I’ve always had a few activities in my daily life that could be construed as OCD rituals. In the past some of these were a bit over the line but nothing serious.
I am vigilant about the blurry line these cross. Without a doubt there is always the chance they could morph into something that impacts functioning. That has never happened in all my years of life but one never knows.
One I am keeping an eye on is hair drying. Awhile back I started feeling the need to provide each side of my hair with equal rotations of the hairdryer. At first it started with equal song verses on each side.
For instance one side would get: Twinkle twinkle little star
And the other side would get: How I wonder what you are
It became easier to just use numbers after awhile.
Now I only resort to this particular OCD hair drying rotation if I am under significant stress. But it’s still there just under the surface.
The biggest one for me is towelling off after a shower - I absolutely feel the need to do it in a prescribed order, and specific direction, so that when I’m done and ready to hang the towel, the label on the towel is to the left, and inside once the towel is folded, to the back when hung.
Let’s not talk about my work as an estimator in steel fabrication - steel members have to be listed just so on my sheets, or it gets me all goofered. I’ve been known to erase half a page of info just so I can put something just where it should be.
Yup. Face, hair, left arm, chest, right arm, left leg, right leg, everything else. I messed up the order once about 3 years ago and I was all out of sorts for the rest of the day.
Keys always go on the hook beside the door. Tools have specific spots in the toolbox.
When I was young, I had a friend who had that. His most noticeable tic was when using the pushbutton radio. If he pushed a button for a station, he would then have to touch all of the buttons two at a time, working from the outside buttons inward and then back out again. He would also do it if I changed the channel.
Many years ago, I was one of the temps hired to update the membership register of an international professional organization. I don’t know about the other few, but I hated to leave gaps in a member’s employment history so I’d go into the supervisor’s office and peruse previously published registers to fill in information.
He seemed to enjoy the company for the few minutes I was in there.
I used to be like this for most of my professional life as well so it could be a compulsion of sorts.
Since I have become old and tired and jaded I have unberthed swaths of things I used to do routinely. When I discovered that the world didn’t end in my little office space I continued to unberth even more.
This has accelerated over the last several years with limited staffing and additional responsibilities.
The old slightly OCD me would probably not even recognize the lazy slug I have become.
My middle name.
It’s mostly little things like the drying hair thing.
Socks with seams at the toes have to be just so.
I eat food counterclockwise on my plate.
I drink my water only at certain intervals during a meal.
I feel like most of my thingys are the result being restricted on a few things out of my control.
So I’ve taken over the stuff I can control.
I dated a woman for awhile who suppressed all her tics at first. As we got to know each other they came out one at a time. The worst was when we went to leave her house. It started with the bedroom light. She would go up and check it, then start down the stairs and pause while she thought about it. Then go back up. And again. She would finally ask me to make sure the light was out. I had to go into the bedroom, call out all my actions. “Te bedroom light is out.” I am backing down the hall." “The light is still out.”. Then she added in the closet light. Just like the bedroom except you had to check the closet light without turning on the bedroom light, or do that all over again. Then she added in the bathroom. Crap. It was a deep room with a archway separating the tub in the back from the front of the room. Full sequence: Turn on the alcove light to see if the water in the tub was running. Turn off the light. Check that the sink faucet was not running. Make sure the toilet did not need jiggling. Turn off the bathroom light.Call all this out while backing down the stairs to make sure the light did not spring to life. “Sometimes the toilet needs jiggling…” “I know about the jiggling!” “Did you turn on the alcove light to check the tub” “Yeah” “Did you turn if off?”
Eventually it included the kitchen, the basement with the cat with a single light left on (Oh, gawd). The damn stove took forever to convince her all the burners were off. All told about 45 minutes to leave the house. I put up with all this but she eventually turned inward to our relationship. I won’t go into details but we parted with her yelling out the door, “You’re leaving me and I’m never going to see you again am I?”
I moved into a motel for several days. She was going to visit her daughter for a couple of weeks so I moved back and unhooked the telephone. I messed up about 3 weeks later and answered the phone. It was her daughter. "You miserable scum sucking pig you broke my mother’s heart and, blah blah. Click. Sweet jesus.
I’m one of those people who wants things just so. The blankets on the bed have to have the label in the same corner. I actively try to not give into my impulses to make sure they don’t control my life. For example, I like even numbers so I actively try to buy for example 17 items when I grocery shop to affirm that this is just a personality trait and not a compulsion. The oddest one I have is what I call unwinding. If for example I go downstairs two flights I will have made two full rotations to the left. I feel tied up unless I compensate by turning at least 360 degree to the right. Again, I consciously decided that this was irrational and over the last couple of months I have been consciously not doing it. Now Trump got elected and my OCD brain is telling me that it was all my fault for letting things get twisted. That is how OCD works.
I don’t know if this is OCD, but it makes sense for me.
I always wear pants of shorts with at least 4 pockets.
Keys, left from pocket. Pocket knife, right from pocket. Wallet, right rear pocket.
It MUST be this way. I’ve been doing it this way for as long as I can remember. I’ve never lost or misplaced my keys, knife or wallet. I always know right where they are. Always.
Now flying sucks (in a number of ways) but I can’t carry my knife, so I always feel like I’m missing something. And will invariably need it for something once at my destination.
I have an electric coffee grinder with a reservoir of whole beans, with a dial that sets how long to grind, which is supposed to be for how much ground coffee is dispensed into the integrated cup. No matter how long I twist it to grind for, I always add a small “bonus” twist at the end, just to be sure. And when I am dispensing filtered water for said coffee from the fridge, I always do a “bonus” tap of water, just to be sure. If I don’t do these two things, I notice it, and think I don’t have enough.
Also, in the car and on the TV, I always set the digital volume control to an even number. I don’t know why.
I have to either set it to an even number, or a multiple of 5 - even the temp on the climate control in my truck or the thermostat for the propane heater in the house. Guess it fits my sense of balance.
I do plenty of things like the above. But most of it is because without these habits (like always putting my car keys in a certain pocket) I would spend a lot of frustrating time trying to remember whether I did something or where some object is. And my memory gets worse and worse as I age.
I have a friend with OCD who has to throw away her toothbrush if someone else touches it, or it falls on the floor. She says that this is something minor that doesn’t impact her life, and that if she developed some tic that did, she would do something about it. Which seems reasonable.
It’s good to maintain awareness of the irrational characteristics we are battling but they are slippery buggers aren’t they.
I try to stop mine before I get to the blame or blessing stage and I’ve been successful for many years. But sometimes things happen and it’s in your face again.
I don’t see this as OCD - I think it’s just smart. Otherwise, you waste a lot of time looking for your keys or digging around trying to find that wrench or screwdriver. It’s like putting your kitchen utensils in certain drawers - you’ll know where to find them next time.
I’m not sure if one would call this OCD or not - I rotate my stock… I should explain. When I do laundry, the clean stuff is hung on the right, and I take clothes to wear from the left. Mostly - today I grabbed a shirt from the right end because it went better with my pants. Clean undergarments go in the drawer on the left side after I slide the rest to the right. Clean t-shirts go in the bottom drawer after last week’s load is moved to the top drawer. Similar routine with bath towels and dish towels.
But I’m pretty sure I do this to make sure things wear evenly. I don’t want 6 t-shirts turning to tatters while I have a drawer full of pristine shirts. I makes it feel like my clothing lasts longer. But if I decide I want to wear a specific shirt and it hasn’t worked its way up in the rotation, I’ll wear it and I won’t lose any sleep over it. Maybe not OCD, then, but an endearing quirk?