compulsion - ZEFRANK.COM

trisherina · 07-31-2007, 02:26 AM

I had about a solid year of full blown OCD at around the end of elementary school. It resolved spontaneously when the rituals grew to take too much of my day, and one night I was unable to stay awake to complete them all. The next day, it was easier not to do them all, and in the fashion of systematic desensitization, it grew easier and easier not to do them over time until they have all been virtually eliminated. It took a very long time, a couple of decades.

But at their peak the rules were endless. For instance, I had to neutralize certain overheard spoken words by repeating them by a multiple of seven, aloud if necessary, and these were fairly common words, so I looked much of the time like I might be talking to myself -- lips moving. And that was just one of well that part is really rather boring isn't it? There were many, you'll have to trust me, and they all had exacting, spectacularly irrational rules. And if I had a bad day, if things went wrong, it was because I had been lax and not done one of them right the day before. There was just no question.

Maybe the one thing I retain even now is a deterministic view of the world. Some part of me always screams that good or bad things happen for a reason, to look for the pattern and make it all good from now on. I always have to remind myself about randomness, which is bloody embarrassing.

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes	Rate This Thread
Switch to Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Threaded Mode	Rate This Thread:

07-31-2007, 02:26 AM	#15
trisherina meretricious dilettante Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 11,068	I had about a solid year of full blown OCD at around the end of elementary school. It resolved spontaneously when the rituals grew to take too much of my day, and one night I was unable to stay awake to complete them all. The next day, it was easier not to do them all, and in the fashion of systematic desensitization, it grew easier and easier not to do them over time until they have all been virtually eliminated. It took a very long time, a couple of decades. But at their peak the rules were endless. For instance, I had to neutralize certain overheard spoken words by repeating them by a multiple of seven, aloud if necessary, and these were fairly common words, so I looked much of the time like I might be talking to myself -- lips moving. And that was just one of well that part is really rather boring isn't it? There were many, you'll have to trust me, and they all had exacting, spectacularly irrational rules. And if I had a bad day, if things went wrong, it was because I had been lax and not done one of them right the day before. There was just no question. Maybe the one thing I retain even now is a deterministic view of the world. Some part of me always screams that good or bad things happen for a reason, to look for the pattern and make it all good from now on. I always have to remind myself about randomness, which is bloody embarrassing.