I have never been diagnosed with OCD and neither have most of the people who talk about their tics that resemble the symptoms of OCD. I understand that OCD is a real problem and I have it pretty good by not being completely controlled by OCD, but I do have some tendencies to be obsessive and controlling, just like a lot of people I know. So, these are just some of the ways I “suffer” from OCD:

Eating

Yes, I am extremely weird about the way I eat because of my OCD. First of all, everything has to be eaten in size order, from smallest to largest. This goes specifically for things like baby carrots and French fries. For things like pretzels and goldfish crackers, I use an alteration of the same rule, eating the broken pieces first, from smallest to largest, and then moving onto the intact pieces. I honestly have no reasoning for doing this other than the comfort it gives me to eat in an orderly fashion. I used to require separate plates for my foods because they couldn’t touch but as I went out more with friends, I decided to get over that and it does not bother me as much as it used to do. Because the size ordering really does not affect me the way the multiple plates did (other than making me eat a bit slower), I have found no reason to get rid of this habit and find it easier to soothe my OCD through this action rather than aggravating it by trying to stop.

Grocery Shopping

It physically hurts me to see a shopping cart with items thrown in haphazardly. I need some form of organization in the shopping cart and then on the conveyor belt when I am checking out. Everything must go together in the right bags: frozen with frozen, deli with deli, cans with cans, boxes with boxes, etc. Unfortunately, I cannot communicate telepathically with the cashiers and they do not suffer from the same OCD as I do. It comforts me immensely to use the self-check out and bag everything myself but the 20-item limit really inhibits me from using it all the time. Luckily, I put away everything as soon as I get home and do not have to deal with the disordered items longer than the drive home.

Planners

I love planners; they are my absolute favorite school supply to buy (and I LOVE school supplies). I always prep my planners before the semester starts by assigning every class a color of pen (my favorites get blue and pink and my “meh” classes get orange and green) and write in the times and names of the professors. I fill this in every day throughout the day to keep track of my assignments, extra credit opportunities or any other “events” I learn about or think of throughout the day. I often try to think of things, even completely useless information, to put in there just to fill the calendar slots. And if I realize I did something that day that I hadn’t written in there, I’ll go back and write it into the slot.

Schedules

Making my class schedule for every semester is probably one of the most fun things I get to do. I almost have a heart attack every time the class schedule comes out and can’t wait until I am done with class so that I can sit down with my blank schedule and figure out what classes I am going to take. Figuring out the times that fit, the classes I have to take, and the classes I want to take thrill me to my bones. In a way, it nourishes my OCD, so that when I’m done, I can relax and my OCD has had its fill for the day.

Notes

Organizing my notes for my classes is very important to me. Now, I’ll be honest, I don’t do this for every class. I typically only do it for the classes I really like (like my major classes) or classes that have lots of quizzes (like theology). I organize them all in my laptop so that I don’t have to carry around every notebook when I use them to study and only need my laptop. In high school, I only took notes on my laptop and used the Notes application in Microsoft Word to take them, giving each class a notebook and separating all of the notes into chapters. It was actually quite sad for me to delete all of them after the year was over. Now, I organize my notes in the same way by transferring my written notes into my “notebooks” on my computer.

My Computer

Along with having separate “notebooks” on Notes for my classes, I also have separate folders for all of my classes on word. In addition, I have folders for anything else that I had not previously assigned. I do not have a single document that does not have a folder, even if it means keeping a folder for one document. Single documents really make my OCD sad; folders really make it happy.

And, fortunately or unfortunately, all of these things revolve around making my easily irritated OCD happy.