Well, see. It's a number of things, and they seem to have piled up over time. There are sometimes exceptions to these. A relatively recent one is my urge to make sure that whatever the left side of my body touches, the analogous part of the right side of my body has to touch strictly more times. There's also my urge that whatever idea I come across, I have to analyze very thoroughly in a sort of reductionist way and then synthesize it back together into one idea in my head. Like, if I laugh at a joke, I feel the urge to explain to myself exactly why I thought it was funny. Even if I don't laugh at a joke I sometimes feel the urge to explain why I didn't laugh at a joke. If someone expresses some opinion then I feel the urge to explain that position. If I don't agree with that position, I feel the urge to explain why they took that position. If I learn something new, I have to wrap my head around it that way too. And sometimes an explanation doesn't sit well with me and I do the whole process over again. This sometimes requires dwelling on the meaning of specific words for ridiculous amounts of time, given the fact that I already know what these words mean. And it can't be too reductionist either, it has to have a big picture view. I also am partial to certain numbers. The order goes something like 1, 3, 11, 21, and then I think it continues with the other numbers of the form 10k+1. "Partial" as in I actively avoid all other numbers in certain cases. So when I touch the left side and the right side of my body to something, the total number of touches has to be one of these numbers. I especially avoid the numbers 13 and 33. There used to be more numbers, but gradually over time I began to feel more uncomfortable at some of them and they got removed from the list. When I open a new tab, I don't want to look at the main new tab screen; I have to focus on only the address bar. This sometimes results in me opening and closing a tab many times. I feel skeptical of doing a lot of things at certain times. I have a sort of system in my head where I make statements in my head and sort of "finalize" them, which involves saying or thinking a certain word or words while thinking of the statement. The word(s) have migrated over time, from "finalize that" to "that's it" to "okay" to "done", and there may have been others at some point. I also sometimes think of something I don't want to think about, and then I feel the need to "erase" that instance of thought with this system. The statements I finalize can sometimes edit other statements I've finalized. When I write some things down, I try to make sure the writing is saying literally what I mean, even if the actual meaning is otherwise clear. When I use sarcasm or something like that, I sometimes feel the need to use the system I gave above to clarify that it's sarcasm. Even when making jokes I'm more careful. I also might have a form of thought-action fusion in some way, which is something I had not heard about until I was looking to see if I have the symptoms of OCD. There's other things too, like making sure there's a newline at the end of each file I write.
Wow, that's a mess. I hope you all don't think I'm a raving lunatic; I recognize that this is irrational and I'm trying to fight it. I think it started sometime last year or 2 years ago, when I had a large amount of emotional stress. I guess I just needed to get this off my chest.
Author
Topic: Things that made you mildly upset today thread (Read 1225114 times)