Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi everyone, my name is Sophie and I was diagnosed Autistic 2 weeks ago (21 years old).
I've worked with Autistic children previously and was always able to understand what they need based on their behaviours but to do this for myself seems impossible.
I pick at my nails and skin constantly, even if I have fidgets available and can get lost in this for up to an hour or two at times. It's also how I seem to regulate and calm myself to fall asleep. I've tried replacing it but it feels both demanding and unfulfilling to use something that doesn't offer the same feedback.
Another common stim is rocking but to do so can be painful at times due to the repetition. However it's more painful if I supress it!
I can't tell whether I'm over or understimulated or which sensory feedback I'm looking for at any given time.
Does anyone have any advice on how to understand their behaviours or needs?
I can't tell whether it's over or under stimulation either, I just find it helps to let the stim do its thing, clearly my body knows what it needs to do even if my brain doesn't. Or subconscious knows what to do if the conscious mind doesn't rather.
Totally on board with this, I find it challenging when it's skin picking though because it's causing negative effects such as the pain afterwards, bleeding etc, so I don't know if it's all that good for me!
Ah I used to do that as well, the dermatillomania I mean, but it stopped after I bought some fidget toys, it's weird that they are almost exclusively marketed to kids because there is a lot of evidence they help autistic adults too, and for the work place you can always buy them in the less flashy "adult" colours (I have a black and dark green spinner and because it doesn't catch the eye nobody realises I've got it in my hand half the time). Mom on the spectrum covers relearning how to stim if we have trained ourselves out of it as part of our masking in this vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gWd0JnnsrE and I think it's invaluable because I started the picking because I nolonger had anything to do with my hands after I gave up smoking. So I'd lost that "socially accepable" means of stimming. Which is sad when I look back on it because it was just a cycle of harming myself one way or another when I should have just stimmed freely and been healthier all that time instead.
I'm so glad you're finding things that work for you! Thank you for this resource, I'm sure it'll be incredibly helpful.