this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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Autism
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I'm not diagnosed, but I stim a lot. When I'm happy I shake my wrists or flail my arms a little and sometimes I bounce up and down. When I'm stressed I rub my hands together in a regular motion and/or scratch myself (arms and neck) and swing from side to side. I also rock a lot, both when happy and stressed. When I eat something I like I kind of wobble the spoon or fork in my hand and as a child I used to hum while eating, but I've since stopped doing that. Something I always do no matter my mood is tapping my fingers to the music that's currently stuck in my head (I always have a song playing in my head or sometimes sentences or funny sounding words, idk why). I used to try and suppress those stims, but I'm much happier now that I mostly embrace them (at least when I'm alone or with people I trust).
I get the sentences/particular words thing in my head. Have mentioned it to individuals on occasion but it's only ever been received with dismissal so I thought it was just a personal, unexplainable quirk of mine. You're the first person I've seen referencing it. I can inexplicably become struck by a word or short phrase such as "conjugational recombination" and have it rattle around my head for hours. I can get on with my day but say I'm at work and it's a day with an odd/previously un-ushered phrase stuck in my head, I can get some tasks done as normal then in between tasks my brain is as if it's enjoying some rhythmic/phonetic quality of the phrase as it cycles it repeatedly through my consciousness. It can get old very quickly but I tend to have no control over when it leaves me. Doesn't happen very often thankfully.
Music has been a massive part of my life since I was about 10. I'm always tapping out a rhythm, or have a restless foot/leg. My wife has called me Thumper after the Bambi character for as long as I remember. I don't tend to notice if I have a restless leg at work unless I'm emailing then it's obvious and pretty constant; but at home it's pretty much all the time. Even if it's just a toe doing an occasional stretch or whatever. I try not to "BE Thumper" when I notice it but then I find I'll end up sort of pushing or pulling a foot/leg against something ie my other foot/leg. There's less noticeable movement with that but definitely still something going on.
Are these behaviours ever associated with allistic people? I would have thought the phrases thing to have more in common with tourettes given my experience of it is that of it being involuntary.
I don't get annoyed by the repetition, I actually enjoy it when it's interesting sounding words or the way a sentence was said was funny wo me when I first heard it. Conjugational recombination is a great word, btw!
The only theory I have is that it might be a form of echolalia, where instead of repeating words out loud you just do it in your head (maybe something like supressed echolalia? I've heard some people online say that it can present that way, but idk how generally accepted that idea is.) As far as I know echolalia is also a symptom of tourettes. I don't know if it can also occurs in allistic people.