I am half-American, half-English, I grew up in Arizona and moved to London when I was 16 - now I live in Hertfordshire with my fiance and our son. I currently work as a secretary, but my dream is to be a published author (http://thymeoperator.googlepages.com/home).
I was diagnosed with Tourette's Syndrome when I was 7 and OCD around 14, although symptoms of both started when I was at least as young as 6. I've got at least 35 different tics (I lost count a few years ago, and new ones spring up at any time) and, from reading around, I'm under the impression my case is pretty severe. I went to therapy years ago for the OCD and have learned to control things like checking and adjusting, but the obsessional thinking, etc. can be really crushing. Every day, I'm learning more and more of my 'eccentricities' are part of the OCD.
I also have ADHD, High-Functioning Autism.and Borderline Personality Disorder, and apparently I react to stress with manic or depressive episodes.
Anyway, I'd love to meet others with any of these conditions, as I'm realising the only people I really feel I can relate to are those who understand what I deal with on a daily basis, in my mind.
LIKES
Feeling excited and enthusiastic about things, and being surrounded by others who do too; laughing; reading; singing; dancing; drawing; my fiance; my son; my friends; thunderstorms; managing to relax long enough to enjoy things; the 'highs'.
DISLIKES
People who never have anything nice to say about anything/anyone; feeling restricted; routine; worrying I'm boring and everyone's going to abandon me; the 'lows'.
[This member only allows comments from his/her friends.]
absolutely.
a
friend
of
mine
is
a
disfellowshipped
jehova's
witness,
and
she
still
freaks
out
every
now
and
again.
i'd
imagine
it's
hard
to
turn
it
off,
like
a
tap
xxxx
omg,
thats
weird
i
had
no
idea!
its
a
bit
taboo
with
me,
i
don't
really
talk
about
it
but
yeah,
i
do
that
-
twitching,
looking
at
things
five
times,
thinking
words
or
sounds
over
and
over,
random
words
and
noises.
its
fine
around
j
cos
he
gets
me,
but
no
one
likes
to
swear
at
the
dinner
table...xx
Basically, no matter what genre or country of origin, I like anything that has a really strong beat and/or really moves me, I like things to be intense - even if it's mellow, it has to be intense.[br][br]
Some bands/singers I love: Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode, Joy Division/New Order, Bauhaus/Love & Rockets/Tones on Tail, Siouxsie & the Banshees, The Cure, Erasure, Les Rita Mistouko, Marc Lavoine, Diskoteka Avariya, Nogu Svelo, Linda (those last three are Russian), Carlinhos Brown, Air, Beck, Beborn Beton, Prince, The Orb, Oingo Boingo, Ace of Base, E-Type, Army of Lovers, Bodies Without Organs, Unklejam, The Feeling, Nelly Furtado, Einsturzende Neubauten, Enigma, Falco, Kula Shaker, Hooverphonic, Mesh, Red Flag, Beborn Beton, Gang of 4, XTC, Paula Abdul, Tears for Fears, Wire, The Feeling, Pop Will Eat Itself, Kraftwerk, Hedningarna (Finnish), a lot of industrial music (especially EBM), New Wave, Russian stuff, other Brasilian stuff my fiance has got me into, dance music, etc. etc. We have about 1500 CDs at home, so it's hard to fill these things out.[br][br]
BOOKS
Crime & Punishment/Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Handmaid's Tale/Margaret Atwood, The Beach/Alex Garland, The Testament of Gideon Mack/James Robertson, We Need to Talk about Kevin/Lionel Shriver, House of Leaves/Mark Z. Danielewski, The Time Traveler's Wife/Audrey Niffenegger, An Anthropologist on Mars/Oliver Sacks, the Three Musketeers trilogy/Alexandre Dumas, the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy/Philip Pullman, etc. I read quite a lot. My current favourite writers in general are Dostoyevsky, Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Flock and Lionel Shriver.
MOVIES
The City of Lost Children, Amelie, Delicatessen, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Donnie Darko, Disney's Aladdin and Robin Hood, Dead Alive, Evil Dead 2, The Prestige, The Big Lebowski, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Solaris (Russian version), The Music Man, The Phantom of the Opera, Back to the Future, Dark City...I watch a lot of movies, so I'm just trying to think of a nice spectrum here. I love films that make me laugh or move me or make me think or are really exciting or that are scary but in an interesting way or are so terrible they're hilarious, and that aren't sadistic and unnecessary because if something gets too disturbing, I will be dwelling and visualising it for days, and I just don't need that.
HOBBIES
I'm a writer - and I've decided to start my own independent publishing imprint for writers with neurological conditions. It seems I have written a lot of things that, at the time, I just thought of as stories, but now I've come to realise actually they're about my OCD and BPD - so I'm thinking I really want to write fiction, even science-fiction, that portrays the condition to the 'outside world', because I know so much heartache, anger and frustration in my formative years could have been prevented simply by my school teachers and peers (and, for that matter, ME) being more aware.
I have been studying Russian for a few years now; I love singing (in private, so far); baking cakes; socialising with good friends; watching documentary channels with my fiance and waiting for the point when they all end up talking about the Masons; etc.
