This is not the first post I wrote about all this. I remembered back when I first started this blog last year I wrote one called "Brain Lock" that talked about OCD and how it runs in families.
I don't feel weird about having been labeled with this disorder but strangely feel some vindication for the choices I made in my working life. I love to compile indexes, and yes, that picture bothers me. I think it's criminal that the erasers all have uneven wear on them, and the pencils are not sharpened properly. I would also like to have the paper clips moved down so they are centered instead of all pushed to the top. And I'm only kidding about this a LITTLE.
Considering this, I find it odd that I have found labeling my posts to be a chore, because I never thought about them like an index. I have been faithfully labeling them since the day I figured it might come in handy sometime, but I don't really want to go back and do the ones from a year ago. I wonder why that is?
When I get a comment from a new reader (or at least someone who finally leaves a comment), I smack my lips with anticipation as I head over to their blog to find out who this person is. For me, the most daunting part of the blogosphere is its huge size. I have to find a way to visit a small enough number of blogs that I can get my attention wrapped around the process. Sometimes I'll check my followers list and someone has been added, or (gasp!) someone leaves me. I think this is also part of my OCD symptoms, but I get over a loss or check out my new followers pretty quickly.
And I love to find a funny, or quirky, or even stream of consciousness blog that I didn't know existed before, since my world expands with each one. Right now my eyeballs are falling out of my head from having spent the last few hours without looking up from the computer screen. I do have a tendency to go off on tangents now and then...
:-)
lol...OCD...hmmm, I don't think I have it but when on a project, everything else can fall down around me until it is completed. Does that fall into the OCD category? I love playing computer games -- right now I'm doing the advance round of Half-Life.
ReplyDeleteWe all have OCD to some degree, don't you think?
ReplyDeleteThank goodness there are professions for the organizing tendencies this has and thank goodness we have people with OCD tendencies to work in those professions!
I had to cut down my reading of everybody else's blog lists because I was stressing out over not being able to read them all and comment on them all on a regular basis. It was very hard to me to stop following some of them....but I found it much easier to enjoy blogging that way.
Hmmm... is it OCD that I feel I have to leave a comment for each and every one of my followers?
ReplyDeleteNow we know the answer to your labeling conundrum: Print out all of your blog posts from a year ago, find six different colored highlighters, and go to town!
ReplyDeleteIt is a matter of letting our OCD control us or us being in control. It is easy to let blogging become a part of the OCD realm. I am finally able to let myself not be too consumed with making a post everyday or making sure I always comment on other blogs. For awhile being online in blogville was all I did. I had to step back from it. I needed to have a life outside blogger. I still obsess about losing a follower though...I want to know why someone drops off.
ReplyDeleteI am laughing because I do ALL the same things! Including checking my blog "stats" all the time!
ReplyDeleteOh, oh. I'm guilty; I have to post everyday; I have to read all the blogs I follow every time they post, and I really try to comment on all of them. And I hate not knowing who stopped following and why!
ReplyDeleteI’ll tell my husband that I know what his disorder is – do you know that when I go grocery shopping with him he always lags behind me – and when I finally find him he is placing the cans back in order, or the boxes on the shelves. If a box is down, he picks it up. At home all the cups have to be looking the same way. I told him – fine – you can do all the dishes and put them away – he does! But I don’t know why he does not do that about his clothes which are laying all around? I think it is a type specific disorder! I don’t think you have it though DJan! I think you just want to occupy your brain.
ReplyDeleteI'm a bit of the opposite. When my personality was checked in a team building exercise (that took weeks to conclude), I was the one with the big ideas. I needed someone to organize and execute my ideas. People like you, dear DJan. As for the followers widget - keep in mind that widget is probably not why you write, and the widget could disappear tomorrow, so would that affect whether or not you write? It's just a widget that makes it easier to follow blogs. I discontinue following blogs on a fairly routine basis, and I add them all of the time. You just can't read all of the wonderful blogs out there, so some sense of what you can handle is in order. I try not to take it personally when it's me that's been deleted, but being human, I always wonder - was it something I said? But even if it was, it's my blog and therefore it won't be for everyone. I just appreciate that they thought enough of me to follow for the time that they did.
ReplyDeleteGood post, very thought provoking.
Wow, this is too funny as I just wrote about the same thing. OCD minds think alike. I do the same exact things you do, especially the counting. I count steps among other things. And the pencils and paper clips would bother me.My whole family seems to be afflicted with this and my brothers and cousin and I compare notes and laugh about it. My grandpa and dad also have it but don't seem to know it, so we laugh at them, too. They think they are perfectly normal! I just can't believe we both wrote about this on the same day! Am I rambling now?
ReplyDeleteWow, would you like to come over and get me organized? I tend to get caught up in projects and will give them my all but usually the ideas are all over the place until I can get it put together in my mind, but it is never really organized.
ReplyDeleteI still think the game playing is something most everyone does whether they realize it or not. It's a motivational technique for many of us.
I'm going to agree with The Retired One; I think we all have a bit of OCD. I know that I am particular about my stuff. As a stay at home mom, my house is my world. Therefore, I like things to be in their place. Perhaps that's less OCD and more perfectionism...or simply a control issue. Hmm...something to think about.
ReplyDeleteI have been told I have OCD but really I agree with some of the above ...don't we all have a little of it>>
ReplyDeleteThat is a VERY cruel picture to post. It makes my skin feel all crawly just to look at it! lol And I still don't step on cracks.
ReplyDeleteYes, that does seem a big excessive with the pencils and the erasers. You turned your 'affliction>' to good advantage with your editing job though, didn't you. I'm sure it helped with that. I am the opposite, in a way, because I like to do things differently and deliberately - like for example leaving the cuttings from my shredder deliberately on the floor for a week before I clear them up. Would that drive you crazy? Would you have to put them in a pattern or clear them up?
ReplyDeleteBlessings, Star