Jump to content
ACN Latitudes Forums

Hayhay

Members
  • Posts

    3
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Hayhay

  1. Hey! Nice to meet someone else who does this in 2020! 'Cause most of these posts are from a long time ago. So I'm very happy to see your comment. :) So uh, I posted on this thread already. It's the one right above yours. That was back in March. Since then I've started therapy, but my therapist thinks it's a cool talent.... I agree, but it's also very annoying sometimes, like you said. Like when I'm trying to read, fall asleep, listen to someone talk, pay attention in class, etc. It makes me feel like my head is very busy and noisy, and like I'm spending extra energy on the counting so it's exhausting sometimes too. By the way, I change words around as well. I add/remove letters to get the length I want. Another thing I do is that I'll take a sentence, and try to shorten it to 10 words exactly. Either that, or I try to make it as short as possible without losing its original meaning. I also count pen strokes, like the letter f has 2, the letter o has one, etc. Yet another thing I do is looking for visual/aesthetic patterns in words, using the shapes of the letters. Often I'll change the shape of letters to fit a pattern I want. Examples: "sAndwich", "Carpool", "bookMark" I dunno if that makes sense.... I probably explained it more in-depth in my original post. But yeah. Umm, again, it's cool to hear from you and I hope you're doing well
  2. I was wondering if there's a link between misophonia, arithmomania and epilepsy (I have all 3 of these). If anyone doesn't know, misophonia is where you consistently have a really strong emotional reaction to very specific sounds, which can cause you to change your behavior (like avoiding people or covering your ears). Some of the worst things for me are: this one girl at school who would eat snacks and pop gum ALL class long, every single day. The chewing and snapping gum became unbearable to the point where I was plugging my ears with my fingers for the entire class, or listening to extremely loud white noise via earbuds. Then there's my dad, who makes this clicking sound with his mouth that makes me want to cry 'cause it bothers me so much. Also, my parents eat pork rinds a lot, and I just can't be in the room with them at all. That's just the tip of the iceberg. As for arithmomania, that's like, umm, an obsession with counting I guess. There's already another forum post on here for it I believe. I've read that it might be OCD but I'm not sure. So, I count the number of letters in words, the number of pen strokes in the letters of words, the number of words in a sentence, etc. I change the spelling and height of letters in words (i.e. capital to lowercase) to make a visually appealing pattern (i.e. "Nintendo"). I prefer certain numbers, like 10 and 4, for these things and other little word/letter things I do. Hopefully you get the gist. These word counting games are quietly going on in my head almost all the time, like background noise, even at this very moment. And finally, as for epilepsy, I have juvenile myoclonic epilepsy. I've had it for at least 4 years, but only 2 seizures overall. The arithmomania has been in the last 2 or 3 years I think, and the misophonia showed up less than a year ago. Oh, and I'm 18 years old, if that matters at all. So...is there any connection between any of those 3 things? What's up with my brain?? And do I have OCD? I haven't been diagnosed with OCD, although besides the counting, apparently I do have other potential OCD symptoms like repetitive violent thoughts that really scare me.... I'm not depressed or anything though. Life is good, but terrible thoughts of hurting myself and other people and animals keep popping into my head, and that makes me feel guilty and scared of myself, because I don't actually want to hurt anyone. These thoughts have been going on for over a year now, and it's always been the same ones. Like...stabbing myself in the eye, or stabbing one of my family members.... I can use knives but they make me nervous. I just want it to stop.... What should I do??
  3. I’m so late! It’s 2020, lol! But I’m 18 and I have this letter/word counting thing too!! It’s SUCH A RELIEF to know that I’m not alone!! If any of y’all still check this thread, I’d love to hear from you.... I’m specifically wondering, is there any way to at least quiet these thoughts and habits? It’s been going on for like 3 or 4 years for me, and I haven’t been able to stop it. Or can it naturally go away over time? Here’s what it’s like for me. I don’t really do the alphabetizing thing or certain other stuff y’all described. One of my tics is something I didn’t see anybody else mention. I’m obsessed with the heights of lowercase letters. High, medium, and low. Example: h, a, y. So I love finding words that form patterns that I find visually appealing in this way, like “yelling”. See how the letters’ heights flow from left to right? I dunno, I just like that. And “Nintendo”. I like splitting words in two groups of 4 and making them kinda mirror each other visually (still with the letter heights). If there aren’t enough or are too many letters in the word, I’ll just add/take away some and change the spelling. I also change the heights of certain letters as needed to fit my desired patterns. I do all this in my head. And sometimes I subtly nod my head along to the pattern as well. Not a noticeable motion, just a very slight head movement that indicates the up-or-down direction my pattern of letters is going in.... I feel like I’m not making any sense, lol. Another weird thing I do that I think only one other person mentioned, is counting the “pen strokes” in the letters of a word and then adding them up. Example: “wow” is 9 pen strokes, or lines as I usually call them. Then I take the number of letters in the word (“wow” has 3) and add it to the number of pen strokes. 9 + 3 = 12, and I like that number. Usually I use all lowercase letters for this, but for pronouns I typically keep the first letter capitalized. Sometimes I capitalize all the letters and do the same routine to see how that changes things (because capital letters often have more pen strokes). Speaking of numbers I like, my favorites are usually 4 and 3 to divide with, and 10, 15, and 20 to add up to. It’s not just letters for me. I also count words in sentences. In things people say, in music lyrics, in tests at school, in text messages, etc. Even as I’m writing this, I’m counting my words. I crave a balanced amount of words, meaning I want to have a “good” number of words like 10 or 20. For example if somebody sends me a text that’s like 7 words long, that really freaks me out and I have to scroll up to find the last message so I can add 3 more words to the first snippet. The letter-counting habit isn’t as distracting as it used to be because I’ve gotten faster at it over time. But the word and sentence counting thing can be very distracting when I need to pay attention to something I’m reading or listening to.... Reorganizing sentences kinda makes it hard to keep track of them, y’know? At least for me. Anyway, those are just some of my main habits that I currently deal with. Here are some other things about me that might be related, I dunno? I have mild misophonia, which is where you’re bothered by very specific sounds (for me it’s chewing noises), but more so than a normal pet peeve, like, you can’t concentrate at all when you’re around the sound and it even makes you have more extreme reactions (sometimes it makes me wanna cry, shout, retaliate in anger, etc). I also have epilepsy. I’m also considered pretty smart. Between those three things and the counting thing, what the heck is going on with my brain?? Oh, and I also love English and grammar and am pretty skilled in it, so maybe that contributes to this letter counting thing? And I’m very socially awkward and I talk to myself a lot when I’m alone.... So yeah, I don’t know if any of that could be related somehow but I thought I’d share it just in case. Another counting habit that I have is where I’ll count my steps, but I have to step the same number of times with one foot as with the other. I also do this when I’m drumming a beat with my hands. I just told my mom about all this today. I’ve kept it to myself for all these years because I didn’t know how I could possibly explain it to anyone, and I thought I must be the only one.... I’m so glad I found this forum!! I really wanna meet someone who shares my habits!!
×
×
  • Create New...