Posted by Dinah on November 18, 2008, at 13:10:32
Am I the only one who has trouble discerning the real from the vividly imagined experience?
Which is actually something of a quote from Head, a Monkees movie. Although they may have gotten it elsewhere.
The other night I was supposed to order the pizza. I ran through the imaginary conversation in my mind, picturing the words I would speak and the answers I would get. I think I often do that so I'll be prepared. The place wasn't open yet and I needed to call a few minutes later. My husband arrived there and found no order. He called me and I was positive I had placed the order. I remembered doing it! I ran it through my mind and realized I hadn't anchored it in any way. Some of the OCD stuff involves anchoring something in a way that I know I did it (like turning off the stove or calling in a pizza order) because it's hard to remember this time if you've done something many times. I realized I didn't remember giving the name to the pizza place, so my memory wasn't "anchored". So I probably didn't actually call it in.
My therapist nodded knowingly when I described this, as if he was not at all surprised.
Was he not surprised because it was a normal enough thing to do? To imagine the experience and then have trouble discerning the imagined from the real? Or was he nodding because it fit into some disorder he thinks of me as having?
I didn't ask at the time because I didn't want to divert from the flow of the story. But I was just wondering if anyone else has trouble with that.
poster:Dinah
thread:863797
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20081104/msgs/863797.html