Hi All,
I was in the pub the other day and I accidentally made a little crack with two beer mats and the landlord came over and straightened them up and we got discussing about the reason why he did this.. He told me it is due to his condition his aware of known as OCD (obsessive comsulive Disorder). He told me that almost everyone on the planet suffers with this but some do it without realising whereas others are aware of what they do but cannot help themselves.... I didnt realise and being a tad naive that talking with my hands as i do in every day language is a form of this.. To proove this the landlord said ok... If you sit there and have a conversation without using your hands and not sitting on them i will give you a free drink but its after an hour has passed... I couldnt sit more than 6 minutes without raising my hands during conversation and i kept loosing and didnt get my drink either...
My boyfriend has this whereby he has to check all taps are off and the doors are locked and all sockets are turned off and unplugged. It has got to the point whereby if we are out we have to return home if he starts to panic that switches are left on so he can calm himself down so who here has some form and who here may deny it yet if you do deny it try to last a day to a week without doing your routine "habits" as i call it
Kindest regards
zeon x
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I guess we all have routines, but to go as far as to label routines or habits as OCD to me is a bit of a stretch.
Habit and compulsion are 2 different things. Habits are things you just do because of routine and there is no desire or need to do these things, they are more like a reflex. Compulsions are things you feel you need to do to satisfy an emotional/mental desire, or if you like, obssess over.
You have a habit of talking with your hands. However, your boyfriend in my eyes seems to display something that I would cosider to be closer to OCD, but then again don't we all wonder about leaving a heater on when we leave the house?
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OCD is not merely the habits.
Its what you feel when doing the habit, or not doing it.
For instance I count stuff when nervous, upset, anxious, whatever. I NEED to count stuff, and once I start I MUST count it all. If I am counting floor tiles in the waiting room, I have to count them all, I don't care if the nurse is there with my chart waiting impatiently for me, I have to finish counting once a start.
I have an emotional need, it quiets me down, it gives me my 'safe place' and it has to be finished. I can't just walk away, I can't just stop. If I can't finish I panic, I lose my anxiety to the fact that I didn't enumerate each and every one of those tiles.
It is ritual, it is calming, it is a must do, not 'done without thinking'. Most OCD people know that they must do X, they are painfully aware that it is a need, not a desire or want. That is one of the keys to diagnoses of OC conditions.
Your BF, because he panics over not doing what he does, he most likely has OC tendencies.
Your talking with your hands, if you are not panicked when you don't do it, it means you are most likely not OC and just have the habit of talking with your hands.
An OCD person can't keep from doing something. If denied doing it, they will get progressively more and more obsessive about the thing, thinking about it over and over again until the rest of the world dims to near black. They do not have awareness of anything but that one thing.
Their rituals and expressions of OCD are unique. the landlord at the pub has a 'straightening' need. Most likely if he held himself back and didn't come over to straighten stuff, he would have fixated on it, and been unable to perform other actions until such time those things were straightened.
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My shrink told me there are two forms of this problem... OCD and OCB, Obessive Compulsive Behavior being the lesser of the two. I have the latter... sounds like your bf might have OCD from your description. I don't freak out about leaving switches on etc but I can't handle any type of consistant noise. Such as a dog continually barking, muscle cars idling for long periods of time... the constant window rattling deep base sound from the music system in someone's car. I also can't handle a baby or young child constantly crying a painful cry for any certain amount of time.
My partner does get a little irritated because certain things have to be a certain way.... ie when he doesn't put the dinner forks in the same slot in the silverware tray or he likes to leave drawers open.. which drives me nuts. Lol
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lol l leave draws open and cupboards and used to be the fridge until i had to replace everything as it went bad lol... I am now confused about bits and pieces but hey ho if i aint got it its good if i have thats also good.. I know my supervisor at work has serious OCD as he has to position every single printer on its end and up right and then u get someone likle me come in and put em at all silly angles to drive him nuts
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I suffer with OCD quite a bit, I'm a compulsive handwasher / sanitiser makes my hands itch sometimes. Locking doors, I can spend 5 minutes locking and relocking a door. The best way I can describe it is, its like a self comforting gesture, it makes you feel better its just to make sure that youv've done something right. I go through particular trends, like I used to have an issue with gas cookers and making sure they were turned off but I don't now, its more abouyt hand washing. In the end you live with it and make allowances for it, the world would be a pretty boring place if everyone is perfect. As long as my issue doesn't effect others I don't see a problem with it. :-)
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zeon Wrote:lol l leave draws open and cupboards and used to be the fridge until i had to replace everything as it went bad lol... I am now confused about bits and pieces but hey ho if i aint got it its good if i have thats also good.. I know my supervisor at work has serious OCD as he has to position every single printer on its end and up right and then u get someone likle me come in and put em at all silly angles to drive him nuts
I see, and do you also trip blind people, tell depressed people that ' Yeah suicide may be the best option for ya.'?
If you said no, then I ask you to consider that if this man is actually suffering from OCD, your rearranging the printers to 'drive him crazy' is no better than pushing a depressed person to suicide, or tripping a blind person.
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I agree with Bowyn Aerrow, it's how you feel while doing it.
I have a habit of talking with my hands too but it feels completely natural to me. On the other hand, whenever I get nervous I start counting the syllables in people's sentences and the total syllables must end with a zero, like, 10, 20, etc. or else I'll feel anxious. How I feel doing that is completely different, it feels necessary but when I realize I'm doing it I get embarrassed but I still have this need to do it.
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Everyone has obsessions and compulsions, that's just being a normal human being, though some have more than others.
It's only a disorder if it prevents one being able to live a normal life. Checking the locks once or twice is tolerable, spending 30 minutes doing it is not.
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Fred
Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.
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fredv3b Wrote:Everyone has obsessions and compulsions, that's just being a normal human being, though some have more than others.
It's only a disorder if it prevents one being able to live a normal life. Checking the locks once or twice is tolerable, spending 30 minutes doing it is not.
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5 minutes is the most I've spent doing it, I think if it got worse I would try to get help.
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