I really do wish I didn't live alone in isolation (thanks covid!), but there are some upsides. One is that living solo has let me reclaim my #autistic #stimming. I spent over five decades suppressing my stims, and I'm only starting to appreciate what that cost me. Most of my life I struggled to keep my body in check so I wouldn't get abuse for being weird, pretty much anytime I was around anyone. And I internalized that so much I suppressed my stims even when all by myself.
But living alone gave me a chance to let my hair down and free my stims, and sometimes I feel like a different person inside my skin. I shake off tension, physically toss bad thoughts away, dance my way around the flat, make dramatic gestures, drum on just about anything handy, sit in odd positions, stand on one leg like a stork, walk backwards, make faces, and bounce my leg while sitting a lot. Sometimes I realize when I'm stimming, but it now feels natural enough that much of the time I don't even notice I'm doing it, though I can in retrospect if I think about it. I guess that's what it's like for NTs when they stim, like drumming fingers or flipping their hair - the stims nobody thinks are stims because NTs do them.
But it's not just random tics or flailing about. It's part of how I process feelings, and it's so much better than forcing myself to sit still and stew on something. A small gesture can release a bad feeling in a moment, instead of hanging onto that stress and forcing my body to behave.
I think this is a big part of why I don't like being out in public now. I don't want to wear a stim straitjacket anymore, but I don't feel safe stimming in public either. And since I stopped suppressing myself at home, I worry I've lost my ability to mask and suppress stims when I go out. Sigh.
#ActuallyAutistic
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Do you tend to stim with clicking your mouse on whitespace when you're bored? 
