Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi. I've just joined. I'm male mid fifties & have finally concluded I'm most likely ASD1 / aspie. One thing remains puzzling me & that is I don't seem to be a stimmer. I may of course have been masking things for so long I don't remember. What I'd like to try & find out is how common it is for an assessed ASD 1 to not stim. I've found plenty of info here & elsewhere on stimming but nothing on not stimming. Love to find out more. (sorry for putting this in the intro forum but I thought I'd get a better response here.)
In short, EVERYBODY stims in some way. All stimming is is "self-stimulating behaviour" I.e. wobbling your leg, rubbing your face, tapping things constantly, flapping hands etc.
Difference is autistics can sometimes have atypical stimming behaviours or need to stim to much different scenarios than neurotypicals.
A neurotypical might stim in a state of large stress or sadness for example, an autistic might need to stim when they get overwhelmed with excitement, anxiety, stress, sensory overload in a much smaller situation to other people.
But everyone stims, autistics can just do it differently, or even much more often and commonly as a coping mechanism.
I personally never actually recognised/noticed my stimming until EVERYONE pointed it out to me.
HaHa - this is typical me. I automatically assume, when asking questions, that the person I ask will know what I know. In this instance that I know everyone stims & I was asking about overtly atypical stimming. I'm then surprised when they don't. One the many reasons I'm self diagnosing ASD1. What I wasn't aware of is that 'normal fidgeting' more often may be an Autistic 'thing'.