You know how some people need things to be centered or aligned at right angles? How some people need the volume on the radio turned to an even number or can't stand it when there are crumbs on their counters?
I think that's not OCD. And that's not what goes on in my head.
I have not been clinically diagnosed, nor does OCD (usually) interfere with my everyday life (much), so this post is just a general exposition on what goes on in my head for anyone who's interested. It may or may not have OCD, but I often wonder if I do.*
My "OCD" has a lot to do with counting. If I hear a noise that has a definite number of sounds to it, I must count to that number in my head. If a car horn outside goes "beep beep," my head voice needs to say "one two" in the same pitch and speed. If someone knocks at the door, I count "one-two-three-four-five" (or however many) after the person's fist has ceased pounding. If I pause from eating to drink, I take six sips. I can tell you that the staircase in my parents' house has eight-then-ten stairs, and that there are fourteen stairs to get up to our apartment, which really bothers me, because I prefer things in eight-counts because of my dance history. Why does fourteen bother me more than eighteen? I don't know. Maybe undershooting feels worse than overshooting.
That's another thing I believe about OCD: you don't get to choose what makes sense, what bothers you and what doesn't.
While I prefer to count things in eights, five is the most governing number. Five feels balanced to me: two on each side, one in the middle. (Why not three? I don't know.) Because of this, I need my radio to be on volumes that are multiples of five or at least not just one away from a multiple of five. One away from a multiple of five feels very precarious to me, and it triggers a stressed response. Volume on 16 is a no-go. Volume on 17 is fine.
My "OCD" has a lot to do with following silly processes out of sudden, irrational fear.
"If you don't step on each sidewalk crack, Gabe will get in a car accident."
"You have to settle your knee into the couch cushion like this or you'll get food poisoning."
"You need the door to make a clicking noise when you shut it or your mom will die."
Do I believe any of those thing? Of course not. Do I intentionally make them up or call them to mind? No. I have no idea where they come from. Do I follow them? Sometimes, if they don't take me too out of my way. And I do worry that if Gabe were to get in an accident, or I were to get food poisoning, or my mom were to die, I would never recover from the fact that I didn't do The Thing I Needed To Do. Even though I know that's insane.
My "OCD" has a lot to do with needing things to feel "right." What does "right" mean? You don't know, you just know that you'll feel it when something is. When I'm drinking tea, sometimes I get caught in a loop of touching the edge of the cup between my two front teeth. I have to do it until I get a touch that feels "right." Sometimes when I blink, it doesn't feel right, and I have to keep blinking until my eyelids hit one that feels "right." Usually I try very hard to resist the start of this process, lest I get stuck in repetition.
My "OCD" has a lot to do with needing trivial things to happen, really badly. If I feel that my knee needs to crack, then I really need it to crack. Not because it's hurting, but because I feel it and it needs to happen. Each time I try and fail to hear and feel that crack, my breath comes a little quicker, my heart pounds a little harder, and I feel my skin start to prickle with stress. It needs to pop. It needs to pop. I have to get it to pop.
Similar to the above, my "OCD" has a lot to do with repetitive motions or ticks that suddenly descend on you for no reason, and you get stressed if you don't do them. When I was in middle school, I discovered that if I pushed on one of my bottom teeth with my tongue, the tooth seemed to shift a little bit. I felt it, and almost heard a tiny little click. I became obsessed with doing that, feeling that, hearing that. It worried me. Was I actually loosening my tooth? But I couldn't stop. To this day I have to fight the urge sometimes, because if I start, I might not be able to stop.
My "OCD" has a lot to do with fearing things like that, with fearing that a motion or a tick or a thought is going to become obsessive and compulsive. Once, I noticed that I usually skip the last stair when going downstairs at my parents' house. I said, to someone or maybe even just to myself, "That's fast becoming a habit." Now, 90% of the times I pass that stair, I hear the phrase "fast becoming a habit" in my head. It is very annoying. I have a few things like that.
For me, my "OCD" gets worse when I'm stressed or already bothered by something. If I have too much on my mind or feel overwhelmed, the tiny OCD things that I can usually power through become very loud and very strong and my stress response to ignoring them compounds. The skin prickling, the heart pounding, the breath shortening, the desperate need to move my body all threaten to overwhelm me.
Usually my OCD tendencies are just background quirks. Yeah, I count noises in my head and take six sips of drink, but that has zero effect on my quality of life. I bet you never even noticed. Usually, I'm fine. Even at my worst, I'm usually okay, just irrationally stressed.
But still. As much as I hate political correctness, it rubs me the wrong way when people joke or insist that they have OCD. I don't know if I do, but if it's anything like what I deal with, it's not that funny and you probably don't have it.
~Stephanie
* It's 2023 and I can confirm that I do XD
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