Well, my therapist person told me I had OCD and mine is with cleaning my home, things matching, and my thoughts... anyone else like this? I constantly clean, i cant stop myself, I have anxiety attacks if i try to stop... I am obsessed with keeping it fresh so I have candles, air fresheners, febreeze... etc... is this a normal OCD? Today I was cleaning my picture frames with q-tips and cotton balls so every little crevice was gotten too... sound familiar? Once I start cleaning, I cannot stop until I have cleaned the entire house... I also have anxiety disorder and clinical depression.

I am also obssessed with my face... if this makes sense, like with my pores... I have a million different things so that they are clean and I spend sometimes an hour or more at a time checking and pushing on my face to make sure that every pore I can get to is clean? is this strange? and I cannot go to bed without washing my face or my hair...

I am also strange about the glasses I drink out of... if the one i have gets even a finger print on it... i have to get a clean glass... and things do have to match... i can't stand my closet because all of the hangers aren't white... and the baskets on my bathroom shelf do not match... but my hubby is like... why buy more when these work just fine...

This post has been edited by Camilia: Aug 23 2008, 03:45 PM

this may be triggering.. I dont know but to give ya'll an example of myself and cleaning..

I started cleaning around 2pm today and its nearly midnight and I am not finished yet. It started with the entertainment center... next thing i know I am cleaning the door knobs, the phone, the answering machine, the phone charger... I vacummed like three times... I scrubbed down the entire kitchen and am fixing to do it again because i have used a few glasses... I scrubbed the bathroom for the hundreth time this week, washed all of the bed linens again for the third or fourth time this week... used the lint brush on all of the furniture and the carpet... etc etc etc... then comes the febreeze and candles to make my home smell good... i spray my home down with febreeze several times a day to make sure everything is as fresh as possible... do any of ya'll have this same issue...

and i have to buy more hangers... i got some new clothes and the hangers don't match now... so i need more white hangers... dont know why they have to be white... but I dont like any other color in there... I think i need more febreeze in my closet... i never feel as if my home is clean or fresh enough.. and its not neccessarily an obsession over germs... I had that way back when i was fighting anorexia... i just need things to be clean... my daughter spilled some juice the other day and my friend told me to leave and that she would get it and i swear my heart started palipitating because she wouldn't let me clean it up...

I also obsess over my weight... and how ugly and nasty i am... this is not neccessairly and OCD but rather I think a side effect from when i had eating disorders and never had treatment... but I know i am at a health BMI and at a good weight but all i see is nastiness...

and i obsess over thoughts... like i replay convos in my head and then get paranoid that I some how offended someone and then the thought is stuck in my head until i make sure the person wasn't offended... even over the simplest of things... I am soo paranoid that what i say is taken wrong... I obsess over what ifs... and have a lot of self doubt...

If i am writing something... if it doesnt look right to me, i will start over.. been known to do it several times... even something as simple as a little note to my hubby in his lunch... i have to rewrite those if it doesnt look right or if a word ends up being cut short... I also obsess over... did i fix him a good enough lunch... what if he didnt want this today... what if i had fixed this instead... etc....

btw... i am being treated for clinical depression and anxiety as well and am currently at the end of my first month on Effexor XR 150 mgs (once a day) and xanax .25 mgs... twice a day...


can anyone relate to me? any advice? just let me know i am not alone here?

Camilia,

You have just endeared yourself to me in a very special place, for two reasons. One is being very much like you, in very many ways. The other is that my darling daughter, who also suffers from OCD, gave birth this past monday to a baby girl and named her Camilia. You have a beautiful name!

As far as OCD goes, yes, you are in the room! Everyone's shows differently, but usually the theme is the same, the inability to stop. It can be very debilitating at times, that is for sure. So my heart aches for you too, as I understand all that you have said. When my daughter was quite young, many times I would hear her struggling in the night only to discover that she wasn't able to have her bed sheets be perfectly smooth when she was in her bed. So she would strip her bed and remake it a hundred times. Of course it could never be made good enough. This snowballed to a point that I don't even want to recall right now.

As she grew, I began to notice that when she she was in a compulsive mode, that something had happened that would trigger those moments. This was in her school days. IF something went wrong, she would come in and not be able to put her backpack down or do anything until she had organized the kitchen drawers so all of the silverware was in perfect order, the same with the fridge and coats hanging in the closet. Her bedroom always looked like you were in Macy's store due to how orderly and spick and span it always was. When she would get new clothes, she would never wear them. Her closet looked better than any clothes rack you have ever seen.

Q-tips are a number one must have cleaning tool, for both her and myself. I literally cannot clean something if I can't 'do the job right.' It kills me when other people think I'm nuts or don't see the point of what I'm doing and would never themselves do the same. I can't imagine this.

But this is a piece of who we are. With my daughter, she has grown up to be a house cleaner. Fortunately she is well paid. But she works harder than any homeowner has ever seen. All of her clients love her, of course.

And absolutely things have to match! I mean, who in their right mind would want chaos appearing wherever their eyes fell? No one I know!
There are particular coffee cups and spoons I have to use. or forget about it, my day will take me underground. Times when I have had company and they either use MY cup or pour me coffee in the wrong cup, I cannot let it pass. I don't even remember right now what it is that I say, but I do get it straight. I could go on and on about both myself and my daughter, but I know that you DO understand. And I understand you. There are some people who may think we are odd or weird in someway, but when I get comments I just tell them to mind their own business unless they want to me to stand and watch them live their life. Most people will just shake their head if they notice.

I guess the specific things you do are normal, but what makes it a problem is when you literally cannot stop it. And to make it worse, the anxiety gets the best of you simply because you can't do something in a way that satisfies your needs.
You are in very good company. And guess what? You could even be a whole lot worse! (I'm not intending to minimize you in any way.) I live with this myself and I watch my daughter live with it as well. When she was in the 2nd grade, her teacher dragged me in to show me how the pencils and crayons were perfectly sorted, by color and length, on the desktops of all the desks in the room. My daughter could not leave the class until that was taken care of. When it would be story time, she had to be up cleaning the classroom. Hanging up coats, etc. This was my 1st realization of her and myself as well. It was rude, but it is who we are! So we laugh. And do it anyway.

Be well,
Always Trying

Hi Camilia,

Me again. You are not alone! You said so many things that trigger memories in my head from when my daughter was young and in school. Like you, her writing had to be just so. If not, she would erase and re-write and erase and re-write, until there was no longer any paper, at all. I am not a worrier like you in the what if? department, but my daughter has a strong case of the what if's. To a point where it DOES interrupt her life. She simply cannot put one foot in front of the other, because, what if?
Both she and I are treated for clinical depression, she is for anxiety and I am also for ADHD. She and I are a package deal.
I take Effexor as well, and have for many years. I do like it, no side effects and I do see the positive effects from it. I take 300 mgs currently, and at times have taken lower. My doc recently added Lamictal to my day, so as to lessen my mood swings. They aren't like those in Bi-polar, they are short spontaneous, 'oh look at that!' and then I cry. This has helped me alot as well.
My daughter obsesses over her weight as well. She joined the marines a few years back, when she came home she didn't look a bit different, physically. But she gets very upset if someone foolishly makes remarks like you are fine! you can eat whatever! this is good, on and on.
It's very hard to live with these types of thoughts. Which reminds me, if there was one word that my therapist would use to describe me, it would be rueminate. I never heard the word until her. Replaying those thoughts over and over in your head? You are rueminating. She taught me, (sort of) that when I am stuck on a thought, to tell myself what I am doing so that I can stop it. Sometimes it does work. Depending on what I'm rueminating about.
I have no advice for you other than to see if you can identify which behaviors directly cause you a problem. Since we can't solve everything, then we have to pick some to work on and let the others go. If you can identify which ones are the most upsetting, then see if you can trace the occurences to the start of that event, to see if you can find a common denominator for what pulls you to doing that act. If you can do that.... if, if if, then you can recognize when you are about to go there, and hopefully turn your thoughts to a form of distraction. That you may want to determine what those are when you are in a normal state, before you get carried away. Ask all who live with you to help you with this. Let them know that you do not want to be shot down for everything you do, or else.... But with the particular traits that affect you the worst, let them know what kinds of things they can say that may help you to see for yourself what you are doing, and then they may be able to suggest to you to go and do xxxx. Sometimes if they just say, "Are you sure that is what you are wanting to do right now?" That in itself can be a helpful remark, without inflicting pain.

Good luck, don't get tired out, enjoy who you are. It's not all bad to be with!
A.T.

I am glad someone understands... my husband is supportive but finds me amusing at times... i am not offended by this though... he is like... get out of the way... she has found something else to clean... my grandmother asks me if I am turning into monk... from that tv show if you have ever seen it. Oh, and thank you... I love the name camilia, it is also my states flower :) Your story has touched my heart and, as bad as this may sound.. I am thankful i am not as bad off as your daughter but it does break my heart that she and you deal with this daily. and congrats on the baby... mine is two now... so I am constantly cleaning.. or so it seems to me... I just cannot stop and if somehting is in the sink... or there are finger prints on the tv when I am watching a movie... I get all anxious and cannot concentrate until i take care of those things... I have to do it when I see it or I worry about it all day long... q-tips are my best friend too, which reminds me, the little vent things, where the filter is on the front of window units, needs cleaning... tomorrow i have to go buy more febreeze and kitchen cleaner, though I just bought some a few days ago... one thing that makes me sick to my stomach is loose hairs... if they are on me.. my bed.. everytime i go into the bathroom i have to run the lint brush over the bathmat to ensure all of the hairs are gone...

i even have air freshener things in my car.. lol... and you are right... we are who we are... and at least our homes and the areas around us will always be clean... you seem so warm and sweet... I am glad you posted your story...

oh... and another things that grates my nevers is my husband never puts the kitchen towels back in the kitchen and he puts the cheese in the drawer with the sandwich meats all of the time in the fridge... there is a specfic drawer for the cheese and letuce... it bugs me that if he washes dishes he puts the glasses on the wrong side of the drainer thing.... and that his basket with all of his bathroom stuff is never neat... omg... i am ranting now...

thanks for posting... you have truly touched my heart... :) i feel like i received a hug.... and now I am thinking about all of the not captilized I's in this post but I am going to leave it alone...

Keep going to therapy, and you'll have a much better handle on your OCD over time and eventually you'll be able to maintain your anxiety. Welcome to the club.

thanks for the welcome!! and therapy is a must!! hehe

Camilia,
I hate to tell you this but your post made me laugh. Because I see myself and my daughter in you. Thank heavens your husband laughs, that is actually the best thing he can do. You recognize your actions, he accepts it, you know you can't stop it, so you laugh. He can say, "oh there she goes, chuckle chuckle" and you can say, "Excuse me folks, but I simply must get the hairs off the floor." And you laugh.
I know the show Monk well. It is comical. I have seen lots of people that I consider to be worse than either of us, where it actually does inhibit their ability to even function in life. It is sad.
I also had to laugh about the q-tips and the vents. I thought you were going to say what I was envisioning, the vents above the microwave! Those are the ones that get me. Which most normal housekeepers do. But the one I do, that of course I have to and why wouldn't anyone want to, is to clean the vents or whatever they are called in the heating vents on the floor. I have those gas powered water heaters. They have those silver fins I think they are called. The amount of dirt and dust that builds up in there makes me sick. All I see is that stuff blowing all around when the heater kicks out. A girlfriend of mine thinks I'm nuts and said she would've never even thought of that. I'm sure you can imagine my thoughts of her about that!
And the fridge?!? That is my daughter. The dishwasher is my thing. If someone loads it wrong, despite me making it clear what the rules are, I have to rearrange it. Otherwise I am biting my nails all night. I have to clean the vacuum before I use it. I have to clean the washing machine before I do laundry. I have to clean my garden tools before I can put them in the dirt. On the other hand, my room can be chock full of clutter, and that doesn't bother me. But if you check my closets and things, heaven forbid someone screws with them.

I'm glad you wrote, for the same reasons. My neighbors look at me like I am a weirdo, and I just can't be bothered to explain myself to them. And so I laugh. We are funny, it's true.

I am sending you hugs, and if I see a type error in anything I am reading, that's it, reading is done!
There is your humor for the day. I love to hear your stories. When you realize another unique one, do tell!
AT
PS: I am leaving this weekend to travel to my daughters to see the new baby. I have already nicknamed her "Cammy" and my daughter will flip out over that. And she does seriously flip! (Thankfully for me, I laugh.) But she'll learn.

Your story did make me smile, and maybe you should nickname her Cami instead of Cammy, somehow it is prettier. I did clean my washing machine last night and the thing behind it where the hoses attach... lol... and i cannot get my vents out of the floor or I would be cleaning those constantly... my room stays somewhat cluttered but its mostly my daughters room that is never ever clean... I swear that she wakes up in the middle of the night just to destroy it after i have helped her clean it up... I think one of the strangest things or at least one of the funniest looks i have ever gotten was when I was cleaning the automatic airfreshner thing... airwick or something... anyways... hubby had a good laugh from that one... and dont get me started on the yard right now... all though I am not in flordia... we still caught some bad storms from the tropical storm that just hit there and the yard is full of branches and pine cones... have to wait fo the weather to clear up before i even attempt that...

oh... and in my bathroom, there is a cabinet beside the bathtub where i have my laundry basket... well... you can see under the bathtub in that cabinet... i will be on my hands and knees in this tiny cabinet scrubbing under the bathtub... and of course I use a floor cleaner that has febreeze in it so everything is fresh...

you are very amusing and I hope you enjoy your visit with your daughter and little camilia!! Be safe!!

TOO funny!

THANK YOU for the "Cami" that is much better! And I won't even get started on anymore of my antics. But I did have to laugh about the daughter that destroys her room! My other daughter, who doesn't even come close to having this, will do exactly that if I clean her room. Ain't life interesting.
Thanks for the words again!