koaladevil

Susan, I can understand your son wanting to stop. Sometimes it drives me mad that I count and alphabetize persistently but if my mind has plenty to occupy it then the counting becomes a bit quieter - kind of like wallpaper. I do a similar thing to your son in that I count in multiples even if I know the multiples don't match. I also group letters into multiples - to take the earlier example of ' the dog is really hungry' I would see it as 'thedog really hungry' and then add 'is'. I see patterns in everything and will count the same pattern over and overandover if a new one doesn't present itself. When I was a child (maybe 9 or 10) I remember I used to make little noises in my throat. I'd make these in patterns (maybe 4 noises 4 times). I grew out of this when I was still quite young, more or less by forcing myself to stop doing it as I knew other people could hear and thought I was weird. I am now 35 and still count and alphabetize but it in no way interferes with my life. I also agree with toosilly that it's good to make sue you're physically active. My brain shuts down much more easily at night if my body has been tired out. I don't know if I can give any advice to you or your son other than, if it's not interfering with everyday life then why worry about it. Why don't you let your son read these posts so he can see that he isn't any different to thousand of other alphabetizers al over the world (I'm from Northern Ireland btw).

why on earth would sbecthtel or sirleer give their children medication to stop this? i feel i have mild OCD and that alphabetizing and counting is one example of how it presents (i also sometimes have a compulsion to touch certain things or count to a particular number e.g. before leaving a room. while i know that nothing bad will actually happen if i don't do it, it makes me feel better to act upon my compulsions). however none of this impacts upon my day to day life. i would describe my head as 'busy' and occasionally 'noisy' but i do not need medication in order to function and i would query the need to provide medication to children unless their OCD is severely impacting upon their lives. if your children are getting good grades, are functionning socially, are not restricting themselves because of their compulsions/habits then why would you be concerned? my nephew is 7 and counts footballers, i.e. he will add/subtract the shirt numbers of players and the answer will correspond to a different player's shirt. my sister is (rightly, I feel) entirely unconcerned about this, just saying that she thinks he takes after me. other than this little quirk he is a happy, stable, normal litle boy with many friends. i have spoken to many people about my number obsession and it is more common than you might think. your children are probably geniuses. ALPHABETIZERS WILL INHERIT THE EARTH!!

This is lovely. Today I have discovered that other people hate butterflies and count letters in words really fast (for me the perfect number is 12 so words and names with 12 letters, eg a 6 + 6 name are excellent). I've been doing this ever since I can remember and sometimes it irritates the ###### out of me but I can't stop. What I need to know is: who in this world hates butterflies AND obsessively counts (I count people, windows, justaboutanything - sometimes i'll be alone and count myself over and over 1, 1, 1, 1 ....until I've counted myself 12-16 times* - 4 times forwards, 4 backwards twice, 4 forwards again etc)? and when i find you, will you be into music and films and will you marry me? *there's still only 1 of me at the end of it