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My OCD and Me
A Daily Dose of Aversion
The cup in the photo is one of six I recently bought from the reduced shelf in a local discount store. Two of the cups are emblazoned with the word TEA, and four say COFFEE (I drink more tea than coffee, but hey ho).
When I make a drink in this new crockery, I must use a cup that bears the name of the beverage I am about to prepare in it; I can’t make tea in a cup that says ‘coffee’, and vice-versa. If I fancy a cup of tea and there are ‘coffee’ cups in the cupboard, and no clean ‘tea’ cups, I will either wash a cup or make coffee. Yet if someone gives me tea in a coffee cup, I will happily drink it; it is only when I am in control of the situation that I must impose these odd rules.
This irritating episode is typical of the obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) that dictates certain areas of my life. Here are some more examples.
I used to live in an apartment block where twenty copies of the local free newspaper were left on a shelf in the lobby for tenants to take. I would never take the top copy, but I’d always pull the second or third newspaper from the pile. I have since moved from that building, but I sometimes buy a newspaper on a Saturday, and when I do, I take a copy from below the top one.
I must put on my right shoe, sock, slipper, flipper or flip flop before the…
