 Today I'm presenting you with a video that is and can be somewhat controversial. I suggest if you've read the title and it seems like something that you don't really want to hear someone talk about, don't watch this video. We're going to be talking about stimming, those repetitive movements that we autistic people do to calm ourselves down in stressful situations. A very useful tool and it's generally something that I personally encourage people to do. It doesn't harm anyone, autistic people generally struggle with that emotional regulation and so it's kind of common sense to let people do this. But for autistic people like yourself if you are autistic and you are watching this you may be thinking okay cool like yes it does help it does help me feel more in control of things there's nothing inherently harmful about it but should I do it in public? Should I do it around my friends? Should I do it around my family? Should I do it when I'm going out on a date? Should I do it in the general open public area? It's a very difficult question to answer and and I believe that the answer for every single person out there completely depends on their view, their view. Do they care about what people think? Should you care about what people think? Does the benefits of stimming in public outweigh that of the possible social effects it may have on you? It is a very controversial subject and it's one that I feel is talked about a lot in the autistic community whether for good or whether for bad it is something that we talk about a lot. You know it's a question that we need to answer and sort of discuss further. Questions like this people generally try to avoid because there is the potential that due to its controversial nature and the the opinions of people clashing together it could very well not be received well well wellness well but I think it's worth talking about. So what is stimming? From a basic standpoint stimming is a voluntary action that people do it's inherently repetitive in nature and can be very simple or very complex. The best way to describe stimming is to give you some examples. Some of the more stereotypical signs of stimming will be that of hand flapping spinning around in a circle making certain noises repeating phrases over and over again you know something to diffuse the situation whether it's diffusing social tension or regulating anxiety. When an autistic person is born and they develop into an adult and go through all those many life stages that they go through they develop a particular sensory profile. Now our sensory profile is it basically covers all of the senses that we as humans generally experience. We can be hyper or hyposensitive to certain stimuli meaning that we don't feel something very much or we feel something to a very high degree and it causes us a lot of stress. Further you could also categorize it into sensory seeking and sensory defensive. In terms of sensory defensive these are basically things that you avoid. One common thing that I've heard of is cotton wool. Some people just have a real aversion to it and that can be any sort of anything. Anything under the sun that you can experience as a human being sometimes it's just too much for your brain to handle due to that sensory profile. I suppose the more relevant category is sensory seeking. Sensory seeking means that you basically you want to go for that sensory experience you want to to do something that stimulates your brain in a good way but sometimes this can be bad and one example that I can give from my own experience is banging my head on the wall. Now to an outsider that's generally something that you you wouldn't want to happen it hurts you don't want to do it. To me when I'm in a very extreme state the blunt pain that I feel from you know hitting myself or hitting the wall or something was like it overrided a lot of the stress that I had. It didn't necessarily feel good but because I'm so hyposensitive to that blunt pain it was something that I did as a kid. I don't do it anymore of course because you can get all sorts of brain damage from that kind of stuff but it was definitely something that I did when I was a very very young child. From my time on Instagram on YouTube on any kind of social media I've heard a lot of stuff about stimming. It's a very popular topic of conversation. It's something that I think has an inherent value in it for autistic people. It's something that's that's generally or has been previously frowned upon by the rest of society has been weird or odd or strange but you know in in your room space going for things that that that stimulate you can be a great way to relieve some of the anxiety that that many autistic people experience and that can be anything. That could be particular fidget toys or as most people have seen and mean about the good old fidget spinners. It's something that relaxes them something that helps and concentrates and it has been used for people with ADHD but for autistic people it's a lot more about that emotional regulation. I won't exactly go into the many lines and categorisations of stims that people have as from my experience that it doesn't really seem to be defined by much. It's generally anything that makes you feel calm and activates your sensory system. It's it doesn't necessarily have to be those stereotypical things like spinning around or jumping or making high-pitched noises you know it's it's not all about that it can be just playing with something you know like a putty or nice fabrics or listening to particular music or looking at flashing lights which is something that I like to do. So there's a lot of utility in it for you as a person wanting to know should I do it in public. It's a little bit of a difficult question because you can say definitely that oh it's good like we shouldn't we shouldn't frown upon this in people they should just do it. It doesn't change the perspective that people have on it. It doesn't mean that people won't pick on you for it and although the actual responses of people to that is something that we need to focus on for the longer term is it right to do it now. There are some ways that we can work around this. One important thing to remember about stimming is autistic people aren't the only ones that do it. Neurotypical people do it as well. It's just less out there. It's less noticeable and it's more normalised meaning that people won't pick up on it as something that's straight something that's strange and weird and odd and so puts you at less risk for being ridiculed for it. Anything like chewing your pencil lid that's a motor thing that's something that gives you sensory feedback tapping your leg rubbing your hands picking and biting your nails these are all stims these are all sensory things that you do to try and calm yourself down in a stressful situation. Now of course stims for autistic people are very very important typically because we display a lot of anxiety we have a lot of issues with mental health anything from OCD to ADHD to anxiety to depression there's a whole list of things that autistic people generally struggle with more and so these stims that we have are even more vital for our overall health. I believe that this inherently is an issue of ideas and what's right conflicting with society the general society that we have although our ideas and our ideals and thoughts about how we should act socially develop very very quickly and can develop very very quickly it doesn't mean that society will follow that at the same pace meaning that there is a bit of a like period period of time where what we would want for society is not reflected in what we see. I guess to an extent this whole stimming business is very much an old battle you know in the early stages of a lot of autism related companies a few that I'm not going to mention for fear of getting a lawsuit or something actively stop autistic people from stimming autistic children people that they're looking after because it's viewed or it was viewed as something that is not good something that it's undesirable they don't want it in this this child they want to try and discourage it so that when they get to an adult stage they won't be displaying those behaviors that cause people to look at them and say they're a bit strange what are they doing that's basically the premise of that it's completely unfounded in any logical sense but it makes a lot of social sense in terms of how people in society works where the other side comes in is actual autistic people it's great like it's absolutely fabulous that we're trying so hard to normalize things that really aren't aren't and shouldn't be viewed as a big deal and should be normalized to a certain extent that it's okay and it doesn't affect someone's standing in the social arena or standing in society I guess with that that conflict and those conflicting ideals there's a lot of controversy around it hence the difficulty in talking about it there is no complete solid answer to this so I'm going to give you my personal opinion it's completely up to the person if you don't want to stim in public you don't have to if you want stim in public you can that's the basics of it of course but I do think that there is some factors that you need to look at when you're making that decision sure it can be empowering and good and you know if you feel like you're moving society forwards by doing these things in public but if you're not capable of dealing with the backlash or the responses from other people then it may be best to tone it down a little bit in public I'm not saying tone it down do it I'm just saying if you feel like you wouldn't be able to hold your own in that sense and you would get a lot of negative effects from these responses from people maybe trying to adapt how you stim in public as opposed to how you stim in private for me personally because this is my personal opinion segment I don't particularly stim in public and that's not because I don't want to it's just because it never crosses my mind I don't really stim in the stereotypical way a lot of my stims are to do with distraction flashing games you know things that have a lot of movement on the screen are quite attractive to me and they satisfy me playing games really relaxes me quite a lot and I know a lot of autistic people that I know who say the same thing now this is not to say that I don't stim I used to love spinning and bouncing a lot I used to love it because I was light enough when I was younger to be able to do that without damaging myself now that I'm big I'm six foot three I can't really spin around on the spot on one leg I don't really get enough speed up to warrant me doing it and if I do fall and they lose my balance I'll hurt myself quite a bit however I do love going to theme parks because of that sensation I love the sensation of being span around and the sensation of movement it's very much something that calms me down it it sends waves of relaxation through my body it's quite a therapeutic thing for me and because it's so socially acceptable to go on to a ride and enjoy it it's it kind of kills two birds with one stone like it's not it's not strange to act elated and and happy and a bit giggly after being on a fairground ride maybe not to the extent that I do but enough I'd say that particularly for myself I am very confident in how I am I don't feel too much social strain from ticking in public you know those you know very jerking movements that I have it doesn't really upset me that much because I've learned to kind of push past them and it's the same for stims sometimes if I'm really stressed and I'm really tired and I'm not in a good place I probably will stim in public and that can be anything from rocking to anything along those lines if I'm in a public place and there's loads of people like in a library I may not rock but I may dance a little bit if you know what I mean you know just kind of feel the music and dance one thing that I particularly did like about university was that dancing element of going out and dancing really is a very therapeutic thing for me and it was again another socially acceptable way of stimming in public everyone's dancing nobody knows that I'm at the same time as dancing and enjoying it I am quelling my anxiety it's just more things like that that help me to sort of reduce my levels of anxiety in public over the years I've developed some very typical neurotypical things that's a funny word so funny sentence rather and that is rubbing my hands rubbing my hands is a big stim for me I do it wherever I'm in public or wherever I'm alone it's probably not the best thing but it does kind of leave my hands a little bit soft I guess one of the difficulties with stimming in public is that from my experience and obviously from the general research that we've done things like social anxiety are very prominent in autistic people now you could say that stimming is going to help you in situations like that but due to our difficulty with that general that that inherent ability to to communicate with other people and pick up on all those social nuances and all of that it makes it very difficult to connect with people who really don't know the first thing about autism and I know a lot of people could benefit from stimming in public and I would agree do it if you have the confidence and the solidarity in who you are and how strong you are as a person then do it it's not going to affect your life in any way it may get a few odd looks from people but who cares like they're just random people and even if your friends think that it's strange they're not going to stop being friends with you because you're making because you're rocking back and forth when you're stressed it's just not going to happen unless they're an arsehole then you know good riddance if you're still on the fence about this you're weighing up the things that I'm saying and you're taking into account all the things but you still don't know I recommend just just trying out different things try and try and find some things that you like to do as a stim explore and and look on Instagram and see all these people who write stories about their different sensory experiences things that they find helpful things that they don't find helpful this isn't meant to be a bashing of stimming I'm very fully behind it but I'm also aware that you know like some people can be cruel and society can be cruel and we need to support and support each other and talk about these things it's not the autistic community's fault stimming is okay and it's good and it shouldn't be frowned upon but sometimes it is and I've experienced that I think a final message to end on would be if you don't like this this might take on it that I'm not putting this out as fact you know this is just my opinion of how I navigate the world and and how I would advise people just based on my experiences how I feel my analysis of the situation it's not meant to be a everybody do what I say video if you have an idea I mean if you have ways of getting around this or other ideas in fact just put them down in the comments just let me know it'll be nice to to see what you think as I said there is no right or wrong answer to this most people would make you think that there is a right answer and that you should just do all the stims that you want in public whereas some people would say the opposite and say that it's very harmful for them and it's caused them to lose a lot of friendships or be ignored at school or picked on or bullied there's a lot of areas where we could go into like particular situations like school and uni and workplace and social life there's there's so many other aspects to it because it's an interesting topic okay I'm interested in it I'm interested in what you want to say and if you are interested and you want me to continue talking about stuff like this that other people don't want to talk about let me know I'll make more of them I'll I'll talk about this stuff I'm completely fine we're talking about these potentially controversial things it's not a bother for me if you want to get more insight into the world of autism into into my brain into other people's brains if you want to get inside there like a magical viewing glass and and see how the the cogs in their brain turn and I'm going on follow the podcast the 40 orty podcast it's available on spotify and current youtube very easy to find got a lot of guests coming on got this new microphone that I'm currently speaking into that sounds divine up close it sounds absolutely awesome pretty much top standard um in the world of audio and of course like subscribe whatever do all that stuff I know that every single video on this this platform is got some type of oh remember if you want to know if if you want to stay up to date with all the subscriptions and you want to see the videos when they come out and you want some some notification to intrude in your life subscribe social medias are the place to go if you want updates on my life there's a lot of exciting things coming up and yeah you can pretty much find me everywhere apart from reddit I don't have a reddit it's not really my thing anyway I'll see you in the next video take it easy keep cool stay fresh and see you later bye where's my coffee