How do you overcome shame about vocal stimming?

When I'm overwhelmed, excited, or have extra energy flowing through me, I find the predictable rhythm of my voice and familiar sounds to be grounding and relaxing.

This post was inspired by a question from on of my readers.

Are you CURIOUS? 

Do you have a burning question, or is there a topic you would like me to cover in a future post or video? If so, please feel free to drop your questions in the comments section. I may answer it in a future post or video. 

In my work over the years, creating free educational resources, community, and questions (yours and mine) have been vital. 

Essential to who I am, "Why?" is the question that's driven and guided me throughout my life. "WHY?" the phrase I've uttered out loud and to myself more than any other. 

As a child, needing to know (and asking) "why?" got me in trouble (because adults and authority figures felt I was questioning THEM whenever I expressed my need for additional information). 

Eventually, after enough scolding and punishment, I stopped asking other people my questions and took them inward. One fateful day, the floodgates were reopened when I created a hashtag (#AskingAutistics) and started pouring my inquiries into the world once again. 

This blog and my social media communities were built first on my questions for my readers (through #AskingAutistics) and eventually would also be influenced by my readers' questions for me. Together we've bonded in our curiosity over the years. 

Because I know what it's like to have a burning unanswered question, I base my work around your questions and the things YOU (my readers) want to know. Whenever I write, I try to answer the most common questions I receive, the questions I think will help the most people and those that inspire me the most. 

Recently on one of my Facebook posts, one of my readers had a great question about NeuroDivergent camouflaging and verbal stimming in a workplace setting. Here's today's question:

A Reader Asks: "How did you handle and overcome shame about vocal stimming? My sister doesn't mask and feels awful for not being able to do so, and she mostly focuses on her vocal stimming while at work. I feel that only another autistic person has the right to advise her."

This question is fantastic, as it touches on several issues Autistic and other NeuroDivergent People face daily. 

First (because new people are always reading), what is VOCAL STIMMING? 

Vocal stimming is when a person soothes themselves by makes sounds with their mouth or throat. Vocal stimming is different from verbal stimming, which is stimming with words because it includes whistles, clicks, humming, throat sounds, screams, and many things that are not words (though many people use these two phrases interchangeably).

I am a vocal stimmer and an echoer. I get stuck in loops, repeating myself (without realizing I'm doing it). I'm rarely (naturally) quiet unless I'm focused, tired, or shut down because I feel unsafe. 

I talk and make noises to myself for many reasons. I'm often thinking and processing my thoughts out loud. 

When I'm overwhelmed, excited, or have extra energy flowing through me, I find the predictable rhythm of my voice and familiar sounds to be grounding and relaxing - but rejection and abuse from people around me turned something that should have been helpful to me into a shame point for most of my life. 

I've spent my thirties learning to be okay with this part of me, teaching myself to love, accept, and embrace the thing that was beaten out of me by my elementary school teacher who had no patience for the "disruptive kid" who couldn't be "still and silent" in class.

When I am alone (think I am alone) or am with people in environments that make me feel safe, I have a constant flow of sounds (making noises, speaking, humming, singing to myself, and repeating words). When other people are near, I still echo and make noises, though not as many (especially if I don't feel safe).

Though I know this part of me is nothing to be ashamed of (now), even I will hide when I feel unsafe (because all this noise can quickly rub the wrong people the wrong way, causing them to react cruelly and unkindly). 

Invisibility is safety, safety from abuse, safety from shame. 

I can play possum with my eyes open, retreating into myself, spiraling inside, in pan anguish and agony, and outsiders will be none the wiser, but what about NeuroDivergent People who can't retreat in on themselves, internalizing their struggles and differences in this way? 

The first element of this question revolves around shame. 

NeuroDivergent People, like members of other marginalized groups, often face pressure from the dominant group (NeuroTypicals in this case) to be more like the members of that group - even if doing so is harmful to them. When marginalized group members fail to follow the dominant group's norms, they are often scolded, harassed, and ostracized for falling outside the "socially acceptable" norms.

Because many Autistic and NeuroDivergent adults struggle to do things most NeuroTypical kids learn in childhood and find easy (like staying still and quiet or holding in big emotions), we are sometimes viewed negatively by outsiders, perceived as "childish," "impulsive," and therefore "incompetent" (even if these differences don't impact our quality of work or we have skills in other areas).

We have what I've seen called "spiky" skills profiles, meaning I'm either an expert at something (often a particular specialized niche thing) or terrible at it (with very little in between). 

Because I am an all-or-nothing type of person (in all areas of my life), I'm average at very little. I'm a paradox of a person (and it confuses people who expect me to be "well rounded").

People who see me doing complex tasks (like writing and reviewing legal contracts, teaching myself creative software programs, and building my own business and social media presence) are confused when I struggle with things they feel are basic (like following verbal instructions, turn-taking in conversation, not making "funny sounds," and having "proper body language" - whatever that means).

Because of society's poor understanding of Autistic and other NeuroDivergent People, we are often looked down upon and scolded for things we can't help (such as how we move, think, and communicate, or our verbal stimming, echolalia, palilalia, or other vocal tics). 

We may develop shame around who we are. When that happened to me, I began to dislike who I was, yearning to be someone impossibly different from myself. 

When I wanted to be like someone else, who I was could never be enough. 

"Why can't I be more like ____?" - a person who is NOTHING like me, has different natural skills and abilities than I do and is an unfair expectation of who I "should" be. 

When trying to be someone I wasn't didn't work out, I felt like a waste of air and space, as if the world and everyone I knew would be better off without me (which wasn't true). Healing is a process. This shame monster still creeps in occasionally, telling me horrible untrue things about myself. 

This shame can lead people to dark places, especially if combined with feelings of loss, grief, or hopelessness. Additionally, shame can isolate people (because shame makes us hide). 

We need to find people who will love and appreciate us for who we are - our quirks, strengths, weaknesses, and struggles, NOT despite them. 

When we tone ourselves down and make ourselves palatable, it can open doors to us (especially in the professional world). Still, the doors often lead to lonely, unfulfilling places (if we have to leave parts of ourselves behind to pass through those doors).

Since many of us have been told (over and over again) that we're an inconvenience or an annoyance to other people, we learn that there are parts of ourselves that are "unacceptable" in public or around others (so we hide them). 

Some of us hide by camouflaging our NeuroDivergent traits, repressing and holding them in until we're alone or nobody's looking. Others, who cannot conceal through camouflaging, will often hide in other ways (retracting in on themselves, shutting the world out, and keeping to themselves to avoid ridicule and abuse). 

For most of my life, I was a high-camouflaging NeuroDivergen Person. I knew what parts of myself drew the wrong kind of attention and did everything I could to conceal those "undesirable" parts, but then, as the weight of hiding began to wear on me, my ability to suppress my NeuroDivergence started to waiver.

At my camouflaging peak, right before the fall (when I was closest to NeuroTypical ideals of success, the office job with great perks, a car, and a mortgage), everyone around me kept telling me they were "proud of me" because I'd accomplished "so much," and had a "real job" and a "real house." 

I'd finally met the expectations of those around me, but I'd never felt more isolated or miserable. "Feeling alone in a room full of people" - is a phrase I know the meaning of intimately. 

The people I'd surrounded myself with (before my late Autistic discovery) didn't like me (because they didn't know me). After all, I'd never felt safe enough around them to let them get to know me because I worried they'd reject me for being my authentic Autistic ADHD (AuDHD) self. 

Unfortunately, I would later learn my suspicions had been correct. 

When I became burned out and was unable to continue camouflaging my NeuroDivergence, those people (who only knew and benefitted from the camouflaged people-pleasing version of myself) were unwilling to be patient with me, offer support, or stick around when my struggles became visible. Because I'd built a network of fair-weather acquaintances (and not true friends), they all left when the sky turned grey.

Losing my ability to camouflage (a skill that kept me safe for most of my life) was scary but also eye-opening. It taught me a painful lesson about the world and its people.

When I was camouflaging my NeuroDivergence, I had a large circle of acquaintances, NOT true friends.

Not knowing myself meant not knowing how to make meaningful connections with people. Most people in my circle back then didn't know or care about me but instead cared about what I could do for them. 

When I could no longer do for others (and needed people to help me), I quickly found out who (and how few) my real friends were.

Out of my large circle of people who knew the NeuroTypical emulation of me, I trusted less than five of them, and only 2 or 3 of those people (who I'd let my guard down around) were people I KNEW I could call in a crisis or if I ever needed help. 

This painful lesson was quality over quantity and that people who need me to be someone or something I'm not aren't worth my time (because fair-weather acquaintances won't be there when I need them if things get bad). 

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