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Ryan358
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02 Mar 2015, 4:03 pm

I recently started buying music on iTunes, but now I can't stop obsessing over which songs I want. I keep deleting songs one day, and then a couple hours later deciding that I want them again, and then the next day deleting them again, and on and on. It's really driving me crazy.

And I keep listening to them over and over to make sure I really like them, and if I find something I don't like in a song then I'll delete it... but then later decide I like it again and download it over again.

Does this sound more like ASD or OCD? They both seem similar to me, and I'm wondering if I could have one. This music problem is just one example... I get like this a lot with other stuff too.



Ryan358
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02 Mar 2015, 7:13 pm

Does anyone have any insight?



ASPartOfMe
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02 Mar 2015, 8:03 pm

It could be both. People do get diagnosed with both.

While it does interfere with your life is it wanted (I'm obsessing over some I love) or is the obsession completely unwanted?

If it it the first it is an Autistic special interest, if it unwanted it is OCD


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Ryan358
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02 Mar 2015, 8:18 pm

ASPartOfMe wrote:
It could be both. People do get diagnosed with both.

While it does interfere with your life is it wanted (I'm obsessing over some I love) or is the obsession completely unwanted?

If it it the first it is an Autistic special interest, if it unwanted it is OCD


That's a tricky question... I do love the songs, and I love listening to them all the time, but I don't enjoy having to keep deleting them and downloading over and over.

The other thing is that I feel the need to keep them super organized, like if I download a couple new songs that are in a new genre than the other music I have, I feel the need to delete everything else so I just have that genre of music in my library... but then the next day I feel like listening to a new genre and it seems inconsistent to have both. I guess that's more of a typical autistic trait right? Although i heard people with OCD can also be perfectionists so... idk...



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02 Mar 2015, 9:31 pm

http://iocdf.org/about-ocd/
Here is an OCD site.

A difference between ASD and OCD is that with ASD, you can be easily distracted. Not so with OCD.

Also, OCDs must have an obsession. If the obsession disappears, say worries about a stove, and you move to a place with no stoves, a new obsession will find you. Meds can help with OCD.



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02 Mar 2015, 11:43 pm

It sounds more like a habit problem or personality aspect (like OCPD) than either to me.

Why don't you create sub-folders for each genre?


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progaspie
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03 Mar 2015, 12:04 am

I do the same thing. I have so much music, I'm obsessive the way my music is catalogued and organized on i-tunes. I'm never satisfied with the songs combination and am constantly deleting and adding songs. Have no idea if it's a symptom of ASD or OCD?



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03 Mar 2015, 12:43 pm

ASPartOfMe wrote:
It could be both. People do get diagnosed with both.

While it does interfere with your life is it wanted (I'm obsessing over some I love) or is the obsession completely unwanted?

If it it the first it is an Autistic special interest, if it unwanted it is OCD



But what if someone didn't want to be into their special interest because they felt it was taking up their time, sure they may like their interest but they decided to make it unwanted.

I was obsessed with 101 Dalmatians as a kid but it was getting me into trouble so I decided I didn't want it but I couldn't stop it because how many of us can stop our obsessions? So it got labeled with both AS and OCD. I can see what people mean by autism can cause someone to have OCD. How to make a autism special interest OCD, make them feel so ashamed about it they wouldn't want it anymore, their obsession then becomes unwanted so therefore it becomes OCD, go figure.


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03 Mar 2015, 12:46 pm

BTDT wrote:
http://iocdf.org/about-ocd/
Here is an OCD site.

A difference between ASD and OCD is that with ASD, you can be easily distracted. Not so with OCD.

Also, OCDs must have an obsession. If the obsession disappears, say worries about a stove, and you move to a place with no stoves, a new obsession will find you. Meds can help with OCD.



While I don't get the need to check things over and over, new obsessions always find me or I can say interests. I might get tired of an interest and then a new interest finds me while it seems like with most aspies, they tend to keep their interests they have had all the way from childhood than moving onto another new interest and not being into their old interest anymore. But the difference is, I like my interests.


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03 Mar 2015, 2:40 pm

It might save time to create a new folder called "Purgatory" (or get a new hard disc if space is the problem), with suitable subfolders for genres and artists, and put all the songs you're not sure about in there. Then you can move the songs back and forth whenever you change your mind. I usually find that the decision to delete or not becomes clearer after a song has been around for a few weeks. I have a lot of trouble deciding what to trash. There's often good bits and bad bits in a song, and I change my mind a lot. I err way too heavily on the side of keeping things, so my problem is more to do with having too much music. My drive to have complete collections of things comes into it too - once I've got most of a band's songs, it feels wrong to have gaps in the collection, even if I don't like the remaining songs.

It doesn't sound like OCD to me, though I'm no expert with these labels. It sounds like indecision, and as it's counterproductive, needless and delaying to keep undoing and redoing the job, I'd say it had an element of procrastination about it.