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[tfpo]

Hey dudes.

Ever since I was 5 or 6, I've had little rituals. I tap the tips of my fingers, alternating left and right hands, always ending on tap 5, 10, 25, 50, or 100. I always start on the left if it ends in zero, and on the right if it's going to end in 5. I ALWAYS end on the right. I wink from left to right, the same way, ending on 5, 10, 25, 50, or 100, starting on the left if 0, on the right if 5. I tap my toes, waggle my eyebrows, lift my shoulders, flex my jaw, open my mouth, all the same way. Always a number divisible by 5. Always ending on the right. Somewhere along the line, I developed facial twitches, all on my right side, and the little rituals are becoming a bigger and bigger part of my life. I'm 17 now, and I've tried forcing myself to abstain from them, forcing myself to end on even numbers that don't end in 0, or my left side, and at some point, I always end up going back to my bad habits. As much as I want to stop it, I just can't. I've all but given up entirely, and I'm curious to see whether any of you have seen or experienced this particular fixation, and to see if any of you could give me a forecast on what I should expect in the future, if I can't nip this in the bud. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[YankeeBob]

Rituals that are escalating

Hi. Thanks for your post.

One of the definitions of an addiction is that they have following characteristics:
* They take place in secret,
* These escalate as the years go by, and
* We can not stop them by ourselves.

This third point is sometimes expressed as being "powerless" to stop.

There are forums, self help groups for people with such issues as your own; I have found mine.

One of the issues for you might be that you suffer from what I call a "busy mind syndromn".

Would you like to discuss this more ?

 

[tfpo]

Would you like to discuss this more ?

Totally.

EDIT: The more I lurk the forums, the more obsessive tendencies I find in myself. I used to pass all of these off as little mind tricks I'd play on myself, but more and more, I'm realizing that I have problems other than rituals. Here's a new laundry list of things I've found about myself. I constantly tell myself that I'm betting my life on my ability to fulfill a certain set of conditions in a set amount of time. Example: Every night on my way to bed, before shutting off my computer, I go to my bathroom, turn on the light, then come back into the den, shut off the T.V., lights, lock all the doors in the house, shut off all the other lights, then I start shutting down my computer, and I always tell myself that I'm going to drop dead if the computer shuts off before I can get into my bathroom. I'm not scared of the dark, but I constantly find myself getting paranoid about shadows. I take out my left contact then my right, never the other way around. I never let my feet touch the floor when I turn off my bedroom light, even though the stretch to turn it off from my bed is a big effort. At night, I always keep all of my pillows ON the bed, not on the floor, even though it's covered in useless throw pillows that only serve to make me uncomfortable. Every night, I set my alarm to 4:20 a.m., then I wake up at that time, shut off the alarm, and set it for 7:47 a.m., and go back to sleep.

Sorry for the WALL OF TEXT, but it does feel pretty good to rectify all of this for myself.

 

[YankeeBob]

List of Rituals we Have in Our Life

Thanks for your list.

If you were to rank each of these in terms of IMPORTANCE to change ...because you ( let's say ) want your life back free from these patterns...using a scale of 1 to 100 ( so 100 is maximum score of changing ):

How would you rank each of these rituals in terms of which you want to be free of ?

Of course you don't have to ....its just that I am throwing this out there for your consideration.

By the way did any of my other comments make any sense for you ?

Take care. Be well.

 

[tfpo]

Sorry for the long absence, re-playing Morrowind, addicting.

How would you rank each of these rituals in terms of which you want to be free of ?

The only one of these that really absorbs and bothers me is CONSTANTLY doing everything in patterns of five. Everything else I do just seems to be on auto-pilot, but I've tried so many times to resist this ONE thing, that I'm aware I'm doing it.

By the way did any of my other comments make any sense for you ?

Yeah, I've gotcha.