BiNa

Holy cow. Hi everyone. I started this post on this forum 11 years ago back when I was in college at Miami University in Ohio. Today was the first time since then that I happened to look it up and see if I could find it again. Needless to say, I was SHOCKED when I saw that this has gotten over 115,000 views and has gotten such a huge response. I'm now 31 years old and I'm still rocking and rolling. Things have gotten better than they were when I was in college, but I still count letters and alphabetize the letters in words. It's been great reading so many responses and seeing how well so many of you are doing. This is just crazy! Best of luck to everyone here!

So I posted on this website years ago when I got bored one day and checked around to see if anyone else in the world counts and alphabetizes letters. I actually was the one that started this whole entire counting/alphabetizing forum 5 years ago if you check back on page one. I haven't posted since then, but I got curious and checked back. I see that there are quite a few people who count or do something similar. Do you ever wonder how fast you are compared to other people who can do this? Maybe it's just me, but I always have. My favorite and easiest words to count are ones that have 20 letters in them. I can just look around outside at signs or anything and pick out 20's instantly. One of my favorite words, or terms rather, is endoplasmic reticulum, because it has 20 letters. I don't even remember what it means, but I love it. I don't know why 20's are so easy and fast, but I can count words with 20 letters faster than I can count words that have 13, or 15 maybe. Even numbers are just better. I can also alphabetize words and small phrases up to about 16 letters or so. Sometimes I get stuck with a word in my head that I will continuously alphabetize over and over all day until I forget to keep doing it, and if I think about it again, I will start doing it again. I've repeated the same word or words over in my head for weeks at a time, from the second I wake up until the second I fall asleep. I just keep saying it in my head. I can think of words from years ago that I still like to repeat in my head. For those of you who also have OCD, you understand what I mean when I say they just feel right. If anyone wants to email me and talk about it, feel free. I love talking about this stuff with other people who either do it or know someone that does. Email me at brian_golde@hotmail.com. I've been counting letters for as long as I can remember, since I was in kindergarten or so, and I am now 25. I feel like maybe I can help other people who don't know so much about what is going on with themselves or someone they know. I will check back this site every now and then, but again, anyone can contact me at my email address. I would love to talk more about it. Plus I wanna know how fast some of you guys are!

I forgot to answer one of your questions in my previous post. Oddly enough, I have never had a headache in my entire life, I don't even know what they feel like, and I do not recall any time I have gotten dizzy. The eye blinking is just annoying, it doesn't hurt or anything, just very frustrating and mentally draining.

Well I'm no doctor, but I do have obsessive compulsive disorder, and I'm pretty sure you do too man. I'm 20 as well and I have had it since I was about 5 or 6 or so. You should really takes steps in doing something to correct it, or trust me, it WILL get worse over time. See a psychologist or psychiatrist and get some medication if it is really as bad as it sounds. I have never taken meds before, but am actually starting on them this Friday because my OCD keeps getting so bad and out of hand. If you have any other questions, I am pretty educated on this issue, feel free to email me. brian_golde@hotmail.com. Good luck to ya.

Hey again, You asked if I ever had trouble concentrating because of the letter counting, with reading or anything. Well the truth is, yeah, it made it really hard to read. I just recently finished the first book I have ever read for pleasure in my whole life. I only read before when I had to, and sometimes not even then. It makes things hard, but again, it's just a speedbump in my life. It's not that I don't like reading, it's that I just can't understand what I've read after I do it because my mind was doing too many things. If I'm concentrating really hard and I'm into what I'm reading, then sometimes the counting isn't there at all, but as soon as my concentration gets broken or I realize "Hey, I'm not counting", it all starts back up again. I can't say much more right now, I have an exam to get to, but feel free to ask anything else that comes to mind. Thanks.

JCANDKC, Hey, what's up???? I'm a 20 year old junior at Miami University of Ohio and have had Tourettes since I was about 4 or so. I have blinked my eyes almost constantly since then. It is by far my worst tic of all of them. I have gone through the age of being stared at and talked about that your daughter is probably going through now, and I'll admit, it was not easy to do. Making up excuses every few seconds on why I blink so much only works for so long. I still to this day, at almost 21 years old, blink ALL the time, especially when I am in a room by myself. I have never taken any medication (I have OCD too) and am just now considering doing so, but for the OCD. The tics will change, some might not ever go away, some will, but then there will be something new, just one day, you'll notice a completely new thing. I still do notice new things I do. I don't know if this goes for other people who have Tourettes, but in my experiences, don't ask your daughter "do you do this????", as in some sort of tic that you know of that you want to know if she does. If I didn't do it before someone asked me, I would start doing it, so I tell people not to ask me if I do specific things. I know being 9 is a hard age to go through having something such as this, but the best way I have found to get through it is to not be embarrassed of it, but to accept it and think of it as a certain uniqueness. Every single person now who I see stare at me, or who I know has just seen me make some strange face, I will go over to them and be like "I have Tourettes, that's why I was doing that." If they need a reason, then just give it to them. I figure the more people who are educated about it, the better. If you have any other questions or comments for someone who has lived his life through all of this firsthand, please feel free to post or email me. brian_golde@hotmail.com Thanks and good luck.

Rangers, I'm glad that everything ended up turning out ok for you and your daughter!!!! At least it sounds like things are getting better. It's really nice to have someone else to talk to about these kinda things, and yes, everything you said DID sound verrrry familiar!!!! The psychologist I saw a few weeks ago suggested that I look into taking a drug called Luvox. I have read a little about it, and he said it comes with very few and minimal side effects. I understand what you were saying about your daughter and how her mind never got a chance to relax. It's not fun at all, hehe. Thanks for the warning about the medication, I will definitely make sure I get plenty of follow ups now. If you or your daughter ever feel like you wanna talk about this or anything like it sometime, please feel free to email me (brian_golde@hotmail.com). It's nice to have someone to talk to who understands these things. Thanks for your reply and good luck with everything!!!!

Rangers, FINALLY I hear from someone else who does this!!!! I knew that I wasn't the only one in the world, I had just never talked to anyone else who did it or knew someone else who did it. I also can alphabetize letters just about as fast as other people can spell the word, probably up to 14 letters or so with much ease. I have always counted letters in everything I read or hear, and I just picked up the alphabetizing thing when I was about 13 years old and have done it since then (I'm now 20). Road signs, menus, things on TV, anything really. The alphabetizing is the second most thing I do next to the counting, so it kinda takes a back seat to it, but still makes for some difficulty in reading a lot of the time. I have yet to take any medication for my OCD, but just saw a psychologist a week ago for the first time because it was starting to get much worse. So, we will see where that goes. If you have any other questions, please feel free to post again, I'd love to hear more about your daughter. Thanks for your replies.

I am somewhat relieved to hear that someone else has these thoughts about the people close to them. I thought I was just sick and gross. I too have very, very disturbing pictures in my mind of the people closest to me. The closer they are to me, the more vulgar and graphic the pictures in my head are. I won't go into detail, but just know that they are extremely disturbing. I don't know why this is, because I certainly do not want to hurt any of these people. But, it's nice to know that I'm not the only one that does this. Also, I am 20 years old and this has been happening since I was about 12 or 13. Thanks for your post.

So I take it no one has ever heard of this????

I know most of you have heard of counting being a part of OCD, but I had a question about it. I have counted letters in words for as long as I can remember. While people talk, while I write, while I drive and read road signs, always. That's common for people with OCD. But, somehow, I can do it really, really fast. Pretty much instantly, as soon as I hear a word, before I can even think, I know the number of letters. I can do this within probably 2 seconds tops with words or sentences with about 26 letters or less in them. And if that's not enough, I can alphabetize the letters in any word almost as fast as I can spell the word itself. I have talked to people who count and alphabetize, but never anyone who does it nearly as fast as I can. I was just wondering if anyone else has ever heard of anyone that can do this???? I would like to just hear about it. Thank you in advance. -Brian

My OCD symptoms began many years ago and have continuously gotten worse. I pick up new things I do every day and never lose any of the old things. The only time I've ever talked to a doctor before about it is when I was diagnosed. I have a brother who is a year older than me and he doesn't have anything. I am the only one ever in my family to have either. My friends and roommates all know about both my OCD and TS, but they don't know a whole lot about them, just that I have them. I had to leave a class early yesterday because I felt like I was going crazy with counting. I couldn't even understand what the professor was saying because my mind was so busy counting anything there was to count. I hope it is just a phase. Thanks for your reply.

Well, I'm glad to say that my vocal tics have lessened a bit since I was young. However, my OCD symptoms continue to just get worse. As a matter of fact, today was probably the worst day I have ever had with it. I don't know what is changing, but something is. Normally, I don't step on cracks in the sidewalk, but a place in the road where it turned to brick and I was forced to walk there, I usually could. I would just suck it up. But today, I froze up and couldn't do it anymore. I know I looked like an idiot because I almost just fell over where I stood. I had to go into the road and walk the rest of the way. I also have been having a lot more trouble understanding what people are saying to me because I am too busy counting all the letters in the words they say and then alphabetizing every letter in all the words. I don't know what's going on, but I hope it's just temporary. If this keeps worsening, I don't know what I'm going to do.

Thank you for replying. I first remember symptoms of my tourettes from when I was about 5, and I confirmed this by watching very old videos taken from my childhood. Obviously, I had no idea what it was then, so I did not try to stop it, and it was very disturbing to see myself how I was then. My face was a constant mess of blinking and scrunching. I wasn't diagnosed until I was about 12 or so, when I finally sat down with my parents and told them I knew something was wrong with me because I was getting made fun of a lot at school. They had noticed, but were uneducated on the subject at the time, so never did anything about it. I would have to say that my peak severity level was when I was around 8 or so. It hasn't gotten any better, I just am aware that I have it now and I force myself to cut back so it doesn't look as bad. The vocal tics were difficult in school. Most the time, if someone would catch me making a strange noise, I would just start coughing and try to play it off as if something were making me do it. Sometimes I know it didn't work, though. I would just sit there embarrassed. I have asked as far back as my great-grandfather and no one in my family has ever had TS or OCD so I don't know why or how I got it. I never noticed any improvement in my teen years, but maybe other people have just because I hold back a lot, which is not easy. When I am in a room by myself and no one is there to hear me is when I am at my worst and I just let go with my faces and noises and bodily jerks. I never did try any alternate therapy whatsoever. I just tried to stay strong and lived my life the best I could. What I tell people when they ask why I have never tried any treatment is that I have had this my whole life and it is all I know. It would be nice to get rid of it, yeah, but I guess I'm scared of what life would be like without it. It sounds ridiculous to most people, but then again, most people don't understand what it's like. It has run my life as long as I remember and I don't know anything different. Thank you for your reply and I hope I answered all of your questions sufficiently.