Does anyone have an interesting OCD..?

You are not your thoughts.

 

I will never use a black biro - always put any loose change in little piles heads up - wont do any mechanical or electrical work even simple stuff because whilst I know it wont all fall apart/go up in smoke I am convinced it will not work.
Not sure it it's OCD or just slightly ? idiosyncratic.

 

Thank you for posting that. A very interesting read and it's helped me to read your shared experience.

I have also been diagnosed with OCD although I feel fortunate to say I don't suffer as severely as yourself. Mine is set off by things around the house mainly. Something like a simple repair job or putting up a picture can take me hours and lead to lost sleep if my head doesn't consider it to be 'right'. Lockdown was very difficult because of my OCD as there was no escape to take my mind off the things around me.

I sometimes don't know when it's OCD and when it's generalised anxiety - the two blend into each other. But I do know that my OCD is worse when I'm stressed, anxious or down. I'll do a lot more making things right and of my rituals, which are such as having to touch things with two hands, say mental prayers when I do certain tasks, line up items in a certain way. Allsorts. If I don't do them correctly, my brain tells me horrible things will happen. Sometimes that I'll do something upspeakable or that my family will be harmed. Sometimes my compulsions are in themselves dangerous and need challenging consciously.

Thankfully I have it under control recently. I've resisted the medication I've been prescribed as the numbing side effects for me outweigh the difficulties I'm learning to cope with.

All the best on your journey PinballWizard, I'll be here to help if I can!

 

Before I switched to EV, with all my previous petrol / diesel cars, for years it would taint my day if when I filled up the car, I didn't finish on a round pound figure. As soon as the auto cut off came, I would then dribble it up to the next pound. If it slipped over to £xx.01, I would have to squeeze another quid in and try again to get the round figure. Most of the time, I'd get it first time. But if I missed, I would get a max of 2 or 3 goes before I couldn't squeeze any more in the tank. And if I still failed, it would rankle with me all day.

 

We had a bloke like that when I worked at Chesterfield College. He was admin staff use to park outside my department which was then on Infirmary Road.

 

The closest I can get is that all my CDs are in A-Z artist order, then for each artist they are in chronological order.
I know, I know... it's nothing like OCD.

And yet, oddly enough, my DVDs are just stored away in any old order. They're not even all in one room, they're stashed on shelves and in cupboards in at least 4 different rooms. Hundreds of the damned things, but somehow if I want to watch one of them, I know exactly where to go to get it.

 

I store my CD's in chronological order but separate the artists. For example Please, Please me to Let it Be.

 

Yep. Glasses have to be arranged in a certain order in the kitchen cupboard.

 

Are you @JamDrop s husband?

 

I always put these down to having a bad memory but I do a few things such as I lock my car doors after I get out at home but always lock them again after I go inside the house just in case.
Last thing I do before I leave the house in the morning is run back upstairs to check that I've turned the taps off.
I lock my front door and more often than not I try to do something to make it obvious to me that I've locked it (occasionally I will sing verrryyyyyy quietly 'im locking the front door, yes I am, I'm locking the door, lock lock locking the door') and then get in my car and set off. Then I doubt if I've locked it so pull up and watch my rig doorbell back to double check that I did indeed lock it.
I pat myself down every night when leaving work to check that I havent got any keys that I shouldn't have, even though I know I havent.

Then there's the neatness things that people have mentioned. My plates etc go in the same order in the kitchen every time. Each item has a set shelf and position on the shelf.
My phone goes in one pocket, my wallet and keys in the other and they never ever get reversed.
When I wash my clothes and put them o the radiators they go in the same places each time or at least each kind of clothing has a set radiator.
My TV volume doesn't have to be even but if I turn it up (or down) it has to move 2 places because I don't know if the first press is changing the volume or just bringing up the volume indicator if that makes sense.

 

It’s me with the pegs, he doesn’t care but he does it the way I like for me. He knows I would go out and change them if he didn’t (not in a getting on at him way, just I genuinely wouldn’t be able to leave it) so it saves us both doing it.

There’s far too many things I have like this to list here but I’m certain it’s not OCD as I don’t believe bad things will happen if I don’t do it, which is the key to OCD, it just really unsettles me. I’m pretty certain I’m on the autistic spectrum but undiagnosed. I swear it’s the only thing that makes sense.

 

OCD is the devil and bandied around in jest far to freely' sorry to be a sour puss but i suffer from ocd.

 

I can’t believe the things I’m seeing people list on here that I would never have classed as a ‘thing’ e.g. putting cutlery in the right place and having a certain spot for plates/dishes etc. each time. What kind of psycho just chucks things in all mixed up?

 

Oh yeah I got it completely the wrong way round didn't I. I knew that there was a peg thing.

I think I agree with you on the OCD thing. I don't do them because I think something bad will happen or anything like that and I reckon I'm definitely on that spectrum somewhere too. Gotta be

 

I agree. Why do we try and put labels on things? Our little ideosincracies make us who we are.

Maybe we are who we are and it really doesn't matter.

 

Having read this thread with great interest its so familar i like you am a sufferer and it is truly debilitating and bandied around too freely like depression' my heart goes out to you my friend' if you ever want to talk just pm me. Take care

 

I cringed a little bit when I saw the title of the thread - not because I thought anyone was being insensitive or anything, it's just very commonly misunderstood. So I was both glad, and very sad for you, that you posted this reply.

My wife has crippling OCD. The doctors believe it was ultimately caused by an autoimmune over-reaction to Strep throat when she was a teenager, which damaged her brain. They've also linked it with her eating disorder. She has no skin on her hands from washing them upwards of 50 times a day. She's 28 and has severe arthritis from the intense cleaning routine she undertakes every single day. If something lands on an odd number, she has to repeatedly count to an even number - otherwise something terrible will happen to me, our kids, the dog etc. It's real panic. She struggles to leave the house alone, because she'll get to the bottom of the street and panic that she hasn't locked the door - knowing that she has. She'll have to go back and check anyway, often several times.

It's really worth people understanding, like you said, that this is one of the top 10 most debilitating diseases in the world. It's up there with dementia. I don't blame anyone for thinking light of it and seeing it as an "I like to have things in this order" sort of thing. Our culture has just given it that label. But I would like people to understand it a bit better. A lot of people with OCD find it quite upsetting when people make light of it, even though they know they have no ill will.

I have to take my own socks off when going from downstairs to upstairs, otherwise it's a contamination panic. We can't have visitors anymore, because they touch things that shouldn't be touched, which causes panic. Our bed sheets are changed every single day. If I forget to put foil on an oven tray it has to be thrown out.

And the panic really isn't a mild discomfort. It's an "I've just got a text saying my kid is in the ICU" level of panic, or as we experienced a few years ago, an "I'm going to jump in front of this bus" level of panic. Big thank you to SYP on that occasion for being in the right place at the right time.

But arguably the worst part of it all is that there is no magic cure. Some people see a benefit from medication, but for others it makes it worse. My wife has been on all of the benzos, all of the SSRIs, amitryptaline, antipsychotics etc, and all it has done has made her sleep more, and then panic more because she overslept and now has 12 hours of cleaning routine to cram into 10 hours. It's truly, honestly, awful.

 

Alerts on computers. Do when I click on this site as an example, I have to click on the alerts. Same with the windows update notification. I have to click on it and do the update to get rid of the alert. Any alter message in my windows tool bar, or work teams has the same affect.

Edit nothing like as bad as what people have posted here though.

 

It felt a bit strange 'liking' that comment, but I think you understand why I had to.

It truly is awful. My girlfriend knows I have OCD and she has seen me at my worst. But she resents it a little when I have occassionally (probably unfairly) have a pop at some folk we know who say they're depressed. I've probably just said that out of frustration at how I'm feeling. I never want to trivialise anyone's distress at all, I think it just comes from having this condition and knowing how truly, truly dark it can get and sometimes I just can't see how there can be anything worse. I long, yearn, to have more "conventional" worries. The only way I can describe it is like hell. I wake up most mornings with a deep sense of dread in my stomach, and the sometimes the task of going out to work and functioning at the level I'm required to just seems impossible.

So my point is, I completely get your situation. All the best to you both, I truly mean it. I help out on OCD forums and the pain people go through breaks my heart. It ruins lives.

Good news is, there is support (though, in my experience, you have to be lucky to drop on someone who knows about OCD and its various facets). But as you know, the key is stopping the compulsions. But my God it's difficult.

All the best and I hope you both (and others on this thread who I've not replied to) have a nice Christmas and manage to distance yourself from it all a little.

 

Primarily obsessive obsessive compulsive disorder. The most frightening collection of words I know. Americans call it Pure O, which is neither accurate nor helpful. My intrusive thoughts are different to yours but the pattern is the same.

If I can offer any solace it's this: I am no longer on any meds and haven't been for over 3 years. I took myself out of the mental health care system around 10 years ago. And I don't go down the spiral any more. It still frightens me but I'm beating it. And I often go days at a time when I don't remember I have it. I never thought that could happen but it has.