OCD...

Having always been a hopeless picture straightener, I have recently managed to overcome as a result of buying a very wonky flat (about 150 years old with stucco rendering throughout), but didn't realise it has been replaced by a new compulsion until watching John Richardson's "Nidiot' last night . . . and identified with a lot of what he was saying after he made observation that "Snooker is basically tidying up disguised as sport", before launching into his dishwasher etiquette.

I may have given up in my battle with dust and accepted that is just an airborne component of oxygen that settles no matter how much we try to eliminate it, but I have so many other rules/compulsions/obsessions that include never having any laundry as I wash anything as soon as it is dirty (even if it isn't as has only been worn once), wash all cooking utensils/pots etc. before I have even eaten the dinner I have made with them and am unable to sleep if certain nick nacks aren't facing the right cockadoodie way (holy shit - I am Annie Wilkes!).

I realise it is about control which makes sense if other stuff in one's life has become a tad like herding cats (or losing battle with dust), but is this so abnormal?

I have mild OCD tendencies too.
(Although I'm aware people with actual OCD probably hate it when the undiagnosed say that. Proper OCD can ruin peoples' lives.)
But I do have some weird stuff.
None of it makes sense though. If I'm at home I can't stand people touching or even leaning over my food, but obviously any food I ever eat outside the house has been leaned over/had God knows what dropped in it and that doesn't seem to bother me.

As Quentin Crisp said after the first 5 years the dust doesn't get any worse (or something like that).

I seem to remember 7 years - but 5, 7, 4 - whatever . . . probably just means by then is so thick you don't even notice anymore!

But regarding 'diagnosed OCD' - I feel the same about 'diagnosed depression' as too many people throw the word around when a tad fed-up, but are still able to get out of bed in the morning and bathe. We've all had negative stress, but depression is when you can no longer function. OCD can ruin lives too, but I don't know where the line is . . . if you are just doing something compulsively and obsessively, or doing something compulsively and obsessively a predeterminate number of times?

Double checking you've locked the front door is borderline, but doing so ritualistically 8 times every time in the belief that something bad will happen if you don't is full-on OCD, I guess.

Yeah, for a while I started doing little things so that something (specific) didn't happen, but then it did happen. Which on the plus side stopped me doing it (seeing as it obviously didn't work).
Which, y'know... duh.

The things I do now are more based around being a bit too worried about germs and getting colds off people.

My hubby has it, my friend JB has it. Unfortunately, as a condition, it's quite difficult to live with. It can be improved with NLP or that other brain retraining thing. Gawd, I'm technical at times.

Quote: fopdoodle @ 7th June 2016, 3:42 PM BST

but depression is when you can no longer function.

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Not really. It depends how severe you have it. A hell of a lot of people go about their everyday lives feeling / suffering from depression.

Quote: Shandonbelle @ 7th June 2016, 6:30 PM BST

Not really. It depends how severe you have it. A hell of a lot of people go about their everyday lives feeling / suffering from depression.

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Okay - I really meant when you can no longer function normally.

Quote: zooo @ 7th June 2016, 4:44 PM BST

The things I do now are more based around being a bit too worried about germs and getting colds off people.

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I SOOO do that since contracting some horrible lurgi last year. Convinced it was either keypad (cashpoint/chip & pin) or bus germs I have ways of avoiding contact with anything people touch with bare hands now on a bus and use a pen/fingernails for keypads. But that's more common sense . . . or paranoia - though haven't had so much as a sniffle since.

Quote: TheBlueNun @ 7th June 2016, 6:02 PM BST

My hubby has it, my friend JB has it. Unfortunately, as a condition, it's quite difficult to live with. It can be improved with NLP or that other brain retraining thing. Gawd, I'm technical at times.

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Does it involve ritualistic repeating of tasks a specific number of times? Crikey - that's what I understand to be a proper issue that could dominate and dictate your whole life if not addressed.

Quote: fopdoodle @ 7th June 2016, 6:58 PM BST

Does it involve ritualistic repeating of tasks a specific number of times?

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I had this when I was a little boy, maybe between 7 and 12. I had to do things (for example knocking on doors, jumping up and down etc.) in even numbers. It was like an obsession. And if I turned around, I had to turn back...so for example if I had run around a stone clockwise once or several times I had to walk/run the whole way back...the same number of times. Otherwise I couldn't have found my peace.
Fortunately, this crazy thing disappeared slowly over the years without the involvement of doctors.

I still have this odd thing about checking the lock. Sometimes I have to go back once or twice to check if I have closed the door to my flat properly. But it's relatively mild compared to really hardcore cases. Some people have to go back home 10 times or even more.

The crucial difference between OCD and ritualistic behaviours is that ritualistic behaviour is enjoyable and actually can usually be avoided.

Seriously that's the clinical reason. I could dig up some links if you like.

Whereas OCD rituals are painful and humiliating and unavoidable.

And no I'm not OCD.

It's just worthwhile remembering that obsessive rituals is like paying to get spanked (ifthat's your thing), whilst OCD is like getting mugged with a baseball bat.

Ah, thank you. Ritualistic behaviours it is then.

Quote: Gordon Bennett @ 7th June 2016, 8:03 PM BST

I had this when I was a little boy, maybe between 7 and 12. I had to do things (for example knocking on doors, jumping up and down etc.) in even numbers. It was like an obsession. And if I turned around, I had to turn back...so for example if I had run around a stone clockwise once or several times I had to walk/run the whole way back...the same number of times. Otherwise I couldn't have found my peace.
Fortunately, this crazy thing disappeared slowly over the years without the involvement of doctors.

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I do remember stuff like avoiding cracks on the pavement when I was little as believed that something bad might happen if I didn't . . . but it was more like a game as creative play is part of growing up so never even considered as superstitious - though maybe it's a character trait that can develop into a psychological problem in adulthood as a consequence of stress. Interesting . . .

Quote: sootyj @ 7th June 2016, 8:05 PM BST

The crucial difference between OCD and ritualistic behaviours is that ritualistic behaviour is enjoyable and actually can usually be avoided.

It's just worthwhile remembering that obsessive rituals is like paying to get spanked (ifthat's your thing), whilst OCD is like getting mugged with a baseball bat.

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I think I made that distinction. But what interests me is the psychology of it. People who are born with a propensity to be an addict can become addicted to anything as they find activating opiate receptors compulsive (or an inability to control with an 'off' switch that most with free will do seem to have), but OCD is a compulsive habit (without the buzz an addict craves) that is rarely associated with someone who is also, say, an alcoholic or compulsive gambler. So maybe it comes from a different part of the brain?

I don't have an addictive personality but I do find comfort in habitual behaviour - so maybe a stressful event is a trigger for any form of OCD because it becomes a 'safety' behaviour, like a compulsive security blanket?

Well, all human life is a collection of learned, taught or self-developed behaviours.

I mean using the toilet is a learned ritualistic behaviour or not hitting the person in the queue at ASDA with a novelty garden gnome because they can't use the chip'n's pin. Then I suppose going to toilet on them.

In the Asperger's community there's been a joke for years that they're not "neurodiverse" it's the rest of the world that's "neurotypical." And I think someone who had no idiosyncrasies would be utterly crazy, probably.

In some ways, this modern fascination with neurological conditions is a good thing. In other means, it would be a sad world if we slapped a self-created diagnosis on all our wonderful eccentricities that make us who we are. There's nothing wrong with liking having clean hands or your ornaments facing the right way.

Quote: sootyj @ 7th June 2016, 8:45 PM BST

hitting the person in the queue at ASDA with a novelty garden gnome because they can't use the chip'n's pin.

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What I take from this is that actually happened.

Is cool I guess - provided you don't make a habit of it.

How very bloody dare you!

I don't shop in asda.