Jono
11-03-11, 16:57
Hi Everyone,
I am really struggling with a strange feeling that may be OCD and that I have dubed 'OCD with books'
I study English Literature at Aberystwyth and I am in my second year. I certainly believe that analysing books in depth and in volume has contributed not a little bit to this obsession with mine. I really do need help but I don't know where to turn to. I used to have health anxiety (which reaps its ugly head every now and again) with my breathing. However, for now I seem to have that under control and I have started this new, equally stressful OCD with books.
When I read a book I don't read like normal people. I HAVE to understand every single word, phase, ephigram, description, everything. I do not have the ability anymore to just ignore, or pass through, sentences I don't understand.
Even before I pick up a book I start to panic. I panic that I won't understand things and I get this horrible feeling of unintelligence and anxiety. Currently I'm doing an essay on The picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. It is hard to translate the pain I have gone through reading this book trying to understand every single sentence of Lord Henry's epigrams and the inherent contradictions and paradoxes in the novel. I feel thick if I don't understand every single paraphrase despite the fact that I generally understand the novel rather in depth and have been hitting high 2.1's on the course.
It's very abnormal and weird and the feeling I get when I read something and don't get it sends me into sweating panics. If I don't understand something I feel unintelligent, undeserving of reading the novel etc and I have to read the page or sentence literally 60 or 70 times until I eventually give up. It's horrible and I just want to be able to read again.
Is there anything that anyone would suggest I do? I am really at the end of my teather here.
I am really struggling with a strange feeling that may be OCD and that I have dubed 'OCD with books'
I study English Literature at Aberystwyth and I am in my second year. I certainly believe that analysing books in depth and in volume has contributed not a little bit to this obsession with mine. I really do need help but I don't know where to turn to. I used to have health anxiety (which reaps its ugly head every now and again) with my breathing. However, for now I seem to have that under control and I have started this new, equally stressful OCD with books.
When I read a book I don't read like normal people. I HAVE to understand every single word, phase, ephigram, description, everything. I do not have the ability anymore to just ignore, or pass through, sentences I don't understand.
Even before I pick up a book I start to panic. I panic that I won't understand things and I get this horrible feeling of unintelligence and anxiety. Currently I'm doing an essay on The picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. It is hard to translate the pain I have gone through reading this book trying to understand every single sentence of Lord Henry's epigrams and the inherent contradictions and paradoxes in the novel. I feel thick if I don't understand every single paraphrase despite the fact that I generally understand the novel rather in depth and have been hitting high 2.1's on the course.
It's very abnormal and weird and the feeling I get when I read something and don't get it sends me into sweating panics. If I don't understand something I feel unintelligent, undeserving of reading the novel etc and I have to read the page or sentence literally 60 or 70 times until I eventually give up. It's horrible and I just want to be able to read again.
Is there anything that anyone would suggest I do? I am really at the end of my teather here.