For sake of defition, here is a meaning of OCD that I have found on the internet:

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental illness that causes repeated unwanted thoughts or sensations (obsessions) or the urge to do something over and over again (compulsions). Some people can have both obsessions and compulsions.

https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/obsessive-compulsive-disorder#1

I think that each of us has some OCDs. I wouldn’t talk about mental illness, for the OCD I am referring, but I’d say they are little personal compulsions and obsessions that we feel the need to execute, otherwise we can’t proceed with the rest of the day. If you think of my OCD, I can find many. And now that I an working on knowing myself consciously, to strengthen my inner core (not the muscles…), I feel that OCDs are part of the things that distract me from being a better me.

WebMD writes: “OCD isn’t about habits like biting your nails or thinking negative thoughts. An obsessive thought might be that certain numbers or colors are “good” or “bad.” A compulsive habit might be to wash your hands seven times after touching something that could be dirty. Although you may not want to think or do these things, you feel powerless to stop.” (source link).

I definitely can live without washing my hands seven times an hour, an excessive cleaning of the house, repeatedly going up and down the stairs, or rearranging objects to ensure a specific symmetry. If you search for common OCD behaviours you’ll be surprised. But: I do have some impelling push for certain things that comes from within inside, sometime during my regular week. For example when I am looking for a specific tab in my browser (I usually leave 10-15 tabs open for work), I can’t but look at all other tabs and close them or act on them, before I finally get to my tab. Sometimes I feel the urge to clean the room where I am working before I can work; I start with the PC table, and then continue with other surfaces (the kitchen is just behind me, with a long long metal counter that asks me to clean it well); if I don’t stop, I can continue with an OCD propulsion towards cleaning up the whole apartment, getting the vacuum cleaner, the calc remover for the bathroom appliances, the dishwashing soap for the two glasses left in the sink from the morning breakfast, etc. This behaviour has been more evident to me since isolation time due to COvid. Being at home most of the week, I end up being a lot in company of furniture, sinks, WCs and showers, and have started cleaning more than usual.

I remember my sister in law had an OCD that would drive my brother crazy sometimes: after dinner she had to clean the kitchen spotlessly, and she would not relax until she did; this involved mopping the floor with detergent and all. Like deep deep cleaning, not just a wet cloth over the dinner table and off you go.

I am not too interested in why we have these compulsive behaviors, I find them amusing and irritating, I find them as an organic part of who we are as human beings. I haven’t met a person who has no OCD, small or light that it might be. In my case, some of my OCDs are distracting and I want to sever them from my everyday life.

So, part of my conscious “getting better on my own” process involves forcing myself to catch these OCDs and correct them. Not easy, but if you want to try you’ll realise how liberating it is. I give you an example: instead of cleaning all the surfaces of the apartment at once, I force myself to clean only one or maximum two, and stop. I put the cloth back to the closet and resume my work on the laptop. Easy? Hell no. But when I have done it, I feel satisfied, as if I had won a lottery! Another example: I follow my train of thoughts in an extreme way, a little bit like in James Joyce’s “Ulysses“. This is the most distracting of my OCDs, as I start off with one aim, say going to the bedroom to pickup my phone, and on the way I find an empty glass that I feel the need to put in the sink, so I do, and while doing that I am reminded by my car keys on the living room table that I need to change the parking disc in my car before the agents write me a fine; and my next thought goes to the paper I need to pickup at the office with the car, cause I can’t print at home anymore; more thoughts surface and after many minutes I still haven’t fetched the phone in my bedroom. Thoughts and objects distract me and oblige me to act immediately iupon them, for fear of forgetting (my short memory is as bad as Dory in Finding Nemo) :-).

I have found a solution that works for me, which helps me not only remember and not distract when I go from A to B, but also to be more organised: I started writing post-it notes in the places where it makes sense. I need to change the car’s parking disc? I will write a quick note next to the keys (or set the phone alarm 5 minutes before); do I need to respond to a client and at the same time I get another call where I have to urgently finish up an email for a colleague? I take the ten extra seconds required to write down task n. 2 so I can finish task n. 1 without stressing. This is so helpful, and takes a lot of pressure off me. If I find myself too stressed, I take a break, go for a walk, pause for 20 minutes-half hour and resume later. I take more the time to breathe and this makes me enjoy the moment more. It’s such a great excercise. I feel good about it.

More soon. Oh: this is day 3 of reducing the intake of Fluoxetin: 10 mg a day instead of 20mg. So far so good.