# I met a woman who verbalizes her every thought as she thinks it. What's she got? OCD? Tourette's?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-met-a-woman-who-verbalizes-her-every-thought-as-she-thinks-it-whats-she-got-ocd-tourettes/652963>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 15, 2013, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-met-a-woman-who-verbalizes-her-every-thought-as-she-thinks-it-whats-she-got-ocd-tourettes/652963 "2013-03-15T00:44:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-met-a-woman-who-verbalizes-her-every-thought-as-she-thinks-it-whats-she-got-ocd-tourettes/652963/41 "2013-03-15T20:58:59Z")

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I know another one - my husband. Even when he’s asleep, he’s still talking nonstop. And it’s getting worse as he gets older.

I go to bed early every night so that I can have a half an hour or so of silence. And then I get up early in the morning for the same reason.

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**Author:** ![applebetty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4af34b/32.png) [@applebetty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/applebetty)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-met-a-woman-who-verbalizes-her-every-thought-as-she-thinks-it-whats-she-got-ocd-tourettes/652963/42 "2013-03-16T00:53:21Z")

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> [@Nava](#):
>
> Which of my brothers are you and when did you move to Rhode Island? \>snip\<

I’m related through my grandmother. She had entire conversations under her breath, using shocking curse words, but only while she was in the kitchen cooking or washing up; facing the outside wall and nobody within 8 feet. You couldn’t get close enough to understand, as soon as you closed in she stopped. She was not a very happy person, I think she did a lot out of duty.

I maintain that’s where I got my good hearing, you had to listen hard from the other room to pick up any words.

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**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-met-a-woman-who-verbalizes-her-every-thought-as-she-thinks-it-whats-she-got-ocd-tourettes/652963/43 "2013-03-16T01:15:04Z")

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Perhaps she’s dictating.

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**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-met-a-woman-who-verbalizes-her-every-thought-as-she-thinks-it-whats-she-got-ocd-tourettes/652963/44 "2013-03-16T02:41:42Z")

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At my last job there was a woman who did this. She’d walk in the door talking, continue all during the day, except when she was actually conversing with another human, and walk out the door talking at the end of the day.

She still was capable enough to (mostly) do her job, although she had other annoying traits as well. She was a terrible gossip and incredibly nosy.

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**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-met-a-woman-who-verbalizes-her-every-thought-as-she-thinks-it-whats-she-got-ocd-tourettes/652963/45 "2013-03-16T04:52:17Z")

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> [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](#):
>
> That article is astonishing. Thanks for linking to it.

It’s astonishing all right. I’m calling shenanigans on this. I think it’s grade A bullshit.

> [@](#):
>
> He then makes an astonishing confession: “At one major investment bank for which I worked, we used psychometric testing to recruit social psychopaths because their characteristics exactly suited them to senior corporate finance roles.”
> 
> Here was one of the biggest investment banks in the world seeking psychopaths as recruits.
> 
> Mr Ronson spoke to scores of psychologists about their understanding of the damage that psychopaths could do to society. None of those psychologists could have imagined, I’m sure, the existence of a bank that used the science of spotting them as a recruiting mechanism.

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**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-met-a-woman-who-verbalizes-her-every-thought-as-she-thinks-it-whats-she-got-ocd-tourettes/652963/46 "2013-03-16T04:55:40Z")

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Manic talking was an experience that made me feel horrible. It was caused by a reaction to a drug. (Would you believe ambien?) It was a miserable feeling not to be able to control myself. There seemed to be a compulsion that I had no control over anymore than I have control over the need to breath. After scanning the written info on the new medications I had been taking, I spotted the source of the problem. Then I asked to be voluntarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital until the compulsion wore off. Unfortunately, they decided that I was bi-polar and kept me for three weeks! (They were mistaken in their disgnosis.) Depressive? Yes. Bipolar? No.

I could not get the nurse who was registering me to listen to what had happened and why I was there. So I quit answering her questions and just chatted with another nurse who was very pleasant and respectful. After a day or so of not having the ambien, I felt fine. But by then, TPTB decided that I needed to stay longer.

Things went downhill from there. I was so mistreated that the hospital did not charge me ANYTHING for the three weeks I spent there.

I’ve been hospitalized for depression before, but I’ve never been mistreated until a year ago. Beware of hospitals that house all of their senior patients together. The caregivers tend to project problems onto patients that they don’t have.

There can certainly be many causes of manic speaking – some painful, some not.

As for sociopathology, those having that disorder tend to be above average in intelligence. From the statistics I’ve read, about one in every one hundred people are sociopaths. They may never do anything that draws the attention of the law. Some can be very charming – for a while. The main thing they have in common is, as mentioned above, a total lack of empathy. I would think they would be exceedingly difficult to live with.

(I had surgery for cancer a few months later and there is no sign of cancer anymore. I’m short one lobe, but I tell people I’ve had a lobe-botomy.)

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**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-met-a-woman-who-verbalizes-her-every-thought-as-she-thinks-it-whats-she-got-ocd-tourettes/652963/47 "2013-03-16T14:42:59Z")

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Sounds like she is a [compulsive talker](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_talking).

> [@from the wikipedia article](#):
>
> Those who have been characterized as compulsive talkers talk with a greater frequency, dominate conversations, and are less inhibited than others.[1] They have also been found to be more argumentative and have a positive attitude regarding communication.[1] Tendencies towards compulsive talking also are more frequently seen in the personality structure of **neurotic psychotic extraverts.** [5] It has also been found that talkaholics are never behaviorally shy.[4]

Bolding mine.

It sounds like more of a character trait than a full-blown disorder.

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