Obsession with the number 4

LegacyUser

Morning Guys,

This is probably going to sound a bit strange but I'm hoping somebody can relate and advise me here. In a nutshell, I'm obsessed with the number 4 and it's starting to affect my life in a negative way. I'll give you some examples -

When I turn off the light before bed I have to touch all four corners of teh lightswitch before turning it off.

When I open the fridge I have to touch all four corners before opening it.

When I'm putting on a pair of tights (this one is particularly weird) I have to pull them up at the front first, then the back, then either side and I count to four in my head when I do it, as in the front is 1, the back is 2 etc.

When I sit down to dinner I need to touch all four corners of the table before I sit down. This is a problem in restaurants and the canteen in work because I look crazy but I have to do it or I'll panic.

The list goes on! Does anybody else do these things? I'm 28 years old so it's not like I'm kid avoiding the cracks in teh pavement. I should have grown out of this behaviour by now but it's getting worse. Last night in bed I kept touching the bottom 2 corners woth my feet and the top 2 with my hands like soem kind of lunatic. I really want this to stop.

Any thoughts?

Wibbs

I suppose we all have rituals. Some more than others. I'm quite sure they'd roll out the rubber room for me for some of mine!:D The thing is this is affecting your life in a negative way now and that's the point where you should get it looked at and sorted. Therapy and medication that works is available. No doubt there are people reading this forum that have had similar to one degree or other and have gotten it sorted. I'm sure they'll pipe up sooner or later.

alo1587

Hi there, what you are desribing is obsessive compulsive disorder.I suggets you visit your GP who can refer you to a psychiatrist or other mental health professional.It can be treated with medication and cognitive behavioural therapy.Many people have ocd, so don't be worried.:)

grizzly

OCD effects about 1 in 20 people so your not alone! As the previous poster mentioned CBT is a proven treatment. If this is having a negative impact on your life you can take relief that after 3 months of CBT you should be free of these habits.

LegacyUser

I have something quite similar with numbers. I have my own sort of quirks that are different to yours, but the number 4 would feature quite a bit. I'll only eat things in twos. Obviously this doesn't apply to everything. I wouldn't insist on eating 2 chickens or something like that, but biscuits, toast, sweets, crisps, anything like that. I have to have an even number of them. Preferably one that's divisible by 4. It's something about the numbers 2,4,8 and 16 that seem very even, very... I dunno... rounded.

I'm aware of these habits and wary of letting them get out of control in any way. If you think yours are starting to get out of hand, it might be time to get some help with it.

themadchef

I think if your finding that it's affecting you life in a negative way..or if you feel it's progressing you need to get some kind of psychological help sooner rather than later. Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying you're a nut job. We all have our "thing".

Me? I'm the number 5. Love to tap starting with my small finger, ending with my thumb. I don't realise im doing it half the time. Count the letters in peoples names, random sentences. Weird stuff. I will even swap some words for other words when writing something so that the sentence ends on a "fifth" letter. I know..weird. No one has noticed it though. I do feel mad nonetheless

Look at it like this ..it's only the number 4..imagine if it was 44! Then you would be in trouble. Try to relax a bit about it, maybe not stress about doing it. See how you get on. If you find it's getting worse and is impacting on your life in a negative way then definitely get help as by all accounts these things can get worse.

this is a really interesting form of ocd.. when did it develop OP? as posted above, there's treatment available for ocd although i don't know much about it to be honest..

what do you think if you sit down at a round table etc.?

LegacyUser

I've had the exact same quirk although the numbers alternated. I used to wash a glass out 12 times, if I missed the number I would have to repeat to 24. Then I obsessed with the number 4. For me 4 is a circular number, in that it has a beginning middle and end and then a beginning, this is pleasing. Other numbers which hold special interest to me are 6 which is a perfect number and 3 although 4, 6 and 12 are higher up in the hierarchy so 3 is usually combined with them in doing something over and over again.

I stopped doing things x amount of times because I recognized that it was pointless. Now certain small things like playing a chord on guitar after practicing I will do 4 times but just for the tradition of it, I can effectively choose how many times I want to do something. I don't really know how or why I stopped, the hold numbers had over me just snapped I guess.

LegacyUser

I know quite a few people with this kind of thing, they've got little rituals and they have to be completed. Some people are quite good at hiding it, other s its as plane as day theyre doing it.

I kno a person who touches his shoulders with opposing hands (right hand to left shoulder, left to right) and puts his head down while he does it. I find it quite strange, and think he should see someone about it, but don't know him enough to tell him. Dont think his mates have told him either. Ive seen him do it in the pub, its a strange habit and people look at him curiously.

Strange how the mind goes for these twitches and tics. Youre not alone, but if its having a negative effect on things (or people notice it and think youre a sycho) then you should do somethin about it!

RossFixxxed

You should read 'N' by Stephen King very similar.

Look it MAY be OCD or you may just have some odd rituals. I've gotten a bit obsessed by the most random of things over the years. You are better breaking the rituals NOW though if you think they may escalate. It's when your life is being negatively affected that you have a problem. Which you may well not at the moment!

And: Everything that Wibbs said!

qt9ukbg60ivjrn

i use to have a simlar thing, even numbers, never lower than 4 usually ending at 12 cause i'd just realise it was ridiculous and a waste of time,

i had a conversation with a bunch of my friends about this and they all said they had similar things

i grew out of it, but if it is affecting you badly look for advice, or try and persevere and quit doing it

Loxosceles

4 words:

Selective
Serotonin
Reuptake
Inhibitor.

Find a GP, describe the frequency of your thoughts and rituals, get a scrip, make friends with it, take it daily, find your life improving significantly.

That is all.

petethebrick

You could buy loads of circular furniture for your house - circular tables, bed - dunno where you'd get a circular fridge though...

RossFixxxed

Loxosceles wrote: »

4 words:

Selective
Serotonin
Reuptake
Inhibitor.

Find a GP, describe the frequency of your thoughts and rituals, get a scrip, make friends with it, take it daily, find your life improving significantly.

That is all.

There is too many things wrong with that message.

1) It may not be OCD
2) It's THE INTERNET we can't diagnose on one or a million posts
3) You can't just throw the pills approach at things immediately every time.
4) Did I mention this is the internet?
5) Are you a doctor?
6) Frankly those things do not always improve your life. Only if properly diagnosed and prescribed by someone in a controlled manner.

If the OP is that concerned he should visit a professional.

R

Silverfish

petethebrick wrote: »

You could buy loads of circular furniture for your house - circular tables, bed - dunno where you'd get a circular fridge though...

Unhelpful posting can earn you a ban from this forum.

DublinWriter

I might as well 'fess up, I too had fairly bad OCD as a kid and also involving the number four and also handwashing.

Back in nineteen-dickedy-seventy-whatever, such conditions went fairly much undiagnosed and untreated in kids.

Why four? I just liked the symmetry of the number, if that makes sense.

Interestingly the number four in Chinese culture is akin to the number 13 in Western culture because the Chinese word for four when pronounced sounds like their word for death (not sure whether in Mandarin or Cantonese).

It was something I eventually grew out of thanks to several techniques, including mediation and NLP.

Rarely these days I'll find myself touching a door handle four-times upon closing it, but I'll do it totally unconsciously and when my conscious mind notices I laugh and tell myself to cop on. Certainly now it's not a behaviour that anyone else would notice and doesn't impinge on my social or professional life.

One root of OCD can be wanting to impose order on a chaotic world over which you feel you have no real power to change.

It's a compulsion from which you have isolate and to detach yourself from.

Liam Byrne

ocdocdocdocd wrote: »

In a nutshell, I'm obsessed with the number 4 and it's starting to affect my life in a negative way. I'll give you some examples -

I'm just here wondering if you consciously used a username that equates to "ocd" x 4, or if that was subconscious ?

If it was subconscious, I'd be worried and go see a doc or something.

As for OCD itself - I reckon everyone has it to some extent....I'm lethal for having to go back into the house before I leave to check that everything is off - even though I've usually checked it before leaving.....it bugs the bejaysus out of me, but it's not overall "affecting" my life....

That's the problem with labels.....they get people thinking or worrying for no reason.

But if it's as random as "the number 4" and as intense as you say, I'd get it checked - no stigma or "issue", but just for your own piece of mind....

giggsy664

I constantly find myself counting letters in my head from a certain word. A=1 and B=2 etc. So Word=23+15+18+4. But mostly I try to find a word and to get some of the letters to add up to 26/Z.

@OP: it may or may not be OCD, but the symptoms you have described seem like what I know OCD as (But I don't know much). What do you feel will happen if you don't touch the corners/do something 4 times?

nkay1985

I think that's the first time I've read a thread title and thought "did I post a thread without realising it?"

I've got a thing with numbers. I basically like things to be divisible by four and , if that's not possible, divisible by two. I'll go up stairs in an even number of steps. I'll count the number of characters in a registration plate and like that to total 8, preferably with double-characters in it! Loads of mental stuff. But thankfully, unlike you, I don't have to do any of it.

If it ever gets to that stage, I'll have to get it checked out, and I think that's something you should probably do OP. Certain types of people are, in my experience, prone to sufffering from OCD. I don't think it's a coincidence that I had a conversation with my best friend from my college course and we shared a number of obsessive tendancies, while our girlfriends had none!

Get yourself checked out.

alo1587

Ok, i gotta come clean, I group letters in words in threes all the way up to 24.And i'll add in letters or punctuation until it adds up to 24,or sometimes a multiple of 3.eg boa-rds-.ie Strange i know but i've done it all my life and I dont know why.Its definately a trait of OCD, but then again I dont have the physical compulsions that go with OCD! If you find its controlling your life, without a doubt seek help.Its highly treatable.Good luck:)

LegacyUser

That definately sounds like obsessive compusive disorder, I suffer from it too, but the thing to do is to try to manage it. Just stopping your counting may not do anything if you are panicking when you don't do it. I would definately see a therapist about it, preferable one that specialises in Cognitive Behvaioural Therapy as this concentrates on really useful coping skills and small ways of changing your behaviour and thoughts to make your life more manageable. As you can see from this thread you are definately not alone in this one. But do try to seek help, this problem can become an awful lot worse if you dont address it. A great book is Overcoming Obsessive Compulsive Disorder by David Veall and Robert Wilson, you will find this in the self help/health section of any good bookstore. But individual help with a therapist is the key in my opinion to having tailored advice and help for your problem.

Good luck