What are some things that you do that people constantly ask about?
I read in a bar after work. It’s how I chill out at the end of the day, and it’s something to do while waiting for the crowds to dwindle in the subways. At least three or four times a week, somebody will come up to me and ask “How can you read in here?”
I usually say, “The library’s closed and even if they were open they don’t serve beer.” And more often then not, these folks will go on to explain to me that they would never be able to read in such a noisy place.
I simply disappear sometimes from anywhere between minutes and months. I have done this since I was a teenager. I can see how someone would be concerned about me disappearing for weeks or months but it is the smaller ones that freak me out. I walk 3 - 6 miles every day that I can. For some reason, my family and extended family freak every time that I do it when I fly down to visit. We are simply talking about walking around large subdivisions or beside major roads. This concept is so foreign to them that it has resulted in heated fights about weird behavior and walking out on the family. We are talking about a 45 minute walk late on Christmas day once everything is done for example. In these types of scenarios, I tell them what I am doing but not where because I don’t know the area well enough. I don’t get it.
Sounds familiar. It’s a pity that something that’s healthy and evolutionarily the thing humans are made to do is a foreign concept to the majority. If everyone walked 3-6 miles whenever they can, we’d live in a different world.
I prefer, when I can afford it, to spend my time at home playing guitar, reading and researching, playing video games, kayaking and hiking.
Sometimes I can afford to take 2-3 months off and just hang out, and most of my friends and family cannot understand how I don’t go off my rocker, get consumed by boredom, etc.
I think they’re all weird, tho, for NOT wanting to stay at home, goof off and have fun doing things they enjoy.
I pick at my fingers. No one understands that it doesn’t really hurt the way they think it should, nor do they understand that it makes me calmer and less stressed.
If I’m not going straight from work, I like to shower before I go to karate, or helping friends move or something like that. I know I’ll end up sweaty anyway, but I feel better at the start and I’m not completely disgusting when it’s over. So far, no one seems to really get why I prefer to be a cleaner dirty.
When I want to tell people they have something on their faces, I point to the wrong side of my face. If it’s their right side, I point to my right side instead of my left. Most people assume I’m mirroring them, so they think I’m talking about their left.
I can’t seem to remember to be a mirror, but I can usually remember to say, “You’ve got something here I am not a mirror.”
The work that I do is fairly niche market, and I am well paid. I would estimate that there are only about 100-200 people in the country who do what I do, at the same level.
When I work, I often work 8a-12mid 7 days a week, sometimes for more than 4 weeks at a time.
By concentrating my work hours and charging a decent amount for my services, I am thus able to take lots of time off to do what I want.
It is not an easy life, and it certainly isn’t for everyone, but I am very happy with it.
I pull out my hair and eat the root end. It’s called trichtillomania. My parents still give me crap about it. My husband still holds my hands still sometimes. I’m 33.
Don’t feel that bad. I did the same thing when my parent’s marriage was in complete turmoil when I was about 13. Shortly after they divorced, I started on my eyelashes and it made me look horrible. That was twenty years ago. It all grew back and I have great hair and unbelievable eye lashes for a man.
Reduce the stress in your life as best you can. At some point the urge will go away completely and your hair will grow back completely normal. Other people won’t understand this but I do.
You aren’t a freak although I wonder how people with this feel compelled to eat the root end. I did it too. I felt so bad about it that I went to the library to see if there was a proper term and trichtillomania was it.
I do this. I’ve gotten to the point where I usually remember to say, “It’s on your right cheek,” as I point to my own right cheek. I think my husband has finally stopped being confused.
Believe me when I say nobody understands this when I explain it to them. Since no ones heard of it before there isn’t even a name for it. The best description of it I have come up with is “self induced disorientation”.
I know people are familiar with the concept of disorientation in the North-South-East-West directions. Many are familiar with the sensation of being somewhere like a mall and thinking north is south and south is north, getting confused when their environment doesn’t match up “Hey, shouldn’t the GAP be on my left”, and suddenly your surroundings spin 180 degrees to correct themselves.
I can do the opposite and take my surroundings (a room, a building, a whole town) and force them into disoriented mode. In 90 degree increments. So any environement I’m in can appear 4 different ways to me. And I can mentally swap between them all, however there is always one which is the default.
I can explain further but I’ve probably lost most of you by this point…
