Obsessive Compulsive HABITS, Paranoia or just plain dumbness?

[Timosity]

It's all pychological, I remember walking inside the squares at the shopping center when I was a kid, I even remember today going to the Same shopping centre and remembering that exact thing, but couldn't be bothered to concentrate  that hard.

What you've described is Obsesive Compulsive Disorder without a doubt, but if it helps you though your day, I can't see a problem with it,


It's all about rationalising things to yourself, and feeling comfortable within your own mind about it, just as long as you don't leave out a vital part that may turn you into a raving lunatic.

Just don't take any acid, cause that's the way people using that think, to more extreme levels than that.

[Scummbuddy]

Back in the time when I was of middle school age, I had an OCD with clocks.  If I was to look at a clock (digital) and look away, and happen to look back again and it was the same time... I would punish myself.  (Not disturbingly) but I would force myself to keep watching the clock till not only the minute changed, but the next minute had passed.  I did this for awhile, and although I know have an impecable internal clock, I realized that what I was doing was stupid...so I forced myself to look at it and away and back and away. Just to prove to myself that I was in control and some stupid clock time was not.

Another thing was that I killed a cricket on the last step going down into the basement, and then I felt remorse, then I placed a curse on that step so that everytime that I would step on it, more crickets would come into the house... even today I still skip that last step going down sometimes, but I just grew out of it seeing how silly of an idea it was.

[Nellie]

It definitely sounds like OCD, and I think you should seek some more information about it and/or look into treatment.

When I was a kid, I used to rub one ear on my shoulder, and then I would have to do the other ear, to 'even it out'.  I think I grew out of that one naturally.

More recently, if I turned 360 degrees clockwise, I would feel uncomfortable unless I turned back the other way.  I made myself stop doing that when I realised it was irrational, and now I'm fine.

The worst OCDish thingy I had was a period where I had to wash my hands all the time - if I touched a flat surface at all, stroked the cat, before I ate a biscuit, etc.  Eventually, the skin on my hands started to flake.  I made myself stop doing that (with difficulty) when I realised it was completely nuts!

And now I'm free of irritating habits.

* Nellie picks his nose.

[BOYD1981]

i do the same thing with my hands that Iqu does, i just have to do things symmetrically otherwise i think the muscles in one side will get bigger than the others, but i only do that if i'm doing something stupid like moving my fingers in a weird way.
i can't burp without saying "pardon me" either, i've tried but i just feel bad if i don't.
i also used to have thing where i couldn't go to the toilet if there was somebody in the room next to it or anywhere else where they might hear me.
a few years ago i would never drink from the same side of glass or cup twice either, but i stopped doing that.
i have other little things like not throwing stuff away, getting things in the exact right position when i put them down and other stupid things, i am also pretty paranoid about leaving the house, i always think people are staring at me or laughing at me...

[rodekill]

OCD can be a really scary thing.
I've heard of people who become obsessed with things like washing their hands to the point where they do it so much they bleed.
And of course there are the cases where people become obsessed with germs and end up locking themselves in a closet for the rest of their lives.
I don't think Iqu's problems are at that level or anything, but they do seem a little more extreme than the everyday habits most people have.

[Proskrito]

I usually try to rationalize (sp?) these kind of things, so most of times i convince myself that they just have no sense, for me it´s hard to believe something that you cant prove. But there are some things that i cant avoid. I always carry my keys with me, even if i am in another city, i carry them, dont know why. i dont feel good if i dont. Also, i do the thing about stepping in the squares, or only stepping in the white stripes of the pedestrian crossings, but i think that almost everyone has done that.
About making things with both things, or chewing with both sides the same amount of times, i also do it , but in a special way: if, say, i chew 10 times with the left part, i cant just make it 10 times with the right, cos its not "even", i mean, i have to distribute it in a kind-of-logarithmic way: 10 times left, 6 times right,  4times left, 3 times right, 2 left.... dont know why.
In public places, i like to be in a corner facing to the center, so nothing can get close to me without me seeing it.
I have a neighbour that cant touch anything with the hands, she always carry a tissue or wear plastic gloves for opening doors, or pushing the elevator button, etc. She pretends to be waiting for someone, or carry two bags for other people to open the doors, etc.
A month or two ago, i started to see strange things, like if your sight is tricking you, some shapes moving and so. And one day, i was alone at home, an i saw a man in my house. I got scared for a second, it was strange, because i KNEW that i was alone, i didnt thought that someone broke into my house or anything like that, so i thought that it should be my mind, and he dissapeared. that happened in less than 2 seconds. Two or three days later i opened te door of my closet (sp?), and he was also there, and a week later i saw a woman, so i began to think that something bad was happening to my brain, but from that day so far, i saw just the visual tricks, and then nothing. Dont know what was it, but it bothers me.
Well, sorry for the long post, but i felt i had to tell that to somebody, and seeing that this post was appropiate, i just did

[OneThinkingGal and ._.]

I used to do this thing where I had to check a locked door about ten times, then it turned into doing this with both hands, and as time went on I felt I had to jiggle that knob more and more times..

Yeah, I got the locked door thing. Maybe not 10 tens but I do stand there and jiggle the handle a few times to make sure its locked, then I walk off and wonder if I really did lock it properly. I used to do some other obsessivey-type stuff but I've forgotten them right now.

Heh, I do this every morning. Not ten times, maybe 2 or 3 but sometimes I walk down to the car and then I don't remember if its locked and I HAVE to go back and check it. I've double and triple checked locks, for as long as I can remember.  

Annoying   but what can you do ._.

I don't have any other OCD behaviour....that I know of....

Oh yeah, just remembered, I used to do that whole 'balance' thing when I was younger. Like if I'm placing stuff then it has to be equal on both sides. I just put that down to perfectionism tho.   But it seems I grew out of it.

[Rincewind]

Oh, I'm familiar with all this. I know I have some  of these habits, but the one I can think of right now, is the "skip certain tiles on the floor in malls" sort of thing, that I used to do all the time when I was younger, but which I try to control these days... Ahem...

I do have one thing, that I don't know if it's a OCD or not, but it's sort of an ritual. Every time that I exit the toilet after using it, I have this urge to switch the light off, even though I know that the bulb is broken, my hand just automatically reaches for the switch by the door...


Fascinating subject, though - I had no idea that it was so common.  

[Timosity]

Rince, I think that light switch one is just a habbit, little bit different, it's a good habbit that can save electricity if used in other rooms of the house.(that have light switches)

but yeah, everyone seems to have that walking in the tiles at the mall one, I guess it starts from being bored as a kid going to clothes shops with your mum, you have to create a little game with yourself to help pass the time.

I think everyone has some of these types of habbits but it only becomes OCD when you have to do it, to feel normal or safe.

eg. those people who wash their hands till they bleed, that's a serious problem, how do they wash the blood off?

I heard I story on the radio a while ago of people that feel odd to have limbs, and in their mind would feel normal if they had them amputated.

Some people actually had the surgery performed, others just chopped off toes, one by one themselves and had ambitions for more. I guess that's serious OCD or some form of a more serious mental disorder.

Damn this thread, now I have to make a post in it once a day, or it will fall off the page.

[Nacho]

A month or two ago, i started to see strange things, like if your sight is tricking you, some shapes moving and so. And one day, i was alone at home, an i saw a man in my house. I got scared for a second, it was strange, because i KNEW that i was alone, i didnt thought that someone broke into my house or anything like that, so i thought that it should be my mind, and he dissapeared. that happened in less than 2 seconds. Two or three days later i opened te door of my closet (sp?), and he was also there, and a week later i saw a woman, so i began to think that something bad was happening to my brain, but from that day so far, i saw just the visual tricks, and then nothing.

Mmm... confess... WHAT did you smoke?  

[remixor]

I used to do the sidewalk think as well (not step on cracks, step on the tiles evenly, etc.), then I later started to do a variation where I could step on the cracks, but I had to make sure that my left and right feet always stepped on the same amount of cracks.  So for every crack my left foot stepped on, my right foot would have to step on exactly one as well.  What's really odd is that I would add these up unconsciously in my brain--it wouldn't have to be left, right, left, right; it could have been left, left, left, right, right, left, right, left, right, right, etc.  That type of thing is usually how it ended up because of how my feet would happen to fall.  Then I realized how silly it was and I had to make conscious efforts to stop.  I still do it occassionally, but I can snap out of it pretty easily now.

There are some other random symmetry things I had too, such as tapping my fingers (or hands, or whatever) in equal amounts.  So if I was drumming on a table with the fingers in my hand, I would mentally make sure that each of the five fingers hit the table in equal amounts; again, this could be out of order as in the sidewalk example above.  That's just one example, though; I've also experienced some of the ones others have mentioned, like turning around equal numbers of degrees each way and so forth, stuff like that.

Pros: I always take my keys with me too.  Even when I'm away at college and I don't have my car, I carry my car keys around with my college dorm keys and my house keys (for a house located hundreds of miles away).  It feels weird otherwise.
I also used to feel really weird when I wasn't wearing my watch.  Years and years of wearing a watch on my left wrist has accustomed that arm to the slight extra weight, so when I recently stopped wearing a watch (it became redundant as my cell phone tells time) it took a few months for my arm to stop feeling so annoyingly light.

Except for the keys thing (which I don't mind since it means I never have to change my keychain around), I'm over all that other stuff except for short random episodes which end as soon as I become consciously aware of them and stop.

[Vel]

Looks more like a life crystal to me.

[melia]

Woohoo! Free therapy!!

I've gotten a little more paranoid about being watched. I'm having to recheck window blinds to make sure they're closed because I just know someone can see me. I can be standing in the room, seeing every blind is down, but having to check them anyway and then stepping out of the room because the windows are driving me nuts. This is when I'm alone. When the folks are home with me, I try to occupy a space that would keep me as hidden from view as possible. But the urge to shut those blinds eats at me and I eventually just head for the basement.

I'm currently sleeping in the 'family room' in the basement, because my bedroom keeps flooding everytime it rains. My room is free of windows, but there's one in the family room, small though it is. It has a small lace curtain that I can see through, so I hung a heavy rug in front of it to block any outside person's view. But I have a little trouble falling aslepp because I know that window is there, and that someone is looking through it and can see me despite my eforts.

I have to check the toilet repeatedly, because I can never remember if I flushed it. I'll check it 3 or more times before I feel confident enough to let it be, and then I'll run over events in my mind to see if I really remembered, or if I've got a big floater in there.

I've got a lovely eating disorder where I must eat food in pairs. One stick of string cheese is bad luck, gotta get 2. If I'm eating chips and I have an odd number of peices, I have to break a piece in half or dig in the bag for another peice of equal size to make things even. I can't eat in front of people, because that makes people unhappy. I can't eat out, because anything from a restaurant or fast food chain has either a) spit b) hair c) unkown, unsavory, inedible substance or the staff doesn't wash their hands.

I have a need to purposely sabotage any goal I set. If I were to succeed...... I don't know. Something wrong woul happen, and I must avoid wrongess at all costs. I'll make a goal, I'll stick to it a while, but I absolutely _must_ make sure I never complete it. I've got craft projects from god-knows-when collecting dust because if I finished them something would be amiss.

I do collect junk, though it's not such a bad habit. I toss out garbage, but I keep broken jewelry, good cardboard, and bottles of various sizes. I also recall avoind certain tiles and cracks, but if I remember correctly, it was just a game I played because shopping with mother was incredibley boring.

[Helm]

That sort of thing I've grown out of... Walking at the mall, I'd always make sure I was stepping inside the square tiles without stepping on the edges. But I managed to notice this and would try to stop, so it eventually went away.

I've had this, along with a million other small things like tapping my fingers on say, a table in a random manner, but always keeping track of how many times each finger taps and trying to keep the tally the same for all the fingers, or always trying to have my middle lower teeth touching my middle upper teeth and nothing else.

I never gave all those small neurotic tendencies much thought.

[Andail]

I don't do those things very much...in the pollen season when I'm allergic, I keep scratching myself in various places, and sometimes until it bleed, but it's getting better.
When I'm poorly shaved, I rub my the middle section of my fingers on my chin, resulting in red rashes and more itching.
I don't know if that passes as compulsory disorder, but it's pretty much all I have.
I've never cared for walking perfectly within the pavement tiles, or checking the door handle to see if I locked it a hundred times, or thinking that devil will take me to hell if I sneeze and nobody says God bless you....I'm pretty happy for that, since I've understood it can be really hard to stop it

[Bob The Hun]

The only problem I have with this is when I'm trying to get to sleep.
Sometime's I'm almost asleep, and I realize that I didn't close one of my dresser drawers all of the way. I try to ignore it, but eventually I have to get up and close it all of the way. Then, since I'm up, I check all of the electronics to make sure that they're off. If one of them is on, I turn it off and check everything else about three more times, making sure that all of the right lights are on (just the dim ones, none of the bright ones)
And then we come to the floor. I do have quite a bit of junk on the floors, but I keep it organized in the right way. If somethings not quite right, I move it around to where it's in a place where I can accept it being. And if there's other peoples stuff in there, I either return it (if they're in the building) or at least get it out of my room.
It's not as bad as it used to be, though. I used to have to check the windows and doors and stuff, but then we got an alarm installed on all the windows and doors and such.
I don't think I'm so much paranoid as I am just nervous.

[Eero]

My most weird OCD is that whenever I hurt someone, I just say sorry... It isn't much of a problem, but when you're fistfighting with someone, then it's a bit weird...
Currently I have OCD, that whenever I go to sleep (or out of the house) I keep checking if other rooms have light turned off and doors leading out locked...
I had handwashing OCD last winter, luckily my hands didn't start bleeding, but they went awfully dry...

[OneThinkingGal and ._.]

The only problem I have with this is when I'm trying to get to sleep.
Sometime's I'm almost asleep, and I realize that I didn't close one of my dresser drawers all of the way. I try to ignore it, but eventually I have to get up and close it all of the way.

Hehehe, you just reminded my of my cabinet door obsession. I don't like open drawers or open cabinets. I close them even if I have to open them a minute later. It just doesn't look right! I doubt I could sleep knowing there's a cabinet door open somewhere in my house.

[Squinky]

I also have a problem with untied shoestrings...if I see a pair, either on someones feet or just laying there, I just have to tie them...The same thing foe the windows with me too, I just can't stand to have any light come in...

I also have this weird thing where I can't cross running water, or get near garlic...and man, do I freak out at church, woo, you wouldn't believe it....And don't get me started on the whole sleeping in a coffin thing....

[Ferret]

I have two OCD's that I've been doing for years. My first one is the collection of coffee satchels from various places. I'd travel around alot and to keep a memo of where I'd been, I get a coffe satchel from the where ever it was we were staying (or a cafe around town if the place was cheap and didn't supply free coffee). So now I've probably got the largest collection of rationed instant coffee.

The second was actually forced upon me, and I'd like to thank Subways for this (damn idiots didn't even pay me proper working wages). Because of Subways hygene standards, I'm now stuck with the habit of washing my hands before and after I do something, usually resulting in me washing my hands around 20 times a day. It's also prevented me from eating any fast food ever again (do you know how many fast food stores do not make their employee's wash their hands or wear clean gloves during food preparation?).