Tell us in what ways you or your loved ones are crazy (that are interesting)

[Acid]

As a resident bi-polar, I thought I'd start a spinoff thread from the main "Tell us..." thread, this one being about mental illness. Pardon if the title is offensive to some; I'm a self-depreciating kind of guy so I basically call myself insane.

The meds control it well, though, and except for an occasionally down-spiral or manic high, I'm pretty functional.

I see mental illness as no different than a bruised arm or tendinitis. Rather that it being a pull or a sprain, mental illness is a chemical misfiring within the brain. The more we learn about the brain, the better the newer drugs treat the problems, or so I've found.

[kerzain]

With all this bi-polar talk lately you guys have me self-diagnosing and reading Wikipedia. I don't like what I'm seeing.

[tiohn]

I'm dysthymic, but stopped taking meds for it about 7 years ago. Instead, I tend to self-medicate with alcohol and occasionally tobacco. Is that interesting?

[Acid]

Get thee to a psychiatrist, my friend. Self-diagnosis doesn't count.

[kerzain]

I'm putting it off. I don't want to take meds. About ten years ago I was on Paxil for 30 days and had to stop taking it. Every time I put the pill I my mouth I felt like I was re-affirming how fucked up I felt and I couldn't get past that feeling.

[Mordrak]

I have the terminal case of the stupid.

[JoshV]

My girlfriend has OCD, does that count?

She has to arrange all the shirts in the closet so they face the same way, and they must all be right side out. She also prefers greatly to have them ordered by season.

I drive her batty, cuz when I hang my clothes, I really don't care to order them in anyway.

[kerzain]

Yea, my wife does this. I call it her sorting disorder. I swear to god, a few years ago when we played MMORPG's there were times I felt like I was paying $15 a month so she could do nothing but have fun arranging her banks in EverQuest/WoW.

[Kael]

I get an erection whenever I hear a vacumn sweeper. Do they make a pill for that?

[kerzain]

Yea, Cyanide.

[kerzain]

I'm gonna stop myself from posting a two page info dump on me and this subject, so I'm running away to play Civ IV, see ya'll later.

[Acid]

I'm gonna stop myself from posting a two page info dump on me and this subject, so I'm running away to play Civ IV, see ya'll later.
Good move, dude.

[Staff Sergeant]

My girlfriend has OCD, does that count?

She has to arrange all the shirts in the closet so they face the same way, and they must all be right side out. She also prefers greatly to have them ordered by season.

I drive her batty, cuz when I hang my clothes, I really don't care to order them in anyway.

That is perfectly normal until it gets to the bolded part. I do prefer to have my hangars at least hook facing in so they are easier to grab though.


Good move, dude.

I gather the length of this thread is greatly diminished on my screen in particular.

[Leah C]

My girlfriend has OCD, does that count?

She has to arrange all the shirts in the closet so they face the same way, and they must all be right side out. She also prefers greatly to have them ordered by season.

I drive her batty, cuz when I hang my clothes, I really don't care to order them in anyway.

That's nothing. I order mine by season and function. Tshirts > short sleeve dress shirts > casual 3/4 sleeve shirts > dress 3/4 sleeve shirts > casual long sleeve > dress long sleeve > short sleeve cardigans > 3/4 cardigans > long sleeve cardigans > jackets (ordered by weight). That's the left side. Right side is skirts by length and then dresses from casual to formal. Sometimes I do the cardigans in color order.

[Eilonwy]

One of my sisters is very sick and has been since she was about 14 years old (or if you ask my mom, since she was a baby that hated to be held). She's been diagnosed with a bunch of things, one of which was bipolar, but she went off the meds after they made her feel 'stupid' and unable to focus while she was in college. She's far better than she used to be (violent outbursts accompanied with blackouts in her memory, hearing voices and fits of rage) and in the past two years someone finally noticed that her pituitary is swollen on one side, which at least explained what was causing her constant migraines and mismatched pupils. A brain surgery to see if they could figure out the cause (after ruling out a brain tumor) later and...they still have absolutely no idea what's causing it. Her hormones are all out of whack, there's a whole bunch of strange symptoms, and the two doctors she's been to have just shrugged and said they'd do followups every couple of months to see if anything has 'changed.' Her mood swings aren't as bad as they used to be, but they still come and go. I feel bad that I don't talk to her more often, but it is exhausting to have a conversation with her even over the phone. You have to constantly walk on eggshells and you never know if a simple comment will set her off. Last time it was me saying I thought Anchorman was a funny movie. Who knew that meant I was the god damn devil? The worst part is I know it's not her fault and she can't control it. That lack of control is fucking terrifying to me, so I can only imagine how bad it is for her.

[Dean]

My niece is bipolar. She's 19. Back in June she told my sister (single parent) that she was bringing a boy home to sleep. They had the whole, "Not under my roof you're not!" argument.

My sister packed a bag and moved into my parents' house.

She's been living with my parents for three months, paying the bills on the house, and not asking what happens there. After 19 years of dealing with her bipolar daughter she's given up. She's never been happier.

There are rocky times ahead.

[alexlitel]

Last time it was me saying I thought Anchorman was a funny movie. Who knew that meant I was the god damn devil?Actually, it does. (Gallows humor.)

I don't think this makes me crazy, but in my case it is Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder and what I thought was a "butt disease" called "Ass Burgers" in my younger days (unlike most of the internet, not self-diagnosed).

[Pogue Mahone]

I think my favorite bi-polar is probably Bi-Polar Bear from The Tick. 'This looks like a job for Bi-Polar Bear ... but I just can't seem to get out of bed.'

[Siren]

I've been diagnosed with depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, after the mental and emotional abuse inflicted on me by my ex-husband, who has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Luckily, I found that diagnosis darkly amusing. I'm using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to work through both of them, and, while I've had some rough days, I'm definitely doing much better. Therapist agreed to drop me down to every other week, rather than every week.

[Warning]

I had a crazy uncle who died when I was two. Apparently he had an entire room wallpapered with pornography, never did any dishes, was filthy rich but lived like a pauper and kept a loaded pistol under his pillow.

My family tells me that when he died I was two or 3 and we all went to his house to clean up his mess. I apparently went into the bedroom and came out struggling to hold his loaded pistol. Fortunately they were able to distract me with a cookie or something.

[Gourmand]

My mom is bipolar. She's also a crazy cat lady. When I asked her who's coming to Thanksgiving dinner this year, she started by naming the cats. That's har har funny, and those are the stories I tell to people like my work acquaintances.

The Real crazy: The day I arrived home from my sophomore year of college, Mom and a friend picked me up from the airport. We drive home and make small talk. How were classes, yadda yadda. As we're pulling up to the house she springs the question, "will you be a good son this summer?" I respond, "Well, what does a 'good son' mean?" She hisses, "See! You don't love me ... Hahahahahhahaha!", and continues laughing hysterically for a good 5 minutes. She's having convulsions of laughter, and tears are streaming down her face it's apparently so deliriously funny. Good way to start the summer.

I have a lifetime of similar stories. As a result, I'm unable to maintain relationships in any form whatsoever. Clinically, it's just major depression with a moderate anxiety disorder. I've been to many doctors, and been told I have good social skills. There's just something fundamentally broken, elsewhere.

Moral: If you're crazy, it will affect the people around you. Get help ASAP. Or, another interpretation: Don't hang out with unmedicated crazy people (for prolonged periods of time), because it's definitely contagious.

[Leah C]

I've been diagnosed with depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, after the mental and emotional abuse inflicted on me by my ex-husband, who has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.


What's the difference between Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? I have the latter and have never heard of the former.

Fun fact: When I was 19, my PTSD was mistakenly labeled as ADD because of some overlapping symptoms. Pro tip: when you don't have ADD, taking certain ADD drugs is a bad idea. It does make you fun at clubs and parties, though.

[fire]

That's nothing. I order mine by season and function. Tshirts > short sleeve dress shirts > casual 3/4 sleeve shirts > dress 3/4 sleeve shirts > casual long sleeve > dress long sleeve > short sleeve cardigans > 3/4 cardigans > long sleeve cardigans > jackets (ordered by weight). That's the left side. Right side is skirts by length and then dresses from casual to formal. Sometimes I do the cardigans in color order.

I also group my clothes by function (we have basically one season). I would put the 3/4 sleeve shirts together, but I hate that length (also 7/8), so those are banned from my closet.

Where do you put slips, Leah? Do people still wear slips? I have them next to the appropriate-length skirts.

My partner has a ton of similar, solid t-shirts. I arrange them by color. Except the white ones. Those I put in a drawer.

Speaking of drawers: underwear on the left; then a divider of some sort; bras in the middle (partner's drawer omits this), and socks on the right.

This is not OCD. This is careful planning.

[Tortilla]

In order to save time and effort, all my clothes that do not actually require any folding (underwear, socks, undershirts) are just thrown in a basket next to the dryer that I dig through every day. This seems to work well.

Good thing I'm not married to someone like Leah or fire. I'd probably get stabbed.

[Leah C]

Fire, I only have one slip and it's in the pantyhose drawer.

Kraaze, I don't care what others do with their clothes as long as they're reasonably clean when out in public with me :p

[Griddle]

I'm dysthymic, but stopped taking meds for it about 7 years ago. Instead, I tend to self-medicate with alcohol and occasionally tobacco. Is that interesting?
Is it tobacco, or "tobacco"? That will help us gauge the interest factor a bit better.

To contribute:
I'm potentially bi-polar, or manic'y, but I just don't care, seriously. Also, since I stopped drinking heavily, I can't sleep for shit. I tried Tylenol PM, Melatonin, and some non-addictive sleeping pills, and nothing works. My girlfriend and I had bad insomnia the other night and spent most of our night watching an Ace Of Cakes marathon. I JUST GODDAMN WANT TO SLEEP!!!

[Siren]

What's the difference between Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? I have the latter and have never heard of the former.

Fun fact: When I was 19, my PTSD was mistakenly labeled as ADD because of some overlapping symptoms. Pro tip: when you don't have ADD, taking certain ADD drugs is a bad idea. It does make you fun at clubs and parties, though.

My therapist has told me that PTSS is less severe than PTSD, and is easier to treat and manage.

Then again, I have a feeling my therapist was bullshitting me on that, because everything that I read says that there is no difference.

[Griddle]

In order to save time and effort, all my clothes that do not actually require any folding (underwear, socks, undershirts) are just thrown in a basket next to the dryer that I dig through every day. This seems to work well.

Good thing I'm not married to someone like Leah or fire. I'd probably get stabbed.

Hahahaha, this, I have 2 baskets though, one for socks and underwear, and one near the dryer for pants and shirts. Get up in the morning, get on the socks and underwear, head to the basement to throw pants and a shirt in the dryer for ghetto ironing.

[CLWheeljack]

I organize money in my wallet so they're all facing the same way (otherwise, either somebody's upside down, or it's like George Washington is kissing Abraham Lincoln).

I have a strict hierarchy of attractiveness of numbers. Multiples of 10 > Multiples of 2 > multiples of 5 > primes > everything else. When changing, say, the volume on a TV or stereo, I try to find a balance between the numbers' appearance and the volume I actually want.

I also add up numbers on license plates, etc, but more when I'm bored than compulsively. I play games with them, see if I can add / multiply numbers to get to, say, a multiple of ten, or to match another number that's nearby, something like that.

[Brian Seiler]

Despite the fact that no therapist has diagnosed me with it, pretty much everyone (including my doctor) agrees that I have Aspergers. Also, I totally take some Prozac, but the generic kind. I guess my crazy isn't very interesting.

However, that thing about the bills being all the same facing is just good sense. There's nothing at all wrong with that. There is, however, something wrong with people who don't do that. Very. Very very wrong.

[madkevin]

My mom is bipolar.

I, too, have a crazy Mom with whom I've basically cut off all contact. The last time I saw her was at my wedding ten years ago, which I felt enough guilt to invite her to. She spent the reception going around the room telling everybody that Atlantis was real because she saw something about it on TV.

I have no idea what's actually wrong with her, because there's absolutely no way she'd ever go to a therapist for any reason. But while she's the kind of crazy that makes for entertaining stories (like how she had me exorcised when I was two years old because I wasn't eating, or the time she brought home a grocery bag full of baby food for me and my sister for dinner when we were teenagers because she remembered how much we used to like it when we were kids), it doesn't make for a happy childhood.

[Nathan]

I take Lexapro for anxiety. I was avoiding it for a long time because I was concerned that antidepressants were some kind of "happy pill" that would make me "not me". Then things got pretty bad, so I figured what the hell.

That's not particularly interesting, I just bring it up in case anyone who's reading this has similar concerns: Seriously, go see a doctor about it. The meds work. I still get moody and pissy and cranky about stupid shit, but I don't panic and shut down the way I used to. Get help.

[Dravalen]

I, too, have a crazy Mom with whom I've basically cut off all contact. The last time I saw her was at my wedding ten years ago, which I felt enough guilt to invite her to. She spent the reception going around the room telling everybody that Atlantis was real because she saw something about it on TV.
Add me to the crazy mom group as well. Our wedding is coming up next month and thankfully her brother has offered to watch her during it all.

It's a pretty shitty situation, marriage of 20+ years, house, money all gone because she just not there mentally. She started self diagnosing "hormone" problems around when I was 16. My dad's a real upstanding guy and has tried everything in the book to try and fix things, he's even been paying her bills for the last couple months but chances are he'll never see the money back. She falls for any sort of pyramid scheme, etc. Urgh.

[Lunch of Kong]

That's nothing. I order mine by season and function.

I order mine by ROYGBIV.

[Enidigm]

I have a mother that is undiagnosed borderline personality disorder. Undiagnosed, because when she does go into therapy, it's always everyone else's fault. She combines a sort of reverse Munchausen-by-proxy (she's most stable and helpful when everyone around her is sick and helpless) with a Hitler-in-the-sun anger when anyone questions her about anything that in any way reflects back upon her negatively. If you say "you did this wrong", she retorts "well, you do everything else wrong, twice as much as me! And you never get called on it, no one every attacks YOU for being wrong, omg omg OMG! [head asplode]" For ex., she blames her mental state on being abused as a child - but these are recovered memories in therapy, and no one else in her family agrees with her. When my sister years later confessed to having recollected memories of sexual abuse from school, she hand waved it away "oh, you're just making it up", just like her family did to her.

She also has a very Celtic 'till death do we part attitude toward relationships (i blame some of her craziness on her Scottish ancestry, as all her relatives are nuts). Cross her once, and she hates (hates! hates with teeth grinding and fist clenching hate!) you forever. She laughed at her mothers funeral and danced, almost literally (about four hours later, in the hotel plastered drunk), on her grave.

[madkevin]

TSG, what you are describing sounds awfully familiar to me. Growing up, I just figured this was part of being Italian Catholic, because she's hardly the only crazy one in the family. As an example, I have an aunt whose husband died before I was born. When he died, something in her snapped and since then she has never left the house for any reason. The farthest she'll go is the backyard, but not the front. Nobody in my family thinks this is odd, and I grew up thinking that's just what happens when your spouse dies.

[Griddle]

I order mine by ROYGBIV.
This kind of needs to be presented in a pictorial, I imagine it's cool looking as all hell.

[Brendan]

Ouch, some of you guys have it rough. My mom's mental issues are quite cute. Things like she can't leave one egg, type of vegetable, etc. in the fridge or she thinks it will get lonely and she believes she has a guardian angel. My sister is a bit of a nutcase with no reality filter who will believe any newage mumbo jumbo you spew at her and once backpacked from the Southern tip of India to the Himalayas alone. Her travel stories are completely batshit insane but completely awesome. I'm a bit emotionally all over the place as well. Our family just has a faint background radiation of nuttiness.

[Johan O]

My uncle is a member of a gnostic Rosencreuzian sect. Exactly what he believes appears to be occluded to him, since he is a very inefficient man who have not been able to rise in the sects mysteries.

[Jason McCullough]

I'm not even going to START in the OCD war. Sorting money to be the same facing and descending size? Ha ha ha, maybe that'd be the worst if I was drunk and UNABLE TO MOVE.

[Griddle]

As pointed out, my Girlfriend noticed I tend to place my Remote Controls in Descending order. It just seemed like a good thing to do.

[tiohn]

How come no one else noticed that Johan O won this thread?

[Griddle]

How come no one else noticed that Johan O won this thread?
Why point out the obvious?

[Brendan]

Why point out the obvious?

Some people are just OCD like that...

[Griddle]

Some people are just OCD like that...
Sorry about that, I failed at that joke. :)

[Marged]

I have gotten a number of diagnoses and had been in therapy since I was 16 and have been on fluoxetine, lamictal, seroquel, xanax - you name it. (Seroquel was, without a doubt, the worst drug I have ever taken. I could have slept for days when I was on it. I can conjure up my memory of that time, and all that comes back to me is overwhelming fatigue.) I used to have periods of extreme listlessness, fatigue, exhaustion and suicidal ideation.

And now, I am on nothing and have been for a year now. Getting treated for sleep apnea with a CPAP machine made me feel better than anything I ever tried before did. Calmer, happier, on an even keel. And it made it possible for me to exercise regularly, which has kept my spirits up even in some really trying times. I feel really... normal.

Honestly, I would have a hard time going back to therapy. I flat out refuse to spend an hour each week dissecting the things that upset me in great detail. CBT is an improvement over some types of therapy I've been in, but even then you're still spending a lot of time worrying about your thoughts. And I have to admit, the cost just makes it another stressor. I'm incredibly pleased that congress finally passed the Mental Health Parity Act, but even with insurance, the cost was too much for me.

[sam and the firefly]

Not exactly mental illness, but severe dysfunction nonetheless; my mother's sister is hardcore into whatever the UK wing of the Southern Baptists is. Now, I could give you a list of all the kind-of-hilariously bigoted shit she comes out with every Christmas, but the single best thing I can tell you is the time when her son (my 19 year old cousin) got his girlfriend knocked up and maintained it was an immaculate conception, before finally coming clean in his shotgun wedding speech. The look on her face, man.

[JM]

I had severe depression for about 7 years - from 15 -> 22 - which was finally 'solved' by a fairly short period of therapy along with Prozac.

It's funny, Prozac has a hell of a reputation and people like to take the piss as a result. However it's really really easy for me to describe how it works and why it was so useful.

Depression, to me, meant a predisposition to dark, harmful thoughts and an inability to stop the vicious spiral of misery that these thoughts led to. I could be sitting on the train and thinking of something inoffensive, and be reminded of whatever 'trigger', and within 5 minutes I'd be miserable, within 10 I'd be suicidal, and often by the time I got home I'd be in tears. It's not logical and there's not all that much you can do on your own to combat it when it's that bad; my brain refused to stop the spiral and I was forced to just go through it until I was emotionally exhausted.

Prozac simply gave me a level base of emotion. I'd still get miserable, but I wouldn't slide any further. I had more control over my emotion and as such could then do the things I needed to do in order to make myself feel better. It was a life saver; I don't think I could've survived many more years of what I was going through, even though the reasons for my depression were pretty tame in comparison to the harrowing events that some people have gone through.

As a result of my illness I have tended to gravitate to like-minded people, especially when it comes to the opposite sex. Not deliberately, I might add - I've often become friends with someone and had no inkling that there was anything wrong until they told me. I have a friend who was molested by an uncle when she was a child, and was ripped apart by the defence attorney in court. She suffers from severe PTSD, to the point where we're virtually not friends any more as it's very very difficult to relate to her.

Another friend is someone I met and fell in love with while in the worst of my depression. She has been diagnosed as bipolar with probable borderline personality disorder. Bipolar is bad enough but manageable; BPD is very very difficult and it can be hard to know her sometimes. On her good days she's amazing; on her bad days I want to be a million miles away from her. Sadly she's the other side of the country these days so I don't get much choice either way! I have a framed picture she drew when she was going through one of her manic phases (she gets very creative in those), and in her room is a huge picture she drew of herself when she was a teenager in another manic phase. Amazing talent but struggles to live with herself every day. She also developed epilepsy a few years back which is happily under control right now but was absolutely awful when it first hit her.

So, yeah. I'm fun to know, it seems.

[Robert Sharp]

the time when her son (my 19 year old cousin) got his girlfriend knocked up and maintained it was an immaculate conception, before finally coming clean in his shotgun wedding speech. The look on her face, man.

Wait, you mean she believed it was immaculate until that moment!? That IS nuts.

I don't have anything like this in my family, except the usual sort of prejudices and such that a lot of very average people have. My wife has a lot of great stories, but I don't feel I have the right to talk about all of them, even though the stabbings and such were committed by people who are now deceased (no, I'm not kidding).

[JZigish]

I'm on prozac for depression and anxiety, which as per the rest of the thread isn't that exciting. After being on it since middle school I decided to take a year break from it during college, which was an absolutely horrible idea. At least I now know what it actually does to my brain.

My exciting ailment is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_processing_disorder (or Sensory Integration disorder, or like 6 other poorly defined names. Medical community is slowly realizing it's an actual issue). I find itchiness significantly worse than pain (and of course most things itch uncomfortably), attempting to understand conversations in loud rooms is impossible, and strong emotions of any sort cause me to go into a panic attack. Symptoms are alleviated by joint compression or "brushing" (http://www.pbbkids.com/the_wilbarger_brushing_protocol.htm) my skin in a certain way. It's linked to autism but I don't really have any of the other autism symptoms.

[Adam Altmann]

I order mine by ROYGBIV.

I did that for a while. It was too much of a struggle for me when I got to the prints, so I abandoned the idea. I'd just stand there dicking with the order, then do the same thing the next day.

Sometimes I go on a cleaning rampage where I basically take the entire place apart, clean it, and put it back together. I'll be awake until two AM reorganizing closets or deciding what items I need to throw out because I haven't used them in X period of time. ...and God I cannot deal with clutter. When I go into someone's house and there are knicknacks everywhere (like practically every home in the Midwest), it sends me into Omega Level Seven Super Ultra Tension.

My family (and my few close friends growing up) were/is extremely laid-back, always supportive, and very good at conflict resolution. This background leaves me at a distinct disadvantage in relationships because I lack the tools necessary to deal with...certain types of behavior, or general batshit insanery. For example, my ex-wife (and her family) will say shit when they're upset that, to me, is quite honestly some of the most horrible shit imaginable. Things I wouldn't say to anyone, ever. I once read an email from her sister to her that if I had been on the receiving end of, I would not have spoken to the sister for years. My ex wife pretty much just shrugged it off. I wasn't able to differentiate between her meaning what she said, and her just being an asshole. I still can't do it very well.

What's really fun, is that...well, when I get excited, or feel like I'm not getting my point across I tend to talk louder, like I can just force the ideas into your head. My girlfriend now...her father (not a bad guy) has a bit of a temper problem, and so she goes into Fight or Flight mode if my voice raises above normal. So we'll be bickering over something stupid, and my voice will raise a level or something, and the next thing I know the gloves are off. My response is generally something like "What the hell just happened?!" while she starts yelling or bawling or both. One time I started giggling, because, you know, ridiculous...and I got "SO YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY?!" Which just made me giggle more, and...yeah...that was awesome.

She's also got some strange form of OCD where she can't differentiate levels of importance. Like, we've gotta leave the house to make our movie time or dinner reservation or whatever, and then she'll decide she needs to balance her checkbook right then, or get the dog more food, or whatever.

And lastly, she's got a picking problem which is actually starting to worry me. She'll spend half an hour picking at the tiniest blemishes on her face, or will pick the shit out of the little bumps on the back of her arms so bad they'll be completely covered in scabs. Recently she's started chewing her lip and picking at her fingernails.

Alright, I should probably stop. Sorry.

[Dean]

I'm amazed that I'm hanging out with all these crazy people.

[Rimbo]

Well, it kinda makes sense; having a large portion of your social life being on a message board -- as opposed to in person -- is kinda therapeutic for a lot of people who have issues. Let's face it; if you're spending any significant amount of time here as opposed to face-to-face social situations... there's probably some issue there.

*glances at post count*

Egads, I'm fucked.

[JZigish]

Well, it kinda makes sense; having a large portion of your social life being on a message board -- as opposed to in person -- is kinda therapeutic for a lot of people who have issues. Let's face it; if you're spending any significant amount of time here as opposed to face-to-face social situations... there's probably some issue there.

Meh, I don't think that's fair on special interest message boards. Most people don't have a large group of people readily available with which they can discuss strategy games/whatever the hell QT3 is about.

[JM]

Well, it kinda makes sense; having a large portion of your social life being on a message board -- as opposed to in person -- is kinda therapeutic for a lot of people who have issues. Let's face it; if you're spending any significant amount of time here as opposed to face-to-face social situations... there's probably some issue there.

*glances at post count*

Egads, I'm fucked.

Fuck that, I'm great in (most) social situations. I just post a lot on subjects that interest me, and I love an argument.

[Rimbo]

Meh, I don't think that's fair on special interest message boards. Most people don't have a large group of people readily available with which they can discuss strategy games/whatever the hell QT3 is about.


Fuck that, I'm great in (most) social situations. I just post a lot on subjects that interest me, and I love an argument.

That's just fine for you two, who're posting only a couple of posts per day on average...

[Hanacker]

She has to arrange all the shirts in the closet so they face the same way, and they must all be right side out. She also prefers greatly to have them ordered by season.

Yeah, I'm gonna agree with people here that that just sounds like being organized. I think it would be crazier not to have all your shirts facing the same way.

[Omniscia]

Well, it kinda makes sense; having a large portion of your social life being on a message board -- as opposed to in person -- is kinda therapeutic for a lot of people who have issues. Let's face it; if you're spending any significant amount of time here as opposed to face-to-face social situations... there's probably some issue there.

*glances at post count*

Egads, I'm fucked.

Considering you're only, oh, three posts or so away from going supernova, yeah, I'd say so...

[kerzain]

Yea Rimbo, I have no idea where you get all this time to shop for dresses and make up.

[JM]

That's just fine for you two, who're posting only a couple of posts per day on average...

I have another forum where I racked up a silly amount of posts in a short time, purely because it was a pretty argumentative place and based on a topic I enjoyed.

[Kalle]

I'm not even going to START in the OCD war. Sorting money to be the same facing and descending size? Ha ha ha, maybe that'd be the worst if I was drunk and UNABLE TO MOVE.

If you were drunk and all your limbs were broken, you'd still find a way to post on Qt3? :)

[Ephraim]

I'm amazed by the amount of honesty in this thread. You guys are sharing details of disorders that would have been too taboo to mention in public even just a few decades ago.

I know almost everyone here is feeling protected by their anonymity, but I'm still glad that the stigma of mental illness seems to be on the wane. At least amongst reasonably intelligent, message board posters with an interest in computer and video games!

All I can add to the conversation here is that the research into effective forms of treatment for most major mental illnesses is getting better everyday. From the investigatory techniques, to the interdisciplinary cooperation (e.g., psychiatry and psychology), real progress is being made. So if you or your family members are not being made better today, then hold out hope that there's a brighter future coming.

[Acid]

I care less about being anonymous that lifting that very stigma. I'm Joel Durham Jr, formerly of ExtremeTech, formerly of Gamecenter, formerly of PC Gamer. I'm bipolar and I don't care who knows.

If it somehow causes a market to refuse to use me as a freelancer, it's their loss. I don't consider being bipolar any worse than having arthritis. The stigma is in other people's minds; I've outgrown it.

[Tyjenks]

Dad, Mom, Sister all on ant-depressants. I held out until I had been married 5 years and was about to have a child (9 years ago) as I did not want to be on something either. PLus, I thought I could get over it through sheer force of will. For me, it is an ongoing battle like alcoholism, but I am much better as a result of treatment.. The whole family has parent issues, which is a cycle that has to be changed. My Mom and Dad did not attempt to break it so my sister and I were kinda screwed up. Parents divorced at 5 by the time we were in high school, 1 suicide attempt by Mom and then a second 10 years later. She is good now, but not healed from her depression.

I have a fuck-ton of issues and background and stories, but that is best saved for my memoir.

I disagree that THE CRAZY leads to some sort of social interaction issues and more message boarding. I have friends and co-workers who enjoy being around me and I them. I am relatively "popular" whatever that means. I interact with different clients on a daily basis and my boss tells me the clients like me and I am good with them. There are a million message boards, but I stick to this one only because the level of discourse is (on the average) better than most. The broad range of interests among us all is always informative and entertaining. Also, I get depressed and need meds.

[Siren]

And lastly, she's got a picking problem which is actually starting to worry me. She'll spend half an hour picking at the tiniest blemishes on her face, or will pick the shit out of the little bumps on the back of her arms so bad they'll be completely covered in scabs. Recently she's started chewing her lip and picking at her fingernails.

I feel bad for LOL-ing when I got to this part. I do that too, and have in one form or another for years.

There was actually a point in time that I had no upper eyelashes because I had plucked them all. Pretty much any hair on my body was a candidate for this... I actually plucked all the hair on my legs once.

I have always done the blemish thing, and I can recall a period in my adolescence when I would actually wish that my face wasn't clear, just so that I would have something to pick at.

The current craziness in this form: The skin on the sides of the nails on my thumbs is always torn to shreds.

Adam, she's probably just gotten to the point where she's comfortable enough with you to do it around you. It took me awhile to get to that point in my current relationship.

When you're in a relationship, you've gotta let out the crazy in tiny bits, like relieving the pressure of a soda bottle that has been shaken up, otherwise you explode, and people will run from you.

[Austin Arlitt]

I'm not even going to START in the OCD war. Sorting money to be the same facing and descending size? Ha ha ha, maybe that'd be the worst if I was drunk and UNABLE TO MOVE.

I consider myself 'fully recovered' (whatever that means--my brain still functions the same way) from OCD, and I'd never even consider avoiding the careful arrangement of money in my wallet. I don't even have a wallet system. There's one stack that goes inside one pocket, a backup $20 bill in another pocket, and a folded stack of food cash that sits between my wallet & my leg in my pocket. (for faster access...) Each has its own ordering of bill sizes.

I'd love the day (I say this, but I'd probably hate it--on principle I must love it, however) when I could rest easily with the volume level not set to a multiple of 5 or 2. I like numbers ending in 8 too. The rest can rot. They used to throw me into slight & involuntary physical fits. I'd like to be kidding.


She's also got some strange form of OCD where she can't differentiate levels of importance. Like, we've gotta leave the house to make our movie time or dinner reservation or whatever, and then she'll decide she needs to balance her checkbook right then, or get the dog more food, or whatever.

Bear in mind that everything in OCD is an irrationally over-prioritized mental process. You can't appeal to reason because it's irrational, and you can't often achieve success through submersion because of how deepseated these things are.

What you can do is slowly add in goals for healthier obsessions. Essentially the compulsion becomes the denial of smaller compulsions. After you've scaled back to what is essentially normal behavior, you've eliminated the disorderly part of OCD, and we obsessive-compulsive types will be in no hurry to break out of our new routine. Or at least conditioning is what worked for me. I've never heard a serious story of anything else working without medicine of some kind. But basically the trick is to use your obsessive tendencies to your own advantage. Having someone you love keeping an eye on your progress helps. It gives you stronger motivation, which helps to overpower individual compulsions. Of course, you have to want to be constructive about it to make it that far in the first place. I can't imagine being legitimately happy with the condition though.

EDIT: That's exactly what I'm talking about, Aaron. If the central compulsion becomes not to let yourself cave in on any of the smaller compulsions (and it's definitely a slow, gradual scaling back of them) then you can condition yourself into a better state of mind.

[AaronSofaer]

I have a few friends who have triumphed over their OCD by turning it on itself... is that what you're talking about? Turning compulsions to do things into a compulsion to not do irrational little things like changing the volume to a multiple of 5, or a compulsion to not consciously watch the steps you take on a sidewalk...

Of course, these friends are totally crazy in other, more awesome ways, but I'll leave that be.

[Supertanker]

Trying to help eliminate the stigma and letting people freely talk about these disorders is why my wife and I agreed to take the family story public.

When the story ran on our local channel, it stayed in their Most Viewed/Most E-mailed for several days, even through breaking news like new brushfires. It was enough that they reran the story on last night's newscast. Here's the link again for completeness sake: http://www.myfoxla.com/dpp/health/Childhood_Mental_Illness_20090921

They use our name a lot in there, so there goes anonymity, but we've always been open about it with family, friends, and coworkers. We're a stereotypical suburban family aside from the disorders, so the media producers all tell us we make a good story.

We also shot a Dr. Phil six or seven weeks ago, but it has not aired yet. We found out they are grumpy that the local channel scooped them a bit, despite the fact they knew we were working with several outlets. So, there's a chance they may not air it or won't do any follow-up episodes as they planned. We're not making any money from any of this, we're out to raise awareness, so we're mad at them for dragging their feet on the story. But, I'm pretty sure all will be forgiven if the reaction is similarly positive.

[crazy jane]

I have schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type. It means I have schizophrenia and bipolar disorder at the same time. Soooo much fun. Hearing voices, paranoia, command hallucinations, delusions, psychotic breaks, ultra-ultra-rapid cycling mood swings... I was hospitalized once for mania. I probably should have been in at least a few other times, but back when I was really sick I smoked two packs or more a day and refused to go to the Crisis Stabilization Unit because they wouldn't let me smoke there.

(Digression: WTF is wrong with places like that who won't let patients smoke? Being bugfuck crazy is bad enough without adding nicotine withdrawal to the mix. Also, schizophrenics actually benefit from cigarette smoking. [Not the lungs, of course, but the mental state.] Grrrr.)

Anyway, I lost most of my twenties to The Crazy. I'm on disability for it, although I'm well enough at this point that Vocational Rehab is sending me back to college. (Still... I miss even one dose of my meds and I start getting freaky again.)

I've been in therapy on and off for a decade, mostly to help manage the symptoms. Cognitive behavorial therapy rocks. I highly recommend it for people who a) like treating their brain as an intellectual puzzle to be solved, and b) hate feeling like they're whining about how their week has been. I like therapy to be productive. Right now, though, I'm seeing a gestalt therapist about some other issues. Gestalt therapy is neat, too.

Acid is right: it's just a fucking disease. I had a half-page essay printed in the local newspaper about how it's possible to have a severe mental illness and still have a life, and I put my name on it. I started a support group here in town a few years back. I worked as a peer counselor for a mental health organization for a while. Activism is wonderful.

So my crazy is a bit interesting. Unfortunately. I'd rather be boring... :)

[shift6]

I have a few friends who have triumphed over their OCD by turning it on itself... is that what you're talking about? Turning compulsions to do things into a compulsion to not do irrational little things like changing the volume to a multiple of 5, or a compulsion to not consciously watch the steps you take on a sidewalk...
This is my strategy also.

[Omniscia]

I have a few friends who have triumphed over their OCD by turning it on itself... is that what you're talking about? Turning compulsions to do things into a compulsion to not do irrational little things like changing the volume to a multiple of 5, or a compulsion to not consciously watch the steps you take on a sidewalk...

Of course, these friends are totally crazy in other, more awesome ways, but I'll leave that be.

Who the hell changes the volume to a multiple of 5, anyway?

I always make sure it's divisible by 4.

[Pogue Mahone]

Who the hell changes the volume to a multiple of 5, anyway?

I do! But sometimes I switch it slightly to a prime number just to screw with myself and find out how much it gets under my skin. Turns out not too terribly much, maybe I'm only slightly compulsive.

Reminds me of the passage in Goedel, Escher, Bach that refers to the concept of the tonic in a classical music piece. It seems that our mind doesn't recognize a musical expression as complete until the song returns to the key that it began with, and we're not completely comfortable in a way until this happens (though I'm probably mangling the idea).

That's me with numbers. The volume doesn't seem complete, almost like it's a circuit with a short somewhere (in my brain probably, ha ha) that prevents its completion until it's a multiple of 5. I can switch it off in my head, basically say to myself, 'That's silly' and disregard it. But not my gamerscore. I don't know how you guys with a gamerscore that isn't a multiple of 5 can bear it, I think that would eat at me constantly.

[Austin Arlitt]

That may have a lot to do with the fact that the perfect 4th, 5th, and octaves are in 3:2, 4:3, and 2:1 ratios respectively from the tonic of the scale. The Pythagoreans had a lot of fun with that, and the mind loving patterns of ratios (which is all numbers were to the Greeks anyway) the way it does probably leads it to want a 1:1 or 2:1 closure in the same way it prefers notes to be on pitch. Being out of tune just doesn't align, and ending in a weird ratio (especially a 7th, which is so close to the 2:1 ratio of the 8th) just drives it up the wall in a very understated way. It's like how slight asymmetry throws off aesthetic appreciation.

Speaking of symmetry, to break it is something of a cardinal sin within the obsessive-compulsive framework of mind. Hence the 5s.

I like the multiples of 10 for volume levels. They're nice round numbers. To split them while maintaining symmetry requires that I use 5s as the divisor. Hence, multiples of 5 are the core of my approved volume levels.

Now I like powers of 2, which certainly covers some of your multiples of 4; and 8 is my favorite number because of its vertical and horizontal symmetry when drawn properly. (Why not 0? Because 8 is also a power of 2) So the approved list also extends to numbers ending with the digit 8, or 2 (because I prefer it to 3, and occasionally need to split between 10 & 15 or the like), as well as the powers of 2. Sometimes on a day when I'm feeling adventurous, I'll throw in square numbers, so 36 will supercede 35.

Of course, the rules certainly don't end with the numbers themselves. There are rituals to be observed with all of the physical components of the system. Every volume input must end by going down twice in volume. For example, to set volume at 30, you must descend from 32. The remote controls are to be aligned in certain (and different) ways according to each other & the situation at hand, which does indeed differ by which hand is handling them, or which table they are resting upon...

I'd go on, but I think I've already rambled for far too long. Just imagine about five rule systems like that becoming relevant to your life every other minute of every waking hour for years on end. Most have more serious implications, including some of the self-destructive sort. I could easily fill an entire page of this topic if I carried on just about the silly TV rituals. And of course, every single habit, little or small, becomes the most important thing in the world for the (generally extended) period of time it occupies the mind.

I do hope I've sufficiently answered the multiples of 5 question.

[Omniscia]

I do hope I've sufficiently answered the multiples of 5 question.

Certainly, you have. But the question wasn't intended as such; 't'was merely a means for me to express that I understand, though my preferred multiple may differ.

I, too, like the number 8 most of all (8 being 4 sets of 2).

It wasn't always like that, though. As a matter of fact, I can remember the exact moment I was first *really* concerned about a particular number. It was just after I turned 12. My folks held a garage sale, and I went to put a book on a table for sale, and I found that I couldn't leave the table until I had taken the book off and placed it back on an even number of times (4, I believe). It was quite disconcerting.

But it isn't like that very often any longer. These days, any such tendencies usually only manifest when I'm under a great deal of stress. And even then, never in public.