Ok, so I don't want to sound dumb or offensive or anything (I'm just really really curious) but when you tag something as a stim thing, well - can you define that for me? Idk, I always find them oddly relaxing and have started following some of the blogs that you reblog from, but I'm still not 100% sure what it is? :/
It’s okay! Don’t be afraid of asking what something means, we all learn everything from someone else ^-^
I am not really sure I can give you an accurate definition, I’d recommend you turn to someone running a blog focused specifically on stimming, autism or neurodivergent issues in general as they’re probably going to use the right words :)
Anyway, as far as I know the word stim (with the verb stimming) comes from “stimulus/stimulation” and is generally used in regards to behaviors mostly found in neurodivergent people (autistic people, people with anxiety, people with adhd, but also people with different kinds of disabilities). It is an umbrella term for many kinds of different stimuli (visual, auditory, tactile, motor, etc) that can have a generally positive effect on the brain, like relaxing/calming or channelling emotions, not necessarily negative (for instance, if a person is feeling strong enthusiasm or happiness, stimming can be an outlet to express those emotions - I believe it’s fundamentally a mechanism for the brain not to be overloaded). It’s important for a neurodivergent person to be able to stim freely because otherwise it can cause distress and anxiety, as long as the specific stim isn’t harmful to them or others.
I think that in psychiatry the definition of stimming refers to the repetitive motions (like flapping your hands, rocking your body, repeating words or sentences etc) that are exhibited by many autistic people, but the neurodivergent community recognizes many other kinds of stims (not necessarily all positive, for instance kinds of self harming could be a stim for some people). If you look up stimming on tumblr, you mostly get videos and gifs of slime, paint mixing etc partly because they’re popular right now, partly because they’re easy to film and put online, but they’re not the only kinds of stims.
I hope this helped! I still recommend to look up some resources written by someone more competent than me, also everyone is invited to add or correct what I’ve written :)
