Not O.C.D., but.........

Your address water ?

I count the floor tiles when I'm sitting on the loo, sal but guess it just passes the time

Goodness, how long do you spend sitting on the loo Bellanonna?

Seems to me that Anniebach has been proved right, huge variations in what people do or don't worry about! My saucepans have to be in size order....

I'm not fussy about the peg colours, but I do have to hang each sock on the line next to its matching partner!

As long as it takes Ana. Plus it's a small bathroom and there are not too many floor tiles. Of course, at times I have to count more than once

MCaz, yes I'm fussy about socks too but only because I hate ending up with odd ones so hanging them in pairs makes sense

Ethel

How come you are reikilady again?

There's a huge difference between liking things to be in order and being obsessive to the point where certain procedures or practices are essential to a person's ability to cope with everyday life.

OCD is a seriously debilitating condition and shouldn't be dismissed as 'something that everyone has'.

Whenever I have cleaned, DH always goes around the room adjusting the position of ornaments, cushions, drinks coaster, pictures, chairs - anything, basically - to how he likes them.

Sometimes, if he's been particularly annoying, I will deliberately put a few things skew whiff while he's out of the room ( only slightly, just enough for him to notice), then sit back and wait for him to put them all right. Wicked, or what?

A long time ago I used to hang socks on the line in pairs until I suddenly realised I didn't have to sort them out there in the cold - I could hang them up in random twos and do the pairing later on, in the warm!

I agree ana. Some things are just down to quirkiness or a desire for order whereas at the other end of the scale obsessions can consume a person's life, often causing them to go through hours of ritual before leaving the house, if indeed they can. Maybe Ab meant most of us have quirks but most of us thankfully don't have OCD.

MamaCaz - you're wicked, but I'd probably do the same

OCD is a recognised medical disorder. This phrase is bandied about too glibly.

I was given a set of mugs with TEA written on half of them and COFFEE on the others.

I simply cannot drink tea or coffee out of the wrong mug. DH likes to wind me up by making my morning cup of tea in a COFFEE mug because he knows I'll change it.

Not OCD....Just rising to the bait.

I missed a post claiming everyone has OCD , who claimed that, perhaps the post has been remove .

No Belladonna, I meant what I said , the majority of people have OCD, because of some people's views on mental illness OCD has now become on,y OCD if it destroys life. This is not so, it stands for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder not Obsessive Compulsion Derangement , there are degrees of OCD, if pegs don't match and it irritates the person but they still use them that is a quirk, if they cannot hang the clothes to dry because the pegs are not the same colour they have OCD, it doesn't consume their life , they just have to make sure they have a good supply of pegs .

Ab, I've never mentioned, or heard of, obsessive compulsion derangement. I know what OCD is. It probably is used rather glibly. It doesn't, of course, have to destroy life, if by that you mean suicide, but it can curtail people's enjoyment of life. I don't think the pegs analogy is an example of OCD but I think people can have different degrees of obsession from mild, to moderate, to all consuming. I don't think a psychiatrist would want to help someone overcome their predilection for wanting pegs to match. That's not a disorder. Lots of us have little quirks as some have outlined and these quirks might be important to them, but I disagree that these should be classed as incidences of OCD. So I beg to differ.

I have reread your post and you do say that inability to hang clothes out if the pegs are 'wrong' constitutes an OCD and I would agree with that, so I should have read your post more carefully. However that doesn't describe MOST of us (whatever analogy you care to use)

Thank you Belledonna, I still disagree because so many will not admit how their 'quirk' makes them feel, it doesn't have to be hand washing until hands bleed because you will poison your family or someone will crash their car, this affects day to day living, if a person fears because tins are not in a line they just have to put them straight and that's it, fear ebbs , it's what causes a person to carry out a ritual that defines OCD

I am confused about why there is a debate about what constitutes a diagnosis of OCD.

The title of the thread is Not OCD. I know what OCD is and it can be a serious and debilitating condition. No argument there.

I know that I don't have OCD just because there are certain things that I like kept in order. The only reason I have different colour pegs is because they were on promotion in Lidl and I was running short of the wooden ones. But now that I have them, they have to match and the socks need to be paired on the line. I don't have a tumble dryer, so my washing is on public display and I like it to look, well...........orderly!

Everywhere else in the house looks lived in and comfy, even the cushions.

Why do people think OCD is linked only to being tidy/fussy in the home , it reaches far wider

I don't know Annie, it has a far reaching effect . It is very debilitating

I saw a programme recently where a psychologist said the term OCD was being misused by many people and was trivialising what is a really serious mental illness. She said that OCD is an extremely debilitating psychological condition which means that people cannot lead an ordinary life. Their repetitive, compulsive behaviour is so all-consuming that in many cases they are unable to go to work, have a social life or a close relationship.

Repeatedly checking that doors are locked, gas is turned off, etc. etc. is not OCD.

Eloethan - You are right, a friend could not live a normal life for several years. He paced his partner's flat, often in his underwear, obsessively watching tv news with his poor red hands, sore from continual washing, held out in front of him. He found it impossible to leave the flat and felt he polluted everything he touched. If his washing brushed against a wall he believed it was polluted and must be redone.
Finally he was treated at a Nerve Hospital and eventually progressed to being able (as therapy) to pick up litter and worse from the street. He now leads a quiet normal life. Through knowing him and his struggle to overcome OCD I would never use the term lightly.
The tv programme OCD Cleaners unearths sometimes tragic reasons for the condition. It can also reveal similarly tragic reasons for the plight of the hoarders they go to assist. There are psychotherapists who run help groups for hoarders, again it is a serious condition.

There are degrees of OCD just as there are degrees of agoraphobia, a person can spend their lives not going further than the back garden, there are people who cannot leave their bedroom. OCD can be constant hand washing, it can be never having a bath, if it's repetitive act or avoidance caused by irrational thoughts it is OCD