A small switch in behavior other people can make, to ease the author’s life as an autistic person, is to “Tell me what to expect in advance! Especially for unfamiliar events… and in more detail than you expect I’ll need.”
Tag: stim toys
Photo © the author [image: Close up of fingertips grasping a worn black pottery shard.] Hannah King mystinkybackpack.blogspot.ca September 17, 2018 is International Day of the Stim! For more articles and information, see dayofthestim.blogspot.com. I found this old piece of pottery at the beach. It’s been worn smooth from the waves, and it fits perfectly in my hand. My thumb rub it over and over and over and over—it feels great. My thumbs are major in my stimming, always have been. I think one reason my thumb stims survived the years of stim-suppression I underwent at school and home is that I could stim—surreptitiously—with my thumbs. It was easy to tuck my hand into the folds of a cardigan sweater and reach for the nubby underside of a button, or to slide my thumbs and fingers quietly along the coolness beneath a school desk. And while I loved to glide…