It's weird, the way that we really understand each others and each others' needs and desires.

While in the shower, I was suddenly thinking about my brother who's an aspie, and how he sometimes spits, and that thought lead me to stimming, and how I hear my ex-wife tell my son not to stim while I'm talking with her over the phone, and I'm thinking "why the hell do we try to stop that?"

As part of this entry, I really must say Thank You to my dear friend elmindreda, who has been and continues to be a great source of information and inspiration, and who has been very supportive when I've needed to understand the mind of an aspie.

Anyway, back to the stims, it just dawned on me that the spitting that my brother does is probably a form of stimming, and that while it doesn't look good to me, I can understand why he does it (although he can't explain it). I'll admit I still have the selfish wish that he could change to another form of stim, but that's my thing, not his :-).

It disturbs me much more, really, when I hear my ex-wife tell my son to stop stimming. I can't know if she really wants to stop him from stimming entirely or if it's a particular form that she doesn't like.

An interesting thing in this is that I recently had Theory of Mind thrown at me with the words "see how it applies to you, either genetically or environmentally." I have and I do understand. The interesting thing is that the Theory of Mind seems to apply to most people in one form or another. I see many people having a really hard time understanding people that are outside of their norms, and I relate that directly to my ex-wife's wish to stop my son from stimming, as it looks to me like she might not understand his needs, deep down.

I guess it looks I'm pretty darn hooked on stimming :-). It's not entirely true, what this is about is really this tendency I see in many to want to tell others how they should be, and usually do it through reaction and projections. If stimming is a working method of relief to my son, why the hell should we stop it? Because we don't like it? What does that mean to him? Or because we have fears about how others might see it? What does that mean to him?

Why is it so hard to accept and embrace each other for who and what each of us really is? Why is it so hard to look past the quirks on the surface and try to see the real person behind instead? Why do we try to limit each other to some kind of norm that no-one really understands deep down? What is the truth and what is projections of our fears and egos? Those are hard questions that we all must ask ourselves, and even more so when we have a child to care for.

That said, I still have that projection of my own toward my brother. If I find his spitting disturbing (disgusting, to tell the truth), can I ask him to change to some other form of stimming? Is that at all possible for him? I guess I'll try asking, some day when I think of it...