Posted by: lizzy on June 29 2004,03:43

This got pruned - sorry.  Anyone like to start it again?  Thanks.  Not that I want to trigger anything mind  
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Posted by: I am Cat on June 29 2004,10:09
THIS is the one (two, three, four....) thread that I can definitely relate to (two)!  I count EVERYTHING.  To pass the time... to quell anxiety...
I calm myself this way...
I pass the time
I get from point A to Point B
I do it to NOT think of other things
I do it to not be triggered
I do it to NOT eat
I do it because it feels good to my soul
I do it because it's second nature to me.
I count the tiles on the ceiling
I count the stripes on the highway
I count the buttons on shirts
I count the noodle-o's in my soup
I count the words in people's sentences
I type the words you say
I count the letters in a sentence
and on and on and on...
anyone else want to jump in here?
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Posted by: aguppe on June 29 2004,23:56
Cat that sounds like really good DBT therapy. Shame you're not borderline.....lol  
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Posted by: leonarda on June 30 2004,01:17

I count stairs. How many steps I take to the store. Before going to sleep, I count names beginning with A, names beginning with B....to Z and then I count how many types of fruit begins with letter A....to Z and stuff like that. I don't usually count things I can hold in my hand for example, I'm just always making something up in my mind. I count during anxiety or panic attacks (breaths in and out) and when I'm bored.
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Posted by: mirka on July 01 2004,19:09

I count too.  I use my two big toes to count lines on the road, trees I pass, anything that has corners, ceiling tiles at my pdoc. office.  I've been doing it since I was a little kid.  It was a way to take my mind off stress or stress aggrevated it.  It is simply who I am.

I started Wellbutrin 4 weeks ago and I've noticed that when I start counting, I quickly stop, as if I'm mentally tired of doing it.  I'm also a skin biter, a terrible one, and have noticed a dramatic decrease in even doing that!  

I'm a little confused about how that makes me feel.  For so long I've wanted to stop, now its stopping and I'm sort of missing it.  Can't win!
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Posted by: I am Cat on July 01 2004,19:43

Yeah, I bite my skin too.  I bite my lip.  I clench my teeth too, but that's another story...

But I tap my feet to count the stripes in the road, isn't that interesting.  I would be lost without it.  Thankfully I only do it as a passenger.  It would be terrible to do it while driving!  eek!  I count the ceiling tiles while in the dentist chair... that sort of thing.  

Typing other people's sentences... anybody else do this?

Counting the times people say, "uh" in a speech?  Or where I come from, "you know"  They say that a lot.  Drive me nuts.  I find myself counting the times they say it and am totally distracted from what has actually been said in the speech.  I couldn't tell you!
pitiful.  
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Posted by: jaguar on July 02 2004,01:12

I count, but it's not just counting for the sake of counting. I have an internal drive for anything (whether steps, or bites of food, pieces of paper, or anything, really!) to have a certain number. One is okay, two is good, three is bad, four is great, five is okay, six is bad, etc.

The number thing can be all consuming. When I was in high school my school bus number got changed from a "good" number to a "bad" number, and I was literally afraid to board the bus. The only way I managed it was by counting steps to get there. Then there's the fight I have with myself over pages used in my journal. If I fill three pages in one day, I force myself to fill a fourth, lest the day have a bad "finish" to it. [I will not even start with my other journal obsessions]

It's much about "evening up" for me. Odd numbers I am not comfortable with (except five), and evens are okay (except certain multiples of three).

Wahhh. It makes so much sense inside my head, but typing it out here makes it look crazy, makes me feel crazy.  
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Posted by: lizzy on July 02 2004,02:56

It would be logical to say 'OK this is crazy so stop now'.  But none of our disorders are logical.  None of us can stop without having some form of anxiety-related reaction.  Bad habits become compulsions.  Because I am older   I can recognise my own habits before they take over: except the skin picking/biting, chin hair searching, tapping feet, humming under breath; whereas when these things begin as a comfort in childhood, it becomes really engrained.

But Hey!  It makes us Who We Are.  And the more i meet people the more I see little foibles about most of us..........  
And what *would* we do instead?    
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Posted by: lizzy on July 02 2004,02:57

PS - I do wonder sometimes, how long I've been for example, tapping my feet, before I actually notice  
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Posted by: michaelIRL on July 03 2004,08:40

i wrote this question somewhere else on this board, but can't find it, grrrrrrrrrr! so ill say it again.

does anyone just plain count in their head, not counting objects or actions or whatever, just counting, i count to the number five, over and over and over again, for hours on end, it gives me such a sore head, but neways, does anyone else do that?

(btw, i count actions aswell, so the counting to five isnt just out of the blue, lol,   )
-

yeah, I have to say, I DO count over and over again... like say, to the number eight... 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8... and start over and go there over and over again... I don't know... like all my counting is just a calming mechanism... like rocking back and forth is... weird, eh?  or is it? :p

i count to 12.  to the theme from i think its sesame street.  you know kind of  slow and fast and then slow again?.......its like a theme song........:;):

Okay this may seem weird but I have to count the steps when I am in the shower.  Like 1 is to wet my hair and so on.  I have been doing this since I was a little girl.  Oh and I drive on the road alot for work, so I will figure out how many exits till I get to mine and I will count as I go by so I know how many I have left.  There has been times that I lost track and I had to go back to where I started and start all over.   At least it isn't as bad anymore.  But everyone thought I was nuts.  Now if I lose track oh well.

I count everything!!! EVERYTHING!

like with food, I count the number of grams of something I eat (the volume of milk as well if its cereal), the number of calories in each meal and I only have four meals a day and they are flour hours apart, if I really need to eat, then I will only eat at a time that is a factor of five from the last time I ate, e.g. if I had breakfast at 8.00am, and I was really hungry at 12.23, I have to wait until 12.30, or it was 12.10 I™d wait until 12.15.

I do the time thing with most activities, like, ill only go to the shower at 1.00, 1.15, 1.30 or 1.45, or whatever hour it happens to be.

sometimes its quite amusing, once I made pasta for my family and my sister asked me what was in it, I told her everything, down to the detail of the number of turns of the salt and pepper mills.

I count the number of cleaning actions when cleaning my teeth, hands, face and general cleaning (shower), all of this cleaning has a pattern which has to be followed. if the numbers aren't right I have to do it again. For example, before I was my face in the shower, I have to wash the face wash bottle (every spot on it five times) with one squirt of hand wash, then I have to wash my hands (which has a pattern, or as I like to call it protocol) with two squirts of hand wash, then I wash my face with the face wash (I pour the face wash into my hand for five seconds), then  I wash every part of my face five times. I have divided my face into 14 areas. there is a very similar system for the rest of my body, only it is done with body wash (poured for five seconds) and my body is divided up into fifty areas.

sometimes I doubt myself and calculations about food, so I get really anxious, one way in which to reduce this is exercise, so when I go to the gym I must do enough exercise to burn off 500 kcal (kilo calories, I say that so u Americans know what im talking about cos u guys use weird units [e.g. fluid ounce???], sorry to sound xenophobic or something, cos im not, I love Americans!!!! which is somewhat of a novelty in Europe I have to say, lol) anyways I also have to burn it off in a certain time, the number of times I lift a weight must be a multiple of five ( but I think everyone does that, though not to the extent where muscles are pulled :S)

but that all keeps my clean and healthy, the annoying ones are:

text messages having to have the number of characters in them be a multiple of five
when changing the channel ( I have sky digital, or cable for u Americans), so the remote is a little complicated, I press select five times which brings the menu bar up, then I press the up button to bring the menu to the next channel, then I press select five times more which brings it to the new channel, then I press back-up five times which removes the menu bar, all just both change one channel!!! of course there is a simple channel up button, but I get anxious when I use it!!!! grrrrr, lol.

I have some muscle contractions which I do all the time, they are all done in fives!

oh dangerous one, when driving home from somewhere, I aim to be home at a time that is a multiple of five, like ill be in one place at 11.31 and aim to be in another place at 11.35, so I may have to speed to get there. I also like to keep the speed I drive at a multiple of five!

Micheal

it sounds like you really like the number 5.  lol. thats ok. i dont have a specific number, well i do, but its a pretty high number and if i did everything in muliples of that number i would never get anything done! i hate even numbers though. even numbers drive me batty. i cant stand them. the problem with that is that even odd numbers add up to make even numbers, so i cant win.  *sigh*

I got a new word from your post BTW...thanks! xenophobic. i dont know what it means, so i gotta grab my dictionary.

:)

i looked up xenophobic. i actually have this. it applies to my life. lol.  thank you. now i know what it means and its applicable to me. i can go to my shrink and say "I am xenophobic" and he can look at me and I can wait to see what he says! LMAO!!!!!

I count steps as well. I count in a repeating pattern of sixes. If there are, say, 19 steps, it will bug the crap out of me. I will count the first 2 sets of 6, and then, I will jump the last 2 steps to make it 6 steps instead of 7. I also do this odd thing with my hands. I will start off with my thumbs on the table, with the pinky side of my hand sticking up in the air. Then, I will rotate my hand until my thumbs are in the air and the pink side of my hand is on the table. I do this in sets of 3, preferably until I hit 9 (3 sets of 3).

For some reason, it all boils down to a base of 3. I wish I knew why.

I count to the number 3, over and over again until my anxiety is over.
I'm new here so Hi!!!!:)

I'm a counter too.  It drives me up a wall.  Have to do something 3 times and then once more to "bind" the 3 previous ones all together, then I'll go to 7, or 11, or 21.  

I also have to spell out in my head what I read, along with all associated punctuation.  Usually only road signs, titles, right now I just caught myself spelling out "Post Icons" on this page.   Forget about trying to watch a sub-titled movie.  

Steps, time my breathing in a car to how many patches of shade and sunlight I drive through, or how many paint lines in the middle of the road that I go past, etc.

When I realize what I'm doing I stop myself, and have no idea how long I was doing it before I caught myself.  

I'm now a recovering alcoholic as well.  I took up getting hammered because that was the one time that I could stop counting, thinking, etc.  Been sober for 8 years now.   If only I could give up the smokes, I'd be all set.  hehe

[edit]

Does the chorus to Major Tom by Peter Shilling bother anyone else?  Where they count down from 4?  Nooooo, it should start with 5...  hehe   Song has been stuck in my head for a few days now.  /sigh.

:wave:
Just had to pop in here to say, YES I'M A COUNTER, TOO!
I count everything!  In my head, not out loud, usually.  And I don't have to repeat things if I lose track or anything, I just count things I see.
Like highway stripes, how many items I just put in the dryer, how many french fries I'm eating, how many telephone poles I see, whatever.  I have done this my entire life, and didn't realize it was OCD until I was diagnosed with Postpartum Depression and they asked if I did anything unusual like counting or whatever.  
Guess it never bothered me, so I never sought "help" for it.
I am taking Zoloft, and that has cut down the amount of counting I do, but I still do it when I see something repetitive.
Annoying little habit at times, eh?

I'm so glad I found this topic - I count years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes; like, 30 years I ago I was getting ready to start high school, one week ago I was doing XYZ, this time tomorrow I'll be working.  Every October, November, & December I track everything I did with a boyfriend in high school - it was 30 years ago, you'd think I could get past this!  I guess it's a pretty harmless thing to do; the only real problem it causes is that sometimes I don't feel like I have time to accomplish something, like if I've got something I have to do 4 hours from now I don't think I have time to go to the store, start a project around home, etc.  

Hiya and welcome mountaingirl! From one excessive counter to another ;)

When you say track...do you mean like you write it down?

I have certain things in my life that I track and i write it down. is that like what you mean?  i track patterns.

Hi Inner Chaos!  I guess by "track" I mean I can remember every little thing we did, like the first time he talked to me was October 27th, 8:50am, the first time he called was on Halloween at 7:50 pm, the first time we had a "date" was November 1st at 7 pm, we went to a school play on November 8th at 7 pm, etc.  Every year I have to mentally re-live all of this from October 27th until the time we broke up, January 6th, 3:10 pm, in the hallway at school, etc. (I am able to get other things accomplished, tho, during those 2 1/2 months, thank God!).  It's strange that I can remember this kind of stuff, yet I really can't tell you what time I did anything yesterday.  If I was to keep track of anything like this now, like what happened on vacation last year, I'd definitely have to write it down.  Of course, that could just be old age!  

I am amazed that you can remember the fine details of your life like that.  i cant. that is why i have to write it all down. I am foggy headed about everything.  :upside: