Reading Crazyboards

[Libby]

Gah, here I am, scrolling, scrolling through new posts, even though I've read every blasted post there is.  Obsessive, much?  I really should go to bed!

[celestia]

Gah, here I am, scrolling, scrolling through new posts, even though I've read every blasted post there is.  Obsessive, much?  I really should go to bed!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, you could be spending money online or something worse. For me, I stay logged in until my computer goes to sleep, but I do other things, plus my little workstation is in the big living room with the kids. It's like a rocket ship. We each have our own little pod. It's kinda cool, we get to interact AND indulge our techno obsessions. As opposed to us all be sequestered in our rooms.

I've started my scanning project from hell. It will take me years, probably, but I have all the family photos and all of Bradley's prints and slides, and I want them all digitized. I might be 60 before it's done...but I toggle around between that, CB, Centipede...my kids make fun of me, watch TV.

When the weather gets warmer, I'll be less present here (whew, some are thinking!) LOL...but for now it's a connection for our lonely hearts. We don't work, to me it's no big deal. I go to bed when I know I can sleep as soon as I lay down. And then I pray it's not still dark when I wake up.

Obsessive, prolly. But I don't care.

I did the same thing when aol first came out what '93 '94? I was on house arrest as a single parent and it was a way to connect and not feel so alone.

I just thank the gods I can type faster than I can write.

[chimpmaster]

There is a big difference between diligence, addiction and obsessions

If the boards are helping you and enabling you to help others, without causing significant difficulties in your personal/romantic/work life, then I say go for it.

These boards thrive upon users who read and post regularly.

[Rabbit37]

If the boards are helping you and enabling you to help others, without causing significant difficulties in your personal/romantic/work life, then I say go for it.

I was with you all the way til you said "work life". *sigh* Okay, I'm here instead of doing what I need to be doing.

I'll go act like an adult and work ~grumble~ but I'm checking in at lunch!

[lei]

i apologize if this is an inappropriate tangent, but one of my biggest compulsions is my internet surfing, which usually includes checking in with parts of this forum. it also includes other fora, some news, friends' blogs, account activity, like that. most important is keeping up with my email. it's not doing harm, though when other activities make me postpone it i feel my anxiety build up. it's manageable unless i went on a vacation away from the internet (unlikely).

i'm also compelled to run disk cleanups, with ad-aware and spybot and defrag, and then backup, a few times a day.

there are worse things in the world to be doing but now that i've recovered from major trauma i've taken major comfort in this and other harmless but probably unnecessary rituals.

my theory, which made sense to my t-doc, is that now that my social anxiety and ptsd are basically healed, i seem to have channelled my gad into this kind of ocd way (though based on the DSM and the OCD workbook i only have traits, not a real diagnosis.) i'm going back to the docs to see about other forms of therapy (emdr isn't doing much anymore, though bioenergetics still releases a lot) and meds (stalled in my taper of valium, 'cause i just went through a lot of chaos) even though last i checked my docs didn't think i warrant starting new meds.

i'm probably making too much of this. but i wanted to mention it because i relate to the starting post and i never talked about it here before. and i'm open to ideas.  thank you.

edit -- p.s.  i still get done the things i need to do in my personal/romantic/volunteer life. it's just that i feel like a mental slave to ritual and organization.

edit #2 -- p.p.s.  but i'd prefer to be compelled to use much of this time for other things (and, of course, to not get antsy when rituals are disrupted.)

[chimpmaster]

Without doubt the techological revolution is changing the nature and kind of compulsions we OCD'ers suffer.

Some clinicians have caught onto this and others havent.

A couple of classic examples are :

- compulsive checking your email

- rereading and resending emails out of fear of errors or offence to others (similar to the old fashion compulsion of opening, closing nad reopening envelopes)

- completing a certain number of tasks on the computer on a given day - and not feeling complete and relaxed until these rituals are performed

- ordering and reordering dekstops, spreadsheets etc

I guess my point is that it is all relative and comes down to a level of impact - there are many people out there with obsessive personality traits who may do these things without it severely impacting upon their life.

Then there are the crazy ones like me who used to check email several hundred times per day, re-edit and resend emails dozens of times per day, and live in a constant state of anxiety regarding any material I sent our (which is pretty hard when you are a solutions architect in an IT firm, believe me!)

[lei]

- compulsive checking your email

- rereading and resending emails out of fear of errors or offence to others (similar to the old fashion compulsion of opening, closing nad reopening envelopes)

- completing a certain number of tasks on the computer on a given day - and not feeling complete and relaxed until these rituals are performed

- ordering and reordering dekstops, spreadsheets etc

I guess my point is that it is all relative and comes down to a level of impact - there are many people out there with obsessive personality traits who may do these things without it severely impacting upon their life.

Then there are the crazy ones like me who used to check email several hundred times per day, re-edit and resend emails dozens of times per day, and live in a constant state of anxiety regarding any material I sent our (which is pretty hard when you are a solutions architect in an IT firm, believe me!)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

ahh, chimpmaster. thank you for your encapsulation. i have the traits, they're no longer severely impactful (i did used to send correction after correction, boy did i feel like ass), but like i said i still feel enslaved. maybe i'm ocd about getting rid of all my ocd! like, i should be perfectly balanced and efficient with my time and energy and, like a buddha, not worry about things being perfect.

i'll get some kind of gauge from the docs. meantime it's comforting to know i'm not alone.

oh and my husband's a systems admin but when it comes to his own pc he basically never cleans it out, etc, till it's time to "rebuild" it. it's like that in other areas of our lives, too. maybe we're just meant to balance each other out.

still, i am tired of having to have certain things be perfect. i think underneath is my own insecurities, but it also feels so damn automatic, and with seven ocd's in the family it probably is.

back to the docs. will report. aloha.

edited twice

[lei]

Libby i apologize if i'm threadjacking. i'm hoping this will be useful for any of us with, i guess, "computer ocd".

session with tdoc today. for ptsd and social anxiety i'm virtually healed, with few and mild triggers. i didn't know if EMDR would work for my GAD-channelled-into-OCD but it did! living out the sensations, and seeing deeper the sources (other than genetics), really liberated me.

in fact instead of heading straight home to finish up my rituals, i cruised the shops and talked to people. like, in real life ones.

i'm putting a parental control on myself. before i use the net for anything that isn't time sensitive, i must do yoga (as long as i'm able.) i'm so different when i breathe deeply and am open.

and when i feel overwhelmed because my rituals are out-of-whack (i have to put away groceries and read the mail and unload the dishwasher and fold the clothes and water the garden and get to the computer because i won't be at peace till it's all done) it's time to do something really silly. put my underwear on my head, shout out "penis" as loud as i dare, throw all the mail in the air, walk around like a penguin. de-fuse.

yesterday i tapered my valium back down to where i was before i almost lost a friend's life recently and today was a breeze at that level. if these things work i'll hold off on trying another med like i keep considering (i am so hard on myself, that's why my therapist's stuffed hedgehog beat me up today).  (hey, his methods are unconventional, but so am i, and they work for me.)

sorry this is long. it was a breakthrough day.  aloha.

[lei]

quick update. this is amazing. normally by now i'd be lining up and doing dozens of things, some with hundreds of sub-things.

i'm....in bed. relaxed.

okay i did finally get up and scoop the kitty poops. and as a human being on this planet i intend to do more good outside the home when i've had a little time getting used to this inner-peace thing.

but EMDR focused on OCD may work for others too. the world sure looks different to me today. i mean it's the same crazy world but i don't have to fix it all today.

[Vollkommenheit]

There is a big difference between diligence, addiction and obsessions

If the boards are helping you and enabling you to help others, without causing significant difficulties in your personal/romantic/work life, then I say go for it.

These boards thrive upon users who read and post regularly.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There are big differences among*...

[december_brigette]

So, having to read CB top to bottom in alphabetical order is not a problem?

[recoverymouse]

I can relate. Back in the days when the internet was unknown and answering machines were state of the art, I would check mine several times a day from work. I was also obsessive about checking the analog mailbox. With the arrival of email I would do the same thing as chipmaster... check hundreds of times a day, reread my sent emails ad nauseum, etc. Then I got a Palm Treo, which allowed me to check my email on the phone. The original synch technology was slow, which gave me an excuse to hit the refresh button whenever I had a spare moment. Now I have the "google phone" and the emails arrive instantly, before they even hit my desktop, so I am thankfully relieved of the email checking.

I still hoard digital stuff. I have over 10,000 emails in my inbox, a substantial proportion unread. When I am feeling especially anxious I will hit bit torrent and download things. I've been known to save whole webpages to my computer. It's much easier to hoard digital material than the brick-and-mortar stuff. I was one of those people who had newspapers and magazines everywhere, but these days I read all my journalism on aforementioned mobile device. I guess the digital world has relieved me of the compulsion to save that particular type of paper, but I still battle against piles of paper, constantly.

My particular brand of checking eventually morphed into a pathological desire to avoid checking altogether. This has been an especially nasty problem for me with voicemail. I will avoid my voicemail for a day or two and then I will be completely terrified to check my voicemail for fear that I missed an important message (my work and personal number are the same)... with each day I avoid checking my voicemail, the anxiety level goes up a notch, and I start to avoid taking calls as well (also for fear of getting a call from someone who had left me a voicemail message that was unreturned). This craziness goes on for up to two weeks or more before I finally sit down and listen to my messages. If there's a message from someone that I was not expecting or can put off for awhile, I will save the message, but never return to it. It will just be sitting there at the end of my new messages, waiting to terrorize me. Mercifully, the phone service eventually deletes the message (at least most of them have).

I have recently found relief from the VM problem by using a new service called Google Voice (which I was eligible for because I was using a preceeding service purchased by Google-- it will be available more widely in the near future). Among other things, Google Voice listens to and transcribes the message, then sends the transcription to me in an email. There are other services that do the same thing for a fee, but GV is free. I find I don't have the anxiety reading the GV transcription that I do listening to my VM, so I am able to better follow who's trying to reach me, and respond quickly.

But I digress... sorry. I find it interesting how technology can help solve some of my problems, then bite me in the ass when I'm not looking. I also play games quite a bit, and find it to be extremely relaxing. Usually word games, on my phone.

Without doubt the techological revolution is changing the nature and kind of compulsions we OCD'ers suffer.

Some clinicians have caught onto this and others havent.

A couple of classic examples are :

- compulsive checking your email

- rereading and resending emails out of fear of errors or offence to others (similar to the old fashion compulsion of opening, closing nad reopening envelopes)

- completing a certain number of tasks on the computer on a given day - and not feeling complete and relaxed until these rituals are performed

- ordering and reordering dekstops, spreadsheets etc

I guess my point is that it is all relative and comes down to a level of impact - there are many people out there with obsessive personality traits who may do these things without it severely impacting upon their life.

Then there are the crazy ones like me who used to check email several hundred times per day, re-edit and resend emails dozens of times per day, and live in a constant state of anxiety regarding any material I sent our (which is pretty hard when you are a solutions architect in an IT firm, believe me!)