Am I Nuts II (page 2 of 4)

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Some quirks make us unique while others can signal an underlying problem.

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Magical thinking is normal for a four-year-old -- but definitely not for an adult.

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Serious psychopathology, or just a quirk?

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When you get right down to it, there's no such thing as "normal."

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Illustrated by Ingo Fast

Magical thinking is normal for a four-year-old -- but definitely not for an adult.

Most of us never outgrow the need for comfort -- we just get it in ways more 'adult' than dragging around a baby blankie like Linus.

Obsessive Counting, Travel Companions and Separate Plates

Question:
I count everything: the stairs at work (23), tiles on the ceiling (96), ruffles in the curtain (14). At the dentist, I even count the repetitions of the flowers on the wallpaper! I know I must be nuts.

A love of counting can be just a quirk, even a beneficial one, notes Doris Wild Helmering, a psychotherapist and author in St. Louis. "What better way to distract yourself from the picking and grinding than counting the flowers in the dentist's office?" But some people find that obsessive counting (arithmomania) interferes with their lives and that they can't control it. These poor Count von Counts probably suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), says Eugene Beresin, MD, professor of psychiatry at Harvard.

The real question is whether you're in control of your counting, or it's in control of you. Beresin suggests, "Ask yourself, What would happen if I stopped counting? Would bad things happen? Would you feel anxious?" For some people with OCD, the most effective treatment is a combination of antidepressants and behavioral therapy with a trained psychiatrist.

Question:
Whether I'm walking in the mall or driving on the highway, I can't stand to be next to people going at the same pace. I have to speed up to pass them or slow down to let them move ahead. Is that weird?

Nope, not at all. Or in the more formal language of Michael Gitlin, MD, professor of psychiatry at UCLA, "I'm unaware that that's related to serious psychopathology. I've had the same experience myself." LaFrance notes that "finding yourself being right next to someone feels like intimate behavior, and when that person is a stranger, that intimacy is unnerving."

Question:
I'm a teenage girl, and it drives me crazy to have my food touching! I need separate plates for the meat, the potato, the veggie -- and a different fork too. My mom says it's annoying for her to make all those arrangements, but it's my food, right?

Mom wins our sympathy on this one. Almost all our experts think that you should seek help. This isn't normal, and it's not harmless, because your mom is put out by it. Given just your three sentences, our experts came up with several possible reasons for your behavior:

You may have a form of anorexia nervosa, notes Beresin, who specializes in eating disorders and says aversion to foods touching is a common symptom. Or you might be suffering from OCD. Yet a third possibility, notes Michael Wymes, MD, a psychiatrist for Kaiser in Vallejo, California, is an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). You're not autistic, per se, but you may have autistic tendencies. While people with OCD may fear contamination from food touching, these ASD sufferers have no logical explanation for their aversion. People with ASD make idiosyncratic rules about the universe, such as "Food must be separated," and it drives them nuts when it isn't.

Whatever the cause of your behavior, it may get worse as you age and likely won't be resolved without treatment. Ask yourself what will happen when you go out on a date. Will you demand that the kitchen send you five plates and five forks? Good luck getting a second date.

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