Am new need help, not sure if this is anxiety

[johnw]

I have just finished reading a book on ipad. What I am about to say is totally ridiculous and I know it is but I don't know how to stop it. So here it is. Somewhere whilst reading this book I was a word that had 3 spaces in it and it looked funny. Cant remember the word but it looked like this p eople. Now I am finding myself having to go through the whole book till I can find the word. I have already gone through it 3 times, just quick reading it. Is this someone going insane, what would you do. It is really of know importance but I feel that I am addicted to finding such a stupid thing. I have deleted the book from ipad but I can download it again free. HELP ME WHAT SHOULD I DO, I AM WASTING SO MUCH TIME DOING THIS. Should I just reread the book, but thats giving into an ocd thing. HELP

[jessed03]

You know what I used to do? I used to have a sentence pop into my head. From a movie or something. I would then have to find where this sentence came from. Going through scripts of all the movies I've ever watched, just to find this sentence. Something totally silly and irrelevant like "And what if I don't, what will happen to me?"

When anxiety is present, it can flare up OCD tendancies in people. This doesn't mean they'll have it, or develop it, but OCD is yet another anxiety symptom, so when anxiety is present, it's natural things like this often occur. People also repeat song lines over and over in their head, or count, or repeat phrases.

What would happen out of interest, if you said to yourself, "I seem to have a desire to do this, but I've decided I don't want to any more, I'm going to put this book down, leave it alone, and go and do something else?" Would it have perceived reprucussions?

What are your stress levels like in general?

All the best!

[johnw]

Thanks so much for your response, the first paragraph sounds exactly like me. I have decided not to do anything about it today and it's no where near as bad. I don't even feel I need to look for the stupid word. I have been unemployed for 2 years due to anxiety and I think when I am bored that perhaps this is the type of thing my brain does to me to keep me active, if you can call it that.

[Matt93]

Hey how ya doing? To be honest I've done the same thing just not with books. With paper, at school. Lol....didn't turn out so well. If you wanna categorize it OCD would be the answer but I wouldn't worry. I sometimes struggle with my own thoughts and re race my mind back to them and im only in my teens..lol. best of luck to you. By the way I hope you find that sentence and when you do. Rip it out of the book :P

[aekelund]

Thanks a lot for this post, jessed! I've talked to you in my own thread, but what you say here is exactly how I act a lot of the time. For instance, if I watch a movie, and an actor that I recognize but don't remember where came from popped up on the screen, my mind would be completely obsessed with finding out who it was. I usually have a really hard time thinking about anything else until I find out who it is.

Until you mentioned this, it has not been something that I have thought about. I have always believed it is just a normal reaction.