To ask what your weird secret behaviour is?

[GunpowderGelatine]

You know, the kind of behaviour only you know about which is unusual, and would make people go but you love doing?

For example, I binge on three different Netflix programmes at any one time in what I call a "3-2-1" sequence, which goes like this:

• I will watch a long series (currently Peep Show) 3 episodes at a time
• then I will watch 2 episodes of a shorter series (Santa Clarita Diet at the mo)
• I'll then watch one episode of a weekly-type series after that (Jane the Virgin season 5 at the moment)
• Then it starts with the 3 episodes again, and so on and so forth

I can't deviate from the 3-2-1 sequence, and if for example I've finished the Santa Clarita Diet episodes but the next episode of Jane the Virgin isn't on until 2 day's time, I'll wait to watch anything more until then. I can't just skip it and watch the next 3 Peep Shows, or the world will probably end or something

I don't know why I do this or when it started, but it works for me

Please make me feel normal and tell me your secret weird behaviour

Started reading this and thought about how you lot are crazy. Then i started to wish I had an imagination like yours! I wish! 😍.

Naked because it's healthier for me to be Lord Thigh of Thighland than Debra Winger the rogue FBI agent. I went back home but no one is there.

OMG this thread is Amazing! I do the daydreaming thing too, I have 3 different imaginary lives (atm I am Wimbledon champion who has become a politician who is going to get Brexit cancelled, the other 2 lives have taken a backseat because this one is so busy!) I have never told anyone about it irl, even DH has no idea. I had no clue anyone else did it too. It feels great to share it on here. Thank you so much OP.

Omg just reading about Maladaptive daydreaming- this is me too, I didn’t realise it had a name and was a thing. I do it to music too. I put on headphones and dance.

I think lots of us like rituals!

one of mine is constantly changing my clothes when I'm at home I have different sets of clothes for different activities and I don't feel right if I wear the wrong thing

I have a lot of problems with clothes generally, many items just make me feel extremely anxious and I can't really explain why or predict what will and won't make it happen

I've found my people.

I love these kinds of threads. They make me feel less mental knowing there are others like me.

SandraDea you are my hero

The imaginary life thing is fairly common I believe. I have several different ones: one consistent one from quite a young age. Sometimes the details vary but the basic thread is the same. Then a few other ongoing imaginary lives that I dip in and out of.

I also count loads of things- now many steps as I walk across rooms (at home as well as in unfamiliar places.) sometimes I give myself targets - got to get to the kitchen in between 12 and 16 steps etc
I count pictures on the wall when going to new places, plug sockets too

I also have a completely nonsensical phrase that i say out loud when I’m checking the lights are off and locking up at night

Oh and I practise curtsying regularly just in case I ever need to do it.

We’re all pretty weird aren’t we?

BurnerPhone
I often think that other people can see me/hear my thoughts even though I know they can't.

A while ago I thought my cat could hear my thoughts....

I also feel weird in church for this reason. I know God can hear your thoughts anyway, but it's like it's amplified in church. I always get scarred I'll have inappropriate thoughts!

I love that we are all a bit wierd. In the morning I Iove nothing more than lying in bed staring out the window letting thoughts bob along. I have to be careful or I can waste an hour. I have eaten porridge oats for breakfast every day for about seven years. I have them cold with milk and yoghurt. I once trained myself into having cold showers by gradually turning the temperature down. I watch marriage proposal flash mobs on you tube . I also look up the histories of random famous people on Wikipedia, often celebs. I also watch trashy documentaries but never talk to anyone about them.

I can't get into an activity without narrative in my head, right let's do X, I'm just going to do Y. I play out conversations in my head a lot. I have played out mine and other people's funerals. I could spend three hours looking up duvet covers and not buy one. My obsession for about six years has been personality theory, every single person I meet I figure out their type. I have about 20 lists on Amazon of books (which I will never be able to read all of).

I quite like tidying cupboards - I am aware I need to to get out more. I also like trying on outfits periodically under the guise of culling my wardrobe. I've kept every single keepsake ticket stub since I was 15. I've kept diaries since I was 11. I (regretfully) chucked them out when I was 25 but started again when I was 30.

I have this wierd habit of tapping my forefingers against my thumb when I walk round supermarkets.

The voice in my head has to say "Now" every time I get to the exact middle of every 2 lampposts on the motorway. If I'm going fast it is a constant monologue of "Now.. now.. Now..."
I have to sit on my left hand while I drive and I fall asleep with both hands under my arse. Once I'm asleep they go crossed over my head and I sleep holding the opposite elbows.
I can't take a bite of something, I can cut it and put it in my mouth with a fork, or tear a piece off, but I can't for example eat a whole Apple, I have to have it cut up, or I break little bits off toast or sandwiches.

Oh I love all of you nutters! I'm glad I'm not alone. I'm a chronic daydreamer! I should try writing them down. I often find myself humming the tune to Bullseye - I've done this for decades! Also when someone says something that could be saucy (or 'hard','stick it in' etc) I always pretend I'm in a Carry On film. Christ I'm loopy!

I imagine I'm famous and being interviewed for a teen magazine. They ask me questions like; 'who was your first true love... who was your first kiss' etc. I answer meaningfully

I also imagine terrible scenarios in my head; if I crashed the car; lost a leg; what would I do if one of my children died... I imagine staying in bed for weeks and weeping.

I also make like small squares with my body when I'm in bed or driving or sitting, it's goes like...across, down, across, up.

I love this thread!!

Wow. You're all nuts.

I do the daydreaming thing too - ever since I was a child. I adapt books, tv shows and films and insert myself into the story as a character.

I also like to imagine people I know or knew in the past can "see though my eyes" at times and are watching my life as I live it.
Just boring stuff really, like making a cuppa or sitting in the garden. Oddly they can never see anything when I'm in the loo or shower.

Actually, quite a few posts on here struck a chord with me. Have had the theme from Gremlins as an earworm for 20 + years now. It's awful.

When I’m alone I pretend I am being filmed for a documentary about how shit my life is sometimes- there are 2 imaginary camera men called Phil and ken and Mary is the interviewer

I do this only I pretend I’m on This Morning being interviewed about my life (which is obviously very glamorous in this fantasy land!). I get quite into it. “You see Philip, it all began when I was at university...”

Ooh, I also do the imagining my last moments on Crimewatch thing like a PP said. I’ll be on the train, say, and I’ll see the CCTV and imagine the footage being released to the public. Or I’ll wonder how far I could get before the CCTV images in town lost me. And sometimes I go through my Facebook photos and try to work out which ones the press would use if I disappeared/ died in a very public way. That makes me sound a bonkers doesn’t it

My grandma had a cute quirk of narrating her car journeys. So she’d say “I’m just driving over the hill... there’s a speed bump here... ooh there’s a lady and a dog waiting to cross the road... I’m now driving past a white van”

This thread makes me feel very normal!

When I couldn’t speak to anyone I imagined what I would say to a counsellor and found it worked just as well as actually speaking to one would!

I don’t really have any weird awake habits but I sleep badly so put things like YouTube or audiobooks on to fill in the gaps when I’m trying to sleep. I often find I fall into them in a dream though, I occasionally chose material just for this (faraway tree and Clare baldings walking book) but often don’t and end up living life as the character or YouTubed. It’s great sometimes but I murdered someone when I had Santa Clarita diet on the other night! I often wake up and have (real) conversations with family or WhatsApp/fb friends. When I wake up fully I have no memory of this and check my messages for what we have said and I sometimes struggle to identify what was dream and what’s reality. I don’t have mental health problems, my issues with reality/in my head are all sleep related (probably made worse by medication)

Pissofpeppa, I saw a lady had died. I hate the term normal but it sounded like she lived a very normal life. Yet a journalist pulled a photo from her Facebook of her in fancy dress (a cheap batman one, not looking her best although not awful) and used it as the photo to represent her. I was genuinely sad for her to be represented that way, she probably had lots of beautiful photos of her which represented her life

@managedmis

I think you have just described my entire approach to adult life especially in friendships which are THE MOST CONFUSING thing on earth. "how would an adult woman friend respond to this adult woman friend?"

Only DH gets to see my true weirdness. Sometimes I feel sad for him that he doesn't get the "how would a wife respond to a husband?" treatment, instead he gets unscripted ME! Poor bugger.

I would love to see everyone on here (who doesn’t have OCD) are a psychologist and see what they make of all these habits and weird things we all do that are weird but normal! I bet many would have a field day diagnosing these behaviours!

Preggo- I think it’s lovely your husband gets the unfiltered you. That’s how it should be :)

When I take my glasses off for bed, I put them on the bedside table and have to have them facing away from me because it creeps me out when they're looking at me. No clue why!

I have to read everything when I’m out and about. Every road sign, street sign, shop name, notices in windows. Even when I pass them every day and know exactly what it says, I have to read it.
I also have the strange compulsions that I never act on. Are they called intrusive thoughts? Ones like I wonder what will happen if I put the handbrake on now while driving at speed on the motorway. And feeling urges to jump off bridges when I cross them or drop keys down drains.

I suspect I’ve always been a bit weird

I'm a bit scared of swallowing so when I drink I have to swill it round my mouth for ages first.

I also have an imaginary family that I'm the mum of, but I enact them all in my head. I made them up when I was 9 but they have never got any older although I have. No one knows about this.

Also if I'm out running and pass some writing, the words will march around my head.

Sometimes I'll realise I've spent the past mile internally chanting "house to let" (for example) for no reason.

Ok: so what is all this? Is there an actual term for it? OCD? Just eccentric? What?