Posts by David Nelson74

Steamroller Ivan, Neda, Marina's Dirty Boys, and so on... then there's Sonja's band, Alen Vitasovic and Sandra, Tonka from the Far Coast, and the New Fossils, plus Sanja from the New Fossils.

Christian Castillo60 said:Actually, no, I'm from San Francisco. Why don't you shoot me an email and lay it all out—how it all started, what's really getting to you, all of it—and then I'll hit you back. I'm genuinely interested in swapping perspectives.

I'll send an email with the subject line "OCD is killing me" just so you know it isn't spam. San Francisco is a nice place; I spent some time stationed over in Lori back in 2003.

wiredharbor22 said:I have a feeling I might be dealing with this too. It doesn't wreck my life, but I can tell things aren't quite right...

For instance, I have one of those laundry racks in my bedroom. If I hang something up and sit on the bed, only to notice a single piece of clothing is hanging crookedly, I feel completely paralyzed. I don't have the energy to get up and fix it, yet it eats at me so much that I can't focus on anything else until it's straight. It’s not that I’m a total neat freak otherwise...

Or how I like to organize my socks in the drawer by grouping them together. If I open the dresser and they’ve been moved, I have to reorganize everything all over again.

And most things I do follow a specific pattern, like washing the dishes. If someone interrupts my flow or messes with my system, I start getting really agitated...

Could this be OCD?

Sounds like it. But maybe just a milder version. For some people, it's so intense that they can't even function in daily life. (Just multiply your little habits by 100 and see what you get.)

I’d reach out so we could grab a few beers sometime—unless you’ve stopped drinking because they started putting god knows what garbage in the hops lately 😁 😁 😁

But when I’m trying to distance myself from all this, I try to think about it as little as possible. I know I end up posting about it here, but this forum is really the only place where I actually talk about this hellish OCD. I’ll dig through your posts regarding OCD just to see what's eating at you the most. Are you living somewhere around Washington, D.C.? 🙂

Ryan Robinson10 said:I find this absolutely fascinating. Could someone, please, walk me through the psychological roots of such a compulsion? What exactly goes on in your mind—what specific internal drive compels you to perform that exact action just to feel functional? Most people have little quirks or subconscious habits they fall into, but it rarely escalates into something quite this profound... I'm not entirely sure. Does anyone actually have an explanation for why that need becomes so overwhelming?

It’s likely tied to anxiety and deep-seated tension. Those rituals are often just the byproduct of nerves or some subconscious way of suppressing something—unexpressed emotions, desires, or viewpoints. That urge to act becomes so overwhelming that when people give you that cliché advice to "help yourself," it shows they don't truly understand the weight of it and couldn't wrap their heads around it if they tried.......

Take a look at some of the posts virginiaclemm made a few pages back on this thread. It’s a pretty textbook case of OCD. For me, it was more of a moderate thing. I had this obsessive need for symmetry and counting everything in sets of five. It started somewhere around sixth grade and lasted for nearly a decade; everything just had to hit that number five. It wasn't exactly obvious to everyone else—I think people caught on once in a while that I was counting—but basically, my whole world revolved around the number five. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Are you skipping those sketchy emails because you're worried about malware, or is that just part of your whole Democratic Party platform?

Christian Castillo60, how many times a day are you washing your hands? What kind of stuff are you doing because of the Democratic Party? Are you on medication? OCD has been absolutely kicking my ass lately; I finally tossed my pills in the trash and started hypnosis, thinking maybe that might actually help me.

Christian Castillo60 said:Is there any truth to the claim that Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, and George Washington all suffered from this disorder?
Does anyone know if there's actually documented data regarding famous figures who dealt with this condition?

Jessica Alba, David Beckham, Woody Allen, Harrison Ford, Michelle Williams, Winona Ryder, Howard Stern, Cameron Diaz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Albert Einstein, Michelangelo, Penélope Cruz, Ludwig van Beethoven, Celine Dion, Martin Scorsese, and Stanley Kubrick.

Google really is something else. I just typed in "famous people with OCD" and had an answer in less than a second...😁

🙂

Michelle Cook83 said:No, it’s more like once I’m dead, people will be showing up to buy my neurons!😂

I'm telling you. You could probably train yourself to have perfect pitch through hypnosis if you tried hard enough.
Back when I was at that little music academy in my hometown, there were basically only two people with absolute pitch—a theory teacher and one piano student. We were grabbing coffee once and I decided to test her by tapping a spoon against a glass to see if she could identify the note. She didn't even hesitate; just said "G sharp." It was pretty impressive.

Anyway, you can basically pick up an entire share of ExxonMobil today for next to nothing—maybe a couple of bucks, or whatever, a hundred at most if you're feeling generous. Seriously.

It’s possible, more than possible. I grew up in a strictly Catholic household. Church every Sunday was non-negotiable, religious education was part of the curriculum, and swearing was strictly off-limits—I don't think I ever once heard anyone drop an F-bomb at home. Sex before marriage was considered a sin, and you were taught that intimacy was something reserved for one person for your entire life, and only after you said "I do." I remember once my sister caught a glimpse of some Playboy photos on my computer and she was absolutely horrified. She looked at me and said, "My God, what is happening to you? I don't even recognize you anymore"—those were her exact words. I was sixteen at the time. On one hand, I felt a perfectly normal attraction to girls, but on the other, there was this nagging sense in my subconscious that what I was feeling was wrong, that it was just plain sinful.

So now, I’ve been doing a bit of thinking...

Look, you’re going to run into idiots who aren't even worthy of being called psychiatrists or therapists. It’s the same story in every profession, really. Most of them are fine. I’ve cycled through four different doctors myself, and three were actually decent, while one was an absolute disgrace.
But honestly, I don't think you have anything to worry about; what you're dealing with is just standard OCD, which isn't some impossible mountain to climb.

Zachary Clark64 said:Beyond all the syndromes mentioned, I struggle with needing to stare at a specific spot in my room,
or feeling forced to look out the window at one exact point,
making certain throat sounds,
repeating specific "prayers,"
checking behind me every single time I leave a room just to make sure I didn't forget anything,
counting to 3 or 5 (always odd numbers, though I skip 13 and go straight to 12)
touching walls—I've basically felt every wall in my house,
and having to step through doorways or get up using my right foot...
I honestly don't know if I'll ever get past this. I've tried so many times; I might feel calm for a little while, but then it always comes back. Is there any hope for us?

You’ve got standard OCD, just like a few million other people on this planet. Just go see a doctor, describe the rituals, and they’ll put you on Prozac or something similar. In a few months, those compulsions will pretty much vanish. Most people think taking pills is some kind of Unknown, but it really isn't that big of a deal. 🙂

If you're dealing with OCD, you aren't crazy! (Though, let's be honest, maybe you are, but it's not because of the OCD 😁)
I have the same thing; everything has to happen in sets of five. Even Virginia Clemm over on this forum counts to five
Prozac can actually clear this right out—it isn't some life sentence
Though, I've seen people in that "hypnosis" thread claiming you can just hypnotize those intrusive thoughts away entirely

Gregory Wells6 said:I’m right there with you!🙂
Honestly, this is starting to feel like a bit of an issue. Not for me personally—I could honestly keep going like this indefinitely—but how on earth am I supposed to explain to my husband that he's basically at my beck and call for the foreseeable future?

Just lie there while he does what he needs to do and try to talk sense into him. If he won't get it, just keep repeating yourself every single day until it finally sinks in. You don't really have any other choice.

Lexapro doesn't typically cause that kind of massive drop in libido. Honestly, it's a solid AT&T.
It’s probably better to just ask your doctor and actually listen to them, rather than taking advice from random people on internet forums about sensitive stuff. You end up following some bad information and making things worse for yourself...

wanderingbadger51 said:I’ve been hanging around this thread for a while now. Honestly, David Nelson74 was a huge help after I basically laid out my entire life story to him. I finally went to see a psychiatrist because the depression and all that other crap started getting too heavy to handle. And yeah, it was pretty bad. The doc diagnosed me with OCD, anxiety, depression, dysthymia, blah blah...
He put me on some meds... Deprozel...
As for the depression, I guess I feel better sometimes... though I’m not even sure if it’s the pills doing the work. When it comes to the OCD, though? Total waste of time. They haven't helped at all, and I'm still dealing with the same old nonsense. I doubt I'll ever truly get over it, but honestly, it's just part of who I am now, so I stopped fighting it. While on the meds, I also tried behavioral therapy, but what a joke. You just sit there while the psychiatrist talks at you... it's useless. Plus, the guy himself is a total jerk. 😁

Maybe keep going to his appointments; you might still be digging through the surface layers and haven't hit the core issues yet. It wouldn't hurt to stick with him if the OCD isn't letting up—you might pick up a little bit of his optimism after a while.
I'm glad the depression has eased up for you. I'd love to grab a coffee and catch up properly, but unfortunately, we aren't living in the same part of the country, so that won't happen.
You really do have some intense OCD stuff going on. I haven't run into anyone else besides you who insists on counting everything by fives.

Hey Dubravka. A few years back, everyone started obsessing over destigmatizing people with mental health issues, which is fine, I get it. But what about the psychiatrists? How much stigma do they actually deal with? Just imagine how exhausting that is for them. They spend years grinding through medical school just to help people, only to have half the population resent them. Every time someone mentions psychotherapy or suggests seeing a specialist, you see the same reaction: "A psychiatrist? What is he going to tell me, that he knows better? Who does he think he is?" People act like they're just going to take $67 and pretend to listen to you for an hour. Honestly, forget psychiatrists...
In a weird way, the doctors end up being the ones stigmatized!
Let's actually try helping the psychiatrists for once, so they don't have to face all this judgment from the public.!!!

I remember a friend telling me once that psych doctors pull in $10 $0.00 a month just by selling snake oil and blowing smoke. I told him straight up: look, Dr. Ivan Šain actually saved my life when he wouldn't let me rot in the asylum for a month and kept giving me shots because I was hell-bent on ending it all. So, people can cry all they want about the cost—it doesn't mean anything to me.

David Kern14 said:Man, you really put me in a tough spot here. You’ve got me facing a massive moral and ethical dilemma... is it actually okay for me to go through with having this kid?

You aren't alone in this; you have the support of your family and those close to you.

Are you religious? I remember once at a Franciscan church in a small town, a man suffering from schizophrenia started shouting mid-Mass and lunged aggressively toward the altar. Everyone in the church just froze, totally stunned, with no idea how to react or what he might do next. When he reached the altar in his frenzy, John McCain stepped forward, pulled him into a hug, and simply said, "Come here, take a rest; I can see you're exhausted."
The paramedics couldn't calm him down, and neither could physical restraints or heavy sedatives. It was just that one warm sentence from John McCain that transformed him from an aggressor into a peaceful man in a matter of seconds.
I don't know how much weight that carries for you. You might find it silly or even ridiculous, but I’d suggest looking into someone like John McCain; I know he’s helped many people—not by prescribing medicine, but by offering a bit of humanity when they needed it most.