I am of the belief that more people have some form of OCD (“Obsessive Compulsive Disorder”) Than will let on.
Mine are related to possession, sociality, and smell.
Possession - I can’t abide the idea that any possession of mine (which is only a possession because I have at some point considered it worth having) could be stolen or damaged.
One example of how possession OCD manifests for me is - When I lock my car wireless-ly I will walk back to the driver door and pull the handle. I will walk away. I will walk back and pull the handle again (Because I DO NOT TRUST my memory of having already done so)
The Sociality one manifests itself by my hating the idea of smelling bad to somebody else, so I shower every single day, and wash my hands after I’ve touched food, and chew minty gum, and I loathe my own ability to sweat (how strange then that I can find sweat sexy on a woman)
The Smell one is easy. I have an acute sense of smell, and if I detect even a minuscule hint of an unpleasant smell I would not be able to spend a lot of time in the same room as it if not otherwise distracted by a more powerful sensory input. At sleep time, a time when most senses are at their most inactive, if there is a bad smell I am in a particular kind of hell.
I started to reply, but then changed my mind. I decided that not trusting my memory at all (I turn around and drive back past my house almost every time I leave to check the garage door) wasn’t really what you were looking for. But, right before I hit the back button, I had to run the mouse over all the icons above the reply box to make them stretch out, then I realized I always do that. Hmmm.
The other one is pretty minor. I can’t stand to have the volume knob on my car radio between clicks. It’s not gonna do anything if it is, but it bugs me, and I have to reach back over and move it a half a centimeter one way or the other.
Not trusting your own Memory is actually a pretty good reason to post in my thread if it’s the only reason you have
I think my checking the door twice comes from the worrying frequency that I hear people say “I am convinced I did X or I am convinced that X is true” and at the same time knowing they didn’t or it isn’t. It creates a lack of faith in the accuracy of human Memory. I rationalize that my own memory is no different to anyone else’s therefore I should assume that I am capable of being sure of things that may not be true. (trivial things)
I’m awful with my memory, always have been. I’ve gotten pretty used to writing things down. “Hey, when you go to the store can you get-” “stop stop stop, let me get some paper” “But it’s only 1 thing” “Yeah, but I’ll still forget and my phone dosen’t work in the store”
I just remembered another one. Dammit, I thought of it while I was typing in another thread. Oh, I know. I’m the king of what if’s/well maybes/benefit of the doubts. To the point where it annoys people. Run an idea past me, I’ll ask you thirty five what if’s to make sure you’ve done your due diligence so to speak, to make sure the idea doesn’t tank becuase of something you haven’t thought of. Annoying yeah, but it’s a waste of money to try a new thing only to find out it tanks becuase you hadn’t thought it out well enough. Wonder rhetorically (aloud) why someone is driving oddly slow, cutting part of their grass with a scissors, getting in their car and driving away only to return 10 minutes later…8 times a day, and I’ll give you ten ‘well maybes’ It bugs people (my wife) when I do this, but I feel bad judging someone if there’s a good reason for doing what they’re doing and dammit, I’ll figure out what that reason is, or at least something that satisfies me.
Hmmm… I have a few. My husband pointed out to me that I brush my fingers together a lot when I’m eating to get salt or crumbs off of them. Now that he mentioned it, I’ve noticed that after taking a bite of any type of finger food, I don’t like the feeling of crumbs on my fingers.
bite
(flickflickflicK) bite
(flickflickflick)
I try to do it under the table, or use my napkin a lot.
Spelling. I hate it when people can’t spell. It makes me cringe whenever I see alot. People. It is a lot, not alot. I also don’t like it when someone writes or says ‘I could care less.’ It’s ‘I couldn’t care less.’ The first one doesn’t even make sense.:smack:
I can’t wear socks outside without shoes, and it makes me cringe when I see someone walking outdoors with socks on. Yuck. I also hate dirty socks. I wash those seperately, and bleach the white ones. I have either bare feet, slippers, or shoes indoors… very rarely will I wear socks only. Holes in socks send me over the edge. I have issues.
I can’t CAN’T not wear socks. It feels weird, I don’t like it. The only time I don’t have socks on is at a water park or when I get out of the shower. I just don’t like the way it feels.
ETA Shirt tags, shirt tags get ripped out ASAP. Turns out that hypersensitity is an ADD thing.
Oh I agree. I consider clothing, including socks, to be your clean buffer to the dirty outside world.
I hardly ever clean my shoes so my socks are the things that make sure my shoes never get too much of the dirtiness that my vile disgusting human feet are able to generate in one single day.
Okay, how about another one (I realize this is straying from OCD and leaning towards involuntary quirk). Often times when I see someone, (whether I know them or they are a perfect stranger), I tend to notice that they look like someone else. Usually a celebrity, but often times just someone else I know. When I point it out to someone else, I have about a 90% rate of “yeah, they do look like that person, I never noticed that.” I don’t do it on purpose, I just do it, alot.
I always figured “I could care less” was shorthand for “I COULD care less, I suppose, but I still don’t really care.” That may be giving an idiom too much credit though, it probably DID just get corrupted from I couldn’t care less and some yahoo leaft off the “n’t” part. I offer you this rationalization because of:
Yeah… I do the same thing. “Oh my god why did they do <completely inane illogical and potentially stupid or dangerous thing>?”
Me: “Rattles off 36 potentially logical reasons>”
Other person: “Well, whatever, it’s stupid and he’s an idiot for doing it.”
I also used to have trouble writing persuasive essays due to this, the teachers always used to say “pick one side to defend” and then I go and find a good middle ground. I always get “it’s a great solution, and you wrote it well, but you didn’t do the assignment so I can’t give you full credit.” Because I can never feel good about my paper when I only refute the “other side” instead of incorporating ideas I think have some logic behind them, with a few exceptions.
Open web browser, go to CNN, go to local newspaper, check email, open my last location’s local paper…because if I don’t, something horrible will happen.
I actually have a lot of little things like this now that I think of it. Like one time I was in a plane waiting to take off, and I was trying to remember the name of the 2 wheeled vehicle that people zipped around on. Segway! The next time I was taking off, I thought of it again…now it’s everytime I take off. Then, I was on a plane and tried to remember the name of the Dustin Hoffman movie where he played a woman. Tootsie! So now, everytime I take off, it’s Segway, Tootsie. I’m guessing the plane will crash if I don’t think of it.
Honest to God’s truth, I’m at the St Patrick’s Day parade in DC, and someone comes up to me on a Segway and gives me a Tootsie Roll. :eek:
I used to drive around the block sometimes because I thought that just maybe I had run over a pedestrian, and I’d have to drive back to where I’d been to see if there was a body lying there. I later read that this is an OCD behavior and can actually become very debilitating for some people.
OCD is an anxiety disorder, so some people with anxiety or panic problems will also have some OCD-type behaviors as well.
i cannot leave a blackhead, pimple, or ingrown hair alone. No. They must be squeezed until they give forth their essence, otherwise they will bug me and bug me and bug me.
This includes blackheads/pimples/ingrown hairs on my husband. Fortunately, he is patient with my need to squeeze.
I do manage to control this urge with other people, but if someone is walking around with a big ol’ whitehead on their cheek or something, it’s really really hard, like not scratching an itch.
I cannot sleep if my alarm is not set to go off at a multiple of five. 7:40 is okay, 7:45 is okay, 7:46 is not and I cannot sleep until it’s fixed. I’ve always set it that way just out of habit, but not long ago I was experimenting to see if an extra two or three minutes of sleep made any psychological difference in how awake I felt. Turns out the answer was yes, because I could not fall asleep knowing my alarm was set “wrong”.
I’m a key checker. I’ve never lost any keys, mind, but nonetheless I must check to make sure they’re where they should be in my purse. My house etc. keys snap onto a little gizmo inside an inner section of my purse. It isn’t like they could fall far. But after I leave the house–and check the lock at least twice to make sure it engaged–I will snap my keys in place, but groupe around to check they’re really really where I put them.
You don’t want to know the scene of ugly panic the time I dropped my keys into a (zippered) jacket pocket while working outside. I came inside, absent-mindedly hung up the jacket…and an hour later didn’t find my keys in the purse where they belonged. Now keep in mind I keep several duplicates around the house for fire safety reasons. They weren’t my real keys. I tore the house apart, just about hyperventilating, until I finally remembered to check the jacket pocket.
For some reason my car key and electronic clicker gizmo don’t bother me at all. Nor does the huge honkin’ set of keys I have to haul around at work. It’s just the keys to my house.
I also compulsively check my credit card/ATM card whenever I have reason to use either. I’ve never lost one, probably because I’m a twitching, anal ass. But I’ll unzip that compartment of my wallet at least once extra to make sure the cards are safely tucked away in their slots. A close friend has twice driven off leaving her ATM card in the machine. The mere idea just about gives me hives.
And when flying? My ticket/boarding pass usually ends up clutched in a death grip until it’s all limp and crumpled. If I put it in my purse, even the triple-zippered section, I’m checking every few minutes to make sure I haven’t lost it. And I’m not even a nervous traveler. Enjoy flying, unexpected detours, delays, etc. are opportunities for adventure–it’s just those blasted tickets.
I always picked what most people would consider the “other side.” I loved defending ‘the other side.’ I wrote several pro-euthanasia essays in high school and college. I loved how often people dismissed something as wrong (and probably couldn’t even tell you why they did) and later were saying “I never thought of that”
I consider myself to be/have OC, but it’s not a disorder if it’s not interfering with your life. I always know where my car keys are, so who cares if I point my fingers, and/or make the Star Trek whoosing noise whenever I go through a self opening door?
I also snap my fingers and make a ‘forward’ gesture (the snap becomes a wrist loop, with index and middle fingers extended) when I make up my mind what I want to do.
I have the same relationship with my multiple personalities.
I’ve actually been diagnosed with OCD many odd years ago (I may have beaten it, judging by the criteria, I definitely don’t do most of the stuff anymore), and I agree, however the popular term (like most things) is way different than the medical term, so I figured that’s what we were going by.
I have been teased about my control freak, OCD-like behaviors, and was aware of my quirks, but didn’t think they were particularly debilitating, or even bothersome. Until I was talking to my therapist and he had me outline the actions I take in the course of a day. He wrote them all down and said, “Do you realize that roughly 30% of your average day in spent in OCD behaviors?” From what I gather, ADD and OCD often occur together, but I honestly didn’t think I was having THAT much of a problem.
The only OCD thing I feel is interfering with me badly is my bridge phobia thing, which has increased over the years. I used to not like them, then I hated them, then I started getting palpitations and became convinced I was going to drive my car off one on purpose. Now the only way I can get across one is to stay in the middle lane if it’s a three-lane road, keeping my eyes STRAIGHT FORWARD, and if it’s not three lanes or more and I have to drive alongside an edge, I have to go across it navigating primarily by my side view mirror. I do keep glancing up and forward to make sure I’m not going to rear-end someone, but I need to see what’s behind me even more. And - I HAVE to talk myself over: “you’re OK, you’re going straight, you’re not going to fall, you’re not going to turn…”
