Compulsive Behavior

[b._.o._.b]

Sometimes I look at myself and wonder.. why am I doing this..? I don' t see any rational explanation for having this compulsive behavior.

The behavior I'm talking about is .. reading this forum continuously.

I really have more than enough games on my 4 gig sd card to get sentenced to a life-penalty of 5 lives and play with my gp2x happily through all of them. Still I'm reading about new emulators, homebrew and new tweaks like a madman, can' t miss one day because maybe *another* great game or app will be available.

Why am I doing this...? This device is haunting me , please make me understand :wacko:

 

[sam fisher]

Shush, you'll help everyone realise that they are psychologically dependant on this place.

 

[craigix]

The other day when gp32x went down for a while i actually thought 'WHY oh WHY didn't we make a back up board somewhere!'

What was I to check whenever i had 10mins spare? Funny how you get into that routine when online.

As for other things I don't like copper coins touching silver ones, I keep them in seperate pockets.

 

[reiboul]

I AM dependant
I can't tell you how lonely I felt without GP32x a week ago

 

[sam fisher]

I AM dependant
I can't tell you how lonely I felt without GP32x a week ago

It's ok, GP32x is here for you now. *Injects SQL into Reiboul intravenously*.

 

[Ganepark32]

This is indeed a hard topic to fully understand. Even scientists don't have a complete answer.

Its like this though. The mind remembers just about everything you see and hear. The mind is always in search of new info to top itself up. So with the mind remembering basically everything, it'll pick something as simple as a website that you'll constantly go to over and over again even if the info you read is useless.

Everyone has a copulsive habit. The reason these habits continue is because you remember them and in a thirst for answers one continually undertakes these habits.

Thats the best I can do to explain it without going into scientific terms which no one would understand. I even reckon that with what I've just said I'll have confused you even more.

Oh and one of my compulsive habits is straightening squint desks that I'm about to use.

 

[Vimacs]

that explanation makes sense to me!

 

[sam fisher]

This is indeed a hard topic to fully understand. Even scientists don't have a complete answer.

Its like this though. The mind remembers just about everything you see and hear. The mind is always in search of new info to top itself up. So with the mind remembering basically everything, it'll pick something as simple as a website that you'll constantly go to over and over again even if the info you read is useless.

Everyone has a copulsive habit. The reason these habits continue is because you remember them and in a thirst for answers one continually undertakes these habits.

Thats the best I can do to explain it without going into scientific terms which no one would understand. I even reckon that with what I've just said I'll have confused you even more.

Oh and one of my compulsive habits is straightening squint desks that I'm about to use.

Whats more interesting is the fact that I value my compulsive habit to gain useless information over my non-compulsive habit to gain useful information Don't worry about using the full terms, as people around here are pretty bright.

 

[craigix]

Sam, why do you link to that port washington thing? What's the deal?

 

[sam fisher]

Tis a good movie and I mirror it. Why is the image so huge? Cos I cannot be bothered to resize it

 

[b._.o._.b]

Good to see I'm not alone
Still it's not clear to me why I have got this urge to click and refresh. For now I consider it to be a small NAND bug.

@Ganepark32 give us the scientific terms, we are not idiots and we have a friend

 

[Ganepark32]

Having read over some stuff again on the subject, there really isn't a scientific way of putting compulsive behaviour.

Its basically and anxiety disorder whereby not doing something bears on your mind and can drive you to the brink of deteriation if you don't do the thing.

The most common types of obsessions are:

* feelings that objects are dirty or contaminated with germs
* worry about doors being left unlocked, heaters being left switched on or concern over causing harm to others
* unpleasant intrusive thoughts, especially about violence, aggression or sex
* intense fear of making mistakes or behaving inappropriately
* obsession with the ordering, arrangement or symmetry of objects

Compulsions are psychological. However the cause of it is unknown but its believed several factors help towards it devloping. Its believed that compulsions can be passed on through families but whether those compulsions are the same with different members or the same family is unknown. Its also believe that it can be caused by stress or by traumatic experiences. Of course checking the smae webpage over and over a course of a week without an answer as to why its done doesnt necessarily come under stress or traumatic experiences but it could do.

Compulsive behaviour is linked to an increased activity in the brain, in certain areas, and to a decreased level of the natural chemical serotonin, which is important in controlling the mood. So with lower levels of serotonin, your brain might perceive that you are under stress or have experience something that means that it has to unlock information held within the brain in the form of energy and bring it out making you more likely to have some form of compulsive behaviour.

Edit: you should check Wikipedia as well as it gives a good explanation there as well as the various theories of why compulsive behaviour happens in individuals. Usually Wikipedia can be terrible for finding out scientific information but its really good for its Compulsive behaviour section.

 

[sam fisher]

The causes of OCD like behaviour is very opinionative and theoretical. That is to say that what one expert tells you will differ from what another does. Hence Wikipedia is a VERY bad choice here IMO.

 

[___]

haha sam, you little dipshit. You've got the wikipedia link right besides the gp32x link in your browser's quicklink bar so you can be a smartass and post stuff you just looked up... I bet a frickin' barrel of whiskey. you probably looked that one up on wikipedia aswell...

anyways, compulsive behaviour is pretty much being neurotic and those examples that sensible gave are perfectly on point. neurotics will often show behaviour like locking the front door several times or clean constantly to defeat the germs haunting them. also a lot of people wash their hands all the time which is also neurotic compulsive behaviour.

I used to count my steps when I was a kid and tried to avoid odd step counts. so basically if I would come near a couple of stairs, I would try to get an even number of steps before I would enter the stairs, making all kinds of awkward moves to get it right. Especially when I walked home from school and stuff like that. It became such a routine, that at some point I couldn't stop doing it for a few weeks and my thoughts rotated only around that concept when I was moving about. Holy crap... am I messed up or what? well... that was ten years ago, whatever.

I also check the forum every time I get the chance to do so. it's an addiction. When gp32x.de was down, I nearly became desperately suicidal ^^.

 

[Alex.]

xnopasaranx, you scared me a bit. I often repeatedly lock the front door, and come back several times to check if it's locked. I'm conscious that it is in fact locked, but return and check several times regardless. I also have the occasional habit of dividing words from advertisement banners around the city in smaller groups of words, and see if they're even or odd, or if they form even-odd-even sequences. And I sometimes count the sidewalk tiles, again to form odd/even patterns. And that's now, not ten years ago :-/

Edit: I forgot to add that I constantly check my pockets to feel my keys and wallet every 10 or so minutes. I also cannot stop blinking once I become conscious of the fact that I must blink at some point. The only way to snap out of it is to find some sort of distraction.

 

[___]

don't worry, as you can see, compulsive behaviour is very common. many people have these urges to find mathematical patterns and similarities in seemingly structurized things. it's also a sign of an active and high intellect. so yeah, nerds and geeks we are... we are probably neurotics aswell.

If you want to try a fun game of the mind, try adding numbers of all different kinds of things/ count letters to a result of 23. if you ever read the illuminatus! trilogy by robert anton wilson, you will find yourself doing that for the rest of your life to check wether the illuminati are involved with your cereal's brand name or your fucking license plate... it's good times. add, substract, invent weird equations and laugh your ass off when you come upon some method to make microsoft = 23... conspiracy theories can be a neat time-killer.

EDIT: Oh, just to comfort my arguments... what I still do is trying to avoid imaginary diagonals in squares on the ground, i.e. tiles. I will try to put my feet in a fashion that does not have them cross any diagonals such as the line between too opposing and non adjacent corners of the tile, avoiding the gaps between them aswell.
But that is not really a neurosis as I can stop whenever I want, it's more of an attention game when I am bored to keep myself focussed.

 

[Blah]

I forgot to add that I constantly check my pockets to feel my keys and wallet every 10 or so minutes.

I do that too, but only because I've found out the hard way that you can lose them easily and then you're SOL.

 

[DaveC]

xnopasaranx, you scared me a bit. I often repeatedly lock the front door, and come back several times to check if it's locked. I'm conscious that it is in fact locked, but return and check several times regardless.
Edit: I forgot to add that I constantly check my pockets to feel my keys and wallet every 10 or so minutes.

I just think that is because some of us know that our feeble monkey animal brain will fail us if you give it the chance to. If you forget to do something once like forget your keys you know that damn brain has the ability to do it to you again. So you know that you need to check on that brain to make sure it didn't screw up. I know that is true for me. I just don't trust my stupid brain. I just know it will try to go lame and trick me and forget something if it can. If my brain DOES forget something I get so pissed at it. I just want to pull it out and smack it for being so dumb, I'll show it, stupid thing.

 

[Nova]

xnopasaranx, you scared me a bit. I often repeatedly lock the front door, and come back several times to check if it's locked. I'm conscious that it is in fact locked, but return and check several times regardless.
Edit: I forgot to add that I constantly check my pockets to feel my keys and wallet every 10 or so minutes.

I just think that is because some of us know that our feeble monkey animal brain will fail us if you give it the chance to. If you forget to do something once like forget your keys you know that damn brain has the ability to do it to you again. So you know that you need to check on that brain to make sure it didn't screw up. I know that is true for me. I just don't trust my stupid brain. I just know it will try to go lame and trick me and forget something if it can. If my brain DOES forget something I get so pissed at it. I just want to pull it out and smack it for being so dumb, I'll show it, stupid thing.


Win! :lol: