Stimming, hair twirling, and the habits I was told to stop

I twirl my hair. I have done it since I was a child. It's so automatic I often don't notice I'm doing it until someone points it out — usually to tell me to stop.

For years, I called it a bad habit. A nervous tic. Something I should be able to control if I just tried harder. (There's that phrase again.)

What I now know is that it's called stimming — self-stimulatory behaviour that the nervous system uses to regulate itself. And it is extremely common in ADHD.

The nervous system of someone with ADHD is often either over- or under-stimulated. Stimming is the body's attempt to find the middle — to create just enough sensory input to stay grounded, focused, or calm.

Common forms of stimming I never had a name for:

•        Hair twirling or touching (hello, that's me)

•        Foot tapping or leg bouncing

•        Pen clicking, finger drumming

•        Chewing on things — pens, lips, the inside of a cheek

•        Rocking slightly while sitting

Once I learned the word stimming, a lot of my personal history rearranged itself. The hair twirling that started in primary school — that adults kept telling me to stop — wasn't a bad habit. It was my nervous system doing its job.

And being told to stop it, without any alternative offered, was being told to suppress a coping mechanism with no replacement.

I found my way back to it anyway. Because the nervous system is persistent like that.

Some habits aren't habits. Some habits are just your brain — my brain — taking care of itself the only way it knows how.