Obsessive/Compulsive? Come share!

[Modesty]

I have developed the following fetish in the last few years: I don't like anyone wearing shoes inside my house. I ask them politely to remove their shoes at the door. I just think that shoes that have stepped in dog poop and worse have no place inside my house.

I so agree, CaliGirl (though I would hardly call it fetish or OCD )! Not to mention that I usually walk around barefoot in my house and hate cleaning. In Sweden (I'm Swedish) ppl generally take off their shoes when at someone's house or at home - I like that ! I shared apartment with a Canadian guy for a while, and he has the same opinion re. shoes inside as I do, so that worked out well .

Bumpkin, your story about following the prisoners was just too funny!

[Leo]

I just realized that I have one major O/C: noise. Now, I don't mind playing my own CDs/videos a little bit loud. I actually like my music that way.

However, over here, lots of drivers in our public transport system like playing their radios loud. And I mean really loud. Loud enough that even if in your the car next to it, you can almost feel the vibrations. You can imagine how loud it is. Take your typical loud nightclub and multiply it about tenfold. So when I see one of those vehicles with a loud radio, I refuse to get in. I value my hearing, thank you very much. Of course, the added wait has made me late for classes quite a few times.

Okay, I doubt any of that made any sense.

[Modesty]

*bump*

[Terena79]

Ever since last summer, when I split my pants on the way to work, I constantly check the seam of my pants to make sure it's intact. I just quickly run my finger up the seam whenever no one is watching.

[Lucy]

I don't consider myself obsessive-compulsive, but with all the holiday shopping and crowds and flu, I feel like everything I touch in stores is covered in germs. I keep washing my hands after shopping.

[MalibuPam]

OK, I confess. I forever worry that I have left the coffee maker on. I run a check through my mind before I go to sleep, and whenever I leave the house. I can't tell you how many times I've had to get out of bed, or turn the car around, to check it. However, once check is enough.

My sister always worries that she has left her car unlocked, and she has to go around and check each door, even after she uses the remote lock. One way to really annoy her would be to say, "oh no, did you lock your car?!?!" and she would have to go check. Funniest was to tease her at Disneyland, when her car was like a mile away.

My father always worries about taxes. Has he included the check, written the right amount, made it out right, signed it???? That same sister of mine also suffers from tax time OCD. She has to open up IRS envelopes she has already sealed, to check them again, and then she leaves them unsealed so that she can keep checking them until it is time to mail them.

[pinkieparrot]

1. I MUST get up on the left side of my bed. Even if my cat is in my way, I will wiggle out from under the covers and climb over her.

2. My closets MUST be closed before I go to bed. I know where this one came from though. I used to think that robbers would hide in my closets and come kill me at night. You have no idea how late I would stay up worrying about that....

3. This is a little weird but every day before soccer practice, my friend Jen and I get changed and go to the bathroom. We put our bags in the exact same spot and pee in the same stall every time (okay not the same stall.. I mean I go in the first one every time and she goes in the second one...) Then I wash my hands in the 3rd sink, she gets the second. I take one hand dryer and she takes the other one. Seriously... No idea what would happen if she was sick on day or something.

4. If I'm in a swivel chair or a rocky chair, I can't sit still. I must be moving

5. I go to my locker beofer 1st period, during lunch, and after 5th period. I take the same books out each time, even if I don't need them. I don't know what it is.. I just have to have my math and french books periods 1-4. If I had my grammar/vocab in the morning, that would ruin my day.

By the way, the counting steps thing? Yeah, I counted the steps up the Eiffel Tower. I think it was about 300 steps? ITs been a long time.

[Qboots]

*bump*

Modesty - thank you so much for bumping this! I had never seen it before and I have many issues that need to be addressed!

Where to start....a lot of my OCD behavior has already been mentioned:

Toilet paper must come over the top of the roll, I need to keep a capped bottle of water by my bed, living room pillows have an exact position, never walk under a ladder (more of a superstition really), all food items in my cupboards have to have the english side facing out (we label everything bilingually up here in Canada), and when I shower I follow a specific routine (and also have different types of cleansers for different body parts).

I flip through magazines and newspapers back-to-front, which is fairly common for us left-handers, but if any of you right-handers are doing it - you better seek professional help!

What else....even if I know an envelope contains junk mail, I can't throw it out without opening it first. I don't have to read it, just open it. My clothing is all stored by type: blouses all together, sweaters all together, etc. But for some reason I also sort my socks and sweatshirts by color. Nothing else - just socks and sweatshirts. And I hang up my jeans in order of size, smallest to largest. (My weight fluctuates a lot.)

Coffee mugs are all kept with their handles pointing to the right. House keys must be hung on the third hook of a 5-hook keyrack. (The other 4 are all empty.) My colored pencils and markers have to be in their packages in this order: yellow, green, red, blue, orange, brown, purple, black.

My bathtub has 4 bottles of shampoo in one corner, and 4 bottles of conditioner in the other. Each bottle has it's own given position and if company swaps any of the bottles I notice immediately and switch them back. Where ever I sleep, I must have the side of the bed closest to the doorway.

My CD's are in alphabetical order, my books are arranged by genre, my DVD's are in the order in which they were purchased, and my videos are in no order whatsoever! I have a display phone that shows all my callers and I have to write down all the numbers on a list before I delete them out of the phone. Even if they were wrong numbers!

Probably the worst thing is that I buy 2 newspapers every day and have 6 VCR's to record as much stuff as possible. And I'm too busy to keep up with them, so they pile up and pile up. I can't toss them out because I might miss something! So I have two and a half years worth of newspapers on my balcony (which I'm going to flip through any day now - I swear), and I'm watching TV shows from last May. I'd love to check out the West Wing threads, but I'm still watching last season's episodes! At least I manage to watch all the reality shows live, or I'd be really messed up.

Well this has gone on long enough - the rest of my quirks will have to wait for another post. At least I feel much better now! Thanks for listening - it's cheaper than going to a shrink!

[Modesty]

Modesty - thank you so much for bumping this! I had never seen it before and I have many issues that need to be addressed!

Qboots, you're welcome, and yes, it's cheaper than a shrink!
There's some rather fun (and sometimes scary!) reading in this thread .

Actually I was looking for it to post something, but then I got to tired to post last night so I just bumped it.
My new OCD is to run "disc defrag" every evening before I turn off the computer. Which is not too bad, but then I got really obsessive about it, so I run it once, and then I reboot and run it again (you know that there are some deleted files that don't go away unless you reboot). Sometimes I also need to go through my files to see if there's something more I can delete just for the joy of doing it all over again!
I hope this is just a phase I'm going through...

[Stargazer]

Actually I was looking for it to post something, but then I got to tired to post last night so I just bumped it.
My new OCD is to run "disc defrag" every evening before I turn off the computer. Which is not too bad, but then I got really obsessive about it, so I run it once, and then I reboot and run it again (you know that there are some deleted files that don't go away unless you reboot). Sometimes I also need to go through my files to see if there's something more I can delete just for the joy of doing it all over again!
I hope this is just a phase I'm going through...

I did the same thing about a year ago. I saw my husband do it and I was instantly fascinated. I then felt compelled to do it everytime I turned the computer on. Defragging always felt like such a 'cleansing' type experience. It was like the computer version of washing my hands all the time I finally stopped doing it though, so maybe it's just a phase for you too