This is something I've wondered about, as I've had both OCD and 'ticks' (Turrettes Syndrome is, I think, just a really bad case of those 'ticks'/'quirks'). There is definitely a difference between OCD and ticks.
ticks/turrettes:
Not that personal experience matters, but I'll briefly explain mine. When I was little, 7-12 years old or so, I had both OCD and ticks very badly. Sometimes, I'd get what you describe, symmetry being a common one. If I felt like there was more stuff cluttered in one side of my vision, I'd have to turn in such a way that I felt like a lot of stuff was cluttered on the other side too, for the same amount of time. I had a squinting problem, and an exhaling/inhaling problem too. A bad one was the urge to bend my arms or legs. Another common one was the need for even numbers. If I looked out the window and saw cars driving by, I'd need to see an even number of cars drive by before I can stop looking. This feeling is what 'ticks' are. It's impossible to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it. The feeling of needing to do whatever can almost be compared to an itch, or to that nails-on-chalkboard feeling, but isn't like either of those. Trying to explain it is to explain that nails-on-chalkboard feeling to someone who has never experienced it.
OCD:
I also used to get a much more consciously controlled feeling. This seemed to result from anxiety, while the other seemed more physically caused by some brain malfunction. An example of OCD is this. I'm lying in my bed when I think, I need to touch the ceiling on the other side of the room or my dog is going to die. I'm really tired so I don't feel like doing it, but the worry that somehow, my dog really will die, is so intense I need to do it. Usually I imagined it was God or some force of the universe that would really make it happen if I didn't do the required action.
Neither:
There are also 'obsessive' habits that develop which I don't think fit into either category, and these are so consciously controlled I don't think they deserve a name of their own, because they're more a choice than a condition. For example, I wash my hands a lot. That is just because the thought of my hands being dirty genuinely bothers me. Another is my choice to skip every top stair and every second-to-last bottom stair, which I did for a couple years and have now stopped doing. That was a choice. I didn't feel like I needed to do it, I just chose to start doing it, I'm not sure why. Maybe I just wanted to have some interesting unique quirk.
I'm one of those people for whom both issues mostly disappeared with age, luckily. I still get them both occasionally. It tends to happen when I think about it, or when I'm overly anxious. Right now, because I've been talking about it, I've been getting a 'tick' concerning the blinking cursor, needing to see it blink an even number of times and then look away. When I was talking about the need to bend my arms, I started getting the feeling again which I've rarely gotten in years. I'll still get OCD sometimes when I start worrying a lot about something.
If you're in the age range of 18-24 and not overweight and don't have a hairy chest I'd welcome a picture of you with your shirt off. That goes for any other males who fit that description. If not, I'll settle with a 'like'.
(I'll just say it even though it ruins it, just in case someone takes it seriously: I'm joking.)
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