My shoes MUST line up perfectly!!!

[doreen]

This is so silly but true!!

Each night before I go to bed, I take my shoes off and place them on my desk chair so that they line up perfectly and face each other arch-to-arch. Nothing less is acceptable and if I get sleepy, lay down on the bed with my shoes on and then "kick" them off onto the floor, I can NOT fall asleep until I have gotten back up to make sure that the arches are facing each other and that they fell on the floor in perfect allignment when I kicked them off.

I also MUST tap the heel of my foot at least 3 times on the floor.

Of course, before any of these things occur, it is MOST important that I open the bedroom door and look down the hallway (I guess to make sure the boogie man is'nt hiding down there waiting for me to fall asleep so he can sneak in and pounce on me!...lol).

Anyway, just a few of my nuttier obscessions/compulsions

[Junebug]

My obsessions mostly involve checking every door in the house before going to bed to make sure that it's locked and avoiding the number 13 (I guess a lot of people have this one). Some obsessions are just downright silly and you have to laugh at them. Others are'nt so funny at all.

[rara]

still have you ever tried to force youre self to stop, i mean not neccesarily perminantly but just to see what happens ore is that what an OCD however minor implies.That you can not just stop.
i mean i know its minor but it is not necceseraly healthy if it it grows, for an example in bad times in ones life ore is it normal, maybe even good to have "unsolved concius disorder behvaiours".
That is, if u know you have a bad way of handleling things shouldent you try to deal with that? Rara.

[doreen]

still have you ever tried to force youre self to stop, i mean not neccesarily perminantly but just to see what happens ore is that what an OCD however minor implies.That you can not just stop.

Yes, that's what OCD does to you. You get a thought in your head and it just won't go away. The "heel taps" don't really bother me all that much and I kind of laugh at them because it's a silly obsession but when I have a fearfull thought or something more serious come my way, sometimes I'll try to immediately replace these thoughts with cute little bunnies playing in a garden, a nice big piece of chocolate cake or some other "pleasant" thought to distract me. Sometimes it works and other times it does'nt if the obsession is really strong.

i mean i know its minor but it is not necceseraly healthy if it it grows, for an example in bad times in ones life ore is it normal, maybe even good to have "unsolved concius disorder behvaiours".
That is, if u know you have a bad way of handleling things shouldent you try to deal with that? Rara.

I wish I could find something that worked but so far I hav'nt. Supposedly, you have to take very high doses of anti-depressants in order to treat OCD and I have a hard time dealing with some of the side effects. Maybe some day I'll find something that can get rid of this but so far I hav'nt been all that lucky.

[rara]

Well the reason OCD so often is referred to as a neurosis is because you are aware of your problem but OF COURSE that doesn't mean that you are in control of it.
according to me: If you were it wouldn't be a psychological disorder, but an emotional reaction.
Now i get the impresion that you might not suffer too badly from OCD so i don't think you have a neurosis, you might not actually need medicine but i am pretty sure that the doses required for you to get over it (i use that phrase because i think one actually can lose their OCD with the therapeutic help of a licensed professional) is in relation to you and your problem. In other words i dint think you have to fear the medicine, because if your honest to your self you might know the level of your problem and the doses you might want.
Just a few days ago i got this really offensive brochure about psychology and the work sector within that subject, it aimed for emphasizing individuality and criticizing over diagnosis of psychological disorders but in doing so completely trivialized all the psychological disorders. It was a shear propaganda stating obvious false facts about the brain, explaining obvious word (just something that really ticked me off but it exposed there false interpretation of the word, not only wrong) etc...
It actually described schizophrenia as a biologically non proven disease, that might be true, and that YOU MIGHT SUFFER SOME PROBLEMS AND FEEL A LITTLE BAD FROM TIME TO TIME. The worst part was that it seemed to be a really big world wide organization, or maybe it just used the name of one!
I can understand if you are afraid of medicines but if you talk to pshycologist and doctors, license ones and many of them i am sure that everything will be alright. In the end it is you're happiness it is all about, in this case.
/Rara.

[rara]

i actually meant to say that you can not stop, that's funny i checked that so many times and still i got it wrong. i sincerely apologize, no matter what "level" your OCD is you can not just stop. That is what it implies./  .

[jane]

I think I have a begging of ocd. I have sad but small parts of ocd.
I have to line things up all the time. The shampoo & conditioner when I shower, The canned goods in the cupboard, The towels on the rack. Or when my husband like to toss his shoes on the floor in the center of the room. I cannot leave them there- It drives me nuts. I have to pick them up and set them among the other shoes. Everything just has to be evnly lined.