Are You Normal or Nuts?
Do you talk to yourself? Cry at beer commercials? Forget where you left your keys?

All right, dear reader, the jig is up. You try to pass yourself off as a regular person with normal behaviours, but we know you have a few truly bizarre habits. How do we know? Well, because we all have them. Weirdness makes us human. But it’s not always easy to tell the difference between that “cute” little thing you do and a behaviour that may be harming you, or others. So we asked some brave souls to reveal their behavioural skeletons and ran them by the experts. Here’s what we found:

Q: Why do I always have a song stuck in my head? No matter what I’m doing, some tune is playing over and over in my mind. Sometimes it takes several days to change the tune, and, well, it’s driving me nuts!
“You are my sunshine…” What’s that? Oh, sorry. Just humming a tune to myself. Over and over and over again. Research shows that “ear worms”—snippets of songs stuck in your head—are very common.

McGill psychology professor Daniel Levitin, a former record producer and author of the bestselling This is Your Brain on Music, says the ear worm “doesn’t indicate any kind of mental disorder necessarily.” Though the ear worm is usually harmless, Levitin says a small percentage of people find it “so irritating or annoying that it actually either keeps them awake at night or prevents them from doing their job,” and may require professional help. Antidepressants, antianxiety drugs, and medication to fight obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) all seem to help, “but this does not imply that people with ear worms are depressed, anxious or have OCD.” For most of us, Levitin offers a simple solution: Play another tune “and hope that it will take the place of the one that’s bothering you.”

Meanwhile, if the music you’re hearing makes you feel like dancing, Levitin’s got an explanation for that, too. “At the physiological level, listening to music activates parts of the brain that control motor movements.” And that makes you want to move, baby.

Q: How come I can remember everything I did, said and wore in Grade 1 but not remember where I put my house keys this morning? Is this early senility? I’m only 40 years old!
Though some short-term memory loss is normal as we get older, it usually doesn’t signal early senility. “Forgetfulness is a normal part of being human,” says Ron Keren, clinical director of the Memory Clinic at Toronto Western Hospital. You probably don’t actually remember everything about Grade 1 but a handful of outfits and some key episodes. You have solidified them in your long-term memory by recalling them many times and telling other people about them.

Keren says people who come to see him about memory problems sometimes are simply having trouble adjusting to normal aging. They “tend to be quite perfectionist and don’t tolerate any subtle changes in their ability to do things as they get older.” For people under 50, memory disorders are quite rare. Keren says forgetfulness can be influenced by whether or not you’ve had enough sleep, if you’ve been using alcohol or drugs—including some prescription drugs—and your overall psychological health and stress level.

And what about those keys? You were probably preoccupied with things such as deadlines at work and bills that need paying. Hang a hook by the door and put your keys on it every single time you come in.

Q: No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to resist straightening up piles of magazines in the dentist’s office or aligning the picture frames on walls at my friends’ houses! And I have one friend who wears a jacket with a zipper breast pocket; I’m always closing it for him. Am I normal?
Stop kidding yourself: You’re not doing your friend any favours with the zipper, and, more important, you’re not assuaging the basic anxiety that gives rise to this classic OCD-style behaviour. Psychiatrists say that the OCD patient thinks, If I follow these rules, even though they’re arbitrary and I made them up, then other things beyond my control will fall into place, too. But, of course, it doesn’t work

Our society tends to reward the orderly office and the airtight memo. But in this case, your compulsive urges impose on other people, possibly to the point of offence. And if you have a spouse with the opposite tendency, that could mean trouble. John Walker, a clinical psychologist and director of the Anxiety Disorders Program at St. Boniface General Hospital in Winnipeg says, “We often see that. One person in a relationship puts a high value on everything being neat and orderly, and the other person puts no value on it—and that can cause a lot of stress.”

Controlling the picture frames is not going to give you more control over your relationships, health or work. Anxiety from these sources is what’s really bothering you, and the only way to deal with those issues is to face them directly.

Q: Why do I bite my fingernails or pick at my cuticles until they’re bleeding? Is it stress? Hypergrooming? Or just something oral?
Nail-biting tends to be a habit we learn when we’re young. While some textbooks suggest it’s about perfectionism, this is potentially a more serious problem. Like monkeys and dogs, we’re programmed to groom, but such habits can be hard to break and can get out of hand. Walker says stress and anxiety may play a role in your problem: You could be comforting yourself “in a stressful situation by excessive grooming.”

David Moscovitch (no relation to the writer), the Canada Research Chair in mental-health research and assistant professor at the University of Waterloo, says if your nail-biting is bothering you “for reasons of aesthetics, or it hurts, or people comment on it socially, then it becomes a possible issue to address in therapy.” And you might want to make an appointment with a manicurist as well!

Q: Snakes really freak me out. If I see a snake on TV, I can’t sleep that night. I once saw a garter snake in the park, so now I won’t go to that park again. My husband tells me I’m nuts, and he wants to take me to the pet shop to look at snakes. No way! He’s the one who’s nuts.
According to Walker, we’ve evolved to fear fast-moving, crawling critters. “You don’t meet many people afraid of a teapot. In an evolutionary sense, teapots have not been any threat.” But fear of snakes and spiders? Very common. And such phobias may never need treatment because they may never really affect your life. Says Walker, “If you have a big fear of sharks and you live in Winnipeg, it’s not much of an issue.”

If you do need to conquer your phobia, experts usually suggest a behavioural approach, so your husband is on the right track. You need gradual exposure, starting perhaps with pictures of snakes, combined with relaxation exercises. Glance at the picture; breathe deeply. Once you can do that, move on to a TV image. Again, breathe deeply. Next, you may be ready to try being in the same room with a small snake in a cage. Get some help, take it slow and don’t rent Snakes on a Plane any time soon.

Q: I often talk to myself, and sometimes I even respond aloud to questions I mentally ask myself. Is this a mild form of schizophrenia?
Not so long as you’re the only one talking. If you hear voices that tell you to do something really dangerous or even criminal, stop reading and get to the ER right now. An external voice telling you what to do may indicate that you have a psychotic disorder. Moscovitch says, “The key difference is whether you can recognize if the person you’re talking to is a voice inside your head or a voice that comes from outside.”

But regular old talking to yourself is a normal human quirk. We rehearse what we’ll say to someone we want to impress. We think up ways to solve problems. Studies show that test subjects who think aloud often perform tasks better than those who remain silent. So long as you don’t overdo it in public, keep up the conversation with yourself. It’s probably helping.

Q: Why do I love tapping, drumming and other repetitive rhythmic behaviour? The same is true of my dad, but it drives my mom and my wife crazy. Is this a gender thing? Am I borderline autistic?
Some habits are definitely more common in one gender. But South Portland, Maine-based James Claiborn, coauthor of The Habit Change Workbook, says he doesn’t know of any research showing that men engage in tapping and drumming more than women.

Just because some people with autism engage in repetitive behaviours, that doesn’t mean you have autism. You might be soothing or comforting yourself, or just dealing with excess energy. “Probably every one of us has some aspect of this, and different people do it in different ways.” Walker adds that he often rubs his hands together while talking on the phone. “And if I had a beard, I’d probably pull my beard.”

You may also be dealing with underlying stress or anxiety. Tapping may offer short-term relief, but it’s more helpful to deal with the root problem.

Q: After years of hard work, I’m on the verge of getting a promotion. But it would mean I’d have to run meetings and give presentations. I’m terrified of this. I get short of breath sometimes and feel like there’s a weight on my chest. My palms sweat. This appears to be a bigger problem than my deodorant can handle.
Many people report feeling uncomfortable at the mere thought of speaking in front of groups. Joining a public-speaking organization like Toastmasters is a great way to address the problem.

It’s also possible that you have a social-anxiety disorder like social phobia, which affects about 750,000 Canadians. Moscovitch says, “Everyone has their socially phobic moments, and it’s important to recognize that those moments do not constitute a disorder. It’s normal to be nervous when you have to get up in front of a large group of people and deliver a speech, or when you’re called into the boss’s office to receive feedback.”

Social phobia is more far-reaching than that. Moscovitch says people who suffer from it “are so afraid of being evaluated negatively by others that it becomes an all-encompassing impairment in their lives.” It’s also useful to note that such fears are self-fulfilling. Are you at the point where you’re more afraid of sweaty palms than you are of running the meeting? If you can recognize this as a self-fulfilling prophecy, perhaps you can nip it in the bud.

Q: Sometimes I feel like a cold fish. My son’s difficulties at school don’t move me, my wife’s bad day seems unimportant. Then that heartstrings-pulling beer ad on TV makes me weep. Am I nuts?
Not at all. Emotions are tough stuff. And all of us occasionally have our cold-fish moments. But you should recognize that you may be displacing real emotions (about your family, perhaps) into the fictional commercial. You may cry about that because it’s safe, whereas crying about what’s really going on seems riskier.

“We do have emotions triggered by unexpected situations. And that often is connected to difficult past experiences and unresolved problems,” says Walker. But if you generally feel numb and emotionless, you could be suffering from chronic stress. In the long run, addressing your feelings, however tough, is the best way to deal with them. Courage, man. You’re not crazy, you’re human.

Worried about your quirks or habits? Submit your questions here and we may publish them with answers online or in a future issue of the magazine.