Comments on: One Flew Over the Harpy’s Nest: An Overshare

By: viajera

viajera — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:25:19 +0000

I know this is an out of date thread, but I just found it from SALG’s post on depression.

Kivrin, thank you so much for sharing the letter-counting thing. I’ve done the same thing for as long as I can remember!! The few people I’ve told about it thought it was weird, so I haven’t talked to anyone about it in years and thought it was just me!

For me, I have to break up phrases I’ve read, names I’ve heard, or whatever else into equal-length groupings (with the groupings themselves typically of 5-9 letters), or alternating between 2 different lengths, of letters that use all the letters with no spares. I then will repeat those groupings over and over again in my head to a little beat, almost like a song. Sometimes it can be really distracting, while others times I catch myself doing it unawares.

For example, I would break up the title like this:
OneFle wovert heHarp y’sNes tanove rshare (counting the apostrophe but not the semicolon). Bonus points when my groupings break at the same point as words in the phrase (none here).

I could then have that rhythmic pattern stuck in my head for hours, like an annoying TV jingle.

For me, I think it started when I was studying for spelling bees back in elementary school (at least, that’s when I first noticed it). It really went ballistic when I took typing classes in junior high – then suddenly I was mentally typing all the letters on a keyboard at the same time.

I’ve done some numeric games like you describe, sarah – especially when I was dieting and calorie counting – but nothing this elaborate. Thanks for laying it out, it’s really neat to see how other people’s minds work.

By: lauraborealis

lauraborealis — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:38:37 +0000

Sarah, thank you for this beautiful post. And thanks to all the others who have shared their own experiences with mental illness.

Brave posts like this allow others without these direct experiences to have a glimpse into an inner world, and the impact of that cannot be overstated.

Thank you again; you are a wonderful writer.

By: sarah.of.a.lesser.god

sarah.of.a.lesser.god — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:58:19 +0000

@Penny_Esq: I actually did not know the term for it until about 2 months ago. I bite the inside of my cheeks so badly that it’s a miracle they’ve never been seriously infected. It’s to the point where hot liquids hurt to have in my mouth. It was such a problem that I Googled it to find out what it’s really about and the cause.

By: Kivrin

Kivrin — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:56:32 +0000

@Penny_Esq: You might want to check out the trich.org website, too — it covers skin-picking as well as hair-pulling. *hug*

By: Penny_Esq

Penny_Esq — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:47:24 +0000

@sarah.of.a.lesser.god: I had no idea there was a name for non-cutting self-harm, or that it was a recognized symptom of a mental illness. I am a little too cowardly to be specific, but this is something I have done to varying degrees for many many years. I have a therapist and take some medication for anxiety and depression, and I know my tendency to pick is exacerbated when I’m stressed, but I had no idea it was, like, a real thing, with a clinical name. It’s… reassuring, I guess. Cheers.

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:08:53 +0000

Thank you for this, Solag. I’m dating a man who has severe depression–runs in his family–and every once in while, I just feel like screaming at him to be “normal”, whatever the fuck *that* is.

Thanks for reminding me to be compassionate. Everyone bears a burden of one sort or another, and sometimes those burdens are necessary to the very humanity of the person who bears it.
(@Magnetic Crow: please know that this is in no way diminishing who you are or what you live with…)

Maybe we all have rituals to go through just to make life bearable. I count stairs in patterns of eight. My groceries have to be placed in my cart in symmetrical patterns.
I have to dance everyday, or I will shrivel.

The latter sounds “normal”, but what makes my drive to dance any different than my need to count stairs?

All that said–thank you, thanks to everyone in these comments for sharing–it’s good to know we’re not alone, non?

By: sarah.of.a.lesser.god

sarah.of.a.lesser.god — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:06:10 +0000

@Josh: You may be my new best friend for giving me that piece of info! Seriously, I love stuff like that so I really appreciate it.

@masagoroll @betterfishtofry (love that name, btw) @endora: I am so happy that this helped y’all, even if just a little. It is a topic that I find is very rarely talked about when people discuss mental health issues. It’s not a “glamorous” topic like schizophrenia or anorexia, because OCD can seem very boring to people. Writing this post helped me a lot, and I’m glad it did so for others.

By: betterfishtofry

betterfishtofry — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:51:50 +0000

My younger brother has sever depression and OCD and we are not sure what else. It got to the point where he had to leave college and now he lives at home, afraid to leave the house. He has moments of intense anger and then will just collapse in on himself and sob. It is the most heartbreaking thing to see, and for whatever reason I am the only one who can calm him down. He fights sleep too, so when I can’t sleep, I will call him and sometimes that gets him to fall asleep since we will literally just talk until he conks out.
It’s hard because we are less than two years apart in age, and when we were younger we were inseparable. He followed me everywhere, but when the depression and the OCD started he was 12. He has a new therapist now who has gotten him to drive himself to see him every week (this is a huge development that my brother leaves the house)and I can even get my brother out to eat or a movie with me, but it’s a two-three hour process to get him out. Once he is out though, he is happy, and we have fun.
The other wrench is that he is literally a genius, like off the IQ charts smart. Some of his depression stems from that, and then it makes it worse. He sees what he is doing, he recognizes how difficult his life his because of it, but he can’t stop it. He may never live on his own, but I’ve started talking to him about moving out one day with me, it won’t be much, but the rest of my family really doesn’t have patience with him anymore, and I don’t live far from his therapist. We’ll see what happens.
Wow, I never get to talk about this since most people don’t understand, and I have health problems myself, and I feel silly when I complain compared to what my brother goes through every day. So thanks SOALG for posting this, I think you just made a lot of people feel a lot better.

By: Endora

Endora — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:31:52 +0000

Thanks, Sarah. It takes guts to write so objectively about yourself, especially when you are in the grips of something.

I have OCD-like tendencies (although relatively mild) and have also struggled with anorexia. But I’m not screwed up, and neither are you–we’re imperfect human beings.

I can identify with isolating yourself, though. When I am struggling through something, I often try to pretend everything is ok until I can’t go on anymore, out of a fear of becoming a burden on others or pushing them away–which ultimately just makes things worse. I did something like that just this week and am kicking myself for it.

Gosh, life is complicated, isn’t it?

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:14:42 +0000

I have OCD, anxiety issues, and I’m manic-depressive with rapid mood changes. I take meds, but I haven’t changed them in the 14 years I’ve been taking them, off and on.

But, I have to mention to SOALG that her calculation of birthdays at 5:14 on the 4th is incorrect if the person would be alive on a century date (1900, 2100)–except for 2000. The year 2000 was a leap year, but most century dates (I don’t know the actual term) are not. My OCD does not involve math, and I find it very interesting, but I thought I’d throw a wrench, or spanner, into the works on this one.

I think.