Poem: "A Brief History of Stimming"
May. 4th, 2018 01:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis poem came out of the May 1, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from mama_kestrel and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
elenbarathi. It also fills the "betrayal" square in my 5-1-18 General card for the Pro Wrestling Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by Anthony Barrette.
Warning: This poem talks about repetitive motions that have been increasingly stigmatized over time. If that's a touchy topic for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before deciding whether this is something you want to read.
"A Brief History of Stimming"
It was there in the beginning,
at the dawn of time when
hairy apes first slipped
down out of the trees
onto the savanna.
They stroked the grass
as they walked, gathering
the grain by handfuls.
They whacked rocks together,
making sparks and sharp edges.
They poked pointed sticks
into tough termite mounds
over and over again.
They made puddles of
red mud and wiped their hands
on the stone walls of a cave.
They braided flower crowns
for simple celebrations, bent
over raw animal skins and
worked them into leather.
They rubbed sticks together
to see how hot they would get --
for hours, sometimes -- until
the fire bird opened its wings.
As humanity grew, the tools
and tasks grew more complex.
There was milking and churning
to be done. There was shearing,
carding, spinning, knitting, weaving.
There was the endless shelling
of peas and beans, threshing of grain.
The years turned, and people grew.
From dawn to dusk, idle hands
were the devil's playground.
And then it changed.
There wasn't as much work
to be done every hour of the day.
Somehow, it stopped being
work or play and became fidgeting,
and fidgeting was a bad thing.
The hands that had brought
humanity out of the bush were
slapped and admonished
to sit still, to be good.
And then it got worse.
Fidgeting became stimming,
no longer merely bad manners
but actual pathology, a disease
to be treated with harsh therapy.
More slapping, and sometimes
candy or cookies as a bribe, and
always the nagging chant of
quiet hands, quiet hands.
Stimming, fidgeting, handiwork --
it's all the history of humanity,
the little manipulations that
lifted us up out of the past
and into the future.
The persecution of
stimming is nothing less
than a faithless betrayal
of evolution and those
whose restless hands
got humanity this far.
* * *
Notes:
Historic crafts and tasks took a long time and were essential to survival. Making red ochre paint for marking on cave walls is very tedious. I've done it by rubbing a red ochre nugget into a small pool of linseed oil held in a stone mortar; it makes excellent paint, but it doesn't go very far. Starting a fire with sticks can take hours; tanning a hide takes days. Shearing, cleaning, carding, spinning, and weaving wool is an exhaustive process. Notice that every person in that picture is doing something with their hands.
"Idle hands are the devil's playground" is a later Christian saying to encourage people to work all the time. It used to be the case that people almost never sat down to socialize without some sort of lapwork: drop spinning, embroidery, knitting, crochet, etc. I remember sitting around cracking black walnuts or shucking corn, and everyone would be chatting or telling stories while we worked. If I know I'm going to have people talking in the living room for hours, I want to have a simple sewing project in my lap, and we keep fidgets on the coffee table.
Fidgeting has a variety of evolutionary benefits, among them floating attention to watch for predators and a pleasure-reward for continual hand motion that would once have focused on survival tasks. Someone who liked tanning hides or shelling peas would have a higher reproduction rate than someone who quit. It has modern benefits too, from aiding focus to stimulating blood flow. Alas, fidgeting is stigmatized and people are discouraged from doing it.
(Some of these links are intense.)
Actions classified as stimming are even more stigmatized than those classified as fidgeting. The distinction is often little more than "normal people fidget, autistic people stim." However, stimming is normal and healthy for people with a variety of neurodiverse features. Some stims are more socially acceptable than others. Stress toys are specially designed to meet this need in the least bothersome way possible.
(Some of these links are heinous.)
Quiet hands and applied behavioral analysis are cited as abuse by autistic people who have survived them and can describe the harm done. Everyone has a right to communicate, and to solve challenges in a way that works for them. There are ways to tell if a type of therapy is harmful. Autistic adults are banding together in projects like Loud Hands to fight against the abuse.
mama_kestrel and elenbarathi. It also fills the "betrayal" square in my 5-1-18 General card for the Pro Wrestling Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by Anthony Barrette.Warning: This poem talks about repetitive motions that have been increasingly stigmatized over time. If that's a touchy topic for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before deciding whether this is something you want to read.
"A Brief History of Stimming"
It was there in the beginning,
at the dawn of time when
hairy apes first slipped
down out of the trees
onto the savanna.
They stroked the grass
as they walked, gathering
the grain by handfuls.
They whacked rocks together,
making sparks and sharp edges.
They poked pointed sticks
into tough termite mounds
over and over again.
They made puddles of
red mud and wiped their hands
on the stone walls of a cave.
They braided flower crowns
for simple celebrations, bent
over raw animal skins and
worked them into leather.
They rubbed sticks together
to see how hot they would get --
for hours, sometimes -- until
the fire bird opened its wings.
As humanity grew, the tools
and tasks grew more complex.
There was milking and churning
to be done. There was shearing,
carding, spinning, knitting, weaving.
There was the endless shelling
of peas and beans, threshing of grain.
The years turned, and people grew.
From dawn to dusk, idle hands
were the devil's playground.
And then it changed.
There wasn't as much work
to be done every hour of the day.
Somehow, it stopped being
work or play and became fidgeting,
and fidgeting was a bad thing.
The hands that had brought
humanity out of the bush were
slapped and admonished
to sit still, to be good.
And then it got worse.
Fidgeting became stimming,
no longer merely bad manners
but actual pathology, a disease
to be treated with harsh therapy.
More slapping, and sometimes
candy or cookies as a bribe, and
always the nagging chant of
quiet hands, quiet hands.
Stimming, fidgeting, handiwork --
it's all the history of humanity,
the little manipulations that
lifted us up out of the past
and into the future.
The persecution of
stimming is nothing less
than a faithless betrayal
of evolution and those
whose restless hands
got humanity this far.
* * *
Notes:
Historic crafts and tasks took a long time and were essential to survival. Making red ochre paint for marking on cave walls is very tedious. I've done it by rubbing a red ochre nugget into a small pool of linseed oil held in a stone mortar; it makes excellent paint, but it doesn't go very far. Starting a fire with sticks can take hours; tanning a hide takes days. Shearing, cleaning, carding, spinning, and weaving wool is an exhaustive process. Notice that every person in that picture is doing something with their hands.
"Idle hands are the devil's playground" is a later Christian saying to encourage people to work all the time. It used to be the case that people almost never sat down to socialize without some sort of lapwork: drop spinning, embroidery, knitting, crochet, etc. I remember sitting around cracking black walnuts or shucking corn, and everyone would be chatting or telling stories while we worked. If I know I'm going to have people talking in the living room for hours, I want to have a simple sewing project in my lap, and we keep fidgets on the coffee table.
Fidgeting has a variety of evolutionary benefits, among them floating attention to watch for predators and a pleasure-reward for continual hand motion that would once have focused on survival tasks. Someone who liked tanning hides or shelling peas would have a higher reproduction rate than someone who quit. It has modern benefits too, from aiding focus to stimulating blood flow. Alas, fidgeting is stigmatized and people are discouraged from doing it.
(Some of these links are intense.)
Actions classified as stimming are even more stigmatized than those classified as fidgeting. The distinction is often little more than "normal people fidget, autistic people stim." However, stimming is normal and healthy for people with a variety of neurodiverse features. Some stims are more socially acceptable than others. Stress toys are specially designed to meet this need in the least bothersome way possible.
(Some of these links are heinous.)
Quiet hands and applied behavioral analysis are cited as abuse by autistic people who have survived them and can describe the harm done. Everyone has a right to communicate, and to solve challenges in a way that works for them. There are ways to tell if a type of therapy is harmful. Autistic adults are banding together in projects like Loud Hands to fight against the abuse.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-05-05 01:53 am (UTC)Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-05 04:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-05-05 03:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-05-05 04:08 am (UTC)Go you!
Date: 2018-05-05 04:14 am (UTC)I used to take books everywhere, but I had and still have problems with people trying to take them away from me. It is more effective just to avoid people and public places. It's not like I'm strongly attracted there anyway.
Re: Go you!
Date: 2018-05-05 12:05 pm (UTC)We are fortunate that we have a very understanding social group. Eldest, who is now 20, still spends some time hanging out with the kids (there is a 10 y.o. who doesn't really get on with any of the other kids, but loves spending time with Eldest), and then wanders off to read. Some times, they spend time with the adults, but they aren't that kind of person, and everyone just accepts that.
DISTURBING
Date: 2018-05-05 07:33 am (UTC)Jeez, people. I feel better with handwork in my lap. My grandmother was a HUGE fan of "idle hands are the Devil's playground," but I could sit and help her sort buttons, or shell pecans, or, later, crochet with her, chatting a hundred miles an hour.
So when my kids had to sit still and be relatively quiet, they had RESOURCES, like a set of polyhdral dice, or set of cards we'd made into some game of our own.
Re: DISTURBING
Date: 2018-05-05 09:30 am (UTC)Good for you. But it's hard to prosecute things as abuse once they've been labeled "therapy." People literally get away with murdering children for failure to be pleasing, because it gets filed as "therapy gone wrong" instead of "smothering a screaming, struggling child to death."
If there's a better place for child molesters to go than therapy, I can't think of it.
>>Jeez, people. I feel better with handwork in my lap.<<
I always want sewing or something to do if I expect to be chatting in the living room for hours.
>> My grandmother was a HUGE fan of "idle hands are the Devil's playground," but I could sit and help her sort buttons, or shell pecans, or, later, crochet with her, chatting a hundred miles an hour. <<
I loved sorting buttons when I was little. Now it's apparently considered pathological. My grandmother crocheted, but I couldn't get the hang of it, despite trying a number of times.
>>So when my kids had to sit still and be relatively quiet, they had RESOURCES, like a set of polyhdral dice, or set of cards we'd made into some game of our own.<<
Very sensible.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-05-05 10:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-05-06 03:08 am (UTC)Also, I tend to rock or swivel in my chair, even when at the computer. That way my step tracker doesn't think I'm asleep and I maintain flexibility for when I stand up (otherwise I get too stiff.)
I college I doodled in the margins of my notes. Then, when it came time to study for tests, I would look at the doodles and keywords, and recall the lectures. My memory isn't that good now, but I still cue on visuals for audio-visual recall.
If I plan ahead, I remember to bring my crochet to panels and seminars. I need a better belt brace for my hook, though (I'm a one handed crocheter, and I tuck the hook into my belt line.)
Thoughts
Date: 2018-05-06 03:11 am (UTC)I have to keep changing position or my body locks up. Nobody ever had any patience for this in school, but now that I am free to meet my physical needs, I spend most of my time sitting cross-legged or with one knee up, and sometimes I'll stretch out my legs. I have to get up periodically to stretch too.
I need a better belt brace for my hook, though<<
>>Have you looked at adaptive equipment? There are supports for people doing tasks with one hand. Pricey, but you might be able to duplicate the effect if you see what they look like.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2018-05-06 06:10 am (UTC)For me it's part of getting older.
I've looked, but it seldom even comes close to what I need. I've looked at all kinds of "third hand" type stuff, and it doesn't work for holding a round crochet hook (of varying diameter) vertical to my body.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-05-07 06:14 pm (UTC)Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-07 06:20 pm (UTC)Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-07 06:23 pm (UTC)Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-07 06:38 pm (UTC)Yeah, I do that on the dining room table.
>>You want a tabard with embroidery-embellished applique? I can do this thing. <<
*laugh* Me too! We have a pair, counterchanged in black and white. One has a sun, the other has God and Goddess symbols. :D
>> While running my booth. I get SO much sewing done at SCA & pagan events & craft shows. <<
I have seen many people doing that. Spinners often have a drop spindle because that's easier to stop and start than a wheel.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-07 06:41 pm (UTC)Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-07 06:44 pm (UTC)It's popular around here because this is Abraham Lincoln territory so we see colonial and Civil War re-enactment as well as Renaissance. When I was little we had one of those ladies who would spin literally anything with catch. She was famous for spinning dog hair -- "Doggone Warm Mittens" she called them.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-07 07:22 pm (UTC)Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-07 08:31 pm (UTC)Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-05-07 08:47 pm (UTC)