<font color='#FF8040'>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,   )
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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

this one is hard to explain. i just recently thought that maybe i have ocd. i have had panic attacks in the past and obviously have high anxiety. i just recently went into a depression. going through these boards has got me to thinking that maybe i have ocd. i feel as tho i am what they would call a "pure obsessioner". anyway, i have always done this counting thing where i visualize a compass type thing.... basically just a plus sign i guess... and i will start in the top and then go to the right, then the bottom, then the left, then the top again. the top will start as number 1, the right is number 2, the bottom is number 3, the left is number 4, then now the top is 2, the right 2, the bottom 3, the left 4, then the top 3, the right 2, the bottom 3, the left 4. so obviously i just picture the top going up one everytime and the other spots staying the same number. sometimes i do this with a cross pattern where i go from the top to the bottom to the left to the right then back to the top again and i start all over. but it is always 1234 2234 3234 4234 5234 6234.... so and so. anyone ever heard of this one before? or am i the only one with this specific compulsion?

Oh God-counting-I have depression and OCD-the OCD has been such a part of my life and has been relieved by Citalopram which I take for my depression. i count the rooms in my flat over and over again in my flat when i should be relaxing-it drives me mad. If I want a clear mind i have to say in my head 1 2 3 4 , 1 2 3, 1 2 ,1 before I relax. My counsellor considers it manageable. You know its silly but you carry on anyway agggghhhhhhhh!!

my counting also involves odd numbers....when i (or anyone else for that matter) change to volume on the TV or radio or anything it HAS to stay on an odd number.....

When I was younger (and quite a bit more anxious) I used to count in threes. Especially three sets of three. Or three sets of three sets of three. Sometimes I would have to do little ritualistic movements to accompany the counting. It must have been quite a sight.

Nowadays I sometimes catch myself automatically counting things, like the number of times I am shaking the orange juice carton. Not particularly distressing, but odd to notice.

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!