- Date posted
- 1y
Unusual type of arithmomania
So this is a long story (as you're reading this i'm just about to turn 24 years old, i hope you can understand what i suffered from and please keep this confidential from this app only, it's a serious story but i really hope that i can trust you), but what happened was every since the spring of 2022, i had dealt with ocd-symptoms related to numbers. This condition is known as arithmomania, and i must say, i absolutely hate it. It is the worst thing that has ever happened in my life, everyday i've had constantly telling myself i got over it but the numbers kept getting worse. First it began with relatable cases people had such as the amount of times people touched a mirror, wall, handle, bench etc. but none of those were as bad as one thing which if anything worsened over time (which i had to post this to see if anyone can help about this). There was a time in the year of 2016 where i wrote a dumb email (which caused me to have began interrogated and i denied everything at the time) to a school that i didn't like because some guy threatened me at the time so i wrote a list of people's names, it didn't bother for years but then in august of 2022 it popped into my mind because of the list of people which i thought was "12", and since my mind didn't like that number for some strange reason, it kept bothering for various months that it interfered with my everyday life so then in late december 2022 i wrote an email (not an illegal one) and then there was something that wasn't satisfying so then i wrote another and then another and then another, then in 2023 i wrote over 50+ emails to one teacher, then the same lack of certainty happened to another teacher 50+ emails and then i told myself to just write 16 emails to a 3rd teacher in the same month of january 2023, but i accidentally forgot something so then i wrote 50+, however the next day just when i thought it was all over, it wasn't, and that's because in those 50+ emails (to the 3rd teacher) there was a specific pattern i didn't like which made it feel like "12" (the emails with "lists of people", which all included at least 13 people because i couldn't accept 12) . And because of a "insecured" feeling i dealt with with even the littlest of specifics of ocd-symptoms, i ended up writing for example 3 months in a row for a day, i wrote a few months later and then in Summer of 2023 and then lately in fall. And the purpose wasn't to annoy the teachers obviously, the purpose was get rid of the symptoms i dealt with. However, today (November 18, 2023 before 1am as i wrote this) what happened specifically is last month i wrote 9 emails but it was the span of two days so then i wanted to have written 5 emails recently this november but then because of a "short type of email" that was written in january and october this year, i wanted to write a few quickly in november but then after i wrote those i didn't realize but there was one that overlapped the earliest morning of february 1st. So the pattern i've felt hours ago is "january-february, october-november" (which is 2-2 beginning of year, 2-2 close to end of year) and those are during age 23, so then because of that and that i ended up writting 9 emails today in november, i've felt so angry at myself and my mind feels that if i write 3 emails a row (with a short email included at the least) that it'll disappear the symptoms but my mind feels that it would want to write at some point a few months in a row next year but i don't want to write to any of those teachers in a row because at close to an age of any typical grown man and i don't want to put myself in trouble. I don't want my mind to think something ridiculous such as "Oh but Dan if you write they aren't going to be in the same year as the 50+/50+/50+ sets of emails you wrote" I've come to the point where i CANNOT stand this and it seems like everytime i've tried to fix something it has just gotten worse. I saw a doctor/psychiatrist, all they did was placed me on antidepressants but they made it worse and i've had to go get alternate medicine for possible mold poisoning (that's another story) since it could've gone to my brain which my brother (who knows from experience) says it could have caused the ocd-symptoms. I apologize about this type of story, i don't mean to make anyone feel triggered but this is just how i've felt inside and i couldn't keep this in silence. I want to live a healthy happy and productive life and i should be happy that my birthday is in less than 10 hours but this has taken a toll and i regret having written more than 5 emails on november 17th. If anyone knows any advice on what to do given this stuck-felt type of situation, i would really appreciate your help.