If they don’t seem like they are in distress, and these are common behaviors for them, don’t point them out or make a big deal about them. The best thing you can do when your autistic loved one stims during everyday interactions? Ignore it. When a neurotypical person lashes out at their autistic loved one for stimming, the autistic person doesn’t learn to stop stimming (because they are not connecting your reaction to their natural, unconscious behavior), they learn to be afraid of you because, in their eyes, you’re an unpredictable and frightening person! Jaime A. When these behaviors are misinterpreted so drastically, it can cause trauma for the autistic person who doesn’t understand why the neurotypical people around them are “suddenly” angry. Stimming can be misperceived as rudeness, inattentiveness, boredom, disinterest, and disrespect–just to name a few things. Humming, flapping, rocking, swaying, tapping, and fidgeting are just some examples of stims that are common and natural to autistic people that can sometimes be misinterpreted. However, there are still many neurotypical people who aren’t aware of its function and give these traits hidden social meaning when there is none. These days, there’s a lot more information on stimming and the importance of it for autistic people than there was when I was a kid. There’s no hidden social meaning behind it. I have wads of phlegm stuck in the back of my throat, and if I don’t clear it frequently, I choke. Unfortunately, when I was a kid, my throat clearing was seen as yet another thing I did “for attention” or as a “nervous habit”. Weirdly, I’ve mostly gotten used to it and don’t even notice it that much until I meet someone new, and they point it out. I’ve tried every prescription, over-the-counter, and natural remedy I can get my hands on, and I still suffer. I have year-round allergies, and my nose runs every time I eat. I have chronic post-nasal drip that has been with me since birth. This means, there’s a literal wad of phlegm in the throat that needs to be cleared out so the person doesn’t choke on it. There’s evidence to suggest that autistic people have more frequent sinus problems as a result of altered digestion. I kid you not, and that traumatized me because my natural autistic traits had been sexualized in my past when I had no intention of drawing that kind of attention.įrequent throat clearing is often lumped into the “stim” category, and while it can be, that’s not always the case. Is that the case?”Īnother thing that really messed with me is someone I was friends with as a teen thought I was trying to TURN HER ON by sighing around her all the time. Sighing usually means something is wrong or you’re giving a subtle signal you want to talk about something. Are you bored?” or “You’re sighing a lot. I didn’t even realize I was doing it when I was a kid or a teenager, so when somebody would suddenly interrupt me and get in my face and ask, “What’s wrong with you?” it just confused and startled me. It took me until adulthood to realize that yawning and/or sighing was used as a social indicator of ANYTHING, let alone an indirect way to say I was uninterested in what someone was saying to me!īeing told off and asked, “Am I boring you or something?” was VERY confusing for me because I hadn’t even realized I was yawning, so I just thought people were randomly asking the question angrily, and it scared me and made me think that neurotypical people were, by and large, emotionally volatile! I’m someone who yawns and sighs very frequently, and, since I don’t use it as a social cue to indicate boredom, I’m usually not even aware of it or the effect it can have on others around me. For autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people, however, frequent yawning and sighing can be used as emotional regulation tools (especially when it comes to managing sensory overload). For most neurotypical people, sighing and yawning are signs of tiredness and/or boredom.
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