i have this thing where i cant walk on lines (like cement cracks or street lines). i have to make sure i walk over them. im not superstitious, but i feel as if my foot 'hurts' if i walk on them. also, if i do acciently walk on it, i have to step on another line with the other foot to 'even it out.' wow, thats so weird to type but yea. also if im walking for more than 2 minutes or so, i have to walk to a rythem. i cant walk at constantly alternating speeds. hearing the consistant 'clicking' calms me. weird. i never admitted or realized that until today.
i had this thing when i was young, i think for about 6 years i would arrange everything i saw, heard or read into patterns of four like xoox and then arrange them into argh i cant explain
Yes, I am obsessive compulsive. Everything has it's place, and if it's out of place, or not at a perfect angle, I get upset. I count ceiling tiles, floor tiles, I do everything in numbers, for example, if I am putting ice in a cup it must be either 3,5, or 7. I count just about everything really. I hate even numbers, everything must be odd. I'm obsessed over my house being neat and tidy, and I get extremely irritable if I come home from running errands and there is anything out of place, anything sitting out on counters or on the floor. My husband knows this, and makes sure if he's keeping an eye on the kids for me that he times it so the house is completely free of clutter the moment I'm due to come home. Ummm, what else. I could go on and on really. But, I don't see my obsessive compulsiveness as a bad thing necessarily. Sometimes, yes, I can be over the top, but for the most part, hey, it suites me.
YES YES YES!!!!! no-one else understands this... I have it where it has to start with xoox then oxxo and so on so it goes like this: xoox oxxo oxxo xoox . oxxo xoox xoox oxxo . oxxo xoox xoox oxxo . xoox oxxo oxxo xoox ... oxxo xoox xoox oxxo . xoox oxxo oxxo xoox . xoox oxxo oxxo xoox . oxxo xoox xoox oxxo Well I don't know if anyone can make any sense of that pattern (I put dots between the sets to make it a bit easier) It's true that it fades over time but I still have to even things out with my hands for example if I touch something cold with one side of my body I have to do it on the other side as well for it to be balanced - the weird thing is I know nothing bad will happen if I don't, I just have to do it if that makes sense. I think it will to most people reading because yall seem to have the same kind of thing.
OK wait. I just realised something - that post made NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. So I'll try and explain a bit of my 'logic' behind it. The pattern kind of tied in with the eveness thing. How it worked was like this: I'd start of with just the two things, xo. But the x would come before the o, which made it uneven. So then I'd add an ox behind it, to even things out. Then I had xoox. Now though, the x still started off this group of four. So to make it more even I had to add another group of four with o at the start, in other words oxxo. Then I had xoox oxxo. Then I had to add another group of eight, to make the oxxo group come before the xoox group. Then I had to add a group of 16, of 32, of 64... I think this is where my obsession with the 'perfect numbers' came in. The 'perfect numbers' were not perfect numbers in the mathematical sense of the word (with all the factors adding up to the original number), that was just my word for the powers of 2 i.e. 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 etc. Every time I walked on a new surface, I had to take a perfect number of steps. This normally meant I either took really tiny shuffling steps or really huge leaps to make the number right. It was a real problem if I had to take loads of steps, because say I took 33 steps to get somewhere I then had to take another 31 to bring it up to 64, even if I was right by wherever I wanted to get to. It sounds funny now, but at the time it made some really bad problems for me. Also then there was the issue that sometimes I wasn't sure whether two surfaces were actually the same. The kitchen floor and the hall floor are both wood laminate. But were they the same wood laminate? Or was there some subtle difference that I couldn't quite figure out? I began to realise that this was crazy. I told myself that this was my game, I was the one making up the rules. So shouldn't I be the one to decide? But it wasn't a game any longer, and it wasn't mine. I was caught tight in the grip of OCD. That was a long time ago. In some ways it has got better - I have managed to get it down to only needing to use even numbers, which makes it a hell of a lot easier, as I only have to take one extra step max. In other ways it has got worse, as I now have a fair amount of paranoia. I went through a phase of having to get up two or three times per night in order to ensure that the oven was not on fire. Also sometimes when I am in the bathroom I climb out of the window and sit on the ledge (don't ask), and I know that if my parents came in they would completely flip. So I do the obvious thing and lock the door. But then I'll climb onto the windowsill, and I'll wonder, did I really just lock the door? I remember doing it, but I just need to check anyway. So I get back in, tug on the door and climb back out again. Then I'll think, what if I did it wrong and the door isn't actually locked at all? And the weird thing is I'll know that it's actually locked, I just keep needing to check. Soon that will fade, and I'll be able to sit up there without checking. But something else will come up again. It always does. Anyways, I know some people have it much worse than me. People can't live normal lives. It doesn't really affect what I do in any major way. In some ways I almost... not like it, as such, but I wouldn't want it to go away. It's a part of who I am. Sorry for the long read, but maybe some people found it interesting. Also, if anyone has had similar experiences to me, you might want to read Monkey Taming by Judith Fathallah. It's mainly about anorexia, but at the end there is a fair bit about OCD, and I found a lot of it described what I had really accurately. Also it was nice to find a book about eating disorders that doesn't just go on about "oh my God I'm so hungry" but focuses more on the treatment and the psychiatric unit... OK so I am just blatantly advertising now, but hell. It's a good book.
It sounds to me like it's human nature to have a little OCD, especially if your bored. I do almost everyithing I do either: three, five or eleven times, depending on the activity and convinience. However, some people who do this chronically and have meds are the only "true" OCD patients, at least according to medical authorities. Mine goes away whenever I get disracted or am having a really good time, but even then I might notice I'm doing it subconcously, otherwise it's just like this little "urge" I have to do things. One thing I think is for certain, is it goes hand-in-hand with anxiety, or at least mine does, because it always seems like I'm doing these things in hope that it will somehow protect me or make me feel somehow "better" than I already am. It, by my defention, is just illogical stress or deppresion disorder.
I might have OCD, I read about it and I'm like, "hey I do that," When I walk on the side-walk I like to take two steps in one side-walk square then one in the next. When I cross the street, mostly busy streets, I count my steps. I frequently check the stove to make sure it's off. I always held a deep preferance for odd numbers, also the color green. More recently, always bringing something from home to school such as small toys or my hat. And finishing things, like once I was moving bricks and became slightly upset when my grandpa asked me to stop and come with him to the store because I didn't want to get side tracked and leave the remaining bricks unmoved. I think someone posted before about not stepping on side-walk lines, I hate that too. Whatever, it doesn't wreck my life or anything, but it's funny how I've sort of had these little habits, some for a long time, but they were never anything to me and now I'm like, "so other people don't count their steps?" I'm just glad I'm not an obsesive cleaner, that sounds terrible. I could live with washing my hands constantly, but all that cleaning...
I have a question some of you sound like you do have OCD some of you don't. Have any of you been diagnosed because OCD is very disabeling and it doesn't sound like many of you have problems with daily life.
As with all mental "illnesses", OCD has a range of severities and it covers a wide arrange of obsessions and compulsions. Not every case of OCD is like the ones you see on Dr. Phil.
To be diagnosed OCD it has to inhibit some part of your life. I can dive you an exact definitation and treatment menthods if you like. No psychologist will give Dr. Phil credit for anything.
when i was a kid if i touched or did something with one hand i had to do it with the other. tHEY SAY THAT OCD STARTS AS A KID. I HAVENT BEEN DIAGNOSED WITH IT, BUT IM POSITIVE I HAVE IT. I JUST DONT LIKE TO TAKE MEDS UNLESS ITS SOMETHING TO STOP PAIN OR SAVE MY LIFE. (sorry about the caps lock. i wasnt yelling)
I do think OCD sets in when you're a kid. I had extreme obsessive compulsions growing up. I missed half of my 2nd grade year and half of my 5th grade year because my OCD was literally debilitating. My parents passed off my quirks as childhood deliquency, so they ignored them until the state started hounding them about my lack of attendance, so at the age of 10, they took me to a quack of a psychologist who didn't even bother to collect a history and attributed it all to a gym teacher and solved it by writing a note, excusing me from physical education and music class, therein creating a new ritual for me that actually worked well with those around me. I've since had similar episodes, but not as bad as they were then. I've never been diagnosed with OCD but when I found out about it and started researching it, I realized that was likely the monster that had me staying home everyday keeping things "safe." Today, I still have obsessive thoughts and tendencies and finally found a boyfriend who can handle and love me over the suffocation that he sometimes has to endure and the BS rituals he has to put up with.
I would recommend for both of you to at least talk to your Dr. about it. Self diagnosis is a really dangerous thing because it could be something completely different. I am not trying to say that you don't know whats going on in your life. It just sounds like there are some other things going on there. Oh and punkerchic kids can grow out of OCD.
Hmn.... is pacing for a half an hour to six hours daily normal? I tell you I've worn out tons of socks doing that...^_^;; I do weird things like I can't touch bathroom door knobs, shopping carts, or railings. I also keep my favorite books in ziplock bags too...o_o;; Although my room is an absolute mess, I obsess about the rest of the house and how it needs to be perfectly arranged and cleaned. Same goes for my DVDs/CDs/iTunes. I have OCD-like behaviors but I don't know if it's true OCD, only a doctor can tell.
my husband does things like that but has never been diagnosed as OCD. for instance when he buys a dvd or videogame he always takes the price sticker off and puts it inside the case. if he can, he'll keep the receipt too. if he is going to clean everything has to be in a precise place. if he has a sandwich or buttered bread it always has to be cut in 4 squares. i think a lot of that stuff is just personal quirks not necessarily OCD just as you said OCD-like behaviours. I have a few 'quirks' myself and both he and I mentioned his and mine to various doctors but because of a number of other things none of them thought we actually had OCD. I think having actual OCD is usually always to do with repetition. If you have to do everything in threes (or some other number). Like brushing your teeth 3x. taking 3 showers. brushing each section of hair 3x. touching a doorknob 3x before opening the door. checking all the switches are turned off and the locks locked 3x before going to bed or leaving the house. basically if what you are habitually doing hinders you from leading a 'normal' life. for instance you are late to work or appointments because of your rituals. or you wake up throughout the night because you have to do a ritual checking of things or due to fear that something is out of place.
