What is wrong with me?! Do I have OCD?

[Skye909]

As well as anxiety, I fear I may have OCD.

I cannot stop counting letters within words. It’s almost every word I see or here. I do it so quickly now.

But, even worse, I imagine mentally typing the words out on a keyboard. And I group together all the letters I type with my left hand, and then those with my right. For example, the word “pineapple” would be ‘aea’ on my left, then ‘pinppl’ on my right. I try to work these out in my head.

it sounds stupid but it’s becoming debilitating and exhausting and I don’t know how to stop???

It appears to be some sort of OCD. Has anything recently happened in your life? Any tragic turn of events? Anything out the ordinary?

Yes, that's OCD. It will be connected with an underlying anxiety, i.e. you are doing the actions for a reason. That reason may be specific, or it may be that you're trying to ward off a general feeling of fear/unease. Either way, it is treatable.

I do something similar when I'm anxious. I write out words in the air in shorthand (I'm THAT old that I learned shorthand on a secretarial course!)

We all have things we do when anxious, whether it's tapping your fingers or your foot, it's only if it becomes something you can't regulate that it becomes a problem. You can seek help for anxiety and OCD. It can become something you live with and learn how to manage it.

I write words backwards in my head as I think them if that makes any sense at all, I also look for patterns in number plates. It's exhausting tbh.

Don’t focus too much on what it might be OP. Focus on getting yourself to go to the GP so you can be seen by a psychiatrist. I’m sorry you’re finding it exhausting and I hope you can get some help soon

I've had this since the 1980s when I left home and lived in a room and the posters on my wall triggered me putting every word into one of 3 columns, and the resulting 'picture' of the letters had to be symetrical, so Ts on the left, Es on the right and anything in the middle. If there were more Ts than Es I'd have to add more random words until it evened out.

It did fade in time but I still catch myself doing it without thinking every now and then. Particularly if I am bored and in a UK waiting room and looking at posters.

These days all the waiting room posters are in French since I moved here, I never do it in French so there's that. I do however try to work out what each sentence means but as I am learning the language that's a good thing.

I do similar. Type the words and at same time count the letters, then count how many times it can be broken into syllables, then vowels and consonants. Then multiply the number of letters by the amount of times broken down. Then if it's a double-digit sum, add those together, for one final number. Takes about 2 or 3 seconds.

It used to drive me crazy and for me is related to anxiety, and I guess maybe OCD. I try and minimise triggers, which for me is situations where I can't control the flow of time, e.g. seeing a film at the cinema, I have to go at the film pace, I can't fast forward it or look at my phone. If I have a lot of input coming in or am at my own pace e.g. reading it doesn't happen. My brain seems to want to fill the gap when 'nothing' is happening and I guess keep me from anxious thoughts that would otherwise fill the gap.

Mine is manageable now, maybe a couple of times a day. I find it almost impossible not to complete the process once I want to do it, though do try and stop sometimes.

I count things , well I count everything to be honest, I count the sides of drawers, I count people's features, windows, whatever I'm looking at I count. I also add up numbers, so if I see a date of birth, I'll add up the numbers. The more anxious I am , the quicker I count. I also find it exhausting at times and have tried to distract myself but just can't seem to stop.

I count everything too, especially letters, and yes it is a form of ocd.
I'm so used to it now don't even realise I'm doing jt. I'm a really fast counter too 😂