Stim like nobody's watching

One day, not long ago, I was sitting inside and working on my computer in a state of some distress. Two days previously, I had attended a massively fun event--which happened to take place outdoors, on a hot and sunny day, with hundreds of people crowded into a fairly small area. I was cosplaying, which meant that I wasn't using any of my sensory aids: headphones, sunglasses, or my walker, specifically. I'd had a blast at the event, but the massive overload of sensory input at an already fairly stressful time had left me incapable of standing the next day.

After plenty to eat and two nights' sleep, my vertigo had mostly dissipated, but I was still not in top working condition. I was feeling overly sensitive to light and sound, and while my sensory aids were certainly helping, I don't feel comfortable with blocking out my family unless it's an emergency, so my system was still attempting to compensate for more input than I would have preferred.

I was attempting to communicate this to my sister, and explained that it felt like there was so much stuff going into my head that it was bulging, putting pressure on my eyeballs and eardrums and giving me a headache. And she asked a simple, mindblowing question.

"Well, then, why don't you stim?"

I post a lot of autism-related articles and blog posts on Facebook, and a few days earlier I had posted this on my wall. I felt that it made an important point that might be of interest to people who know me. And yet I somehow hadn't completely internalized the point that the post was attempting to make, but my allistic sister had. If I had too much in my head, why not release some of it?

You see, I stim a TON when I'm alone. I rock side-to-side, whip my head in circles, wave my arms in the air. Often I'm reading blog posts or articles, or especially the comments on said articles, that I find distressing, and I know that the best way to make myself feel better is to move constantly, to let out the energy that's building up in ways that are comfortable to me.

But when I'm in 'public'--which apparently includes my very supportive family--I make an unconscious effort to suppress this. I have a vivid recollection of being scolded by a strict third-grade teacher for stimming in his classroom, and I suppose I must have internalized this view of 'stimming where people can see you is bad'.

Even when said people are my loving, supportive family.

So instead of hiding my face in my hands to block out the light, I flapped one hand in front of my face. And my headache dissipated instantly.

I'm going to have to do this more often.


(Even better: she's started noticing when I stim, trying to figure out if it's a happy or distressed stim, and seeing what she can do to help if I need it. I love that girl.)