Tic

Tic: a frequent usually unconscious quirk of behavior or speech.

Anyone have any of these?

I have a hard time walking on stairs without counting them as I use them. Most flights of stairs are 16 steps, frequently divided into two sets of eight.

Thats interisting about the count of stairs.

I have a habbit of trying not to start as many sentances with "I" but then end up doing it anyway... and no I'm not kidding, heh.

I also use... ugh did it again... anyway... I also use alot of the same words in sentances as begining words, such as "yeah", "also", "oh", those seem to be the most common.

Can't think of any others.

all are indicators of some level of OCD

I tend to subconciously count steps to the car at times.
Bugs the piss outta me!
Not the steps, the fact I am subconciously counting them.

I had a facial Tic for about a year that left when my wife did.

I tend to "mutter" in sign language when I talk - half forming the finger spelling of what I'm saying with my right hand without realizing I'm doing it. It's left over from a relationship with a deaf person, during which I intentionally finger spelled key words! (Never learned much ASL beyond the alphabet.)

This makes my mother totally crazy, and if I do it she will actually get mad and walk out of the room. I have no idea why she reacts so strongly!

I've got a few weird nervous tics... they seem to migrate around my body. Currently i have a terrible tendency to wink or wiggle my ear

I think it's caffeine related.

Lf

*chuckle*
I dont know if it qualifies as a tic, but I find myself mentally rearranging into a pattern or composition anything I happen to look upon that isnt- for example, there are these bricks in our fireplace that have some odd cross-shaped markings in them. They are randomly scattered thru the hearth, and it drives me NUTS. I want to rip them out and make some sense of them.

Yeah... I get that one too... non symetry bugs the piss out of me sometimes!


ok here is the *really* strange one....

Who is always the first to see "faces" in things like clouds or wallpaper or even in the spaces of newsprint or other semi random objects?

I have a couple kitchen compulsions. When I pour a drink I always raise the bottle or pitcher while lowering the glass until I'm pouring a thin stream about three feet down to the glass (I never spill, lots of practice) and when I get something from the cupboard or drawer I always flip it and catch it before use. Nothing much beyond that.

I do the flip-catch thing too.

For a long time I used to have this horrible habbit of repeating words under my breath a couple times after I said them... I managed to force myself to overcome that, though, it was back in... like 6th grade, or something.

I do that. It actually aerates the liquid a bit so it tastes better (4-6% better).

I also like to semi-accurately estimate the probabilities of things. Depending on the situation I can be as much as 20% off.

hmm 20% +/- 20% +/- 20%…

Anyway, try putting some ordinary orange juice in a blender or mixing it with some mixer-gadget. Small air bubbles form in the solution witch, when consumed, allow you to smell the item better, thus making the smell component of taste more intense.

For you mild OCD types that count things… don’t worry about it... you have a bit of a gift. Copernicus was that way.

I shake my left leg, randomly, but mostly when I'm bored, I think. I will be sitting at work or something and just start shaking that left leg up and down for no good reason. It drives my mother insane. She has, for my entire life, begged me to quit doing it, but once I start, I have to shake that leg until the time comes that I get up and move, or I'm not bored anymore, whichever comes first.

Zana

ROFL!!!!!

neil does the leg-shake thing CONTANTLY.

and orange juice from a blender is the GOOD. Also good: half and half oj and ginger ale

I would have mentioned leg-shaking but I thought everyone did it.

Happy 500 posts, Neph.

I do alot of these too

I also have a horrible tic of repeating some words while talking, kinda like a stutter, if I'm excited or trying to think really hard about something.

Well, mine aren't really unconcious, but..

I have a bit of a thing about the number 8. If i cook something in the microwave, even if there's a set time for something to cook, i have to cook it in multiples of 8 seconds/minutes. If i stop the cooking early, the time remaining must also be a multiple of 8. If i'm cooking something like toast, under the grill and i look and it's not quite done yet, i have to put it back under for 8 seconds, no more, no less.

If I bump into something, something that is hot, or cold, or hurts, or tickles, i have to make sure i have the same sensation on the other side of my body. If i get something cold on my right arm, i have to do the same to my left arm, so it balances out.

The only unconcious thing I can think of is walking with my big toes sticking up. It hurts my toes and wears my shoes quickly!

I do something like that Victoria...its nice to hear Im not the only one.

What I find myself doing is that if I should happen to turn my body left...I will then have to turn it to the right as well. Its like a compulsion more than a tic I think. I almost feel like my body NEEDS me to turn the opposite way. Ive tried to purposely turn around one way and NOT turn the other way to see what happens. LOL....all i can think about for the next 5 min is turning the other way and I always give in. When I was younger I used to think of it as unwinding myself.

Is there a psychologist in the house???

I am a symmetry freak as well, I do it unconciously usually. I will rearrange a room, then realize I have done the symmetry dance again and then change things around a bit cause I really don't like the habit that much.

i suffer from this as well..

i need physical experiences to be symmetrical.. most of the time, but i've learned ways to either make it easier or ignore it..

checker-board tiles suck for this.. step on a dark tile, front of left foot.. have to step on a dark tile with right foot, in the same place. ack!

cracks in side-walks.. hitting an arm on something.. and so on and so on..

tips if this is something you suffer.. try seeing the bigger picture.. instead of different colored tiles, think inside floor/outside floor. instead of sidewalk cracks, think sidewalk/road.. you get the idea

hope this helps.. and was maybe amusing


edit: added below...

oh yeah.. and patterns.. i like to (sometimes need to) find patterns in things. cloth, marble tile, sponge painted walls, etc..
..it really bugged me when i was in Las Vegas and the bathroom walls in our hotel room were marble, BUT there was no repeating pattern anywhere! which made me think, 'wow.. these tiles are real marble.. seperately cut.. and not uniformly distributed.' in other words, i couldn't even find "layering evidence".. no tiles seemed to come from just above or below any other tiles..
..ok, i admit it, i'm strange

and yes, i like playing with numbers too:

4 - the only number whos' numerical value is equal to the number of letters in it's name in 'our language'. (f o u r)

5 - the only number with the same properties in Spanish. (c i n c o)

< -- Symmetry Complex
< -- Pattern Complex
< -- Shake-Foot-When-Bored Complex

Finally! I thought I was the only person that suffered from these occasional quirks

I also have this wierd desire to not use one word too much in a single paragraph. If there were computerized pocket thesauras's in existance, I'd definately carry around one with me.

==Chris

Giles de la Tourette's syndrome. 'Nuff said?

I used to be a symmetry freak myself. I'd click my back teeth together, first one side, then the other in the exact same number, and if I went too far, I'd have to go back to the other side again. I'd rub my thumb along all my fingers, first one direction, then the other. Pretty much everything had to be symmetrical. Then I started having to hide it because my parents got all paranoid about tics 'n OCD 'n stuff and wanted to have me medicated. Got really good at controlling it.

Mine is kinda strange, but it runs on my mother's side of the family(skip-generation I think, well I just know my mom's sister does it). But, usually I just have a sudden tendancy to start folding my lip over and over, or basically "fidgeting" with it.

I have a thing about counting the dishes and glasses when I put them away after washing them. I don't count them while I wash them, just when I put them away. And, I don't count the silverware or pots and pans Just plates, bowls, and glasses.

Man we are some F'ed up individuals eh?

I realized another one that I do just now....
I tend to click my teeth together in rhythm to music.
Like there is a a giant double base drum kit in my mouth!
Its like I am Neil Pert (look it up if you dont know), only with my teeth. But just as talented.
About the only thing that stops it is chewing a stick of gum.