Have you ever been punished for stimming?

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When I was a kid my mother would congratulate me on how I didn't seem to be doing the thing with the string in a while, and how that was good, she said that it was a habit, she said that her smoking was different because it was a socially acceptable habit, she got mad at me once and said "You're [insert age number here] years old!" As if it was immature to stim and offensive. When I complained aabout her being unfair to me once and getting mad at me just for stimming or for not wanting to tell her I was stimming I said she was acting like an intolerant little kid 10 years younger than me babbling nonsense and she said "Oh, yeah? Well doing that thing with the string is like 15 years younger!" I was 10 years old, I think, or maybe 11 or 12. Not even 15.


Once when I was 5 my mother said how would I like to go to a place called an institution, if I kept doing the thing with the string?


Once when I was about 5 she said "I'll burn that string" and another time that she would burn all my books and stuff if I kept playing with the string.


She once said I would waste half my life doing it.


It's not something I do because I don't know that there's all this stuff out there in life! I did it because no one thing in life, or in my life then, was as stimulating as playing with my string while telling stories to myself.


What a moron. I'll be resenting her for a long time until she apologizes and admits she's not perfect, which by the way she's never done, and admits she made a mistake by saying those things.

Yes.


When I was six I was in school and I find a paper clip on the floor and I play with it. I unbend it and keep playing with it and twist it into different shapes and other kids caught me playing with it on the playground and they took it from me and showed it to a duty lady. I got scolded for it. I found another paper clip another day and I played it with it and my teachers saw me with it and I got scolded for it too. They told me I don't do that. I can remember other kids in my class saw me with it and they tell me I'm not supposed to do that and then they tell the teacher and she took it away from me. I remember I stopped doing it in school because I didn't like all the harassment I was receiving and never understood why it was such a big deal. Well it was a paper clip and they didn't want me taking any and wrecking them but I find them on the ground. They probably didn't know it.


I remember I be rocking in my chair at school and the other kids would tell me to stop and then the teacher would ask me to stop.

I can remember I do other stims like tapping my pencil and being told to stop, at home I bet kicking the wall of the counter I was sitting at in my stool and mom tell me to stop. I can remember I be making funny noises with my mouth and Mom ask me to stop.


In high school, kids and teachers didn't like me pacing around the classroom so they ask me to sit down and I would end of getting tired and lying my head down because I was bored. Moving around is the only thing that keeps me awake if I have nothing to do. They took away my music and video games so I was left with nothing. I be lucky if I had a book I was reading.

I can also remember getting scolded for popping bubbles in the bubble wrap. They probably were saving it for when they have to wrap something fragile up in it or for when they have to ship something so they got mad at me when they saw me popping them.

only once in second grade, when I was called up to the desk and given swats for fidgeting during nap time when we were supposed to be frozen rigid with our heads on our desks. I was hardly aware that I was moving. It was a substitute teacher who gave the swats. My regular 2nd grade teacher was constantly defending me from ridicule and bullying.

In one grade, I forget the numeral; Mrs. Burley kept on going mad at me for, '...rolling your eyes at me.' I was staring at the lights on the roof to avoid the overwhelming sensation of trying to understand nonverbal social cues.

A supposed ASD specialist accused me of doing the same thing.

*Daniel shakes his head*

Yeah, sometimes I catch myself pacing around and people don't like it.
I just tell them it's a nervous habit, and I guess that works.

Unless you count my trichotillomania, which could be counted as a stim.
My punishment? Humiliation.

I pull my hair out as well and roll it between my fingers,my mother is always saying things to me about it.She says i sit like a zombie staring into space and rolling hair balls and to get a life.I told her that i have one and it must really be her who needed one for feeling the need to intrude on mine because it really is nothing to do with her what i do or look like.

I never understood what this stimming thing is, or why autistic persons do this until I read about it. Then I realized that a lot of the things I have been doing over the years fit this description. I only do these things when I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by interacting with others, and situations heavy on nonverbal communication are the worst. I have destroyed a lot of pencils, pens and paper clips, even while talking to people I liked. I have been yelled at for clicking a plastic soda bottle. I did that when I was sitting at a table at a Hertz foundation conference. I found it very disturbing when a woman communicated inaudibly with someone in the back of the room and they seemed to understand each other. She also seemed to be mocking the speaker. It seemed as though I was being left out of something, or made to feel inadequate, although I know on a logical level that this behavior was not directed at me.

I haven't pulled my hair out in a while, but I occassionally do pull out my eyelashes.
I still can't figure out what exactly made me start doing it, probably a mix between anxiety, childhood self-harm and the need to stim with something by AS.

I drive people crazy when I'm stressed out and my body shakes in retaliation. I can't really stop it without a lot of pain and more stress, but if it's during a class, I usually get in trouble for not being still (I don't mention it's uncontrollable because then I'll be entangled with nurses)

Yes, I wasn't allowed to stim at all. Punishments included: slapping, screaming, taking away favorite toys, no desert, etc. It was very counter-productive. The more stress I experience, the more I feel the need to stim.

Oh yes, plenty of times.

Yes, and it makes me want to kill. OK, maybe not kill, but definitely maim.

I get a lot of grief for picking or biting my thumbs or nails. Husband mainly. He'll smack my hand away from my mouth or tickle me or flick me with his fingers. Drives him crazy that I do it. It usually takes me off guard so I'm already charged up, but then I realize someone is trying to interrupt my zenfulness and get rather wrathful, think Firestarter.

luckily i was shamed of what i do so i did it only when alone at nigths...then they catshed me doing it (i was rocking) but they just thinked its my own fun

For stimming and other repetitive movement (not sure if there's a difference).
By a guy who was one of my mothers boyfriend, got screamed at, beaten and locked in which lead me to get a pretty good control of all that. I went from, like doing things like these 70% of the time to 2-5% if at all?

I don't remember ever being punished for stimming, but I'm not much of a stimmer. I do know that my son gets punished for stimming at his dad's house. It's sad. He even testified in court that he was punished for stimming and that he couldn't help stimming. It was completely involuntary and he was wearing himself out trying not to stim all day.

Not sure if i ever really got punished for stimming. But definatly for things that I couldn't control, like speaking with a loud voice (I would forget all the time) or not knowing how to whisper (I'm still terrible at it) or my very poor handwriting (dysgraphia anyone?).

Also for things that I did without meaning to or that I really loved that was strange. I would crawl on the floor all of the time, sometimes acting like a dog or cat and my parents would go ballistic, especially if there was other family or company around. Or for liking to play with strange things, or not wanting to through away a random item (string, a bottle cap, etc.)