My Current Stims

TW: non-graphic descriptions of hair pulling, Trichotillomania, and self injury/self harm and photographs of being tattooed.

When I was diagnosed as autistic, I did a lot of research and reading to try and make sense of my life through this new lens and one of the things that I struggled with was stimming. Short for ‘self-stimulating behaviour,’ stimming is behaviour – commonly repetitive movements and sounds – that we all use to self-regulate and self-soothe. Everybody does it to a certain degree but many neurodivergent individuals struggle with self regulating and so we stim more – and more noticeably – to compensate. It helps us to manage our emotions, anxiety and uncertainty and stress, sensory information, and helps us to express joy. I found it difficult to identify these behaviours in myself but over time, and especially over the last couple of years in therapy,* I’ve come to realise that there are many things that I do that play a big part in my attempts to stay somewhat regulated but because many of them have often served another purpose, I haven’t recognised what else they’ve been doing for me. Some of them are great and fun, some of them are harmful and I need help with, and some function only as a way to process what I’m feeling or what’s going on in my body but all of them help me to regulate myself and get through the day.

*I quit talk therapy in 2024 and dug into different modalities, eventually landing on Somatic Massage Therapy for trauma release and truly, I cannot articulate how much it has helped me. The years in talk therapy weren’t wasted (mostly) but this is a totally different level of processing and healing and growing. I was so checked out from my body and how it was processing emotion – as a survival mechanism – and the process of reconnecting to it has really unleashed some of my stimming, particularly swaying, swinging my arms, and flapping, in a really freeing way.

Singing – Up until recently, I probably wouldn’t have considered singing a stim but given how regulating I find it, I think there are certainly situations where I would consider it stimming. I find the physical sensations of singing so calming and it relaxes me both emotionally and physically but that makes a lot of sense since so many parts of singing are connected to self regulation: the breath control, the way you hold your body, the releasing of emotion, the complete focus (on the sound you’re trying to create, in this case)… I will never not be obsessed with the fact that my body is an instrument, that it can make music. It absolutely fascinates me and I get such intense joy from operating my body to produce the sound I want to create. It may be the only way I feel truly connected to my body, something that I have historically struggled with, so it doesn’t surprise me that it creates such a physical sense of joy every time I sing. I’m always finding new songs that I love to sing but some of my long time favourites include ‘California’ by Kina Grannis, ‘She Used To Be Mine’ and ‘Little Voice’ by Sara Bareilles, ‘Radio Silence’ by Natalie Hemby, and ‘Unsteady’ by X Ambassadors.

Hair Pulling – What I originally thought was Trichotillomania is, I think, more likely to be my most obvious (and currently most harmful) stim. I’ve been pulling out my hair since 2014 and despite everything I’ve tried, I’ve never been able to stop or healthily redirect the urge. The one time I thought I was managing to redirect it, I ended up chewing on the inside of cheek so badly that I could barely tolerate drinking water until it healed. Just trying to resist pulling causes me so much anxiety that I either have a meltdown and start pulling again or just start pulling again before I can have the meltdown. I have managed to keep it relatively undetectable to anyone who doesn’t know, primarily pulling from a spot where the regrowth isn’t particularly visible; however the long term effect has been permanent damage to that section of hair that is now very visible (and distressing on a sensory level, which has only fed the cycle of pulling). And the repeated movement and strain on my left arm has caused an ongoing problem with my shoulder and elbow. As I said, I’ve never been able to redirect it, although I hope that my current therapist will be able to help me with it.

Fidget Toys – I first discovered fidget toys and jewellery when I was looking into ways to stop or at least manage my hair pulling and while I haven’t found them to be super helpful in that regard, I have found certain fidgets to be really helpful in other areas of my life, which only made more sense to me when I was diagnosed autistic and later ADHD. My favourites are my tangle (which I actually got as a tattoo to celebrate ten years since my Autism diagnosis), the various spinner rings I’ve had over the years, the magnetic beads that mould and crunch when you handle them, and the Stimagz magnetic fidget toy. I also really like making beaded friendship bracelets: making them keeps my hands busy and they’re fun to share with friends, make for events, and share at concerts.

Drinking Red Bull – Caffeine has never really affected me but there’s something about Red Bull – the kick of the fizz, maybe, I don’t know – has always been very pleasing to drink. I like the taste – my favourite flavours are White Peach (pink), Juneberry (blue), and Grapefruit & Blossom (purple) – and how a mouthful feels in my mouth, especially when it’s straight-from-the-fridge cold.

The Texture of Milk Chocolate – Usually the texture of food is hugely difficult for me but for some reason, the texture of milk chocolate as it changes from fridge-cold to warm and smooth is so pleasing to me. I’m not very good at describing food – and describing it can make it harder for me to eat it – so I’ll leave it at that: there’s just something deeply satisfying about the way the texture of chocolate changes in the eating of it.

Swimming / Being in Water – Living with hEDS and POTS, with chronic pain and chronic fatigue, is a physically exhausting and, at the very least, uncomfortable experience; it’s often a painful one. Someone once described hypermobility to me as constantly trying to stand straight and balanced on a moving bus and it’s not a bad analogy. But when I get in the water, being in my body suddenly becomes less hard. It always regulates and relaxes me; it always improves my mood. I can just be: I can float, I can stand without getting dizzy, I can move around easily, I can use my muscles the way they want to be used without constant pain and resistance… It makes me so happy; it makes me giddy. The feeling of it is just pure sensory joy for me. I would probably live in the water if it didn’t make every other thing I enjoy doing impossible.

Colourful Lights / Immersive Art – I have always found colour, particularly coloured lights, soothing but they also get my brain firing in a very specific way, not unlike the way listening to music lights up my brain; it’s like my brain is awake on a different, more expansive level. Exploring immersive art like this – usually installations that involve light although not necessarily (Breathing Room by Anna Berry, for example, has the same effect without the involvement of coloured light in the typical sense) – isn’t something I get to do very often but I do always try and take advantage of the opportunity when it comes my way because it just does this really unique thing to my brain where it relaxes it and energises it at the same time, lowering the level of overwhelm. I often feel more able to function afterwards, which is why I do like having forms of sensory lighting at home. It’s not quite the same but it’s better than nothing, better than relying solely on the right installation to appear within a reasonable distance of me.

Swinging My Arms – When I’m feeling a lot of anxiety, one of the most effective ways I’ve found to disperse it – even a little bit – is to swing my arms forward and back or side to side, around my body. For so long, I struggled to really feel my anxiety until it was completely overwhelming but after a lot of work in therapy, I’ve been able to recognise when my anxiety starts building and I feel that most acutely in my hands. Swinging my arms seems to release it, or some of it at the very least, and over time, it’s become an automatic response to the feeling of anxiety.

Flapping My Hands – I don’t flap often, to the point where I assumed that it just wasn’t something I did, but I’ve noticed over the last few years that, when I’m at peak excitement or feeling overwhelming joy, I do in fact flap, especially if I’m tired and my mask is coming down due to sheer exhaustion (and sometimes overwhelm). That does make me wonder if it’s something that I unknowingly suppressed at a young age, that it’s only appearing now as I work to reconnect to my body and to unmask as an adult. Also, that level of excitement and/or joy is pretty rare for me; they haven’t made an appearance often enough for me to track potential stimming behaviour over the years.

Getting Tattooed – For a really long time, I “managed” overwhelming emotions through self harm. Both those experiences and the experience of getting from self harm to tattoos are their own stories but as soon as I started getting tattoos, my relationship with self harm completely changed. Getting a tattoo dissipated that emotion even more effectively and the tattoos are much more beautiful than the scars. The need to do it hasn’t completely faded and sometimes it still overwhelms me out of nowhere but with a long list of tattoos I’ve been dreaming of for years, so far I’ve been able to focus on the next tattoo and outlast the urge to self harm.

Quoting Taylor Tomlinson – I recently binge-watched Taylor Tomlinson’s specials on Netflix and have now watched them many, many times. Historically, I haven’t really enjoyed stand up comedy – not for any reason, I think, beyond never really clicking with a comedian’s sense of humour – but she had me from minute one and it wasn’t long before I could repeat her stories, jokes, and punch lines, word for word with the exact cadence. I’ve had more than one friend comment on my impressions of her and my Mum jokes that watching her specials is like watching TV with an echo. There’s just something about the way she speaks, the way she delivers her material that just makes my brain really happy, alongside her obviously being very funny. I’ve never really experienced this form of stimming before – the repetition of sounds or speech from, for example, films or TV shows, which is known as echolalia – but it’s brought me a lot of fun recently. Fortunately, for all of us I imagine, it’s a stim that I can keep to myself for the most part but it endlessly entertains me and is weirdly regulating so I’m not going to apologise for it either.

Discovering and exploring stimming has been such a journey – one that I’m sure it’s far from over. The hard parts are hard but forging new pathways and finding new ways to make my brain light up or smooth out has been so empowering. And while not all of my stimming feels good or comes from a positive place, there is something so amazing and powerful and healing about feeling so joyful that you cannot contain it inside your body and about being able to not just release it but embody it through a stim like flapping. Have you ever felt like you could jump up and down because you’re just so excited? Actually do it next time (only if it’s safe to do, of course). The excitement will feel even better.

Being autistic is the source of why so many things in my life are difficult or stressful or overwhelming but the positives of embracing my stimming – the healthy stims, at least – have helped to even the scales a little, at least right now, by bringing more joy and a better regulated nervous system into my day to day life. It’s also helped to lessen the imposter syndrome that I sometimes struggle with as a high-masking autistic person. That’s obviously a whole, big thing of its own but I’ll take whatever help I can get.