this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2025
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[–] CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 73 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think people like rationalizing their behaviors so that they don't seem weird. When really they are just being themselves.

Behaviors become mental illnesses when they start to affect other parts of your life. Organizing your books by color is unusual and quirky, but not a mental illness.

If you can't leave a library because you have to organize their books by color, then it's a mental illness.

[–] atrielienz@lemmy.world 39 points 1 day ago (1 children)

My kid has autism. He once had a complete panic attack because we wouldn't let him stay to organize the bottles at total win and more. He has never been diagnosed with OCD and my understanding after talking to his neurologist about it is that this was a stim for him, and not necessarily OCD behavior. There have been other instances all through his childhood like this one, and I can't help but think that having a completely different disorder or Neurodivergence also adds to people self diagnosing because there's way too many people who don't know they're neurodivergent.

[–] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 23 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I was straight up diagnosed with OCD as a child because they really didn’t want to believe a girl had autism. Throughout my life I’ve struggled with compulsions when I’m mentally struggling and had zero issues when things are otherwise calm (sometimes I’ll go years without any symptoms). I’d never thought of it as a stim, but it absolutely is a thing for me to focus on to release mental pressure/sort through inputs. That’s totally a stim.

Sorry to do the thing that this thread is about in the thread.

[–] atrielienz@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Don't apologize. It's okay to express yourself and there's nothing wrong with relating your story.

I was diagnosed with ADD (now called ADHD inattentive type) when I was a kid and got basically no support for it because my younger brother was diagnosed with Autism at or around the same time. It turns out my sister also has ADHD (and was diagnosed as an adult), and got no support and stims are fairly common. There's a lot of behaviors in my own life that I didn't recognize as stims until years later. It seems a lot of us ~~feel~~ fell through the cracks so to speak.

[–] RunJun@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 day ago

Huh, organization as a stim. I guess toss another one in the bucket for me.