I carry four things - wallet, keys, personal phone, work phone. One in each pocket. Four pats before leaving anywhere. Four pats randomly during the day. And yes, I’ve had to think about the fact that my my keys and personal phone are missing when I’m driving and have my phone in the cup holder instead of my pocket.
I did this when I was a just a little bit…err…wave form…errr…kid. I used to jump over the line from the electric outlet when walking around the house.
This too, except for the tits part…being a guy and all. But if I bump my arm against something, I have to touch the other arm just to balance it. And if I breathe on one arm or leg, I have to breathe on the other one.
And my own - when using a computer, the mouse pointer HAS to be in neutral territory. Not over text. Not over a graphic. And definitely not over anything that causes a tool-tip to appear. If I’m reading a news site with lots of headlines, the pointer has to be in the middle of
a column so it stays neutral as I scroll.
-D/a
It seems like there are a lot of even numbered people here.
For me, it’s all about the odd numbers. Especially when it comes to noises, like knocking for instance. It has to be an odd number of knocks, preferably 5, but I will settle for 3 or 7. When walking down a long, quiet hall at work I count my footsteps and have to stop on an odd count. I can’t buy two of any item, it has to be 1 or 3 or 5 etc.
Back when I had many Cd’s, they always had to be arranged alphabetically and I knew when one was out of place. I sometimes catch myself organizing my canned goods that way and then stop, because I know it’s weird (but it’s hard to stop).
I hum when going through a yellow traffic light. My kids think it’s really weird, but I feel uncomfortable if I don’t do it.
I will also add myself to the number of you that always wash/dry your body in the same order.
If I experience a sensation on one side of the body, I really want to equalize the sensation on the other side. Say I step on a raised bit of the sidewalk and it presses into the sole of my foot right in the middle of the arch. I will alter my gate until I can press the other foot onto something in the same spot. Or if P press down into the bit of slightly webbed skin between the fingers and experience that slight burn, I really want to do the same to the other hand.
Now, I can be distracted and the urge will go away, but for a moment it’s fairly powerful.
I too count steps. Of course this isn’t just OCDish, it’s self-preservation: I’ve got a long and well-documented history of forgetting where my own damn feet are, and have stumbled by trying to up (or down) more stairs than actually exist :p.
Everyone who typically showers when half awake, and has developed a rhythm that allows this to occur successfully (‘success’ defined as ‘reasonably clean’ + ‘not drowned’) without requiring too much brainpower :D.
I’m one of those eat-all-of-one-thing-at-one-time geeks.
If I have soup, bread and mac 'n cheese, first the soup, then the mac 'n cheese, then the bread. M & M’s: blue, yellow, orange, red, brown. Every time.
Thought of another one: I pull my keys out of my purse and hold them in my hand as soon as I start approaching my car - i.e. once I leave the grocery checkout line, once I stand up from my desk and work and head for the stairwell, etc. I totally didn’t even notice I do it at all until I saw the scene where they make fun of the dowdy old woman who does it in “About Schmidt.” Now, I notice that I do it when it creates an inconvenience for me. Seriously, you’d think I’d leave my keys in my purse when my friggin’ hands are already full. But nope, I pull 'em out, and then think, “Why do I need these out already?” Doesn’t change a thing: next time, same deal.
I’m pleased to find that I am not the only one who:
Locks the car door, walks away, then walks back to ‘make sure’
Not only avoids the cracks on the ground but also the lines projecting from corners in walls, lines painted on the ground, etc.
Eats M&Ms (but not Skittles) in a prescribed order. It goes: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Brown. And Brown should be purple, dammit. Give us the whole rainbow.
Checks the alarms (all 6) on my iPhone before I go to bed every night just to make sure I didn’t turn them off without remembering.
I remembered another one that I do quite often. I change my grip on the steering wheel when I drive over shadows. I grip harder when I’m on a shadow and less hard when I’m not, but I have to change the grip once I’m already in the shadow, not before I reach it. Driving across the shadows made by leafless trees causes me anxiety because of all the intricate, small shadows that are too thin for me to do my grippy thing with.
I’m curious. Those of you with M&M rules – what happens in movie theaters? Can you suspend the rules when it’s dark? Or do you simply not eat M&Ms at the movies?
I don’t have many of the proto-OCD habits, but I always count as I fill things with water (glasses, jugs, pans, the dog’s water dish, whatever) and I always count as I put ice cubes into glasses.
I don’t have to reach or avoid any particular number, I just need to know what it is.
See, I was coming in to post this…but I’m not THAT OCD…they can be in different orientations…it’s just that when they’re that way…I’m unsettled.
And you’ve NEVER SEEN OCD like the Bathroom of a Hacker Convention in Vegas.
Four sinks, three to four people deep, and no cross contamination…it’s all furious scribbing with soap and grabbing paper towels with elbows…and hovering near the door til the next person opens it…then catching it with their [del]your[/del] their foot before it closes.
I’m a counter. Brushing teeth, it’s 20 brushes to each section, inside, surface, outside. When blow drying my hair, it’s in sections and 60-80 passes per section. I’ll count steps sometimes. If I’m waiting and I’m told it’s a certain number of minutes, I’ll start counting to see how close I get to the right number of seconds without checking a timer.
Well, duh. If the glasses don’t go on top right and mugs on top left they will no doubt break. And not be packed as tightly. And the bad silverware from the drawer goes in back of the silverware rack while the good silverware goes in front. My kids were quite surprised that I didn’t sort by type - I did think of it.
California license plates are d lll ddd (l = letter, d = digit.) When I first moved here I collected all three letter digit and letter sets while commuting, starting with AAA and working upwards.
After that I always computed the fraction of the way to 100,000 miles I was - and the fraction from say 3/4 to 4/5 of the way, and sometimes a third order fraction of that.
Now I have a Prius (the OCD car) I just have a good time looking at fractional mpg increases and decreases, both instantaneous and for the trip. Loads of fun.
I count the letters of words so I can find the center of the word. I’ll recount a few times to make sure of it. I’ve found that I prefer words with an odd number of letters because they have a letter for a center.
Eat M&Ms at the movies? Why would you eat M&Ms at the movies? It’s dark and there isn’t a flat surface to organize them on!
No, I don’t eat M&Ms at the movies.
I do like having the switches in a group all pointing in the same direction; it’s just more harmonic. I don’t get it to the point of having to light more lamps than I really need so the switches will be right, though. The living room in my rental has two ceiling lamps: there are switches for both lamps at the kitchenward door and one for the bedroomward lamp at the bedroomward door. If I switch on only one lamp, it’s the one bedroomward and I do it from the bedroomward door (the paired switches stay in identical positions); if I need both lights, I use the kitchenward switches.
It’s completely silly… Mom leaves the kitchenward switches flipped and I change them so they are in the right position. I didn’t talk with Littlebro about it when he was visiting, but he examined the switches when he first arrived and used them like I do.
She’s leaving day after tomorrow, my switches will be appropriately-positioned again.
I keep thinking about this… Why do I do these things? My car and my medicine cabinet are completely organized, but by office desk is a mess. I have no problem (ok, I have some problem, but I deal with it) with the computer desk at home being a mess, but if you take a tool out of my tool box, you better put it back in the same place you got it from!
Why some things and not others?
