generational_symmetry epitome of incomprehensibility The_weirdest_things_resurrect. Technically this isn't resurrection, it's genetic inheritance, but today_I_learned that my and my father's childhood obsessive-compulsive symptoms were ALMOST EXACTLY THE SAME. Like, how?? We were walking the dog this evening and I was reflecting on anxiety: often for me, my logical mind can point out when my worries are unreasonable...but this doesn't make them automatically go away. I compared this with my OCD-type thinking as a kid, how I had "superstitions I didn't believe in." Dad said yes, he had those too. "In those days, people just thought, 'Well, he's strange, but he'll get over it.' And I did, eventually. THAT part of my mental quirks." I'd heard about his early OCD (or whatever it was) before. And I added how for me, it's continued to some extent - it just got absorbed into anxiety. Some particulars have disappeared, like the feeling that "things have to be symmetrical." Dad said, "Yes, I had that too." We had rounded a bend in the road and I could see Valois_Park up ahead. My description had been pretty vague; how did he know exactly what I meant? It wasn't that I thought things around me had to be symmetrical, necessarily. It was that bodily sensations had to be. I searched for a weird example, an example crazier than anything Dad would have had. "Okay, but, like, if I bumped my shin on a table, I'd bump the other shin against the table too. To be symmetrical." Dad nodded. "Oh yes, I had that too." "Really?" I was excited. Why, because scientifically curious? Feeling seen? Appreciating weird coincidences? Maybe a bit of everything. Dad had the dog's leash, so Shiloh didn't have to adjust to my capering around in surprise. (Not capering really - more like standing still, then hurrying to catch up.) A nd I went on, "But, like, did you feel that if you turned one way" (I demonstrated by a brief twist) "you had to turn the other way too or else you would feel WRONG AND UNBALANCED??" Again Dad said yes. Exactly that. I was distracted a bit by our arrival at the park, but...huh. What a thing to pass on to another generation: childhood obsessive compulsive disorder about the symmetry of bodily sensations. (Is that at all a common OCD thing? I hear more about obsessive hand-washing, say, or superstitions about doing actions in a certain order. I want to look it up, but it's already late.) 260711 ... e_o_i Well, this didn't take long: https://www.healthline.com/health/symmetry-ocd#what-it-is says "It might involve needing to arrange items 'just right,' or feeling like both sides of the body have to move the same way." Not the first thing for either of us, but the second thing. There's a bit more precision further down on the page, under "frequent compulsions in symmetry OCD"; two of them relate - "touching or tapping things an equal number of times or with both hands" and "stepping or walking in certain patterns (e.g., retracing steps or balancing movements)" ...This feels fun to notice in retrospect, but there's also an element realizing_you_are_lucky that it was merely frustrating, not debilitating. A lot of people have it far worse. 260711 what's it to you? who go blather from