I Was an Obsessive Compulsive Child

today's weather: B A S E L I N E
anxiety : o | agitation : o
The Hubby and I recently got together with some friends and we got to talking about obsessive-compulsive behavior. We knew quite a few very interesting OCs from the old church, and the usual favorite is the inflexible church administrator who is known to have a passion for taping labels on objects. That guy is really funny. He's an abnormally nice person too, so no one seems to ever mind his uncanny behavior.

I considered sharing with them about my own OC behavior - since I do qualify as a genuine obsessive compulsive, albeit depending where I should be on the cycle - but I realized my type of OC wasn't going to be as interesting as those of the people they were already talking about. Besides, I didn't want it to seem like I was directing attention to myself. I hate it when people do that, so I shouldn't do it.


While they were discussing about this person and that person's uncanny manifestations of obsessive-compulsive disorder, I silently mulled over my own my breed of OC - which probably isn't as obvious nor as interesting as that of the people they preferred to talk about, but is just as present.

People have this tendency of equating "obsessive compulsive" with "neat freak" or "precision freak", but that isn't always the case. Though a lot of people with OCD / OCB do happen to have a thing for neatness and precision, there are those who manifest it differently. It really has nothing to do with neatness actually; it's more about ritualization and a maintenance of the obsessive's version of order.

I happen to be the kind of OC that isn't an excessive neat freak. That's why I'm not so obvious. My obsessions and compulsions seem to have lessened in the past decade too, so there's not much to share about.

(BTW - see my obsessiveness reflected in how I needed to restate what I already just said in the previous paragraphs. 0_O)

But I'm the real deal. In fact, my behavior manifested itself from childhood, years before I even knew about the term "obsessive compulsive". I kinda think it was worse when I was a child. Here come my stories now:

• I liked eating slices of cheddar cheese when I was a kid. This was around age 4 or 5. I'd ask my dad to get me a slice, and before eating it, I HAD to personalize my little square of cheese. I felt like I would die if i didn't. used a plastic scabbard (which came with a little plastic sword my brother owned) to stamp the cheese with a perfect oval shape. It had to be done perfectly, or else I would refuse to eat the cheese. If I failed I would cry and rub the cheese into the linoleum mat on which I played, hiding any evidence of failed cheese.
  
• I went to this nursery school that had shelves of toys and stuff, and we could just play with them whenever we wanted to (at least, I thought we could play with them whenever we wanted to, hee hee). My favorite "toy" was this set of brass silverware that had a can of metal polish and a few rags beside it. I would polish, polish, polish those spoons and forks until they gleamed. It made me happy to see my reflection in them. Sometimes I itched to polish them.
  
• Going to the beach was hell for me. I couldn't stand the way sand stuck to my feet. I'd wash my feet every few minutes, and in doing so more sand would stick to my feet. It absolutely drove me crazy.
  
• Speaking of feet, whenever anything spilled on the floor, I had to wipe it with my feet. Not clean it up; no rag or anything. I just had to make it disappear by rubbing it into the floor with the soles of my feet. Even if it was spilled by somebody else.  I HAD to do it; the fate of the world depended on it.
  
• Years before I even knew the words "parallel" and "perpendicular", I had an obsession with keeping objects parallel and perpendicular to each other. I adjusted picture frames to make them parallel and perpendicular to the edges of the wall. I adjusted place mats to make sure they were parallel and perpendicular to the edge of the table (round tables were particularly challenging).  I actually found it enjoyable.
  
• I had a rule of having only one kind of food at a time on my plate. I could not understand how adults enjoyed heaping different foods on their plate at parties. If I wanted to sample a different kinds of food, I had to try one first, get a different plate and cutlery for the next one, and so on. Desserts strictly required fresh teaspoons, and never the spoon I already had.
  
• Whenever I went into an unfamiliar place, I always had this sense that the walls were icky. That was my word for it - icky. The grownups never understood what I meant, because even if the walls were pristine, I believed they were covered in invisible germs and I refused to go anywhere near them. For that matter, I would be stiff the whole time.
  
• Other kids' toys were always icky too, no matter how cool they were. Oh I'd play with them, but I'd always be thinking about the invisible germs.
  
• I arranged my dolls (I had several) in a certain way. They always had to be sitting up, backs toward the wall, faces visible upon entering the door. That was good manners for dolls. I knew they weren't alive, but they should never be treated unkindly, left face-down or held upside-down. Of course dolls don't feel anything at all if they're abused, but I feel a great sense of discomfort if anything with a face is mishandled.
  
• I made a science of rubbing noses with dolls. There was a proper way to do it - a proper direction, a proper duration.  I even imagined my teacher giving a lecture on it.
  
• And speaking of teachers, I had a habit of identifying teachers' mispronounced words (as compared to standard Sesame Street English) and I often mulled over how teachers could have perhaps better explained the lesson.  In my re-imagining the lesson, I visualized Teacher repeating certain words and key concepts over and over, the way a good obsessive should.
  
• I had an eye for spotting fingerprints and made a point of wiping them, even if they were on other people's things. Other people found that annoying.
  
• I had to adjust all the caps of my pens and pencils several times during the day. One by one, I would uncap them, twist the cap a bit and then replace it. A few minutes later, I'd do it again. Not doing it gave me the feeling of staying too long in a tight pair of pants. And I hated wearing pants.
  
• I don't know if this is strictly OC, but I had a truckload of school supplies in my bag - pens, pencils, erasers, sharpeners, compasses, pencil lead, small rulers, correction fluid, highlighters, crayons and so on.  I knew I would never use most of them, but bringing them all to school every day made me feel better.
  
• I made a ritual of flexing my fingers when my hands were idle. I don't know why I did it; it just felt like they needed to be moved, like they would get creaky if I didn't or something.  I HAD to do it.   I did it so much, my classmates noticed and pointed it out to me.
  
• I've been a lock-checker (I still am to this day, actually). I would open and re-lock, open and re-lock. I did it with doors, bags, pencil cases, car doors and whatever had a lock. It wasn't just about checking; there was a specific rhythm that had to be followed.

So yes, proof that I was interesting from childhood. I still exhibit obsessive compulsive behavior though it has decreased considerably. I suppose it lessened due to ministry, being exposed to different kinds of situations, and being married to someone who imposed a differing understanding of order.