major malfunction

[verybaddmom]

okay, so i was reading in another thread where emily(bunchofnumbers) made this comment:

Well, I won't be the pot calling the psyche black. We all have our dysfunctions. Who's to say which is sicker?

and that got me to wondering....

what is everyone's major malfunction? dysfunction? what makes us less normal than most?
maybe a little OCD? a tiny itty bitty phobia?
I have always told my son that "normal is a setting on our washing machine"
i'm not sure the origin of that statement (do i baddad?) but i know that i have never known anything to be more true.

anyhow, i think we could start with the least 'scary' of our weirdnesses and work up to the good stuff.....

i'll start. i have a little OCD when it comes to oral hygeine. As i have pretty big teeth, and i tend to smile alot, i have to take good care of them. i have four different types of toothbrushes and three toothpastes, and i have specific rituals in which they are used, all at different times of the day. a little strange, but i have really white teeth!

okay, who's next?

[imthefoolonthehill]

Borderline Schizo and paranoia

[den]

I'm a workaholic and tend to some obsessive compulsive stuff too, like being a neat-freak, but it doesn't really interfere with my day to day life, being a workaholic does !

Oh yeah, and Ialmost always have my phone's ringer turned off, I don't know why but I just can't stand it ringing and interrupting me while I'm doing things, like say, work! I can't multi-task, like chat with more than two people at once, it's like I focus too much so can only do one thing at a time but really intensely.

[Blade]

i'm just lazy

[Shea]

I love wearing old fashioned dresses. You know the kind with the hoop skirts and such? (Actually anything from a hundred years and back) When I lived with my parents in Ohio, their house was built in 1900. Sometimes, especially if I was pulling an all-nighter for a test or something, late at night I would wear them, make my self a cup of tea (I had the top floor of the house to myself) and just ease into my studying that way. Somehow, it made it easier to study, because I wasn't exactly myself anymore.

Now that I'm married, I'm too nervous just to wear them around the house for fear that someone would stop by. The only chance I get to wear them now, other than Halloween, is for a special harp performance.

[Blade]

i wish i knew how to play the harp

[IWilKikU]

I'm a pathological liar. When I was young, before I learned to control it, I used to make up the most bizzare stories, and if my friends didn't believe them, I would be so hurt. I still have urges to tell people completely fabricated stories, but I can keep from actually letting them out of my brain. Sometimes I'm afraid that someday I won't be able to differentiate between what's real and what's some BS story that I've made up. I met another pathological liar who couldn't control it once, and he was the last person on earth that I want to end up like.

[emily655321]

"emily(bunch of numbers)" 655321 is Alex's prison ID in Clockwork.

Anyway, as for dysfunctions, here goes (you're gonna regret having asked)... the whole she-bang:

"Major depressive disorder." Depression and mild antisocial traits run in the family. I'm smiley and friendly because the emotional and cognitive parts of my brain dissociated years ago as a defense mechanism. The only thing that gets to that part of my brain is fear (hence my pension for surrealism/horror/tragedy).

Codependent/people pleaser. I have mild PTSD and confrontation/anger/even just assertive people give me tremendous anxiety. I try to keep everyone happy and defuse stressful situations, then calm myself down by hurting myself. I can't take compliments and I can't make decisions.

I'm an ego-feeder (even though the shrink once said I'm the only person he's met who actually seems to lack an ego altogether). The type of person who looks in mirrors and asks for reassurance a lot. And then (viscious cycle) I constantly fear that people think I'm snobby, so I feel bad, seek reassurance, feel snobby....

OCD when it comes to food. Usually I eat only two kinds of food for a period of time, sometimes bingeing on junk at night. Every few weeks I'll starve completely. I hate eating in front of people. No restaurants for me.

Bah, that's all of it I think. Anything else is probably an offshoot of one of those.

[atiguhya padma]

I have OCD regarding replying to threads on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Just can't help it.

The other OCD I have is tidying up my books and arranging them in strange little orders only known to me.

[Shea]

Originally posted by emily655321
[B And then (viscious cycle) I constantly fear that people think I'm snobby, so I feel bad, seek reassurance, feel snobby....
[/B]

You know, I feel like that a lot...

Blade, if you can play a piano, I can almost garantee you can play a harp. (It also helps if you can play a guitar)
But did you just want to wear costumes?

AP, I also organize my books, anthologies -> education -> classics (all in alphabetical order by author then title or something to that effect, I understand it but can't really explain)

[emily655321]

Just a bit off-topic, but... my dad has a maddening, non-alphabetical system that is impossible to fully explain, but it makes some bizarre kind of intuitive sense. One wall fiction, three walls non-fiction. The fiction is mostly anthologies and collections, but otherwise they're grouped author next to author by what I suppose is some vague association of writing style (Steinbeck, Hemingway, Maugham; Shakespeare, Dante, anthologies of poetry and of essays on Modern Art; Stevenson, Dickens). The non-fiction is even less explicable -- German/English dictionaries with the other German-themed books; other foreign lang. dictionaries with the other language reference books; all other reference books on the opposite wall with anthologies of art, photographs, and regional histories (hist. of Western Mass, Ireland, etc.); all other history books (-"of Philosophy," -of literature, -of time periods) on the former wall. Also with the references is a large collection of antique Bibles, which is odd because he's an atheist from a long line of atheists.

[amuse]

well i'm no longer bulimic but that counted for nearly two decades. so throw in whatever crap with that you wanna.

and from once when i saw this beautiful girl's hair on the bus in junior high, i've been obsessed about split ends. she was gorgeous, but her hair was so split the roots of her shiny black hair were a dirty yellow. i can't STAND my own. spend at least 15 minutes daily checking for them.

also love to clean and am a bit of a freak re: manners and fairness.

[amuse]

love the bit about hoop dresses, Shea. dress-up is the best !

[Lara]

IwilKiku, why don't you try your hand at writing and write out some of those bizarre stories. People love bizarre stories. Will you tell us one? Some authors I can think of who write bizarre stuff are Carl Hiasen, Ian Banks, hey, anyone ever read Big Trouble by Dave Barry? It was also made into a movie. Weird but fun story.

I can't think of anything I'm obsessive about, um, maybe when I first started playing the Tomb Raider games on playstation, my family seemed to disappear, and reality, temporarily anyway. In my fantasy world, I'm just like Lara Croft, hence, my online identity, only, I can't help but just be myself.

[Shea]

I'm obsessed with pushing in those bubbles that tell you which drink your getting on the tops for soda cups that you get at fast food restaurants. No matter how many people I'm dining with, I want to push in all their bubbles. It's so hard to restrain myself.

[verybaddmom]

dave barry? isnt he that guy that writes that hysterically funny column for the Miami Herald? maybe a different guy?

[Lara]

I thought of something, I'm obsessive about checking my emails, checking the forums, especially if I've started a thread, and checking for private messages, because I love the chat. When I am expecting a reply to an email or PM I am constantly checking for it.

[Lara]

I'm not sure VBM, seeing as I don't get the Miami Herald way up here in Canada, eh, but the story sure tickled my funny bone.

[verybaddmom]

oh dear, well as i am also way up here in Canada (BC to be exact) i get it off the internet...well worth the trouble of finding it, which i have now saved you from....
here is a link to someone who loves dave barry as much as i do....it's an angelfire site, so the popups are really bad, but i have to say: just read the "batman to the rescue" one, and tell me you dont have tears of laughter pouring down your face?!

http://www.angelfire.com/fl2/email1/Barry.html

also this is the herald site, where Barry's editorials are published. and from there you will find links to his official home page and so on...
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald...ts/dave_barry/

enjoy! and let me know what you think!

[imthefoolonthehill]

IWilKiku. I once made up a story about me jumping off the roof of a two story building to win a Capture the Flag game... at least I think I made it up... now at least 4 people remember seeing me do it... and I remember doing it... the only problem is... I also remember making the story up.... the implications of this terrifies me.