OCD

I have CDO - in the correct alphabetical order!

Only joking, I don't want to make light of what I'm sure is a debilitating condition to actually have.

I'm weird though that I'm actually quite messy because I'm creative, but I need to be really organised. I'm worried that I'm not organised enough for Christmas (WTF?!) and I'm really laid back and easy going in personality, but only because I'm organised if that makes sense!

I'm a total control freak perfectionist and struggle to let others do things for me but I'm not sure that is an OCD tendency?

I'm a nightmare.

-I have to eat sweets in colour order too if I can. (green, yellow, orange, red)

-We used to have glasses with coloured tops and I could only drink out of the right coloured glass (e.g orange juice in the orange glass)

-Of a less trivial nature I can't look at a picture of someone when they're driving and I used to have to wear a specific necklace if my H was driving.

-If I hear a siren I have to do a mental check to work out where everyone is to see if there's a possibility it could be for them. When I was at school I used to phone my mum to check she was ok whenever I heard a siren.

Reading that back doesn't sound too good, I may delete in a while. ? I just about manage to cope with some of my weirder "keep people safe" compulsions but sometimes it's a struggle.

Cleaning my kitchen has become a bit obsessive. Since we got puppygirl I am paranoid about germs in the house so before I can use the work tops in a morning before breakfast, I anti-bac the kitchen surfaces and bleach the sink *blush* and have a plug in air freshener in every room.

Not sure its quite ODC but can't walk up stairs or steps without counting them in my head. Do it everytime without fail.

I can't use a strange computer mouse, keyboard or a telephone without wiping it with antiseptic wipes first.

That's probably quite normal though!

Eyebrow plucking. I hate seeing rogue hairs. I have a super-super magnifying mirror too. I hate it even more if the hair snaps and stays under the skin. It take a lot of willpower not to start digging!

If I do something I have to do it at like 12pm or 12:05 can't do it at 12:02. So if it was 12:02 I would wait until 12:05, not sure if that's OCD or just weird!

And when at work I have a cup of tea when I get to work, then can't have another one until after 10:30 but before 11 and then not another one until after 2:30 but before 3!

My OH washes his hands all the time, so much that he actually got a bacterial infection on his hands!

I have to shower before changing clothes. I cant come home from work & just change - I would feel dirty, even when Im not.

The only exception to this is when Im getting changed into gym gear - im going to get dirty anyway so that doesnt bother me.

Not sure if these are OCD or if I'm just odd.

I cannot wear clean clothes without showing first - even if it's just a clean work T-shirt.

I have to wear clean clothes when I get out of the shower - I can't wear the jeans I had on before I showered etc.

The toilet roll has to be fitted into the holder with the 'tail' hanging at the front.

Coasters have to be straight.

That's not OCD, that's common sense. Although I do change it in other people's houses which may be going a bit too far!

I also have to eat sweets in the correct colour order!

I can't eat a bacon sandwich whole, I have to eat the bread, then the bacon.

If I have a slice of bread/toast or a sandwich and its cut into halves, I have to eat the bottom part of the slice first, then the top.

I have to be at the cinema and in my seat (prebooked or not!) at least 5 minutes before the lights dim and the trailers start - I had a full on meltdown when I went to the cinema last week with my BIL2B and because we weren't going to our local one, we ended up being late by 5 mins. There were tears and everything!

? I change it round in other people's homes too, which is why I think it's OCD with me!

I don't understand why anyone would have it the other way. It would be like wearing your clothes inside out.

Not so much anymore but I used to have it to varying degrees at certain ages growing up.

If I had an itch on say my right ankle then I had to scratch the left too. If I scratched harder on the left than the right then I had to redo it until it felt right.

I had the check the front door a certain number of times before leaving the house (varying numbers, decreased as I got older)

There were alot more little things that came and went. They never really got noticed by anyone and never really affected my life too much. Mostly grown out of it all now though. Occasionally now I will do something half ar*ed like putting the butter back on the wrong shelf in the fridge and it will eat at me until i go and make it right. I only get like this when I am really really tired though!

Not sure if it's OCD or just a disagreement but I put the sofa cushions on the diagonal (with the point of the square on the couch so they are diamond shaped) then my flatmate changes them so they are square on.... then I change them back, then he comes along and sorts them.....

I do the sweets thing too, in order from my least favourite (green) to most favourite (purple)

I also agee with the toilet roll thing, although I don't change other peoples

I used to be unable to drink from green straws, Starbucks eventually cured that

Honestly not much at all.

Only thing I can think of is when I get out of the shower and put the towel round me, the towel label ALWAYS has to be on the bottom right. I don't wash towels after every use so I need to know that I'm using the same bits to dry the same bits. If you see what I mean.

I always have to have my cupboards and fridge merchandised properly and can't walk past a label in the supermarket unless I twizzle it so it's facing the front. My daughter is the same only she merchandises the bathroom things too. My hubby has quite a few. He stands over me when I'm doing things in the kitchen with the dishcloth to wipe up after me all the time. He also has to have all the plates and cutlery lined up properly and evenly before we dish tea out so I keep flicking them out of line and he goes mental! I used to work with a man who used to do that with his desk too. He would line up his pad and his pen very neatly at the side of the phone and his phone always had the be in the same position everyday. If you used his phone and didn't put it back properly he went bonkers!

My step mum has proper OCD - they have a cleaner but she has to clean before she arrives and brand new cloths are used for each cleaning session. every millimetre of the house gets scrubbed daily the tops of doors, the skirtingboards everything. She showers 3x per day and has to have clean clothes each time, her underwear must match the colour of her clothes and it has to be underwear sets.

This isnt something she wants to do - she absolutely has to do it and she gets in a real state if it cant be done.

I think thats why I am so anti cleaning, I defo have no OCD in me at all!

Not much for me, apart from my apparent inability to leave the house without checking I've unplugged things (hair straighteners, iron etc). Of course, I always have when I go back to check - it drives my OH mad!

Oh, and maybe the sweet thing too...

Eclair - I think you'll find the correct order is yellow, orange, green, red! ?

It's more lighthearted now than it used to be. When I am down or when I was depressed it was really bad. Made worse by the fact I have to constantly wash my hands and clean at work. I was obsessive about cleanliness. To the point where if I saw one wee bit of dust I would be in tears.

But a I got better I started other things which aren't quite as compulsive and I don't always NEED to do them.

I need all the light switches the correct way. Eg the upstairs and downstairs ones for the one light. If you turn it on down stairs and off upstairs they are the wrong way. I have blown many a bulb trying to get all the switches right. I had to get my h to take a switch out of the jot hen that did nothing. It used to stress me out.

Angles. I can't handle them. Either if something is squint or if something is sitting deliberately at an angle. My brother puts things at an angle just to bother me but it really upsets me. H threatened to lay out laminate flooring diagonally. I couldn't have coped.

Clean clothes. If I have done housework I need a shower and clean clothes. I cannot do anything else.

If something is messy or squint or bothering me I think about it constantly until I fix it. I have gotten up at 2am to dust once.

I also used to sit with the tv remote in my hand and tap the buttons (not enough to change channel) just touch them and go from 1 to 100 and if I did one wrong I had to start again and I couldn't put them down till I was at 100. My mum hated it and even now I don't pick up the remote I just press a button and out it back at the tv.

Tizzie what does 'squint' mean? I mean, I know what it means when it's referring to what you do with your eyes, but what does it mean when you're saying it?

on the skew

on the wonk

on the squint!

Haha thats made me feel very Scottish!!

If you knock a picture frame and it's not sitting right then it's squint. I'm actually struggling to explain it!! What word would you use?

Oh so it means something is skewed, lopsided etc?

I don't think I have anything very out of the ordinary. H always has to have the TV volume on an even number and that's rubbed off on me now.

We have three separate lights in our kitchen because it's a long room, but there are two separate switch points. If I've only turned on one or two of the lights, I have to switch them off at the same switch point so they're all either up or down.

mr F cant have it on 12, 13, or 14!! its 13 thats the problem, and 12 and 14 are "too close for comfort' to 13 apparently!!"

I would say skewed, wonky, lopsided, out of place! Never heard squint used in the way before!

Flow: Why on earth would you say 'on the wonk' instead of wonky?! Wonk isn't a word and it's three words instead of one!

ha, i thought it was normak to say 'on the wonk'!?!?!?

Haha it might be a Scottish thing as I think most people use it here! I would maybe use wonky but squint first ?

Oh just thought of another one. When food shopping I have to pack the bags in order and so they stand up neatly. I hate it when H just lobs the stuff in the bags, and re pack it all! Much to the amusement of people waiting at the till I'm sure.

Something I may delete later, but when I was a teenager I used to compulsively pull out my eyebrows. As a result I'm now a bit obsessive about my eyebrows looking perfect, I pluck stray hairs almost every day and I find it quite therapeutic. It's taken me a good ten years to get my eyebrows looking how I want them to look, although I have one thin patch that will probably never grow back.