Getting through my day

    For many people, it's hand-flapping, or repeated noises and sounds, or a certain thing that they desire to do often, for my cousin, it's creating clicking sounds with his mouth, for me it's fidgeting around with things in my fingers. Stimming is very common among the Autism community, as everyone is known to stim in some way. Stimming, or self-stimulatory behavior is basically repeating a certain action over and over for a very long time. People on the spectrum, like me, do it to concentrate on things that were supposed to be doing, such as paying attention in class or doing homework. Others do it without even knowing that they're doing it, like my cousin. A while back when I heard him doing some clicking sounds with his mouth in a fast-food restaurant, I asked him why he was doing it louder than normal (yes I notice the little details of many things), and he answered me like if he just came back like some sort of a different universe "what?" I asked again "you were making your clicking noises louder than usual, why?" He finally answered "I was making clicking noises, I didn't notice." Stimming helps a bunch of people, even when it seems weird to others. In today's blog, I want to show how stimming allows me to get through many days.

    Firstly, it's also common among the ADHD community, which is why fidget spinners and fidget cubes first existed (yes I also have ADHD), but I'm going to focus more on the Autism side of things, because, I'm pretty sure it's obvious why. Anyhow, like I already mentioned, my form of stimming is basically fiddling around with things using my fingers. I always have the urge to just fiddle my pencil or pen during class because it just relaxes me so much, of course hiding the pencil or pen during that time so others don't notice. It's my form of a spa day, because it relaxes me that much, and it just feels like a life saver at times. This is where things begin to go downhill, because people are so uneducated to even know why I do things like this. The reason why I bring my RSP support into this, is because I bet that many people that like stimming but others ask you why you do this or stare at you, you'll know where I'm going with this. Basically in my IEP, I was fiddling around with a eraser (I hate IEP's, and since I couldn't use my phone (because it's rude), I had to fiddle around with that to get through the whole meeting), and I wasn't paying attention at all because I wasn't expecting to hear anything out of the ordinary. Once the RSP teacher saw me, he paused the meeting and said my name. I looked up and said "what happened?" He asked "what are you doing with that eraser." I replied "I don't know, I guess I'm just playing around with it." He said "don't, pay attention." Afterwards I noticed he wrote down on his clipboard. Once everyone was dismissed and the RSP teacher quickly left to his desktop, I noticed that he left his clipboard on the table that we were sitting on. I quickly glance at it and one of the bullet points clearly said "was fiddling around with eraser for a long period of time." First of all, how did he know it was a long period if he didn't even notice me until later. Secondly, he obviously doesn't deserve to be and RSP teacher if he doesn't even know that stimming is something that is very common with the students that he works with everyday. My point is that, there's people that are always making fun of people who stim in public. Hand-flapping like I mentioned is another form of stimming, but is also a way that gets them made fun of. This is unacceptable, since they don't know that it's there way of calming down and relaxing.

    Stimming varies in many different ways. I already mentioned my urge to fiddle around with things, my cousins urge to making clicking noises with his mouth, and many people's urges to flap their arms at times, but that's just a spec of many other forms of stimming. One that is also very common is chewing things. Sure, you might think chewing gum at first, but while some do chew gum frequently, it goes way beyond chewing gum. Chewing plastic, bottle caps, pieces of paper, even lead from a pencil, whatever someone can find within their reach, they begin to chew it as their form of stimming. Like I mentioned, that's nothing wrong as it's their form of stimming, but of course they shouldn't eat the plastic or lead. An example of this comes from my last years Math class where I had another student in the class on the spectrum as well. He of course was High-functiong, and he really communicated well with others, but his grades were terrible. Onto the stimming, he would grab pencils and he would chew the tip's of them, usually near the eraser. Once I sat next to him for a while and he would do it more frequently than I would fiddle around with random objects. Sometimes he would even do it in front of his friends during the class. Not to be mean or anything, but I'm sort of surprised that no one ever asked him why he did that often. Another form of stimming comes from another student that I remember from 8th grade. I was stuck with him for nearly the entire year due to our last names being together in the alphabet, so I was able to observe a lot of what he did. Basically what he did as a form of stimming was tapping on the tables and sometimes even the wall behind us. Many times it would be random tapping, but sometimes I would pick up a pattern from the tapping. Obviously I couldn't make out what he was necessarily tapping about, but my guess would be a song that he heard. Again, that's perfectly fine since it was his way of calming down, and you guys know how important it is to calm down during stressful times. Other types of stimming that I never observed includes rocking back and forth on a chair, intensely blinking your eyes, snapping fingers, repeating certain phrases or words, etc. These many different ways that someone stims are the ways that we relax ourselves and make ourselves feel better. So even if it gets to a point where it all seems very ridiculous, just keep in mind that it's benefitting us, just like how you like your time of peace.

    There are lots of different side notes on stimming, many which are very interesting. The most interesting of the bunch being that people that stim, and that stimming interferes them from achieving normal tasks places them on the autism spectrum. This is something that I barely found recently, but it's something that I'm already speculating from. I can kind of see where this is true, coming from my cousin. This one time when we were at a kids zone area in a park festival, we were doing origami. As soon as he began his clicking noises, he immediately dropped his paper crane out of his hand due to losing all senses of what was going on (I know that sounds very bad, him losing literally all senses when he stims since it poses a huge safety hazard, but keep in mind that this was four years ago. Now when he does it, he still loses sense of everything, but if you yell at him he snaps out of it, whereas before if you try shaking him or yelling or sometimes even hitting him, he would still making clicking noises). He completely lost track of what he was doing, but after like two minutes, he picked up his origami and continued folding. In my case, I stim as a way of relaxing myself or as a way to make time pass by (if it wasn't obvious already). If I have to do something important that requires the use of my hands, I wouldn't mind not stimming for a while (this type of stimming would mainly fall under the ADHD group, but then again I'm also on the autism spectrum, so it's very confusing). Like I mentioned, stimming is a way to relax us, so it's no surprise that many people on the spectrum oppose against ABA therapy. This is something that I also found out recently, because I never received ABA therapy at any point of my life, so I never found out what ABA therapy actually did for the individual. Turns out, it's not really beneficial. People who have intensive stimming problems (I wouldn't necessarily call it a problem, it's just there way of stimming, just different from other types) are forced to take medicine that helps calm these stimming problems. Again, this is just another way that people don't understand our community by even making these pills in the first place, because it just shows that people are against our ways of calming down. My other concern would be how it would affect the individual taking these pills. Would they actually benefit from it, or would it just make it worst for them since they have no way of relaxing (not sure how that would work). Then again, these are just stories I heard from careless families, so I'm not too sure how this topic holds up with other families or individuals, so it would be very helpful if you guys could comment down your experiences with anti-stimming pills and ABA therapy if you'd wish, I would appreciate the extra knowledge.

    That's the end of yet another blog. I hope this blog showed you just how important it is for someone to stim, and why you shouldn't make fun of people's way of stimming, such as public hand-flapping. As always, leave a comment down if you wish to tell me anything, and also give this page a follow if you would like to read my blogs before my community does. I hope each and everyone of you guys have a great day :)