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5:25pm July 27, 2014
alljustletters asked: Sorry for asking, but I'm still trying to learn about stimming and am not quite sure I understand the definition (background: I think I'm on the spectrum but was never diagnosed & I have an appointment for diagnosis next month). For example, I have a thing where I need to rub the insides of my fingers and sometimes my toes against each other or against someone else's skin. I've been doing that since my earliest childhood and suppressing it causes me severe discomfort. Is this a form of stimming?

Stimming is a word that means a lot of things, because it was originated by people who had no idea what they were doing.  Basically.  They just saw developmentally disabled people doing things they didn’t understand, and labeled it ‘self-stimulation’, and then that got shortened to 'stimming’.

Which means that stimming can mean everything from rhythmic involuntary movement (like, sometimes, rocking) to unusual but voluntary movements to tics to semi-voluntary movements to sensory exploration of your environment (like staring at ceiling fans).  

So yes, it probably counts as at least one of those.  

But whether something counts as stimming is kind of a strange thing because it’s never been a well-defined word, given that it originated in a false explanation for zillions of different things people did (and not just people on the spectrum).