Do I have OCD?

[sharichan]

I love stationery - specifically notebooks, for as long as I can remember. Growing up, Mum would take us kids to the nearest mall each week, and she knew best to leave me alone on the stationery section. I can literally stay there for hours. It have no idea what it was, but there is just something magical about touching the feel of the paper, how the book itself is bound and the many print options available.

Back in the day, there was a trend of collecting “biodata” from classmates. Notebooks and diaries would get passed around and we would fill out our personal details, favourite things, etc. Not a surprise, of course I participated in this trend. However, I couldn’t pinpoint what it was that made me feel that something was not quite right with it. Was it the handwriting? Or how the pages were filled out? In the end, I would rip out the notebooks, buy new ones, get people to fill it out again, and repeat the process.

Of course I didn’t think much about it at the time (I was a kid after all), but this wasteful habit pretty much stuck with me for at least 20 years, even today. I did the same back in high school. Countless of times, the course notes I have written would feel wrong - be it the handwriting, the colour of the pen, the pen pressure, or even a little smudge. Again, I would rip the pages, and rewrite them again either on the same notebook or a new one.

I love buying diaries, planners and the like. But I can’t seem to dump this habit of mine and keep a full book It really is such a shame because I used to love writing in journals and those memories are pretty much gone.

It seems like this habit sort of creeped into my workalike too - even digital stuff. I would type things out on Word, and for instance, if a certain paragraph does not seem right, be it in font, spacing etc, I tend to have the urge to re-type the entire paragraph over and over again until it is “perfect”. Is it a waste of time? Of course.

My question goes, is this a form of untreated OCD? Anyone experienced the same and what have you done to manage it?

[therising]

Hi sharichan

Being a 52yo gal, I come from the era before e-books. Books can be such a sensory experience - the sound of the pages turning, the feel/texture of the book, the visual aspect and perhaps most of all the smell of a new book. My kids and I are funny; while they're now 17 and 20, we still all remain people who will share with each other the smell of a new book. It's a habit that's never been broken.

Over time, I've come to see OCD from a natural perspective in some cases. While an obsessive compulsion is not always a bad thing, given that people feel such a strong compulsion to hit the gym or go for a run every morning, when it creates disorder in our life and/or in the lives of others it can become a problem. Imagine the compulsion to be at the gym by 5am being so strong to the point where nothing gets in the way, including stopping on the way to the gym to help someone who's been in a serious car accident or maybe someone at home's so sick they need us to take them to hospital at 4.50 and we just can't do it based on missing the 5am gym call.

Personally, I have an obsessive compulsion to research a lot of stuff. It gives me a high, finding out about amazing stuff I had no idea of. It's not a problem until it becomes one. No dinner cooked tonight because I'm obsessed with researching something fascinating. Running late for appointments because 'I just have to look at this'. Losing track of time, based on the 3 hours I got completely lost in, in front of my laptop. The highs I gain from research and discovery can create significant disorder in other parts of my life and sometimes for other people too. Is my sense of wonder a form of OCD? Maybe so.

I think sometimes it can be about getting that high. Whether we want to acknowledge it chemically as being about getting hits of dopamine or whether we wish to label at as being soulful forms of inspiration that we can feel in ways that really bring us to life, the choice remains ours in how we wish to see it. Sometimes it can be about a sense of relief too. Kind of like 'If I wash my hands 17 times in the next 5 minutes, I won't have to stress about whether I've got all the germs off them'. 

My daughter used to drive herself crazy at times, ripping out pages of work she'd spent a lot of time on. One spelling mistake, one word not written perfectly enough (amongst 1000 words), the appearance of the page just not feeling right and the list goes on. Exams at school were often challenging, having to write faster within limited time. She finally accepted she needed to write differently under different circumstances. In exams she allowed mistakes or cross outs under the circumstances, she allowed for less perfect writing based on time limitation etc. While she'd some disappointment, the real high came from completing the exam in time. She began to label her different forms of writing as her exam style, her classroom style, her homework style of writing.

[geoff]

Hello sharichan, with OCD the people who have it, have obsessions that need to be done whenever the person feels as though it should.

I also have this illness and unless we don't or can't perform these duties then we become agitated and find a way so that 'it can be performed'.

It's something I've had for over 60 years and it's dominated my life, will get back to you as I have to leave, I'm sorry.

Geoff.

Life Member.