To ask if you suffer/suffered with OCD?

[Lailaloo747]

and did you learn to control it?

My OCD started after I had my DD2 12 years ago. Personally I think it came about due to a mixture of boredom and lack of being in control. I’d always worked and suddenly I was at home all day with a baby and apart from looking after her, all I had to do was clean...and clean....and clean.
I thought if the house wasn’t spotless when I went to bed that something awful would happen to DD. I thought that if her clothes had the tiniest bit of sick/food on, that she’d get ill...so I’d change her. Constantly.

It got better for a while when I went back to work, I think focusing my attention on other things helped...but during lockdown I’ve felt old habits coming back.
I can’t stand water droplets in the sink, I’m constantly wiping and drying it. I can’t stand the sofa cushions being at the wrong angle, a newspaper being on the carpet, the tele remotes not being on the ‘right’ sofa facing the tv. I’m bleaching and scrubbing the showers twice a day, putting toilet duck in the toilets 3/4 times a day...

It’s doing my head in. I know I don’t NEED to do it, I know my house is clean but this time it’s different....I don’t feel like anything bad will happen If I don’t do it, I just HATE these things not being done. I hate mess.
Is it the OCD rearing it’s ugly head again or am I just a clean freak with too much time on my hands in lockdown??

How does it make you feel if its not done? If you don't clean the shower for a day or of you leave the sink?
That's your answer. If you can easily leave it it's more likely routine or an obsession without a compulsion.
If you feel uncomfortable, irritable or panicky then I'd say it sounds OCD like.

(Diagnosed OCD so no expert apart from my own experience)

It makes me feel very anxious. I certainly wouldn’t leave the house until those things had been done. I just feel irritated and it keeps playing on my mind till I do it

I had checking OCD that got steadily worse until I was making myself late and taking pictures of the oven after I switched it off.

I just forced myself to stop it. Occasionally I have pangs of it but I'd say I'm in control of it.

@Lailaloo747 I'd say then yeah it likely needs some intervention.
Best to catch it and get in control of it best you can

Yes and yes, to your first two questions. Can’t really answer the last one. Were you formally diagnosed in the first place?

It’s tough, I know. Took me years figure out how to control it; for me it basically boiled down to learning to live with, then finally conquer, the panicky feelings of not “complying”.