4:57pm July 7, 2014

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What Is Stimming ?

© Donna Williams

Someone asked me:

As I’m new to autism terminology, could someone please tell me what stimming is?

I replied:

Stimming stood for ‘self stimulatory behaviours’. Something non-auties imagined they didn’t have!

Stimming is aword created by non-auties with often negative connotations. It was a word created by non-auties who didn’t understand that some folks had compulsive but involuntary tics, some had self calming tools they didn’t understand, some had sensory fascinations they couldn’t relate to, some needed to tune out to tune in, some needed a tool for social distance in the face of compulsive social invaders, some needed to be repetitive in order to download, some needed to compensate for a non-autie multitrack world they couldn’t process in thier mono-tracked reality, some needed something to get lost in when utterly blowing all fuses…. and, anyway, the non-auties labelled, as is there tendency, this vast array of experiences with one word as if it was one thing at all times to all people labelled ‘Autistic’.

Forgive them. They know not what they see.

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