Numbers and Lists

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Anyone else bothered by obsessive rehashing of numbers and/or lists in their heads? My mind refuses to calm down and go blank.

Instead, I find myself rehearsing some group of numbers or statistics (baseball averages, celebrity SAT scores, battle casualties ...)

In order to flee from the chaos, I try to create organizing lists. But I become more hung up on refining the lists than on improving the reality that they reference.

I am collecting post counts as I see them (my own don't count). Now I have the 190 Pileated woodpecker! Hooray!

I ruminate about my spelling, grammar, and the length of things I've written; no matter how much time has passed. It could be just because I'm a perfectionist and a technical writer/editor. Hey, if one is going to be literal and a perfectionist, might as well make some money from it, right?

I LOVE prime numberS especially 3 and 13 and any numbers combining the too. and to a lesser extent 7 one of my favorite longer numers i's 3,333,313. i can't really explain it i've had a minor obsession with it. to the point where i'd get a certain amount of x in a video game cause it's a prime number. For years. But that's not what you are talkinga bout collecting strings of information however is a very aspie thing to do.

I LOVE prime numberS especially 3 and 13 and any numbers combining the too...

From my childhood, I remember that baseball players Rob Wilfong (1979), Mike Easler (1986), and Dave Parker (1976) hit .313. Parker had 168 hits in 537 at-bats.

I think Fred Lynn (175 hits in 528 at bats) and Carlton Fisk hit .331, Rod Carew as well (1980).

Oh sweet, the 192 Pileated woodpecker!

I've had some obsessive issues with things...not lists exactly, but one example would be these high range IQ tests and scores, most recently. I took like over 100 of them in a few years (full tests filled with dozens of items), and sometimes literally the entire day was spent..and the next day, and the next. When I was working at my old job, I wouldn't have much scheduled on any given day...people would cancel on me or something, and I'd just spend the whole day there in the office working on a test (when I had other stuff I could've been doing but none of it seemed pressing and wouldn't take long anyway).

And many of the tests were pretty repetitive. If I wasn't physically looking at a test, I'd have memorized some items and would be trying to solve them in my head. Sometimes I'd spend like one or two weeks straight on a test...kind of like someone might blast through books, or a video game. But then oftentimes, the score would come in and I'd be "low-key" crushed. It got to where if I wasn't scoring in a certain range any given test, I would be disappointed. And I kept shooting for higher and higher scores, so it was harder to please myself. It's true that some scores I was happy with, as some were indeed in the range I was shooting for, but the disappointments were very pronounced. Also the scores would come in via email at weird and inconsistent times, because most of these people live overseas...I even waited weeks sometimes, so I'd be checking my email throughout the night for score reports. Or I'd get the report while I was out with my wife or trying to have a good time with my family doing something and I'd be let down.

I think it got really bad, I had to tell myself to take a break. I'd get really addicted to the feeling of a high score, but more often the raw score was at least a couple points lower than what I was hoping for and expecting, which can make a big difference in your balanced score. Also I'd realize after having a test scored, that I made a mistake or overlooked something easy. The few times I was thrilled, I got addicted to the feeling of ego gratification associated with what I deemed to be a high score. Then that became more and more rarefied over time. The issue was I really got hooked on both working on them (solving them, the enjoyment of this) but for me the score report didn't always totally match up with what I expected, and that often ruined it for me and led to frustration. So while there's a part of me that loves solving the items...many of the numerical and spatial items in particular can be really elegant and challenging...I think there's an unhealthy aspect to the whole thing as well.

Not totally related to the lists numbers thing, but I can relate in some ways...since sometimes I would be going over a number sequence in my head or something like that...

Eyelessshiver, thank you for the 124 Raven. This thread has been a gold mine of numbers I was missing! Your next post will make you a Snowy Owl.

...I think there's an unhealthy aspect to the whole thing as well.

That was the most awesome description of an Aspie "special interest" I have ever read.

I do the same thing with numbers but it used to be worse when I was more self absorbed. Finding some friends and focusing on other people instead of myself helped me.

Numbers (and formulae) just do not stick in my head no matter how hard I try to get them to (which killed my math and chemistry grades in school ), but I do love making lists and checking things off on them. I don't obsess over refining them, I just obsess over them until I get them finished (they're usually things like a list of every single Pokemon available in a certain game, or every single collectible in The Sims 4 or Animal Crossing: New Horizons, so not short lists... at all.). And sometimes I get partway through and think of a better way to organize it and have to start over using that. And sometimes I make notes next to each entry (like when/where to find a collectible or which Pokemon I have to trade for).

I don't.

While I like making lists and the idea of toying around with numbers and formulas...

It never gets intrusive. It doesn't rule me because I can't even if I would've.
And it seems that I don't have that sort of itch for maths and enumerations.


Yet I do, with 'order'. Maths and listing stuff can't solve whatever I'm after.
My short term memory is too unreliable to simply hold strings of numbers or a list of any enumerations on my own.

Gained Number Post Count (1).
Lose Time (n).

Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

I'm not good with numbers. At work I have to juggle measurements all the time, but find myself double-checking them often due to short-term memory slips. Having said that, I had no trouble with math subjects in school. You could use a pocket calculator for that, so no need to remember, the calculator remembered for you.

The only lists I make are checklists, things I want to do or get or experience. It's nice to tick the box, gives you a sense of closure and/or achievement.