Hello all,

I have the following behaviours and I am unsure what is wrong with me. Do these point to ocd and if so is there anything I should do about them? I am 30 years old and male.

Finger sniffing
Foot (and sometimes leg) shaking
Hair pulling (eyebrows mostly and fingering my hair line with occasional hair pulling there, pubic hair pulling in private). As a child this showed as I had a bald spot where I picked. Now that my hair is naturally receding I do not pick out enough hair to be noticeable.
Skin picking - I often look in a mirror to find flaws that need fixing

I also have another symptom which I can only describe: in my throat I do something like flicking my larynx (voice box) the feeling is like slapping the lid down on my larynx repeatedly - sometimes very rapidly. That is the most annoying of the problems as it often leads to tiredeness of the voice box and a sore throat. I do all of these things every day.

I have never considered these things to be a problem but it is interesting to see just how big a part of my life these things are when I put them all down together in a list.

Other things that I think I am compulsive about are:

1 - I always make cups of coffee the same way - from left to right the cup with the least extras (ie, no milk or sugar) to the right with the cup with the most extras (sugar and most sugars).
2 - I always put the toilet lid down and will rush back to do it if I forget to
3 - I always put my clothes on in the same order

As a child I also exhibited these behaviours:

1 - I would never throw away apple cores when I had eaten an apple as I had an irrational fear that doing so would hurt my mother (who had given me the apple in my lunch) - it seems to have been some kind of fear of separation
2 - I chewed paper and spat it out compulsively for a number of years - this lead to a very sore stomach quite often.
3 - perhaps unrelated but I tantrumed whenever I couldn't get my own way - this effected my whole family every day of my childhood and caused them great pain. To this day I have great difficulties if people don't do what I want (though I don't tantrum about it now- I normally go very quiet and can't be shaken from the black mood for a day or more).

Gosh that ended up being much longer than I thought. Do you think these issues mean I ought to see a psychologist? I am about to make a big move in life and due to my career as a performer I am very wary about mood altering medications. I currently take beta-blockers for my performance anxiety.

Thanks

Hello,

I read somewhere that behaviours like the ones you describe at the beginning of your mail often get their start in childhood trauma--if you were very scared of something, for example, and as a child you couldn't always understand or get away--you'd start doing these things to distract yourself from whatever was going on around you. Then these habits become a way of comforting yourself and stay with you.

If the issues bother you, talking to someone would help. Going to see a psychologist once doesn't lock you into years and years of therapy, or mean that you'll have to take all kinds of mind/body-altering medication. You can share your story, and that person might be able to shine some light on things for you.

Good luck!

I don't know- but if it's making you wonder enough to take the effort to post about it then I'd say it's worth talking to a professional about.

I'm not a doctor but from what I see you have several things going on, all of which appear to be OCD/anxiety based. The hair pulling is called trichotillomania, that and with the skin picking can cause severe dermal damage and should be considered top priority.

Beta-blockers are traditionally used by performers to counteract the effects of stage fright, shaking, sweating, etc...they work in the body by controlling the symptoms of anxiety but of course do not treat the anxiety.

I highly suggest that you see a psych. I realize it's difficult to think about meds and the potential mood alterations but considering all of the things you're dealing with, I'd hope you would be open to it. It is scary to say the least, but when you find the right med there's just no way to explain what a relief it is and just how wonderful life can truly be.

Good Luck to you :)

I think any behavior that a person finds to be irrational and unfounded, but that they still feel compelled to do REPEATEDLY, points to obsessive compulsive disorder...

As a high school kid, when I would lock my car in the high school parking lot and walk to class, I would return to it 5-6 times in the next 10 minutes and stare into the headlight wells to make sure I had turned them off (I was afraid my battery would die). One time wasn't enough, and the more times I checked, the more times I felt I NEEDED to check...If I was able to check once and walk away, I felt fine. As soon as the doubt came into my head and I checked a second time, it was a downward spiral.

Also, it causes me SO much stress when I've just vacuumed the carpet and someone walks in the straight vacuum lines and smooshes down the carpet fibers with their footprints...drives me insane...

I have a lot of those issues and more.
For me, the fact that so much of my time is consumed with activities that I don't want to be doing is reason to seek help.
If you can't control your own actions when you really want to do so, the behavior can become quite self-destructive.
The best thing for me was accepting that I was not "bad" because I could not stop doing these kinds of things.
There's also a term, "body dismorphism," which you have described when you say, "I often look in a mirror to find flaws."
I'm not promising that this behavior can be altered by professionals.
But at least we can direct some of our energy toward that end.