10 Ways to Tell If You Suffer from Selective Liminal Object Beholding Syndrome



I've been diagnosed (informally, by anyone who has visited my domicile) as suffering from Selective Liminal Object Beholding, a mild but annoying brain disfunction. It's not life-threatening, but it impacts my quality of life and the lives of those who live with me. It may be contagious, but only after long exposure. It may also have a genetic component.

Those who suffer from Selective Liminal Object Beholding may very well be on the same spectrum--the opposite end--as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Whereas those with OCD suffer from the overactive need to straighten things up and put things in order, often despite no objective problem in the environment, those who suffer from SLOB are able to walk through a messy house, completely oblivious of and indifferent to the sink full of dirty dishes, the oven that was left on, the unmopped corner of the floor, the fact that the cabinet door is slightly ajar, the piles of dirty clothing strewn over furniture, the wet towel hanging over the back of a chair, the cluttered dining room table, the open bag of chips in front of the television, the books placed horizontally on top of vertical books on the bookshelf, the unmade bed, the asymmetrical and poorly placed throw pillows.

Does this sound familiar? Look at these symptoms and see if you also suffer from SLOB. You don't have to have all of these symptoms to have a mild form of the disorder, but if you have four or more, you may well suffer from SLOB.


1. You don't notice if the house or other area is messy, mostly because you are somewhere else in your mind and don't even notice the actual physical environment around you. You aren't blind to it, or unable to perceive it, but you have only selective awareness/beholding of liminal objects (things not directly in front of you). You may even bump into things or people, or trip over objects on the floor and clearly visible, because you aren't paying attention.


2. You pick up an object from one part of the house, walk around thinking about something else, forget why you picked up the object, and leave it in a random spot in the house. Later, you remember what you picked up the object for in the first place, but now you can't find it.


3. You start a project, nearly complete it, and then, instead of completing it, start a new project. You may repeat this project dozens of times, accruing dozens or even hundreds of unfinished projects. 


4. You often follow instructions out of order. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. During cooking or assembling DIY furniture, you accidentally skip or repeat a step, causing the dish to taste awful or the garden shed to be dangerously lurch to one side.


5. You are lousy at basic counting and simple arithmetic. (Yet, you may have a high IQ.) 


6. You have a hard time telling people apart, because they all look more or less alike, what with the eyes, the nose and the mouth. You've very likely forgot their name even if they told you yesterday.


7. Over time, any flat, clean surface around you accumulates piles of objects, be it papers, books, cards, dishes, clothes, pens, knick-knacks, surgical equipment, receipts, shoeboxes filled with any of the above, etc. This happens to the top of shelves, cabinets, bureaus and even the floor. It happens in your house and your garage is even worse.


8. Your computer files are also a crazy mess, with different coding and naming systems, some of which you can't remember, and all your important documents saved in different folders in different places on your harddrive, but where, exactly, you can't remember. And also, you forgot all your pass words. Because you know that you forget passwords easily, you may have chosen to protect everything from your bank account to your secret diary with something you know you can remember, like you're dog's name or your birthday, even though you know this will be easily hacked.


9. From time to time, when the number of piled up and disordered liminal objects surpasses your threshhold to pleasantly ignore, you are overwhelmed with a sudden burst of disgust (often at yourself) and make an attempt to "clean up." This process usually involves frantically moving piles from one room to another, until everything in the house has changed places, but nothing is more organized or clean than before.


10. One of the piles of objects cluttering your house may be a heap of books on how to declutter your house.

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Am I the only one who suffers from SLOB? Did I forget any symptoms? What about you?Let me know if you have any of these telltale signs or even some that I should have mentioned and forgot.

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I can't help you fight SLOB, but I can give advice on how to write a book. Check out 30 Novel: How To Write a Book in a Month.


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