What stims do you have?

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I just have to walk about - I have to pace. I have hands tensed up sometimes and I see a few repeating images which alter from time to time. The images have to do aspects of little worlds which are sometimes cute but always like puzzling systems. How very small machines can fly is one of my repeating interests.

I wonder if stimming is just a really good thing to do and that things like dance is derived from everyone's need to express something intensely. For me stimming brings something highly imaginative down into the physical space I inhabit

I have to thrill my legs or sway my legs under the table, like I am nervous. I bite the insides of my cheeks, I pluck my eyebrows, I go through my hair often.

But the most obvious (for my partner) is holding my private parts...anytime at the table, in bed when I sit somewhere, like a little boy who touches or squeezes his penis regularly in excitemt in playing or so. Could be rather offensive when other people notice, cannot help it, it just happens.

funny, I didn't realize that I might have stims until recently. I've always bounced my legs, rocked, stretched my neck, paced, etc. People sometimes ask "why do you do that" or "are you nervous or something?" I do agree with one of the previous posters that there are a lot of people who have nervous habits. I'm not sure where the line is, but I guess if people point it out to you regularly, then maybe that qualifies

Rocking, pacing, tapping my cheeks or head, twirling my hair, taking the game in and out of my DS when I'm using it, same as Game Boy, cradling my hands.

Interesting. Hadn't thought of pacing that way, but it is obvious. I [and my son] pace on the phone; I paced lecturing [HOW could others stand immobile at the lectern!?], often in conversation - but a lot of my conversation IS lecturing. I pace a lot when waiting if I can't read ant it is not too cramped.

And yes, thinking about it, it does much the same thing as leg jiggling while chewing the handkerchief, my writing behavior, which I start totally unconsciously and then wake up to realize the hanky is back. That is about the only thing I do that looks nutso to the outer world, so I try to remove it at once.

Listening to music almost all hours of my waking day.

I have a bunch of them, it seems. I rock, bounce, pace, I isolate muscles and bounce them, finger tap, finger 'flap' or maybe 'slide' is a better word, I whack my knuckles with things, knock my hands into my legs, scratch, tap my mouth or ear or face, tug my hair or ear or lip... I have a lot of weird little things I do. I keep finding out more and more things I do are considered stimming. Like staring at string is considered a stim... did not know that.. same for things like lining up objects, staring at fans, running in circles and looking at your reflection in things... I have verbal stims as well. Sometimes I make random noises for no apparent reason other than to make them.

I play with pens and other things of similar shape or size,, rolling them thru my fingers or flipping them end for end. It is so bad that when I am around my family, they will take whatever I am stimming with away from me. It annoys them that much

I play with a stress ball shaped like an apple. I actually destroyed 2 stress balls at a previous job.

I bounce my knee. In fact, at a picnic at my parents house 3 of my brothers and I were doing it all at the sme time. This caused a very weird vibtratiion in the table. And drove my older sister up the wall. We did not even realize we were doing it till she said something.

My girlfriend was forced to go off of abilify once due to financial issues when we lost insurance coverage briefly and simply could not afford it for a couple of weeks.

I noticed that she was getting intense and painful stim impulses, and told her when we were alone to do certain movements to relieve herself of the stress of trying to act "normal" around friends and family.

I had her bite a rolled up t-shirt, roll her hands around at the wrists, do the same with her ankles, while squeezing rolled up socks, and stretching her legs.

Within a few minutes she told me she immediately felt better, and later commented it was the first time she felt I had truly empathized with her. I told her that the pressure she was feeling in the back of her skull when she wasn't doing those motions is the same reason I pick my nails, curl my feet around the legs of my chair, wrap my arms around my waist when I read, sit and hold my bokken while talking (the small muscle movements required to keep a bokken motionless are fantastic for cutting down the stim urges), pop my knuckles, wring my fingers, pick scabs, my lips, etc, and also why I punch my legs when I get extremely frustrated.

There's a faucet inside of my brain, usually it just drips, so I have to empty the pan it's dripping in by dipping a towel in it and wringing it out. Sometimes when I get extremely agitated it gets turned on full force and I have to dump the bucket over to channel it all out.


She understood that, because she described the feeling of going off abilify as akin to drowning in a flood of noise in her head, but didn't realize she could swim to make it feel better.


I'm glad to see I'm not the only one with the stim item type of impulse.

A certain object or type of object that calms the urges.

I like to sit and rub smooth stones and metal with my thumb, roll quarters around in my fingers, wedge pennies between my thumb and middle finger, rotate my palm under and outwards, then snap so the coin goes straight up and catch it, then repeat endlessly. Juggling any appropriately sized/shaped objects (kittens were quite amusing to my mother when I did that once for a laugh), but mostly I find holding a stick centers me.

It lets me focus on it, the act of keeping it steady, moving it about smoothly, rapidly, exerting control over something which isn't a part of my body, yet behaves as one, and the calluses are satisfying to pick at as well!


Oh! I forgot that I make farting noises with my hands, I used to do it with bubbles of air between my cheek/lips and gums, now I either armpit fart or do them with my hands if given the opportunity. Incredibly satisfying, I actually have a slightly larger muscle on my left shoulder, and more defined bicep on my right arm from doing it for years.

I pick at my scalp obsessively. (When I finally go bald, there will be a big, red scar on the top of my head.) I run my fingers through my hair or beard or play with my ring continuously. I used to bite my nails, but now I trim them practically off - and I file them down. When I was a kid, I was a nose-picker and it pretty much ruined elementary school for me. I get words, phrases, or songs stuck in my head, and I repeat them under my breath. I conduct along to music, whether there's any playing or not.

I flap my hands, I jump up and down, chew on things. Those are the main ones, but I have a lot of other little ones that I do less often.

I pace a lot, and I love to drum, especially when there's music.

I can't ever sit still so I am either shaking my foot or tapping my fingers and feet or rubbing my pants. I have to constantly be moving, I can't sit still, even when I go to sleep at night I shake my foot so that it rocks my whole body until I fall asleep.

Well, I've read the whole thread, plus others in the forums, and it looks like I have none. I don't do any of the things people have mentioned, and never have.

Whether this is because I would like to do some of them but have always repressed the desire, so I would not appear to be strange to anyone watching me, I don't know. As far as I am aware, I am not compelled to do any kind of movement or repetitive action.

I click my knuckles, jaw and also my chest. I love popping my chest, it feels like pressure is building up and then I can lean back and POP! It feels so good!