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I'm not OCD but... | Pad Patter 10.27

bellbird

bellbird

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I feel better when things are a certain way (I don't think that's the definition of OCD! Not that there's anything wrong with it) For instance: when everything is clean I'm happier and more relaxed, I don't like handling meat with my bare hands (so i wear freezer bags over them during food prep - DH thinks it's a crazy way to roll meatballs like that but that's how I do it) or i prefer all my coffee mugs in the cupboard with the handles all pointing the same way (made a page about that a while ago).

The other day at school pick up, I parked a few streets away, got out of the car, headed for school and then had to turn around and go back to make sure i had locked the car (pressing the button on the key until it lit up to say 'yeah u locked me') and I do that a lot.
I just have to make sure it's locked before I leave it but I rarely consciously lock it so have to go back - at the shops, in our driveway, whereever. (Who wants their car stolen and have to somehow get the 30mins home from school some other way with kids, not to mention all the other insurance and stuff)
Anyway another mum saw me and apparently she does the same and said it was her OCD thing and thought it was just her! So can others relate to this? What's your 'I'm not OCD but..." thing? (Or are we the only ones?)
 
Nope! We could be bff's as I'm exactly like you! You would not believe how many times I walk back into my house after I leave because I think Did I turn my curling iron off? I actually buy food prep gloves for handling meat! Get them from Costco or GFS
 
hmmm over the years, I have really fought this. I had an ocd clean phobia in my house (not my car or purse, which have always been a mess) but my house had to be almost sanitized.

when I first got married, I would do all the laundry.
my hubby would take a shower
toss his clothes in hamper
I would wait until he fell asleep
then get up and
wash, dry and put them away
while they were in the laundry, I would clean the bathroom top to bottom, and run the vacuum just one more time, and mop the kitchen.
before I could go to sleep
I battled this for years, then we adopted one boy
then 3 kids,
then 3 more
and now...
it takes me 3 days to wash and put clothes away...
and if the floor is sticky...well, it is!
bhahhh
 
I need my latch on my tray table to be straight up and down or the plane will crash. Actually, it's not that bad, but I can't relax unless that latch is straight up and down.

I check for my keys multiple times when I'm out (also my phone, and occasionally my whole purse)... but I attribute that to my tendency to lose things vs. OCD.
 
I think it's just human. We like routine. We have certain ways we like things to be done. And we can be distracted so later we don't remember whether we did something.

I have turned around after leaving my house to make sure I closed the garage door. I usually click the lock button on the remote a few times as I'm leaving my parked car. I feel kind of annoyed when my family puts dishes in the dishwasher the "wrong" way ;)
 
My thing is with my alarm clock. I'm not content just to slide the switch over once to turn on the alarm. I have to turn it on, and then back off, and then on again, making sure I feel that subtle click, even though there's an indicator light that lets me know it's on. :rolleyes: It's part of being paranoid that I'll oversleep, especially since my kids are heavy sleepers and depend on me to get them up. If we have something really important happening in the morning, I sleep horribly, waking up to look at the clock many, many times during the night. o_O
 
I often have to park the car in the drive and run back to check if the front door is locked. I think a lot of these things are just us liking order and of course, we often thing our way is the "best way".
 
I am very "particular" (would rather not say OCD), but - things in our home have to be 'just so' ... no dirty dishes in the sink - no laundry left out - all of the throw rugs have to be perfectly laid out on the floor - heaven forbid one of them would not be "straight" with the tile - If I see that - I HAVE to stop and fix it!
I clean closets and cabinets at least once a month ... making sure they are neat and organized. I do not like clutter - at all. My desk is neat at work, just like it is at home!
The one thing I do obsess over - and over - is making sure the doors are all locked before I go to sleep at night. Hubby works 3rd shift so it's just me at home - and I can never be too safe!!
 
You're not alone LOL. I think many of us have a little OCD about things. I sure do.
  • things on the kitchen counter have to in a certain spot (sugar and napkins) lined up to just butt up against the cutting board. If someone make a coffee/tea and moved the sugar bowl, I have to reach over and put it back in place.
  • toilet paper has to be put in roller to come out the top when rolled not the bottom.
  • repeatedly check locks to be sure they are locked (house and car).
  • two things on coffee table and they must be kept in a certain spot or I have to move them back (see above post about kitchen LOL).
I wish I was a bit OCD about cleaning and I bet my hubs would say that too LOL. But I just can't motivate myself to clean much when I could be doing something so much more fun like scrapping. My DD is a bit OCD about cleaning. She schedules times for chores and does not vary from that routine. She constantly mops the floors and swiffers repeatedly. Me....I can't even remember where my swiffer is LOL. ha ha
 
I AM OCD!!! ;) lol. Maybe that's why I chose Dental Hygiene as a career!? :giggle My family calls me a Type-A Planny Plannerson & I'm 100% okay with that! The good thing is that my hubs is pretty ocd too. I'm seeing tendencies in my daughter as well (she organizes her crayons by color inside the box!) ;)

I cannot stand a messy table- my office table (aka the kids' table) can have stuff on it, but the dining room table has to be clean at all times.
I cannot stand a dirty sink- while hubby does dishes well, he leaves all the bits & stuff along the sides of the sink. Drives me bonkers. We've even 'trained' the kids to put their dishes straight into the dishwasher! :happy
I cannot stand dirty teeth- my tongue just won't let me have dirty teeth! ;) Maybe another reason I'm a hygienist. I brush 3 times a day & floss all the flippin time.
I cannot deal with clutter. Everything has a place in our home!
 
Sokee said:
Nope! We could be bff's as I'm exactly like you! You would not believe how many times I walk back into my house after I leave because I think Did I turn my curling iron off? I actually buy food prep gloves for handling meat! Get them from Costco or GFS
Click to expand...

This is so me... gotta make sure that curling iron is unplugged. I even have to run downstairs to dd's bathroom to make sure she unplugged hers. lol

bcgal00 said:
....
  • toilet paper has to be put in roller to come out the top when rolled not the bottom.
I wish I was a bit OCD about cleaning and I bet my hubs would say that too LOL. But I just can't motivate myself to clean much when I could be doing something so much more fun like scrapping. .....
Click to expand...

I'm with ya on the toilet paper. It has to be put on the roller top first. I also get so annoyed when the family leaves the empty roll on. "Hello people, mom's not the only one who can put a new roll on."

michelepixels said:
.....
I have turned around after leaving my house to make sure I closed the garage door. I usually click the lock button on the remote a few times as I'm leaving my parked car. I feel kind of annoyed when my family puts dishes in the dishwasher the "wrong" way ;)
Click to expand...

hehe... I'm a garage door freak... I'll drive back half a mile, just to make sure I shut it. I have the family trained now though, because one of them usually watches it close and tells me it's closed as we got to the corner of our street. I also have OCD about putting the dishes in the dishwasher. No one seems to get it. I'm always moving things around if they happen to put their dirty dishes in.

JillW said:
I am very "particular" (would rather not say OCD), but - things in our home have to be 'just so' ... no dirty dishes in the sink - no laundry left out - all of the throw rugs have to be perfectly laid out on the floor - heaven forbid one of them would not be "straight" with the tile - If I see that - I HAVE to stop and fix it!
I clean closets and cabinets at least once a month ... making sure they are neat and organized. I do not like clutter - at all. My desk is neat at work, just like it is at home!
The one thing I do obsess over - and over - is making sure the doors are all locked before I go to sleep at night. Hubby works 3rd shift so it's just me at home - and I can never be too safe!!
Click to expand...

I used to be very OCD about having a clean house but when my health went bad, I stopped beating myself up about it. I take it a little at a time and ask my hubby and kids to help on the weekends. It's not a perfect as I'd like but it's not a pig sty either.
 
I had strong OCD tendencies but then which of us doesn't like control?? Tin marriage #1 I had servants for many years and they learned very quickly to do things my way. Also on many things, I happily let them do it their way rather than have to do those things myself At All! Then many years later, I married my current husband. I could either let things go or get a divorce.

I feel kind of annoyed when my family puts dishes in the dishwasher the "wrong" way . My engineer does not see 'spatial economy' and wastes space in the dishwasher all the time. He's in charge of all cleanup after dinner and the rest of the day and there are times, mid day, that I'll move things around in the dw while he's working. Otherwise, I'll hear at some time...there's no room for that pot etc. I could clean the food spills and greasy streaks off the counters several times a day but seriously...he'll be there right away spilling something else, like coffee down the front of our white cabinets. I wait til he's in bed or working to bother with this kind of thing. He just doesn't see it -physically or mentally and he's past 'training.

re the locked car. I almost always lock it with the click when I'm out of the car and in the driveway, but !! I always push that button again(?) when I put the key in the keys' bowl. There are times I actually go out and look at the car before I go to bed because once in a while the locked light doesn't come on immediately. Drives me nuts.

Where things belong? yep, I'll put them back if they get out of place but so did my mother and most of my friends. Dh has no place for anything and one week his bike shirts will be in drawer x and a month later they'll be in drawer y. My clothes are hung by color and type and when it's more than one plastic hanger per slot, I know it's time for a charity donation.
 
tkradtke said:
I need my latch on my tray table to be straight up and down or the plane will crash. Actually, it's not that bad, but I can't relax unless that latch is straight up and down.

I check for my keys multiple times when I'm out (also my phone, and occasionally my whole purse)... but I attribute that to my tendency to lose things vs. OCD.
Click to expand...
i used to keep my keys on a lanyard around my neck after DS at about 2y.o locked me out one time cos he could apparently reach the door latch and thought it was fun to flick it while i was hanging washing - we had another door open at the time luckily but ...
 
michelepixels said:
I think it's just human. We like routine. We have certain ways we like things to be done. And we can be distracted so later we don't remember whether we did something.

I have turned around after leaving my house to make sure I closed the garage door. I usually click the lock button on the remote a few times as I'm leaving my parked car. I feel kind of annoyed when my family puts dishes in the dishwasher the "wrong" way ;)
Click to expand...
why can they never put them in the 'right' way though!?' ;)
 
KimJ said:
My thing is with my alarm clock. I'm not content just to slide the switch over once to turn on the alarm. I have to turn it on, and then back off, and then on again, making sure I feel that subtle click, even though there's an indicator light that lets me know it's on. :rolleyes: It's part of being paranoid that I'll oversleep, especially since my kids are heavy sleepers and depend on me to get them up. If we have something really important happening in the morning, I sleep horribly, waking up to look at the clock many, many times during the night. o_O
Click to expand...
i clicked 'like' not b/c i like this but b/c i can sympathise, even though my kids can get up at the crack of dawn to watch cartoons on Sat, if there's something on, that's when they sleep in (& i'm a wreck LOL)
 
keepscrappin said:
hehe... I'm a garage door freak... I'll drive back half a mile, just to make sure I shut it. I have the family trained now though, because one of them usually watches it close and tells me it's closed as we got to the corner of our street. I also have OCD about putting the dishes in the dishwasher. No one seems to get it. I'm always moving things around if they happen to put their dirty dishes in.
Click to expand...
@keepscrappin At least you go back and check. I once left the garage door up and we went away for the wkend. Luckily everything was untouched when we got back. My poor hubs just about had a heart attack b/c all his tools and stuff were in there. You can bet I'll never live that down and every single time I go out I stop and look at the garage door to make sure.
 
I wish I had some kind of cleaning OCD, I just don't.
My thing is fluffing and folding. I worked at Macy's for 20 years. If I am shopping & there are clothes on the floor, I must re-hang them. Sometimes I organize by size. If a mannequin is exposed, I will cover it. And you know I occasionally put together outfits. I can't help myself. You should hear how often I'm asked "Do you work here?"
 
I can't tell you how many times we drive up the street, only to turn around at the top of the hill to check to see if we closed the garage door. And every time, it is closed.
 
Oh, I'm definitely particular. I love things neat and tidy, no clutter. I'm organized with my digital files, the inside of cabinet drawers, etc. I just like things the way I like them.

I don't like the dish towel hanging in the kitchen to be anything other than straight. I have to go back and fix it a million times at night and over the weekend when hubby is home. LOL Same goes with the towels in the bathrooms . . . they have to be hanging a certain way.

My keys always go in my purse, and my purse gets hung in the same location (right now, it has a special hook in the laundry room). I do not like having to hunt for things. It wastes time and stressed me out, so there is a place for all the things, and all the things need to be returned to their places after they have been used.

My tray on my nightstand has to have the objects arranged just so, and I will double check before going to bed and after making the bed in the morning that it's correct. LOL

I could go on and on about my particularities. I'm more relaxed than I used to be, especially because my back pain limits a lot of cleaning things I used to do (I rely on hubby and son now and waiting is UGH TERRIBLE HARD).
 
I am terrible at keeping things 'just so' outside myself especially with a 2 1/2 yo. I hate having to pick toys up 10 times a day & I don't care abt material objects or possessions.

Things are organized inside myself e.g. I always drive the same way whenever I go someplace, I park in the same aisle at every store I go to, I always park as close as possible to a cart corral, I sit in the same aisle & seat at church, etc. I have a very particular vision for the events and routines in my life, and I am so OCD abt them that anticipating those events is more fun for me than actually participating in them as chances are good that one or both of my kids will want to do something else/act up/not cooperate or the weather will be bad or there will be too many/not enough people or some other tiny difference in reality vs. what I have imagined the reality will be.

#allkindsofmessedup #ocd4lyfe
 
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