Stimming, in particular Thumb Sucking.

I don't know if it's related to autism but I suck my thumb I have done since I was a toddler and I still do now which is a little embarrassing especially if I'm out. I bite a lot of things as well. I've not been able to stop though, people stare and grin at me but I just keep my head down. I guess I don't really want to stop though, I like sucking my thumb it keeps me calm.

Ah yes, but what caused you to give up? Was it that the dull tedium of school that was what caused you to do it?

I stopped sucking my thumb when I was 15? When I left school , I felt it relaxed me and I felt like I was in a safe place.

Oh Hello, I have not been here for a while, the last response was four months ago, since then the mask wearing has dropped off a lot community wide and yes it was a quick and effective way of getting the message across, hello I suck my thumb, do you find it odd? Most of my motivation in doing it was just to see how people would react in public. Until I was fourteen or so the habit was jut for the family to see and I would have been shamed if any schoolfriends found out, but for some reason I decided to do a social survey of my own and did it openly in public. I really do not know fully why, I had seen a few girls older than me doing it and had asked them about it, maybe that was why, but the motivation was not self soothing now, it was seeing what I could get away with. Mostly what I found was that the public did not disapprove, it mostly looked away and some if they talked to me at all did not mention it. Only three times have I ever been asked...'are you sucking your thumb?'

There are, of course, no reliable statistics on how many adults do it as it is hard to imagine the office for national statistics sending it out as a census form question, but television and other media sources quote it as being between ten and fifteen percent. It cannot be that high..I have only ever once heard a nineteen year old woman say...oh yes, me too and the only faintly sciencey study was one where some French academics looked at a graph of a study of children between zero and sixteen years of age, the number of thumb suckers dropped as the age went up but the shape of the curve seemed to say that it would never hit zero, and so from this they deduced a figure of two to five percent of an adult population are thumb suckers.

These days it is only ever in sleep or getting there that I ever do it in that un self conscious way, I have just given up my car because I was fed up with it and public transport is now my only option and it was on public transport that I did most of my thumb sucking in public, I am not totally sure but I think that courting outrage was probably part of motivation but it certainly was not all of it. I am sure it helps with travel nerves even though I am mostly okay when travelling it is the imagining in the days preceding that I got worried about what can go wrong.

Hi,

Thanks for posting this. I am 30 years old, identified as on the spectrum, and suck my thumb on a daily basis for comfort - using the computer, driving, sleeping. I found your post because every now and then I search the internet to find a shared perspective and until now never have! I was also diagnosed later in life and did not mention the thumb sucking to therapists at first due to extreme shame. I have now realized the behavior as a necessary self soothing mechanism (I also rock sometimes and play with my hair etc) and think a lot less of it than in my youth - I’ve even admitted to being a thumbsucker with my current partner, completely unprompted. I have learned to hide it from public view pretty well but am finding myself less embarrassed if I slip up and get seen. I love your idea to wear a THUMB SUCKER mask and am glad to have a peer. 

Yes I thought she would be just gently reminding and if it is only once every few weeks it is not much of a cross to bear.

My wife just normally give me a nudge and a look. I have also at times chewed (very gently) the inside of my cheeks, that is kind of a substiute for the thumb that can't be seen. Just one of those strange things.

Yes, the habit does come on in extreme relaxation but it is also used to try and induce that feeling and maybe that is a case of putting the cart before the horse? Stress, boredom and anxiety are all big triggers for me but depression is the big one.

I suppose it is useful as a mood monitor, just getting the urge might tell me to adjust my lifestyle in some way?

What does your wife say? 'Oh just stop it!' or is she a little more gentle?

Thank you for your reply, I was expecting to get none at all.

Yes, the sensory inputs are experienced differently by the autistic and so what looks like an unproductive and unsightly habit to some is necessary to others, and in my case, the urge or need to suck my thumb openly is yet more problematic than nail biting is. I could not make my whole life a crusade to explain this to every person who looked askance at me, people might tell you or ask you to get some nail clippers, but, that might lead to even worse, obsessive nail clipping perhaps,

thank you for your reply.

I pick the skin around my fingers - quite severely and I make this really strange scratchy throat noise.  I've done both since I was a child (I'm now 45).  I can't stop either.  I also bite my nails because I hate the feeling of long nails touching things 

I am 52 and still suck, or more accuratly lightly chew, my thumb. I tend to only do it at home when I am quite relaxed and watching tv. Well that is until my wife tells me off! It is something I do every few weeks maybe, not a concious thing either.

Oh sorry I did not read his brother right, I saw ...my brother and so I concluded that you were about my age and in fact you must be a lot younger. Non verbal, oh that is a long way from me or you, but a part of the spectrum. I myself was in one of those half way houses and in many ways it was a lot better than my current standard issue one bedroom urban flat. Which is at least the best it could possibly be in a delightful town.

They are a lot better than the wards, but the usual way is to move the residents into independent living, I saw that ruin the recovery of one schizophrenic I knew. Same blind dead state run machine everywhere. With a little luck your Uncle will stay halfway into this world? Or am I assuming too much?

I have two brothers out in the world doing all the over achieving for me.

Very true, I used to walk and read a book too, I was deemed crazy and now that everyone has a mobile phone they all do it and I unconsciously talk out loud to myself and do daft noises.

Trouble is that I think with thumb sucking people do see it as offensive, it even goes back to Shakespeare...Romeo and Juliet...'Do you bite your thumb at us Sir?'

Thank you.

Thanks for your response. Makes interesting reading.

Oh, it’s my dads brother, (my uncle).
I don’t have any brothers sadly, just 3 sisters lol.

I only saw my uncle once in a blue moon. He was pretty scary to me when I was tiny, but as I approached junior age, it was fine.  I knew he was mentally ‘all there’, and hated the idea of him being institutionalised. He is non verbal so never said anything other than our names once.

I don’t have anything to do with my father, so do not know of my uncles whereabouts. Last I heard he was in a half way type assisted living home, which is far better than what he’s been used to in the past.

I sucked my thumb until I was 8 and my parents told me I needed to stop as it was marking my thumb. Before people talked much about autism many things were considered unusual like not liking hugs.

Reading other posts I see people mention lip biting. I do that now or make noises which I then try to turn into a cough. 

When you think about it, not that long ago people thought it odd if you walked along talking. Now people do it all the time on their mobiles. So why not do what you like if it is not offensive.

Thanks, yes I remember rocking too, bouncing my back on the sofa and my disapproving aunt would say...

god bless her, she is gone now...'there is something lacking in a child that does that!' She was a good old soul really with not many stars of good parenting to guide her, over stiffened in her attitude by too much moral fibre, she had a good brain though as she went to the London school of economics.

Yes I agree, your pa just wanted to keep you out of the back wards as my Aunt had only my best interests in mind, but, of all tyrannies the very worst is that sincerely exercised for the benefit of its recipient, as the moral busy bodies that apply it do so with a clear conscience, and so will with the best of intentions torment without end.

Yes I was fed up with being told ...oh that's o.k. just don't let it show...and that might be masking and therefore stressful, I guess it is not my embarrassment that is the problem it is other peoples, but when I have been very low and depressed I have said to some of the fellow travellers...do you mind if I suck my thumb?

Like smokers used to and I only did it twice or so but they always said...yes that is fine...each to their own.

In this recent pandemic we had to wear masks on public transport and so mine had the words THUMB SUCKER in capital letters all over it. It was a way to let people know that was socially acceptable, once again some people laughed, but as yet no-one has asked and boy did my heart race first time I used it.

That is the funny thing about doing the deed in public, it is really an attempt to relax and shut out the world but first before that can happen I need to brave the world's fascination or contempt which can take unwelcome forms, most just do not look or make a look of not caring and I wonder if those that stop and stare only do it because they do it themselves. I remember with great clarity the first time I saw someone older than me doing it openly in public in Weymouth. A year or so later was my first experiment with going public, everyone at home was saying...oh please stop that...maybe that is why I took my thumb sucking pride campaign onto the streets!

Thank you again for your effort in replying, have you maintained any contact with your brother?

I didn’t compromise. I was a very small child, and my father told me to stop doing it, so I had too. You did what your were told in my house. My finger was calloused, and my front tooth was wonky because of it.

Recent memories surfaced whilst I was analysing myself prior to my assessment, and I remembered that he had also stopped me flicking my fingers, and rocking onto the back of the sofa….

Whats interesting is that his brother is Autistic. He was put into a mental institution when he was 15, and was only diagnosed with Autism about 10 years ago. I think he must be around 60yrs old now. 
When he visited us when I was a child, he flicked his fingers a lot and rocked violently. Maybe this is why my father told me not to do it; in case I ended up in an institution too?

As for the advice given to you, why should you not do it in public? It’s not hurting anyone else. People will only look. If they laugh, it’s only because they feel unsure and don’t know why you’d do it. It would be nice for someone to come over and ask you, and then you tell them why. Simple. 

Yup, I have found myself lip biting a bit, it is all down to a lack of social acceptability, why does wider society so condemn this behaviour outside early childhood? Some people move to smoking and drinking and drugging maybe.

A child's own self esteem will cause them to stop too, but that is all socialisation too.

Oh and thank you for replying.

It sounds like the social acceptability thing happened to you, you compromised and moved on to something no less observable like nail biting which is answering I think the same need. There are some statistics on thumb sucking that say around ten percent of adults do it for whatever reasons but you never see them much in public, I tend to come across another very five years or so and I have only known one who had the force of character to do it everywhere and anywhere. The figure of ten percent might be high as the statistics are always voluntary and self reported, some claim that they do it and do not and some will disclaim when they do, but it really must be down to the fact that people do give funny looks and sometimes even laugh or get angry and this is no good if the behaviour is a stim I think. Hiding the behaviour is a form of masking maybe? Which would increase stress.

I keep getting told by medical and psychiatric professionals, oh it's o.k. to do it, so long as it is not in public, which is exactly where I find the most urges to do it. If it's O.k. surely that means anywhere, even a top level business meeting or a world peace conference?

Many Thanks for taking the trouble to reply, I thought that nobody would.

I sucked my thumb up until I was around 13 years old, found it very relaxing, now I seem to bite my lip or either play on my PS4