Stimming is a way to bring order to our nervous system.
The explanation I’m going to give you here is that of a layman trying to understand himself. I am not a psychologist, or a psychiatrist. I don’t know that this is a generalizable explanation even. Maybe it holds only for some neurodivergent folks but not others? I have no idea.
Neurodivergent folks talk about being emotionally dysregulated. This dysregulation can manifest in multiple ways. The dysregulated individual may experience intense negative emotions, mood swings, or even difficulty identifying emotions, etc. However, what happens in the brain of a dysregulated person is not entirely clear to me.
What if what happens internally in the brain is some sort of electrical mess? I won’t call it an electrical storm. I don’t think it is as bad as a storm. The electrical storm phenomenon is associated with epilepsy and seizures. So it is not a storm, but it is, for a lack of a more descriptive word, an electrical mess. This mess prevents the electrical currents from going where they should go in an ordered manner.
One of the ways a neurodivergent person can handle emotional dysregulation is to stim. A stim is some sort of stimulation of the nervous system. Flapping your hands can be stimming. Petting an animal can be stimming. Even merely listening to music can be stimming too. Now, stims usually have a rhythm to them. To take the examples already given, flapping your hands has a rhythm. Petting an animal has a rhythm. Listening to music definitely has a rhythm too.
I think the rhythm of the stim acts as some sort of force that regiments the electrical mess that is happening in the brain. I don’t think this is a perfect analogy, but the mess is akin to a non-Newtonian fluid flowing aimlessly. Then the rhythm of the stim are like vibrations that regiment the fluid into some sort of functional pattern.
I can’t find a better explanation for my fondness for music. I have it playing any chance I get. When I was younger, I studied with music playing on my boombox, and I tapped the desk to its rhythm. Nowadays, I have music playing all day long in my apartment. I even have it playing when I go on my solitary walks, or when I drive. It keeps the electrical currents in my brain functional.
As I said, the analogy is not perfect. The non-Newtonian fluid typically has no function. If you need to see a non-Newtonian fluid in action, you should watch the following video. (Regular readers will recognize it from my article about the self.)
Leave a Reply