Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
The OCD Soapbox
Runite:
At the moment, my big thing is joint cracking. I'm constantly cracking fingers, wrists, toes, ankles, neck, jaw, back, knees, elbows, shoulders, and so on. Always. Even when they're cracked and don't pop anymore, I go through the motions. I've gotten so good at it that I can crack all ten fingers [with each non-thumb finger cracking in both joints] and all ten toes, my neck in both directions, both sides of my jaw and my lower back within 10 seconds without anyone seeing. It really is a compulsion, too; see that list up there of all the joints I crack? While typing the list, I kept catching myself cracking the named joint without even realizing I was doing it...but then I had to crack all the others, just in case they hadn't been "cracked out" as I call it. All the joints. Each time I typed a word.
Back when I was a little kid, I would curl my lower lip. I did it so often that it split right in half and bled whenever I did it, but I'd still do it ten times an hour.
After that it was nose crunching. I would "scrunch" my nose up like a pig constantly, but that went away fast.
My old bathroom had a tile pattern that was mostly white with a few black tiles. Every time I was in there I had to cross my eyes so that the black tiles seemed to overlap each other perfectly. If they didn't overlap so well that I couldn't tell there were really two black tiles on that spot, I'd stand there and squint and tilt my head until they did.
Whenever I do anything to one side of my, I have to do the same to the other. I bet if I ever break a finger or something, I will deliberately snap the corresponding one in half as a matter of balance, and it will probably bother me if one heals faster than the other. I've already "mirrored" cuts on my arm; I fell off a bike and scratched up my right bicep, so I scraped my left one on the ground until they hurt equally. The right actually healed first, so I rescraped both. Luckily, they healed roughly in unison.
It goes on like that. Opening both eyes as wide as possible, CLOSING both eyes as tightly as possible, putting a heavy rock [20 pounds] in front of my bedroom door to make SURE it wouldn't close. Checking my shirt tag twenty times an hour to make sure it isn't up. Degaussing the monitor every hour on the hour and feeling sick to my stomach when I missed a time.
The first time I cracked my jaw, I remember it was the right side. I spent two hours trying to crack the left side, and I finally did, but not before I pulled the muscles in my face [I kid you not].
I know this message is really disjointed and hard to follow, but it's 2:00 in the morning. Sue me.
EDIT: Just naming those old habits that I've kicked is making me itch to do them again. I caught myself doing the nose and lip things, as well as the eye once and checking the clock to see if it was time for a degauss. Oddly, it was [off by a minute or so], but I fought that one off. Barely. I've cracked joints more times during this one post than I do in a normal hour, and while reading this topic more than in a full day; talking about it or having attention called to it makes it much, much worse. When I'm stressed is the worst of all, I nearly broke my wrist while giving a speech because I was trying so hard to get ONE MORE CRACK out of it.
Can anyone give me some advice on how to control these compulsions? It isn't that they're messing with my personal or academic life [I'm in Grade 10], I'm very sneaky about them. I used to "sneeze" or "yawn" to hide a lip-curl and/or a nose-crunch. The problem is that they're getting worse; none of my "younger" tics had so powerful an obsession. I used to know exactly when I would tic, do it "consciously" and be able to force myself to stop; now I hardly ever notice when I'm doing it, and absolutely cannot stop if I try. In fact, trying makes it worse!
mega_jamie:
--- Quote from: AntiEntropy ---Laurie: you have classic OCD tenancies, you just don't need medication or therapy to control them.
--- End quote ---
I'd agree with you on that one, I have the same thing with both sides of my body. If someone touches my left knee, I practically insist they do the same to the right need, with the same force and so on. It's quite annoying tendancy, but I'm learning to deal with it, it freaks me out to have my nose touched, because its in the middle, theres nothing that can be touched to balance it out, and that just plains creeps me out.
But it's cool, as far as OCD tendnacies go, I think the need to mirror touch senses isnt that much of a bad one, and I can have a laugh about it with my friends.
also at home we have big blinds over the window, the dog tends to like to see out of the window, he will quite often hop up onto the windowsill, then leave putting some of the blinds out of position, so for instance if they were closed, one would be looped on it's chain and stuck open. This must be fixed.
I think my oddest thing is that I'm not a clean person, or particuarly neat, because with neatness it is sayhing " i think it looks tidy that way" but i dont see the point, its when something MUST be that way that i get anal and compulsive about it.
And as Anti implied, needing medication doesnt make it a condition, its a condition that sometimes needs medication.
I think JJ is doing a good thing depicting OCD on a character of his, where most web-comics may be way to Politcal Correctness worried to go near it, or just go too far and potray it in a false manour.
TheDollIsAngry:
My sister has diagnosed OCD, and has (this is for all those people speculating about 11-year-olds with OCD) had it since she was in elementary school, I think. She has to check that all the doors are locked every night about fou times, check and recheck that the dogs are inside (even after she's seen them), etc. She's also terrified that she'll accidentally leave a cigarette lit and it will burn the house down, so first she checks all the ash trays, then she makes me catch them. She hates the thought of throwing up (to the point of real fear -- once I had to tell her thirty times that she wouldn't throw up. She counted.), but not of sex. She also has a thing about the stove and oven, and whether or not they're lit. She doesn't like bridges, but there's one bridge in particular that she's terrified of -- she hadn't driven over it in two years, until just recently her therapist drove her over it.
My sister has her ears and belly button pierced, and she smokes and drinks.
So basically, what people have been saying is right. OCD manifests itself in all sorts of different ways, and there's no compulsion that HAS to be there. And Hannelore is fairly realistic.
MasseJoark:
I am more compulsive than obsessive. There were things that I had to do in the past but it wasn't to "make everything Okay" it was just that it looked better that way.
I have about 60 Role-Playing books from D&D 2nd ed to every system White-Wolf created. My WW books used to be arranged by game (Werewolf, vampire, etc.) then by Publish-number (WW1100 was Vampire's first book) until I got to the "clan books" or "tribe books" Those would be arranged alphabetically ... last in the order. My Ex used to re-arrange them backwards on me and I would spend quite some time fixing them. I had to. I grew out of that but now my bookcase is WRECKED and it doesn't please me.
The other thing I did consistently is make my bed. I grew out of that for a while when I moved out of my parents house but now it's back. If I leave my house, my bed HAS to be made unless it's occupied. If it's occupied, I have to make sure that it will be made when I come back home. I can't stand walking into my room with my bed unmade.
I mumble "I wanna go home" whenever I think or do something embarrassing. It doesn't matter where I am or what I'm doing at that time. That's the only actual OCD thing I do. Everything else I do is compulsion for compulsion's sake.
I guess what I'm saying is this: You can be Compulsive without being Obsessive. Since I know this, can you have the Obsession without the Compulsion too? I'm sure they're both disorders regardless.
Thanks!
MJ
Skrattybones:
I don't know what I am, but since everyone seems to be talking about their problems I thought I'd join in too.
I can't ever go to the bathroom at my school. Not because of the germs, but because the first time I did I missed all of my classes and almost the bus. The tiles on the bathroom floor consist of white, blue and burgandy colors, and there is no discernable pattern.
I sat down and looked at them, trying to find a pattern and the next thing I know, it's 5 hours later.
I'm one of the "sex is icky" people. I'm not a germ freak, but I really don't like gross things and go far out of my way to avoid them. I think about sex and it while the idea seems like fun, thinking about the actual act grosses me out.
I can't have my back to other people. This isn't an OC thing for the most part, except it happens everywhere in the most conventional settings. At school I have to be in a back corner, sitting sideways in a desk. In the cafeteria I'm against a wall in the corner.
At resturants I've gotta be in a corner booth, and waiting to order by a wall.
I'm always playing with something or other, except when I type. Just now, I stopped to ponder what to write next and there was a tube of Blistex in my hand. I noticed and put it down, and then I realized that I was picking at a spot in front of my ear. I stopped that and responded to an Instant Message and then I was fiddling with a comb.
That brings me to another one. I've got to comb my hair. My hair is very short, but I've got at least two combs at my computer desk and I'll just randomly stop doing something and comb my hair. This one doesn't happen much outside of my home, though.
I have a need to be able to crack everything in my body. I can crack all my fingers, wrists, elbows, shoulders, neck, jaw, ears, throat, ribs, spine, upper back, lower back, hips, groin/upper legs, knees, ankles, and all my toes. I crack them about once every hour and if one won't crack I can't do anything else until it cracks.
I'm a nail biter. If I'm listening to someone talk I'll start biting my thumb nail until it's clean off, and slowly work my way around every finger. If I realize I'm biting my nails I'll purposly do it faster so they're all gone.
My jaw was cracked when I was younger so it's ever slightly off. I've been growing facial hair since I was twelve, and every time I shave I go for a goatee, but it gets shaved because it looks 'off'.
Finally, I think, is that my bedroom door needs to always be closed. As I was typing this my grandmother came in and said something, and I was already up and pushing the door closed, listening for the "click" that means it's fully shut before she was all the way out because I had to have the door closed.
So... that's all my stuff. What do you all think? By the way, I'm new! I found a link to Rob and Elliot, which linked to this, and I couldn't sleep unti l I was finished reading the entire archive. I guess that's another thing; I have sleeping problems. Heh.
Edit: I forgot one. You guys know that website http://www.fark.com? Well, I started checking it every now and again because it keeps me up-to-date on current events.... but now I have to check it a lot. Every hour or so.
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