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Comment by willcipriano | Hacker News Reader

I had a weird tick as a kid where anytime someone said something to me I had to mentally adjust the length of the statement so the number of words was divisible by 5.

So for example if you said "Are you going to school today?" I'd add "my good friend, Will" in my mind.

It drove me nuts, but I was unable to stop. Then one day it just went away. Still have no idea what that was but it plagued most of my childhood. I remember when I noticed that I didn't have to do that anymore and it was probably the happiest I felt prior to my daughters birth.

Never told anyone about it before this comment. It's a strange thing to try and explain to someone.

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Wow, that took me back. When I was a kid every time I would say something outloud I had to repeat it to myself, whispering, to "check" if sounds "good", and I had absolutely no control over it. It would also drive me mad and adults would give me shit for it because they thought I was just playing some dumb game. One day it was just gone. And I felt just like you felt!

I've had a habit for my entire adult life, of sorting the letters of words alphabetically in my head. The longer the word the better.

It's even better when the sorted letters turn out to make any sort of repetitive pattern.

And I count stairs, unless I specifically override the internal voice and say "1", "1", "1", "1,".... to myself.

I don’t mean to be glib but are you really good at Scrabble? I believe the strategy at the competitive level is similar to what you’ve described: Memorizing essentially an index of words by the alphabetized sequence of letters, then you keep your tiles in alphabetical order and “look them up”

“‘You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this room.’

‘Frequently.’

‘How often?’

‘Well, some hundreds of times.’

‘Then how many are there?’

‘How many! I don’t know.’

‘Quite so. You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed.’”

Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson, A Scandal In Bohemia, 1891

I used to count stairs when I was younger too, and remember that most of them had between 16 and 18 steps for a floor.

Oh no, is counting things bad? I'm always counting things and also counting how long they take.

Did that seem to have a mathematical basis... a form of counting and grouping... or did it seem to have a rhythmic basis, like you needed a 'dah dah dah dah DAH' pattern in speech?

yes

Heh. Walking over cracks, doing balancing un-rotation, alternating first leg on ladders, skipping first over-two if a ladder is uneven, walking into pools to save an intertial momentum. (No more)

“Then one day it just went away completely. It's a strange thing to try and explain it to someone.”

Fixed that in my mind as usual.

Wow, it's actually amazing to me that this is the first time you have articulated this to anyone - thanks for sharing!

Have you had any benefits? For example, has it made you much more accepting of the mental quirks of other people?

I really appreciate your disclosure of something so intimate, because it brings a sense of wonder into my world, and it reminds me we never really know what is going on in the minds of our friends (let alone my own mind!). Thank you.

I used to break a sentence up into two's to see if it was even or odd.

Have you considered writing children's books? :) /s

It's so interesting how many weird states our brains can get into like that.

Congrats on kicking the habit though!

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