but also the small behaviors people show that they are uncomfortable with the behavior of someone else that teaches people to mask. Unfortunately, for me, that includes my family that don’t realize I mask because I was taught by them and others. I think my family thinks they didn’t do anything, but in reality they were constantly checking my behavior with “the look”. Autistic people are NOT stupid. We can see your behavior and know what you’re trying to communicate with literally one look AND we know if it’s about us or, if we are being bullied/being judged for the way we are. I’m in the process of learning how to unmask and this is so frustrating because my family basically only knows me as masking me and, that’s not the real me. But, they get uncomfortable when I unmask and, don’t want to talk about how they are affecting me and causing me emotional and mental pain with their expectations of how I am or, how I should be.
I went to a school for the blind, and if you stimmed they would correct you real quick. When I would visit my Meemaw she'd let me stim, and my mom got mad about that because she said Meemaw was spoiling me. I think she was actually the only person in my life who realized I was neurodiverse, even though when I told her I was pretty sure I was on the spectrum, she literally said the dreaded phrase, "You're not autistic." She passed away in 2013, so I really hope that when she got to Heaven, that God whispered in her ear, "Yes she is."
Yes! I could have written this comment. Lol.
@@SarafinaSummers Which part? Did you also go to a school for the blind, or did you just have to deal with the constant criticism?
*Autistic people being themselves*
The world: that's wrong!
Researchers: puzzled that a lot of us have mental illness
😒
Their perplexed because their neuro-typical and don't experience what neuro-divergent people experience.
I'm an autistic person who just turned 30 and I'm working on getting a Bachelor's degree in Psychology then furthering that into a PhD in ASD and CPTSD research. I'm grateful to hear you say that we need more autistic adults involved in the research, it really makes me more motivated to keep pursuing my degree. Thanks for the content!
Good for you. Your doing god’s work for us!
Thank you for what you are doing. Your efforts can bring a much better outcome and life to many like us in the future. You are doing a huge, beautiful cause
I recently started majoring in psychology after being rejected from the acting department. I think I too want to go into improving autism research. Here's to hoping we can make a difference!
That’s awesome congratulations ps I’m also autistic and I’m 32 I’m 2 years older than you
Feeling like being in a straitjacket describes it so perfectly.
I stimmed a lot as a child. From more harmless stimms, like rocking back and forth ot flapping my hands, to chewing on literally everything and hitting myself. My mother viewed this as intentional attacks on her. In her mind, I was acting like an abused, neglected child to call her a bad mother. She'd freak out if she "caught" me stimming, I remember her telling me to not act like I'm suffering from hospitalism (which is such an odd thing to say to a child).
In therapy, any "odd" behaviour of any sort was always simply labeled as dysfunctional. I wasn't in ABA specifically, but there was that same attitude of "getting better" not being a matter of feeling better; the more normal you appear, the better you are. Above all else being normal was the goal.
So I of course tried to hide and suppress my stims. For me this lead to a fear of not being in complete control of what my body is doing at all times, even beyond stimming. When I had pneumonia as a child, I refused to cough. I had to be taken to the doctor literally every day for supervised coughing sessions until I got better. It also lead to an eating disorder. Doing what my body wants, even if it was good for me, felt horrible to me.
Now, as a diagnosed adult, I'm at least more comfortable to stim while on my own. Especially around other people however, this need to try and appear normal has been hammered into me so deeply that it feels impossible to let go.
It's beyond me how professionals and researchers didn't see it coming that trying to bully the stimming out of anyone would lead to this.
I can totally relate to suppressing to the point of not feeling things in my body. It took me years to learn to trust my body again and it's an ongoing process 😮💨
To professionals normal = healthy. They couldn't fathom that some people have a different normal.
THIS!!!!!!!!!! i’m autistic and have tourette’s and this is so helpful to hear. i lived in pain for years because i’d suppress stims and tics and i always felt so alone because whenever i did those things people stared. both tourette’s and autism are so heavily stigmatized i just want to say i love your channel and thank you so much ❤
I'm late diagnosed and I will say, I started stimming in more obvious ways in private and my chronic untreatable anxiety basically disappeared in some areas and reduced in a lot of areas. I've tried to include it in a lot of different areas of my life and it's incredibly improved my life.
I started biting the inside of my mouth/cheeks as a stim as a way to outwardly appear to be "sitting still" because of being constantly told to do so as a child. It's something I still do to this day and it annoys me that it's such a literally self-destructive habit just to make others more comfortable around me as opposed to hand flapping etc that I used to do before others shamed me into suppressing it.
Same here, and grinding my teeth. I had no idea I was even doing it until my dentist commented on it. I'm trying to channel it back into fun stims like dancing.
sounds painful. did your mouth get sore?
Holy crap, I'm not the only one who does that?
@@mictoriaI grind my teeth all the time, to the point where I need to consciously focus on relaxing my jaw, but I never thought of it as stimming before. Or how when I got my wisdom teeth out a few years ago, the spot where my lower left tooth was isn’t completely smooth, so I run my tongue over it because I like how it feels bumpy. If those are stims I guess I never stop stimming, which is fine with me because staying still is so hard!
I liked how you explained about not knowing how to cross your legs because I actually demonstrate and show my 5 and 6 year old students how to do that at the beginning of the year. I show them how to do everything because I can't assume they know.
You mentioned not knowing why adults didn't bring you to the group to play, and it is because, developmentally, parallel play is typical up until around 5 years old and every child has different play styles at that point (from a teacher perspective).
I also like how you bring up always being tired because I have been always tired as long as I can remember. Only once did they say I had an iron deficiency, but since then, they can not say why I am always tired.
I used to have a gooey drawer of squishy sensory things and goo. My parents got rid of it when I was in high school because it was weird. I collect dolls now (which they still don't like). Nothing I like to do is normal enough I suppose.
When I was in Grade School, I was assigned an "Autism Support Aide" by the school district, whose main purpose was to hover over me and stop me from stimming (and also keep me focused on the school-work). Being told to stop stimming was a daily occurrence, I was regularly punished for stimming too frequently, and _even the other Autistic kids in my Special Ed homeroom_ started mocking me for my stimming. By 3rd Grade I had the distinct sense of being treated unfairly, by 4th Grade I was struggling with passive suicidal ideation, by 7th Grade I doubted I would even be able to function in college, and by the time I graduated High School I had become politically radicalized. By the time I entered college, I'd been shamed and punished for stimming, so frequently and so routinely, that I began contemplating using euphemisms for stimming instead of referring to it by name.
I think using euphemisms is fine if that's what you want, but that you shouldn't feel pressured for using the word "stimming." Alas, society.... I am very sorry that you were not in a supportive environment, even in a class where you think other people can relate to you and thus be kinder-- kids can oftentimes be cruel. I wonder if you are currently at a place where you can privately stim, or not be criticized for more subtler stims, and/or have folks you can stim around freely? I find that as an adult, to my experience, people don't tell you what to do as often.
Hmm, the aide thing is eerily similar to what I experienced in grade school as well... I'm curious as to where it took place because I'd like to know how widespread it is or maybe even if we were in related programs in similar areas.
@@hdckighfkvhvgmk Rural Pennsylvania, in the general area of Harrisburg.
omg. i got a lady fired for basically yelling at me for having an anxiety attack (i only remember one time but i am sure it happened often, i hated her and she often made me cry) in third grade. later on i met the new aide who was at the time 19. i LOVED her. she was my mentor for several years outside of school as well. i am now 23 and whenever i run into her and her kids, we are so happy to see each other. her daughter who i had never met previously (she is five) gave me a big hug. i am so lucky to have found someone so patient and kind, knowing that most other aides i had or knew were not as understanding.
“Social ABA therapy” yep, thank you for saying that, I feel like that’s exactly what happened to me. I didn’t understand how to socialize like everyone else seemed to, and “being weird” isn’t how you made friends, so any time I got a comment about how my behavior was odd or unusual, my brain just went, “well, guess I have to throw that behavior into the trash or at least be more subtle.” I used to walk on my toes all the time, and I never tripped or sprained my ankle walking on my toes like I would when I walked with my whole foot. But my dad heard that’s an autistic thing, so he told me so and asked (without judgement, just a normal parental concern), “can you walk with your heals on the ground?” And that was all it took for me to understand that was a “bad” thing because it was weird and pathological. Trashed it. Which is really sad, because there is a whimsical magic joy feeling that came with walking on my toes, and that source of joy was gone after 1st grade.
I heard the "walking on toes" stim can be misdiagnosed as short tendons.
I find myself wanting to walk on my toes sometimes when I'm barefoot and don't like the feeling of the floor beneath my feet and I'm trying touch it as little as possible. I especially hate the feeling of a dirty, sticky and grimy floor. Sometimes I'll feel the need to wear socks, slippers, or shoes indoors because I don't like the feeling of some floors. Of course, I'd eventually get tired of having my feet covered and walking on my tiptoes is what I'd end up doing. That's my personal experience with the tip toeing.
The past five or so years have been pretty bad, but I kept assuming it was ADHD. Oddly enough, when the pandemic came through, a lot of things became easier for me due to work-from-home and social distancing. Suddenly I had reasons for not wanting to go to various events.
And then I had a child, which is absolutely amazing and wonderful, but my capacity for all sorts of things started lowering.
That brings me to a few months ago and I started wondering if ADHD may not fit the bill.
In looking at a few things, autism was an explanation that also fit so many of the boxes.
So this last week, I finally made a call to a group that does neurodivergent diagnosis. It will still be a few months before I can be seen, but knowing it's in my future has been helpful.
Thank you for your channel, thank you for your videos, and thank you for your validation 🙂
I got bullied a lot in school by my teachers for not being able to say the pledge of allegiance correctly. I kept getting sent to the office and told I was a "bad kid" or that I "hated America" to the point where I would just remain in silence for every pledge for the rest of my school years because I figured if I couldn't say it right, I might as well not say it at all. I was 5
Hi Jessica 🌹🌹🌹
How are you doing?
Yeah, I had trouble memorizing the pledge of allegiance. I think I would just sort of mumble through it. Fortunately, no one ever called me bad or anything like you experienced. I am so sorry you had to go through that.
I distinctly remember I was six yo when I realized that adults can lack empathy and be as ignorant as children.
If teachers are not trained to recognize autism symptoms and act appropriately nor have innate sensitivity there’s little to no chance they will do the right thing.
patreotism is a stupid concept at its core
we only had to do the pledge in 1rst class n funny thing is i never learned the song only repeated after others
I’m tearing up more and more as I’m watching this video for a 2nd time. I’m 56, going on 57 in 1-1/2 months, and I’m seeing more and more of my child self in this. My therapist has suggested that I’m Autistic around 8 or so months ago, and since I agree with this 100%, you could say that I’m self-diagnosed.
I was teased horribly throughout my grade school years, being around the same kids from kindergarten through high school. I even got suicidal by mid-high school. I remember that my Kindergarten teacher struck me on the back of the hand with a ruler in class, in front of everyone, at my desk, but I have never been able to remember WHY. I was always called weird, and now I’m bit by bit seeing why. I think that I covert stim at this point in my life. The main one that I notice is slight rocking. Such a long post, thank you.
I stimmed a lot in my childhood. Flapping, spinning, walking in circles, chewing on my clothes. All of it. Eventually, when my dad came back into my life at 13, he would tell me to stop moving around so much because it distracted him. And eventually I managed to do so. So age 14 and on, I didnt stim at all. I was constantly sick, constantly anxious, and my life fell apart into a depression because I was always exhausted. I didn't have the tools to help myself regulate, and my only tool up til that point had been stimming. It's only in the last few months that I'm making a conscious decision to stim again that my mental health is FINALLY recovering. I'm 21 now. I haven't been able to work or go to school because I've been bed rotting for three years now just trying to recover from the burnout. I'm only just starting to feel normal again. Stimming has been a significant tool in my arsenal to get to the point im at now.
Hell, ive been able to stop my Antidepressants recently because i am genuinely in a much better situation than I had ben before. Stimming is VITAL to neurodivergent people. And I will gladly die on that hill. I've seen how a lack of stimming dug me into a pit. And while I know it wasn't the only factor, I do know it was a significant one.
I started playing with my hair when i was 10. My dad started giving me "gentle" reminders to stop playing with my hair for the next many years. I had to become really concious of when I could and couldnt stim like that, aka, when I was and wasnt around my dad. When I moved out, I still found myself concious of when I was playing with my hair and would make an effort to stop until I learned about autism and realized that I had been stimming that whole time. From then, I allowed myself to play with my hair as much as I liked, and I also found myself allowing myself to stim in other ways as much as I like. My mental health right now isn't perfect, but I definitely feel great when I stim. Unfortunately, I still monitor how much I play with my hair and stim in general when I'm around my dad. Thankfully that's not all that often.
i know you mean gentle but i am Jewish and in my mind i saw gentile reminders and thought of angry italian catholic dad stereotype 😂 definitely not what you were trying to say
@@molls127 lol, I can never remember how to spell it. I always confuse the French spelling with the English spelling and end up combining them
I'm late diagnosed autistic, I got diagnosed last year when I was 30 and since then I have been learning to let myself unmask and rediscover my stims. I flap my hands a lot when I'm anxious and I tend to sway a lot too. My oldest stim is twirling my hair, my ma said I've always done that. I'm really happy I know I'm autistic because it just explains so much about me that I always questioned 😌
I’ve been bullied for stimming at school, and I masked heavily for 7 years because of it. I’m only now letting myself stim in front of people again and it is hard to get out of the mindset of “people will think you’re weird for this”
Recently self-assessed AUDHD. Your videos have helped me feel ok being as-is. Also came through a brain injury/infection recently.
Your videos are helping me remember misplaced childhood memories.
Thank you!
When they started correcting my "noisemaking" and "fidgeting" behavior physically (ca 6 yrs old), i started wetting the bed. They corrected me even more severely for that. I then shut down and disconnected completely until i was away from my parents for almost a year, as an adult with a 6-year-old's emotional development
I'm glad I caught this video before getting my son into an ABA program
I used to enjoy putting my arms in these pillow cases and imagine myself as a butterfly flapping my arms about, pacing around the place. I would do that often as a toddler when I could fit my arms into them. I guess one of the things I still do is pace around my room, watch as I’m tossing something up into the air and enjoying the feeling of catching it. I do this when I’m listening to music non-stop and feel the intense urge of zoomies.
On a side note: does anyone else ever..... stay in the bathroom for prolonged periods at a time? Just... sitting there. Either deeply thinking or just..... disassociating? Or even just watching videos on a device, listening to music, or playing games? I think I’ve gotten this habit simply because in my childhood, there was no safe space of privacy for me to just, not be around anyone else, to do my own thing in peace. I grew up in a family with little income so we had to make do with little space, privacy, & comfort essentials.
@@kodi2329Yes! I do that because it feels like a safe room that nobody else can come into while I’m inside
@@bizarre3228 thank you for the response, helps me feel more comforted on where I’m at & knowing that others may do that too. Gives me relief with what may perhaps be due to my possible autism or something else underlying.😌
@@kodi2329bathroom floor time is a daily requirement for me, or I'll be all sorts of mentally uncomfortable 😂 it's part "third space", part "sensory deprivation chamber" for me.
@towhee3400 I’ve never felt so related too, this is honestly funny on what I relate to so much!😭
i love how you show clips of child you. you looked so cute and autistic i love it
Thank you 💛💛💛
Yea
@@imautisticnowwhat ur welcome! i wish i found my childhood clips to see my neurodivergence too
I think one of the biases i had why i believed i couldnt be autistic was because there are certain stereotypical stimming behaviours that you hear and see. And even later when i got diagnosed i often felt odd and like not "autistic in the right way" ; because my stimming looks different.
I always stimmed with my hair by twirling it a certain way, when im tired or stressed i will rock very much. And that is the biggest movement i do in terms of stimming, i sometimes dont even notice that im doing it when im tired and my partner points it out. Its for sure something i masked very intensively as a child and teen, learnt to not rock back and forth when im stressed, tired, in pain or just very focused really.
I dont pick my skin or such, i dont like that. But i will scratch my own nails until they are painfully short. And i will like i said play with my hair, a pen or some other item, hairbands or whatever i can find. But its not moving my arms kind of thing. I dont like how my joints feel when i "flap" my arms around at all. The T-rex pose by walking around on tiptoes is one that i do a lot, have done since im a child, and find super comfortable. Its very appearent when im comfortable and in my own safe space i will walk around like this.
And mask when im outside; i wont rock, wont play with my hair or a pen, wont walk around with t-rex arms. But at home for sure!
I never been a very energetic person, so i think me being introverted and low energy (at all stages of my life) is why i never had the urge to move in big stimming motions. I think the biggest stim would have been echolalia if i were stressed out and tired, or perhaps angry ? I feel big emotions could cause this. Even now when im stressed i can get stuck on repeating the same words or sentences over and over. I also doodle on paper by repeating the same motion, the same word, the same letter, the same doodle, etc.
Repetition is very calming but i dont like moving my body a lot, dont like how it feels (beyond rocking) and dont like how it feels when my hands or arms move; i can feel the tension inside, the movement of my joints etc. Its not pleasant to me.
Whoa, I just got to the part where they're comparing autistic traits to zoo animal captivity..... That's foul!
If you look at someone sneezing, often the face they make at the beginning looks like anger, does that mean every person sneezing is angry?
When you have no context for it, it sure looks that way.
Without context, running could be several different things. Are they running just for fun or are they running to get away from an enemy?
Someone in a kitchen grabs a knife, are they getting ready to attack someone or make a sandwich? Context makes clarity...
The only pat might be valid might be, if it makes people deeling like caged animal on purpose, why do you punbish stimming :( Why do that cruelty. Thats just cruelty of i dont care, just live with that pretty grave discrimination, because i dont care. Which is not dissimilar with rassism and other . why cant society be less , ok it might be a bit better but it , is as importand as fdealing with rassism. :(
And good argument, everyone that sneezes is the the enemy XD Which is also a goofd argument, and funny. But also a good argument
And god beware you are lefthanded, which, also has a dark history. wThats so abitrary and unnessesary:(
Mental institutions of all kinds have in the past been hideous places where they torment humans in the name of research. Those poor kids :( breaks my heart. Thanks Meg x
Wait till you see animals being treated that way in laboratories. Oh, wait. They’re not humans. So their suffering doesn’t matter.
@@mr.x2567 People can be upset about more than one thing at a time. There’s a time and a place to bring up animal abuse, and here is neither. If you want to advocate for animal welfare, please do it somewhere at least somewhat relevant to animal welfare. Have a nice day.
I took a nap the other day right after listening to your video and had a dream where you were telling us cat facts that my subconscious definitely didn't make up. I so vividly remember you excitedly saying "This one's my favorite, cats will EXPLODE if they purr too much!" and I was SO ALARMED both at your enthusiasm and at the purring cat that'd fallen asleep on my chest.
18:53 Humans grin, show their teeth and make rapid, high-pitched, repeating sounds (known as laughing) to express joy, but the same (or very similar) behaviour is in the animal kingdom usually interpreted as a sign of aggressiveness.
Meg!!! I can't tell you how happy it makes me to hear these stories about your son, and how he is demonstrating such empathy with his friend. It's so clear he's being raised by such beautiful people with such beautiful souls who see children for who they are. Allowing them to normalize the behaviors that other children could so easily make fun of, your son is extraordinarily loving and brave, no doubt because of the open and loving environment in which he is allowed to express himself, then turns around and makes others feel comfortable with being themselves. Thank you for the love you're putting into the world❤
Awww I love that your son calls the stimming of his friend "dancing" 🥺 that's so cute!! The kids are alright! ❤️
Wow. Mind blowing epiphany over here.
I had stopped most of my very “disruptive” stimming by 5th grade, but I didn’t know then that I’m autistic and still had a few outward stims.
In grade 5, the teacher did “mock trials,” with a video camera on us so we could, “practice public speaking and appearing in a formal, public forum.” (For a bunch of 11 and 12 year olds.)
When she pointed out my stim (rubbing the sides of my fingers against the fingers next to them) in the video, the entire class laughed and cracked jokes at my expense. Utterly humiliating.
The whole point of the exercise was apparently to shame us into stoically sitting perfectly still at all times.
By the following year, I was having major mental health issues and feeling like I would be better off… “not being in the world.” Everything just got harder from there.
Didn’t connect the systematic repression of self to the sudden mental health crash until just now.
I didn’t get diagnosed until 40 though, and it’s taken many years in and out of therapy to get me to a somewhat stable, emotionally literate, healthy place.
Hiding my (undiagnosed) autism absolutely did not help me feel or actually BE accepted by my (allistic/nt) peers at any point. I have always been and will always be autistic.
As someone who’s also been dealing with chronic health issues and the medical system (U.S.) for over a decade, I’ve come to this conclusion: “Doctors are some of the dumbest smart people I’ve ever met.” I mainly blame hubris, personally. But that’s a gross oversimplification.
And no, I cannot believe attitudes are still so… Victorian, about so many things, including autism, in 2023. It’s beyond frustrating. Just listen to a medical history podcast sometime; attitudes have hardly changed since Hippocrates’ time.
Anyway, I’m working on chiseling the mask off. It sometimes feels like trying to remove just the eggs from a cake after it’s been baked. And it’s a bit scary. But feels so much better when I find a little piece of the “real” me again and get to reintegrate that bit and give myself permission to be autistic.
Chanels like yours have been hugely helpful as I navigate all this stuff. Your work is greatly appreciated. 💛
It's so crazy that they're investigating how to end stimming and assuming it's harmful, instead of having a three-minute conversation with any autistic adult to find out that it's helpful.
I remember the parachute and remember staring at it inside and thought I was in a magical land and my gym teachers yelled at me. All of my teachers either yelled at me or ignored me. There was no integration or help. Im 27 now. I masked completely until 2021 when my sibling passed and I couldnt handle life anymore. So now I stim A LOT. I had no idea about any of this. I was actually diagnosed a couple months before his passing. Its unfortunate because he was too, and I didnt realize how this diagnosis probably could have helped me earlier, and he would probably still be alive. The mental health care world failed us.
You are doing such an incredible job, Meg- increasing visibility and pushing for acceptance and respect. I am so grateful for all this and happy to have joined your Patreon!
I think letting people be themselves is way better than trying to change them especially if they aren’t doing anything wrong.
I love all the footage from your childhood that you put in. Home videos like this of me as a child really helped with my diagnosis process
19:07 I believe the core problem here is that stimming is identified as problematic behavior. But instead it is a coping behavior, and something that can improve wellbeing. And yes, we can probably not be sure if it does the same for animals. But I would contend that animals in captivity need a coping behavior just as much as people do. I do not have a problem seeing a similarity there - even though I do not know if the reasons for the behavior are similar enough.
I have also seen people in pain use repetitive behavior, like rocking, and I have done so myself. I believe that stimming and coping may be the reason in all of these cases. The problem is the captivity or the pain. The coping behavior is helpful.
I guess the reason why people can be disturbed by RRBs may be that the coping behavior can indicate a problem: pain, captivity, some sort of unwellness - for which the coping is the counteraction. But trying to suppress the coping behavior of course only “solves” their own unease watching it, but it doesn’t solve the problems that the person (or animal) has that does the stimming. It rather exacerbates them.
15:11 I did the same thing! Some of those online tests are like “did you make stories when playing” and what they don’t realize is we usually do. It’s just we make stories in our heads. I very rarely acted the stories out. The closest I had to that was I had American Girl dolls and I used to line them up, do their hair and maybe change their clothes and then line them up again.
I think the imitation your son is doing of his friend's "dancing" is the sweetest thing. Oh my word. 😭 How beautiful!
And your lovely explanation to him that stimming helps some of us feel happy. Chefs kiss, genuinely. Well done, mama 🫶🏻 Thank you for this video!
Dancing and singing were also a form of stimming that I would get enjoyment and pleasure out of. Stimming to music is definitely something I do. Sometimes I'll rock back and forth or from side to side, or or wave my arms to the rhythm of the music. It's one of my favorite ways to relax and unwind after a stressful day.
This video was LIFE CHANGING. Thank you. My son was diagnosed recently and I suspect I should be too because I can relate so much to all of the behaviours you described here.
I started to suppress my stimming, in early childhood, because I've always been told to stop doing it or I was even called names by my grandma who was very annoyed of my stimming.
I developed many severe mental illnesses, some are trauma related though, like my PTSD or DID and not because I wasn't allowed to stim. But not being able to stim definitely caused issues like more depression, anxiety and the inability to regulate my emotions.
But ever since I got my autism diagnosis a few years ago, I started to stim again, even in a hospital, where I always get told to stop, even if they know I'm autistic. Since I know more and my family knows more, I don't feel ashamed of it anymore and I don't care if other people get annoyed from it. I need it at times. In public though I'm still suppressing it and it is very exhausting to me. I don't even know why I am doing that. It takes me several days to recover from not stimming while I had to be in public for a long period.
Whenever my mom sees me stimming really heavily, she is asking me if something is wrong, because she knows that if I'm more stressed, I stim more.
Not being able to stim can make it harder to process trauma and that trauma becoming a long term mental health thing. So as another autistic person with DID, they are unfortunately related.
I never made that connection, but it makes sense
I did try to stop stimming in my teens. Absolutely ramped up my aggression levels. Here's the thing about telling young boys not to stim. If you tell them that non-purposeful physical stimulation is unnacceptable, they will find the purposeful acceptable versions. And when you're a young boy, especially an anxious and frustrated young boy who has trouble getting close to people, that includes violence. It's not gonna make you friends, but it's less likely to make people pick on you. Although in retrospect, they just thought I was a sad lad.
I never thought I stimmed because I never saw others who stimmed like me. I would stare at a certain spot for a long time (visual stimming) and I used to chew on my hair and clothes a lot, but graduated to gum (oral stimming). My son is a vocal stimmer (singing, making noises). I never knew this was stimming until I started consuming more autistic content made by autistic people. The only representation I saw in stimming from others was hand flapping and hopping, and so I never thought I was autistic. It definitely helps to see a lot of different types of autistic people - it helps us feel less alone! Also, screw people that don't think we should stim. If it bothers them, they can go in another room. 😜
Ok that visual stimulation part hit close to home, i often do that staring thing alongside following the weird shadow thing you see when you stare too long at a light source :0
I finally got my autism diagnosis earlier this year and it's wild to me how many people feel they need to stop stimming, maybe it's cause it never occurred to me to try to fit in or maybe it's cause I had an example of a stimmer in the 11th Doctor. It also probably helps that my mum likes the way I flap my hands around when talking.
I had my stimming beaten out of me by relentless bullying at school. Yay for the '80s!
It's not any better now x) kids are the fucking worst (which is bc of their parents, but still)
Sorry you had to go through that experience. It's not only a 80's thing. Still happens today. I wish you a good healing journey. Remember that healing is not linear. :)
The history's kind of long and complicated, but I learned/was taught to suppress and hide my stims _very_ early on - like, before primary school. Nowadays, at 46, it comes out as cracking knuckles and stretching joints (shoulders are a particular one, which freaks people out even more than flapping my hands would, because my shoulders are _really_ bendy), and I always have small tools on my desk to fidget with.
I still find it weird that we live in a world where cracking knuckles is more socially-acceptable than flapping hands, though.
Literally just because NTs do it.
i think, they subconcious feel that we are different and the fact they so pale, uncreativ, mondane and ordinary makes them hate us. most do not "hate" but they rather see us as the problematic child that gives them to martyr in how diffucalt we are than accepting, their lack of any features or characteristics. at least that way, they are above-making us seem in need of them. so they make shure, you do not wiggle the wrong muscle getting comfortable enough to tap in the potenial of ADHS/Autism. bc we can manage to function if we have to even if it is torture, but they could notm for the love of god, write songs and books while having s*xmagic or get hyperfocused or just stand out. i had the same history, same thing with the shoulders . today, i am 36 i will meet them again, i will stimm the hell out, and if they act, i have science to prove em wrong. like i had with the c-vacc wich they did just bc i was very early against and this killing em is the reason we meet again. it is"yes, i do funny movements to get along but i also breath. with my own lungs. on my own. they cant bc they rather injected substances than tolerate anything besides themself, besides conformity. ^^
The play style you were talking about really resonated with me. A LOT of my play in childhood involved sorting things and lining things up or grouping them, and then making up stories in my head about them. When those things were crayons or markers, I’d then color in graph paper or closed shapes I’d drawn using the colors according to rules that made sense with the story. Pink or red and blue were a couple, and green was with yellow but also sometimes with orange. Purple was with pink or yellow. Apparently, my art supplies were poly, lol!
For adult coloring, I notice I very much prefer repetitive or geometric coloring pages, and tend to make up rules that govern what colors go next to each other. Although they are different rules than when I was a kid.
I rarely drew pictures like other kids, unless it was a school assignment. I still don’t prefer drawing.
You reminded me I needed to stim today. Thanks for your help.
I (28F) was diagnosed this year, but had been self-diagnosed for about a year beforehand.
My stims have primarily been auditory/vocal. Basically, I’m always singing. I’m a GOOD singer, too, so I grew up with people telling me to stop showing off when I was just… having fun/soothing myself.
I stifled my singing stims just before high school and noticed after a while that I was so much sadder.
I’m also big on making random noises vocally, clapping, making other random mouth sounds (not those gross eating sounds). Echolalia is also present. I’d really like to see some research into auditory/vocal/verbal stims - where people have them as their primary stims.
I'm working on re-finding my stims. It's very hard ass an adult. If anyone is around at all I am constantly watching my own behavior. Small shifts have helped, though, Just little things like instead of thinking "stop chewing your cheeks/lip" I notice that it is soothing and I even think I look cute and thoughtful while I do it. And picking at my cuticles and nails. And I have an object that I play with during meetings and long conversations that really helps give me an outlet for social tension.
I remember the extreme pressure of trying to appear normal in school. I tried so hard and still was always weird or doing something awkward or weird or gross. The worst wasn't even from bullies, but offhand comments from my friends about the way I'd dress, or pick my hands when I couldn't finish a test. Middle and high school there's an intense urge to have human connection, and you're right that we really do inflict ABA type conditioning on ourselves trying to become something we're not. The story about your son and his friend is beautiful
This is so incredibly interesting and really makes me think about my own experiences. I don't recall ever doing big stims, but I do recall VERY early on feeling very nervous and different from the other kids in daycare (I started there when I was only a year and a half or so). I often sat alone unless any of the few kids I knew really well were there and constantly asking the grownups for reassurance that I wasn't misbehaving, and I do remember looking at the other kids and consciously copying them even then. My nickname as a very young toddler was "Jiggly" and grownups who met me at that age but didn't see me for a few years after literally told me how much I changed from a bouncy kid always telling stories to being so quiet and shy. I also had anxiety develop very young and depression hit hard when I was only 8 years old. It's both validating and very sad to me that this is such a common experience in our community.
I know. It was stunning to me when I first heard Meg mention 7 or 8. Same here. I never imagined it was common. And I never ever wanted to relive my childhood. Once was more than enough.
As a multiple survivor of suicide ideation thanks to the abuse from my family and their inability to accept me 'with autism', this is the kind of video that my family should have seen years ago, who likely still wouldn't accept me even if they did, as sometimes we're just born into the wrong families. This video was genuinely awesome, and is a further testament to understanding that my stimming was often taught to me as bad behaviour or "un-ideal".
ur son being supportive is probably the sweetest thing in the world
Stimming curbs anxiety, if you don’t realize you’re doing it. Once you realize you are stimming, and try to cease, possibly due to the environment. Now you fertilize your anxieties with some depression! It can be a viscous circle.
Then, there's also the option of knowing you're doing it and not giving a fuck, which I'm learning for myself and holy void it helps.
Have I been doing that without knowing for years?
I stim also.
I have plush bunnies that are really soft and usually, I like having a plushie's ear between my thumb and forefinger and rub the softness between my fingers. I also rock myself to sleep, pinch my bottom lip between my fingers, and open and close my hand.
I also have heightened awareness when I stim.
I was also diagnosed with depression, OCD, and anxiety.
I don't think I committed most of my stims to memory as a kid. I also didn't know I was autistic, so I wasn't looking out for them. In a way, playing the cello was very stimmy. Maybe that counts. I'm always swaying and bouncing and stretching. Oh yeah, beatboxing! Definitely not socially acceptable, that last one.
I feel sad to relate to something like this, because I know now that I use stimming techniques and didn't even notice it was not what other people around me did, and I wonder how many life choices and opportunities were lost for me because I didn't fit in. I'm basically in my own head so often, and pair that with the loneliness and obsession other people have with confomity and I feel alien in this world to a painful degree. That I have to mimic what other people do and say instead of having a way to truly be understood is depressing, and even more depressing when I can't be left alone to do my stimming because it is seen as weird and repulsive for those other people.
I spoke once with a friend who had a similar issue, and he couldn't keep a job, not because he didn't want to work, bringing him to destitution without money, but because he felt unusually strong burnout in the workplace, but he had to mask it by himself, because other people would not be tolerant or cognizant of his state of being. I then realize how similar we were, and how I also had to mask in the workplace, hide my thoughts and feelings, because of my anxiety. People think anxeity is made up. I assure you, I myself do not want my anxeity to exist, but it persists in my weakest moments and is a torture on my mind.
When I met my wife in college she would pull hair of her head strand by strand, I would make a weird humming sound whenever I wasn’t speaking and I’d flap my arms around. :/ when we had our first kid we would point out to each other that he would always spin his foot around. Later when we got an autism diagnosis for him I got kind of dark and just blamed the vaccines. Maybe we shouldn’t stigmatize autism anymore. Yea I was the weird kid our whole family was that weird kid in school. But the fear of autism can lead to more dangerous ideas like vaccine denial when it was just kinda obvious we were all in the spectrum and that was ok
The more I think about all of this the more I am deeply saddened that no one caught any of this in me as a child. My childhood was so traumatic while in school. It wasn’t until k found theatre and dance that o was able to stim carefree. However, both teachers and students and even my one mother were relentless in reprimanding me or mocking me for the ways in which I comforted myself in uncomfortable situations, which were numerous.
I remember swimming as pre-teen, spinning my lower arms like propellers, and told to stop. It did get redirected for social integration, but manifested in explosive anxiety/ADHD/ASD meltdowns. Having anxiety atm, tried hand flapping, and it was like an electric current that shot up my arm through my shoulder and neck straight into my brain and went off like an explosion. Only did it for 2 or 3 sec. Had to stop because I was driving. Freaked the snot out of me. I tend to skin pick my cuticles and fingers when I am talking to ppl.
I don’t remember my stimming, I only remember being told to stop growing up. I’ve been coping with anxiety and depression for a very long time, the anxiety has been present since I was very young. I now notice my stims and I’m not sure if they’re new or things I’ve done my entire life because they were always subconscious and me stopping was also somewhat subconscious. I flap my hands a lot now, I rock, I spin, I make odd noises, and I’m still realizing more and more things I do all the time. It became harder to mask constantly as an adult with work, school, and struggling to keep my head above water in this economy. I’m not formally diagnosed with anything but I relate very closely with most of your content and I’ve done a lot of personal research. Hopefully I’ll be able to afford to seek a possible diagnosis soon enough.
During college I developed a particularly bad stim that would manifest during anxiety. I would pick my hair out of my face. It took a while to stop the behavior but I think it was worth it in the long run. Note I have other stims that are less self destructive.
I really appreciate your voice with this. Seriously. I find watching your videos to be super cathartic.
I have tried to switch to more subtle stims. Tapping my leg to music for example. But no matter what I do I notice it draws attention.
Even if I hold it back I just end up being unnaturally stuff. Its a pain in the butt.
At least I live alone. There I can do whatever the hell I want. Spin around, move in weird ways. Make silly sounds. Just let myself relax.
Aw, you don't half look like your mum! I don't really have much in the way of photos and videos of me when I was little, so it's an interesting perspective to see what stimming looks like from an adult perspective. It's definitely something I've suppressed as I've gotten older. Thanks for sharing 😊
The videos of your childhood are so helpful! Thank you for sharing them. I wish I had videos I could go to to see what my behaviors were like as a kid as I don't entirely trust my own memory to be accurate, though I do remember moving around a lot as a child similarly to the way you did in those videos.
I've been thinking a lot about my stimming and have noticed that my stims are primarily based on tactile simulation, auditory stimulation, and movement. Not all of my stims are great, unfortunately, though some can feel amazing and provide great relief.
I like to break them down this way:
Intentional stims: these are the types of stims that I seek out and am doing consciously. These are the ones that bring me the most joy and feelings of relief, but might not be the most socially acceptable to do in public (for the most part). These include things like scratching my skin, singing, dancing/body movements (like hand flapping, jumping, twirling), listening to music, showering (letting water hit my face), rubbing my hands on a blanket/feeling soft textures.
Less intentional stims: these are stims that I am aware I am doing but am less intentional about doing them. They are less visibly noticeable and offer neutral to mild relief. They are the types of stims I may do in public. These things include: subtle toe/ muscle movements in my legs, tapping fingers, subtle bouncing movements (like raising feet up and down), playing with my pop socket, twirling my necklace, pinching skin (I also pinch my neck!).
Not intentional/harmful stims: these are the types of stims that I am not always aware I'm doing and don't necessarily provide relief. These are stims that I wish I could just stop doing because they seem more harmful than helpful. I think they can also reflect my mental state and feelings of overwhelm. For example, I tend to mindlessly pull at my hair repeatedly. I don't yank it out, just like to feel the textures, but I tend to do this when I am lost in a thought spiral. I also bite my lip a lot and pick at my scalp/skin. I tend to do these things when I'm feeling very uncomfortable in my skin (like the sensation of wearing several layers of very tight clothing) or when I'm very anxious/ feelings of sensory overload.
Apologies for the long response! 😅
Your son sounds so sweet and thoughtful, I love that he tried stimming because his friend does it. I pull my hair out and wish I could stop. I also worry for the little kids who are compelled to bang their heads against things (the ground, walls, tables, etc.) Like flapping is definitely harmless, but some stims hurt the shimmer.
when people started telling me to stop whenever i was stimming, i had to stop and over time, I went from discomfort to muscle spasms in the neck, shoulders and occasionally legs
YES! Bullying should definitely be considered a social deficit!! Not sure why so many harmful behaviors are seen as perfectly normal, while playing with one toy for "too long" is seen as problematic???🤨
Subconsciously, I replaced my stimming in public with compulsive skin picking. Most people don’t realize how severe it can be. I’ve definitely had my fair share of moments, looking down to see (unexpectedly) the tips of my fingers bleeding. I fully caused nerve damage, and didn’t even know it. I’m still working to re-replace that compulsion with stims - it’s not a simple undo or a “just stop suppressing it.” It takes a lot of time and be be really dangerous
Welp... this explains a lot.
I've always fidgeted a lot, pretty much as long as I can remember. I still do of course, but I used to stim more audibly, usually tapping my fingers on the table, clicking pens, that sort of thing. Several years of getting in trouble for it and it did coincide with the same period of time where my mental health began to deteriorate. I guess I at least have the comfort of my own place now and can stim more comfortably, but still very aware of not doing it in public or around certain people. Makes me wish people didn't feel the need to comment on stimming, especially if it isn't disruptive.
Unfortunately, repetitive noises really trigger me into sensory overload. So, your stimming with sound to soothe yourself causes my sensory processing to overwhelm me. I wish there was a way for us to be, without suppressing or triggering the each other. 😔
Just been diagnosed a little before my my 60th Birthday. Your videos are truly helping me understand how I am and where I have been hiding the things that feel natural to me for fear of drawing negative attention. I have paraphrased a saying I heard for myself. "It is so comforting to learn I am a perfect Zebra not a broken horse" I think I will get that on a tea shirt🤓 From your posts and others I finally am learning it is safe to be that zebra. And maybee some day geting through each day will be a little less exhausting. This one is shocking, that anyone can try linking Stereotypical behaviour in captive animals and Stimming in autistics show how very little they understood the topic of thier research. My life is still much the same as pre diagnosis and at the same time a world away from where I was. It is all very confusing but hey The world has always been a cofusing place. I now alow myself to wiggle of flap my hands and it can so help me focus and my anxiety drops, I have fought it so long it is difficult to let it happen but its only been a few months early days.
I will have to figure out this Paetreon thing if I can just stop procrastnating long enuff Thanks Calum
Remember being reprimanded in school for stimming & punished too. Every surface is percussion instrument. Desks especially. So many detentions.
I learned drumming and was obsessed with it. I hated dinner with my family because of my misophonia and so I would drum to cope only for my brother to complain loudly. We weren't allowed to leave the table. I should have been allowed to leave the table and calm down. I went out the other night and decided to drum cos I was distressed but i ended up wobbling the whole table. So yh I need to find a different stim when I'm around others