What are your stims? (Title Pending)

Walking! Walking is one of the few things that can calm me down/keep me calm. I also chew on things. I think it's why I like chewy food - chewy food good cause teef get to bite. As my anxiety grows, I chew on the skin by my fingernails. I also flap my hands (happy or overwhelmed) or curl them up to my chest (scared/stressed/uncertain). I mess with my nails, too. But I think walking is stim #1 - the more I can walk the calmer I'll stay. I think this is part of the reason I'm calmer in the fall - it isn't too hot to walk.

 

an incomplete list:
-playing with jewelry; I have a necklace which is especially good for this, and I wear it a lot because i can tug it hard against the back of my neck without breaking the cord
-chewing on my lip a lot because it Feels Good
-moving my head like a bird
-making weird noises, usually catlike or birdlike
-hunching/rolling my shoulders
-shifting from foot to foot (i'm pretty sure i picked up the last two from bird of prey-style body language. i picked up... a lot of animal body language, probably.)
-bouncing in place (although knee injury makes this hard, bluh)
-when i'm REALLY excited, flapping my arms or sometimes rolling around on a couch or bed/shoving my face into it. doesn't happen super often
-scraping my nails across certain textures, usually when i'm agitated, to get some Good Noise. my phone case is really good for this but it's also LOUD so i don't do it very often
-touching!! soft things!!
-not sure if stim exactly: i really like getting my hair lightly pulled by other people but usually it's not pleasant when i'm doing it unless i'm stressed

 

Watching things be cleaned. Ear-wax removal and spot-picking videos are weirdly soothing, but kind of gross and encouraging me to pick my own skin and ears, which isn't healthy, so I'm trying pressure-washing videos.

 

Also, TOUCH ALL THE THINGS. Museums and zoos are fun but mildly frustrating because I can't touch the things there.

 

I'm kind of the same! I like to "unshuffle" my tarot decks every now and then and organize them by suit...

(helps that shuffling cards is also a stim of mine)

 

i change my grimlock back and forth between his modes sometimes

 

I rock a lot more than I ever realized.

 

Same! I’ve noticed that when sitting on the floor with my legs crossed I tend to rock without really even thinking about it, actually? It feels almost involuntary, but not in a bad way.

 

I used to mostly only realize I was rocking when others would start to ask if I was okay, but more recently I've been way more aware of it. I apparently do it a Lot.

 

I used to do something similar with my sister's bohrok bionicles. Something about it just felt like I was "solving" a puzzle, and the nice clicking of plastic on plastic was really soothing

 

OH MY GODS YES. Bohroks were so good for that shit. Bionicles in general were real good. Highly posable like action figures. Got stuff that pings off and such. And you can pull them apart and they make satisfying clicks when you attach stuff. AND YOU HAVE THE BOHROKS. AND YOU CAN MAKE FRAKEN BEASTS.

bionicles were such a good line of toys

 

I've noticed that I fiddle with the backs of my lip piercings with my tongue a lot. Actually I just do shit with my tongue all the time--it's pretty much always moving. Not sure if this makes me really good at making out or really bad at making out

 

i have Many Stims but my most recent one is that... well, my phone has an Otterbox case, the outer shell of which is... idk what material it is, but it’s, idk, soft, not hard plastic. anyways so a bit of it started peeling a while back and i kept playing/stimming with it until now there’s a long strip that i can stim with

apparently the sight of it drives some of my family members slightly bonkers but i really like being able to tug at the strip, roll it up, etc. bonus points, it’s much healthier than another stim of mine that involves picking/peeling (my own skin.)

ETA: i forgot to add: shuffling cards is also soothing for me. especially my tarot cards, even if they are so big and my hands are so small that i can only shuffle like half a deck at a time.

 

Buttercream cactus videos.

In other news, Buttercream Cactus is now the name of my band.

 

gotta bounce m'legy

 

Same hat!

 

Nail stamping videos. I'm totally buying stamping supplies.

 

Can confirm it is Incredibly worth it :D

 

I bought some things! The stamper arrived first and I can't stop playing with it even though I don't have the stamps yet. Squishy!