[Closed] OCD... What are your compulsions then?

I do that Rich, not on an odd number though you freak, unless it's 5, ie 6.55am or a multiple of 5 in time, is ok. What sort of **** came up with 7 minutes of snooze? that doesn't fit. But you beat it by getting up on the hour, HA! I set it 5 mins before getting up time though, just so I can enjoy 5 mins in bed. Thanks Ernie, for telling me I'm not ocd! I know I'm not at all. I'm sure it's a bugger of a problem for some though.

Reading through this before an early start at work and I have come to the conclusion that you are all slightly tapped. Are some of you folks really allowed in to the public on your own.?

😯

Plus, I'd be interested in what profession these sorts of weirdo's are attracted to. What I'd like to see is a complete lack of IT workers with compulsive disorders, that'd be a nice touch of irony but having met thousands of IT staff, I doubt I'd be that lucky.

Like amateur footballers calling me gay when I ride past on my bike, WHILE THEY'RE DOING THEIR HAIR IN THE CAR MIRRORS.

If on the bus i will always use my knuckle to press the stop button. Always. Oddly i don't do the same on cash machines, only the bus.

Oh and i have a thing for a clean desk. I get really agitated if the desk is a mess in the morning and start feeling angry and slightly weird. Can't do anything else until the desk is clear.

Ear plugs, have to wear them, even alone in a quiet room I can't fall asleep

snap, although I wouldn't consider it OCD, just the by product if living next to noisy neighbours for 3 years

Mmm yeh lots! Im always doing the aligning thing, it doesn't really upset me but I do have to straighten it up. Things also have to be centralised and symmetrical.
On the bike it really bothers me if things dont match. Cables have to be fairly short and all have to stick forward by the same amount. Bolts cant be different colours etc. I've made specific trips to engineering suppliers before to buy bolts to replace bolts that are fine.... Just the wrong colour.
As above notes in a wallet have to be the right way round.
I even went through a phase of arranging the wardrobe by colour, rainbow stylee.
Don't get me started on the fridge. I could strangle the missus after she's put the shopping away. I mean what kind of freak puts yohguts on every shelf!!
I abandoned the alarm clock in favour of my phone. If there's a clock in front of me it's just wrong to get up on a weird number

I don't think it OCD really but I can't get out of bed in anything less than the multiples of 5 thing. So if I have to get up at 7:05 but missed that and the clock turns to 7:06 I then wait until 7:10. Think it's more laziness than OCD though

Add up series of numbers, do things in multiples of 3 (avoid multiples of 4 AT ALL COSTS!), and I detest treading on the cracks in pavements (does that count? My Dad told me that bears will come out and eat you if you do when I was very little - the fact that I haven't been eaten yet as I have avoided the cracks for 40+ years is surely proof that he was right?).

Fairly convinced that most things on this thread are utterly normal and sensible. Oh dear.

EDIT: Actually, the symmetry thing and the yoghurt / shelf thing are a bit mad. In my opinion. Can't stand symmetry.

A lot of this stuff is just common sense, especially if you live alone.

It takes me 10 minutes to leave the house, have to make sure all switches are off, the gas oven is off, the doors are locked, cat is in correct position. Make sure I have my key at least 20 times.

I am banned from using the stove/oven/cooker in the mornings, after leaving the coffee on the stove and cycling to work, luckily I had a flatmate then who smelt it and work up.

Oh yeah - and fridges - there is a right place for everything in the fridge. I managed to share a fridge by demarcating it into two halves, and ignoring the other side.

Work: can't work if desk is a mess, monitor is squint or anything is sitting not at right angles. Frack me I even delete emails and file them in the right place, thats what makes me a real freak !

But I rarely clean or maintain my bikes properly, so there are limits.

Since having kids most of my OCD like control freakism has been quashed. Entropy is now enforced by two cute girls.

Why are all us OCD freaks prejudice against odd numbers? I'm as guilty as the next cyclist, don't get me wrong, but am I/we numberist?

Cleaning the car after almost every trip...

Similar with the bikes...

This place is the source of all my OCD tendencies.

I'll be back in 4m 38secs.

I like to be symmetrical, so I don't wear my wedding ring, and I don't wear a watch, because I would want one on each wrist. It makes driving a bit frustrating having to sit over on one side of the car.

I also wipe my bum until it bleeds a bit 🙁

Notes in my wallet have to be in order (£20's at the back, £5's at the front) with the queens head facing forward.
Car stereo volume has to be even numbers or multiples of 5

Glad it's not just me!

You lot are all mental!

A lot of that stuff actually sounds familiar to things I do but nowhere near to the extremes some here take them to. Not touching door handles - tho thats more to do with the amount of people I see not washing their hands. Getting out of bed at x.x5 or x.10 is perfectly normal.
Seem to remember hearing/reading we all have OCD, there's just a massive variation.

Couple of things no-ones mentioned probably just me being anal not OCD, I can't stand bread getting squashed and hate people/anything touching my disc rotors

Oh yeah the bank notes - have to be all with the Queens head facing the same way - thats from working in a bank many years ago (so Princess te Puia and Ed Hilary not the Queen) and it just seemed to make sense.

sink in the kitchen has to be clean, rest of the house can be a disaster area but the sink has to be clean

cutlery drawers that aren't L-R fork, knife, spoon freak me out too, got to be arranged how they go on the table

Numbers thing for me too. Mine are multiples of 3. My alarm is set at 6.54 am and get up 21 mins later (3 snoozes). Amp volume for the TV needs to be set at 45, 48, 54, 57, 58.5 etc. Try to avoid 6 though, that's not good, although not always possible. 😯
Wash hands far too much. Hate the feeling of touching something strange/ dirty then feeling it on my finger tips. Washing hands cures it.
Used to chech doors but I have cured that one. 🙂
Edit; Cutlery needs to all face the same way in its drawer.

CDs in alphabetical order (I've got a lot of em, so it makes sense). Apart from that... nothing. I'm weird in other ways... like just [i]having[/i] to have new music to listen to every day. New, as in never heard before, just released. It gets expensive.

Funniest thread EVER!

Keep it coming guys

My problem is that I'm so used to double-checking my front door is locked, that I don't pay attention whilst I'm doing it.........so I have to double-check that I've double-checked

This will just snowball surely!

I constantly find myself tidying up the local supermarket, lining up the tin labels and picking the ones I want from the back so as not to mess up the pattern. I also line up my food on the conveyor belt so there's no gaps.

I drive my girlfriend insane by making neat piles of everything we own that's not put away. I don't organise it logically or anything, I just line it up in a pile, biggest stuff at the bottom.

I switch all the sockets off in the kitchen before I go to bed, and my girlfriends has to physically restrain me if I hear a flatmate use an electrical thing in the kitchen when I'm already in bed. Oh dear.

This reminds me of my early school years when i was very insecure. Used to do the 3 times thing for brushing teeth and sucking water off the brush. It soon became 3x3 times, so i would do things 9 times.
I remember if things were the wrong way up, i just had to change it and make it right.
Have any of you tried to just stop. Just walk away and leave it? What happens? I did as a 17 year old and have never done anything like it since.

EDIT: Actually, the symmetry thing and the yoghurt / shelf thing are a bit mad

Have any of you tried to just stop. Just walk away and leave it? What happens?

Surely the world was expole?..... no wait your head!

Before getting into bed the pillows have to be perfectly aligned with an even amount of space on all sides.

Ditto the last bean in the tin thing, smaller tins prove more of a challenge.

I do those multiple things too!

When I'm walking somewhere I have to count the number of steps I've taken. I always have to end on a multiple of 50, so I can often be seen walking on the spot or in small circles once I've reached my destination, just to tally it upto the right amount.

Its pretty daft but I've found if I lengthen or shorten my stride I can sometimes reach my destination on an exact multiple.

I leave draws slightly open and cupboard doors slightly a jar whan I am at my gf's house. Then sit back and watch her closing the lot without her knowing she is doing it. Not really ocd but entertaing none the less.

Checking to make sure I have locked the door, both the house and car....not sure if its OCD or just the fact that I forget!

I use to move things slightly, sugar, tea, coffee etc, then watch my brother put them straight as he walked past....

Doors windows of course. Notes in the right order? Doesn't everyone do this?

Stacking the dishwasher is getting quite OCD. Everything has it's own place. I've been know to completely empty a full (incorrectly stacked) machine of all the dirty dishes and cutlery and restack it.

I can't believe I wrote that.

Checking to make sure I have locked the door, both the house and car....not sure if its OCD or just the fact that I forget!

This is a major one for me as well, stems from having my car broken into and being burgled.

I'm just way too frickin lazy to be OCD.

Some nights I compulsively sit on the sofa, thinking about the unwashed dishes in the sink, or if I turned the gas hob off. I just wait until my wine glass is empty and check this stuff when I get a refill. Sometimes the hob is on, the dishes are always still dirty. I'll turn the hob off, take the bottle back to the living room and ignore the dishes.

I used to have to touch things an even number of times and with the opposite side of the body that I first touched it with, also the TV volume had to be an even number, also lots of other little idiosyncrasys.
Fortuneately since the birth of my kids I no longer do them (too busy doing other things), although I still check the doors are locked several times before going to bed, and check the gas is off on the cooker hob. Which is probably because the wife has a habit of leaving doors unlocked and she has left the cooker on a few times as well.

What is the opposite of OCD? I've got that...

What is the opposite of OCD?

CGaF?

I ALWAYS use a paper towel to open the door in work/public toilets.

I also count my nose several times a day.

Any my back garden must be a complete and utter mess or I can't sleep.

That's it Yeti or ICCL.

See someone else has the cutlery thing, but has a different (wrong) order. Clearly wrong. You always say 'Knife and Fork' don't you? Use your knife and fork!' Never 'Use your fork and knife' Hence in the drawer it has to be Knives, then forks, then spoons. Although I don't mind if that's left to right order, or top to bottom. It's your cutlery tray, only a freak would dictate what way round you had to put that in your cutlery drawer!

I even went through a phase of arranging the wardrobe by colour, rainbow stylee

That's not OCD

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/843241-saudi-prince-s-aide-was-very-effeminate

I thought I was OCD, but compared to some of your lot I'm verging on normal.

My OCD traits in comparison are just logical!

I have a particular way of stacking the washing up board to fit an entire day's washing up on the board... in fact I'm good at stacking/packing anything (I once asked "do all engineers come with good packing algorithms?").

I used to have a compulsion where I couldn't step on crack/edges of slabs but in addition, I couldn't stand of the projected edges of large objects. See the washing machine or table in the middle of the kitchen? Take the 4 edges and project them across the floor. You can't stand on those lines.

Then one day I just decided to stop.

I like to put my alarm at slightly off times, though I don't have to.

And I did once leave the iron on when out for a weekend. Would have missed the bus to check.

joolsburger - I believe that you've given the medically correct diagnosis.
CGaF has a bit of a stigma attached to it these days.

In the kitchen at work the cups are all stacked 2 high, when I go to get a coffee I can only take the top one of a stack, not a loner.

Socks - have to be pairs, fairly normal. Then the wife (just to wind me up im sure) got me socks that have days of the week written on them, so now not only do I have to find a pair, I have to be the monday pair if it'e monday etc.

When I get to work I have to open my applications in the same order, outlook first so its on the left, then windows explorer, then IE, then excel etc. If I accidentaly close outlook during the day then i have to close all the ather applications so I can get outlook back where it belongs.

Even number on the car stereo. 5s are OK

Light swictches should all be the right way round, however I moved house a week ago and the kitchen light switch has been put on the wrong way....one week in and I am still deciding if it bothers me enough to take it off and change it.

I get on the train at the same door everyday, and always make sure I sit facing backwards.

Loo roll has to hang the right way (away from the wall)

Things in the wardrobe have to face the same way.

Money in wallet has to be in denomination order and the right way up, facing forwards, coins i stack in size order, sometimes seperating the coppers and silvers.

I have to make sure I look at the clock on my monitor at work when the time is 12:34.

Cant do an odd number of reps in the gym.

Im sure there are more

Notes in my wallet have to be in order (£20's at the back, £5's at the front) with the queens head facing forward.
Car stereo volume has to be even numbers or multiples of 5

Not just me then 😉 🙄

If anyone wants the names of some good help books or advice on getting the right CBT, give me a shout.

My psychologist wrote her thesis about me, so that just about sums up my relationship with this horrible spiteful illness. 🙁

When I get to work I have to open my applications in the same order, outlook first so its on the left, then windows explorer, then IE, then excel etc. If I accidentaly close outlook during the day then i have to close all the ather applications so I can get outlook back where it belongs.

If you're running 7 (and I'm pretty sure Vista) then you can just drag any icon on the taskbar to where you want it to rearrange them. Dunno if that'll help but may make your life easier if you use one of those!