What stimming is from an aspie’s perspective.
First thing is first: what even is “stimming”? Well, from my experience stimming has been any action I perform to help myself deal with sensory overload (something I’ve talked about before) that involves creating some amount of sensory input. To make this a bit more clear, I will share an example:
After a fairly ordinary workday, I am at least somewhat overloaded. At this point, I am basically at the mercy of whatever my mind thinks is necessary to get the situation under control. Often times this involves rubbing my hands together rhythmically, humming a little bit, or even doing more traditional things like listening to music or taking a drive.
These are the sorts of things one might expect out of anyone who is a bit stressed out and it really is no different here. The only notable difference is what the source of that stress is. In the case of an aspie, that will very often be sensory overload or social pressure (I’ll cover the latter soon). Sensory overload, in particular, is one that can be a bit harder to relate to for neurotypicals (a general term describing any person with no abnormalities in their brain’s fundamental structure). So I would highly recommend checking out my experience with it in this article.
There really isn’t much left to cover save one very, very important tip:
Do not interfere with an aspie who is stimming unless he/she is being a danger to himself or to the people around her. Seriously. Sensory overload is chaos from the perspective of that person and in almost every situation it is better by far to let that person deal with whatever discomfort they are having through stimming than to force them to feel the fullness of whatever discomfort they are being subjected to.
If you really want to help, I highly suggest listening intently and genuinely 🙂 It does wonders, even if the person in overload can’t say anything. Just be there with them (preferably with a little distance to avoid making it worse) and when they are clear of the pain/stress of overload, it is very likely that person will appreciate you so much more than you would imagine at all likely. Speaking from experience, it is a rare and valuable thing indeed to have a person really listen.
P.S. This listening thing works for everyone. Not just aspies 🙂
If you have any sort of question relating to Asperger’s syndrome (either for yourself or for a loved one/friend) I’d be happy to try and help! My email is wouldaspie@gmail.com and I’ll do my best to answer your questions directly or through an article here on the website! 🙂