I can't touch my phone screen.

[Choppy]

Hi. 

I am a teenager and nowadays, all teenagers have a phone and with technology and stuff....I'm sorry, I'm rambling. Anyway, I have an apple iPhone and I've had it for years now. But I cannot touch my screen specifically otherwise I freak out and have to clean it. Other people's phones are fine to touch as I want to keep my stylus clean and touching my stylus with someone else's screen would make my stylus dirty and unusable unless I bathe it in vinegar. I don't know if this is OCD. I don't know why I won't touch it. It just doesn't feel right, even when I touch other's screens. I feel uncomfortable and I must clean it. My current stylus is currently wearing down and I have to buy new ones that'll take forever to arrive. But a crappy stylus is better than no stylus. Sigh. I screamed in class today because my friend touched the screen after eating. It was so embarrassing. I didn't even mean to.

But alas, thank you for reading anyway.

[mrkd1991]

Hi Choppy, this definitely sounds OCD to me.

I need to ask though, are you like this with anything else? Is your room tidy, your clothes sorted perfectly ten times over so as none show a single crease?

Or is this only with your phone/stylus?

[Neil_1]

Hi Choppy

I did read and thank you for providing your post, and also welcome to Beyond Blue.

This is perhaps signs of OCD – but hey, there’s no harm in that at all.  It’s just a kind of reactive habit that individuals come to display in so many different ways.

For the record, I got a new phone just yesterday – I had one of the first ever mobile’s out I think, so it could do texts, and tell the time, and make alarm noises – hell, it could even make phone calls, but all I’ve wanted is one of those ‘snap open, snap close phones’, and now I’m the proud owner of one of those.  I’m pretty chuffed – and it’s got a lot of bells and whistles that’ll take me a few months to work out how to operate.

But I guess for my main answer back to you is:  “What’s a stylus?”

Kind regards

Neil

[Choppy]

Yeah a few things. Must be alphabetical order for my books, games and movies as well as be in chronological order. Also with cleaning. I do it in order by room. I have to start from the front door to the back door

[Choppy]

A pen thing that my screen registers as a finger I guess. A phone stylus. It's clean and it doesn't leave marks all over my phone. It's rubbery and absorbs the heat of my screen I think and the touch screens respond to heat actually rather than force. So therefore my 'pen' or stylus.

[mrkd1991]

Well from what you have told us, it does sound like OCD, but that doesn't necessarily mean you are. It would be a good idea for you to talk to your doctor about what is going on and get a referral to a specialist.

To my knowledge, OCD is treated/managed by councelling as opposed to medication. As long as you are able to talk it out with them, you have a good chance of gettinh better with certain things.

 All the best.