I've noticed some oddities in my thought process lately. At work I find myself counting things and doing math when neither are required to perform that job. For example, I may be unscrewing a bolt and will count the number of revolutions necessary to extract it completely. I'll then multiply that by the number of similar bolts within view on the part of the machine. Such a thing could be an interesting exercise if done intentionally. Instead I'll catch myself doing it absent-mindedly.Repetition of phrases is also occurring. This morning I went to gather up my laundry. Upon noticing that I still had a work shirt and pants for one more day I commented silently to myself, "Oh Jesus! I've still got work clothes? I guess I don't need to do laundry, then." The shock of the situation was a result of my weekly laundry schedule getting thrown off when our dryer quit working and we had to wait for our landlord to get us a new one. But that phrase, spoken silently as an internal dialog, repeated itself five times. It was that exact same phrase crossing my mind with the same meter and tone every time.
Am I going crazy? The fact that I can see myself doing these things and can make a concious effort to cease makes me think that the situation is under control. Crazy people can't stop themselves. But what if these are early warning signs? By the time I can no longer stop myself will it be too late? Will I have gone off the deep end having ignored early warning signs?
13 comments:
Ha! Welcome to my world. I've been obsessively counting and performing calculations in my head as long as I can remember, and certain phrases echo in my head for years, even decades, after I've said or heard them.
Don't worry. It's mostly harmless.
And just so you know, for the rest of my life I'll be silently converting all dimension on my designs to cunt hairs thanks to your previous post.
For several years I had the phrase "take three dice" stuck in my head. My solution to everything was to think "that'll take three dice to solve". "Cat litter needs changing: take three dice." etc.
Perhaps not so strange for a gamer, but it would cross my mind in reference to damn near anything, and I always pictured three "sustained fire" dice from Warhammer 40k rolling as I thought it.
Only one weapon in 40k rolls three sustained fire dice. I don't have a mini with one in my collection, and have never, ever, rolled 3 sustained fire dice at once - though I do own three. It didn't start till nearly a year after the last time I played 40k.
Eventually, it went away, but it was there for 2 or 3 years, occurring several times a week.
Memes are scary little monsters.
While these are things that have all happened on a fairly regular basis in the past, my current concern is that I am beginning to feel like Rain Man with the rapid fire repetition of phrases.
You knew I'd weigh in on this one.
I doubt you're going crazy. OCD, Tourette's, and schizophrenia are all typically childhood or early adolescent onset disorders. Statistically speaking, you're probably too old. Sometimes a virus or just a malfunctioning synapse somewhere can cause acute symptoms like yours.
Secondly, if you can control them (i.e. NOT do them), then it's probably harmless. In truth, it's probably exacerbated by your concern- if I tell you not to think about white bears, then the only thing you can think about is... white bears. So relax. You should probably try to distract yourself, though, in order to avoid reinforcing that neural pathway.
It's very surreal. I got sick last year and developed some pretty peculiar symptoms, including a movement tic. I didn't realize how it's fed by the reward system- if I tried, I could defer the tic for periods of time, but eventually the movement had to happen. That release is accompanied by the smallest twinge of pleasure. (Go ahead, insert your double entendre here.) Anyway, it did eventually go away on its own, but the pathway was so well established, if I think about it, I can trigger it. Weird stuff.
All that being said, if you start to get any other unusual symptoms or if it actually starts to interfere with your ability to function, you should probably check with a doctor/neurologist.
Well I think your all fucking nuts! Including this Becky person. I guess myself and Tom Cruise will remain the only sane people on the planet when Xenu comes back.
Yes Becky, I am guilty of baiting you.
Insert my double ended where? Oh, entendre. Sorry. My glasses are still dirty from work.
Our all fucking nuts what?
SEE! I can't help it! It's a pathology! Now where's my disability check?
Damn it! I do that all the time. You are or you're fucking nuts. Or your all could of course be fucking nuts?
Sometimes I black out!
Maybe I should just post pictures in the comments?
Don't stop Brad, it gives me something to do besides mentally converting brick dimensions into cunt hairs.
You're all lovably, harmlessly nuts.
X, what's the scale for converting english or metric units of measurement to cunt hairs? Are we talking avg. length? Circumference?
David, you must have missed that post.
Yup, I'd missed it. Thanks so much for adding "Jew pube" to my vocabulary.
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