OCD? OCPD?

For a long time my close friends have suspected (or accused?) me of having a terrible symptom of Obssessive Compulsive Disorder or better known with its abbreviation, OCD.

Why? After much observation on their side, they felt that I fit the description :) Don't I think so? Well, I wasn't paying a lot of attention to my habitual actions definitely! After all, they are habits, I do it all the time consciously and unconsciously. And then I started to notice the things freaked me out a little. Am I really having OCD?

Let's start to list down the symptoms or should I say, my actions?

1. I'm indexing all of my stuff. From CD, downloads, movies, especially books. I filed them in several ways. For books: Title - Author - Number of Volumes - Condition of the books - Box Number. Then I made the same list with the Author names comes first in case I forget the title but I know who writes it. Books like novels that I read and re-read many times, I put in the book shelf right in front of my bed. So I could get them anytime I feel like reading them. As for the others, especially comics -- as you can guess from the way I arranged them, I put them in numbered boxes. So when I want to read one, I only need to refer to my index list and won't waste time to look for it.

I consider this normal, apparently not so. How about you?

2.  All of my word files are using the same font size, same margins & same paragraph spacing. There were cases when my friends wanted me to read something that they thought interesting and sent me an unorganized word file (i.e: different margins from one paragraph to another, different font size in a page or excessive spacings because it's copied from an html page). Guess what? I wasn't able to read passed the second pages until I edited it according to my standard. Otherwise it gave me headaches and I'd just threw it away. Another reason why I'm highly annoyed to receive a file that I can't edit but have to read or review. Believe it or not, it stressed me out and will take a long time for me to finish.

Do you think it's too much? Are you able to read any unorganized file?

3. Everything has to be planned ahead. Abrupt changes will change my mood drastically. I usually know on Sunday night what I want to do for the next week, when I think I want to go out, what to read, what to wear. Unless the changes happen naturally, then it's doomsday for me. Let's say I promised to meet someone since a week ago and that person cancels one day prior to the meeting. I would be a in a terrible mood! Like I don't know what else to do with my tomorrow when we're supposed to meet and I'll be sulking the whole day. Another example that annoyed me most was when I went to a restaurant with every intention to eat something. I ordered, wait for 15 minutes, then the waiter returned saying that it's not available. In most cases when I'm with friends, I would bear the disappointment and tried to order something else that I wouldn't enjoy. But when I'm by myself, I just looked at the waiter in the eye, paid for my drink and left without a single word and ended up not eating anything almost the whole day.

Another downside to this is I can hardly enjoy impromptu trip or activities. Once or twice when I'm really in a superb mood then it can turn out to be an amazing experience. Hardly. More than myself, looks like it annoys my friends more cause they think I'm inflexible. Even on holiday, I planned it day by day down to where to eat and what time I should return. Natural changes are acceptable, i.e: the train is late, thus we arrive late at our destinations and have to re-arranged the rest of the schedule. Or suddenly it's raining, so we have to switch to a less wet place. Fine. Acceptable. But "Let's do this since it's more interesting and I think we can do what we wanted to do another day." is totally unacceptable. I'd rather go separate ways then throwing a tantrum that will only make me miserable.

Beginning to sound like a lot of trouble, don't you think? And this is where I get being called a 'perfectionist' T____T

4. I arranged my money in my wallet in a very specific way. From the smallest nomination to the biggest one, from the worst looking to the better one, faces on front - buildings on backs, right side up. I have a lot of trouble with this when paying at a cashier with a long line. I rushed and just put my changes inside, but I couldn't help thinking about what a mess the inside of my wallet is :( At the next possible moment (usually when I was ready to leave the parking lot or when I sit down to eat) I just have to re-arrange my wallet first before I feel happy again LOL

This shouldn't be a problem right? Cause I hear a lot of people do arrange their money in a similar way.

5. I don't shuffle my playlist. Let me repeat that again: I don't shuffle my playlist. If you check my ipod, tablets, and handphones, all my playlist are arranged by singer - album - track list. So if I want to listen to Jay Chou's songs, it's definitely will be from the 1st album to the last and according to the album track list. Unless I want to listen to a specific Album, then I will skip the others and play the album that I want. According to the original track list. Again, no shuffling. Then I have another playlist of Jay Chou's song separated into BALLADS & FAST TEMPO.

Don't I have a mixed playlist where all kinds of genre and tempo and singers are included? Of course I do. But (again, I'll keep saying it) according to my arrangement. I put the songs in the playlist according to how I feel when I arrange it, so when I play it I know exactly what song comes after another. There was once when my beloved cousin Sarah, shuffled my ipod's playlist intentionally, because she was getting bored of my arrangement. It took me less than 10 minutes after it played to yelled at her to put it back to normal because "I don't expect this "A" song comes after "B" when I arranged it after "D" song!" ROFL

Some people told me I'm boring because of this.

6. I have to wear my clothes from the left side to the right. Yes, you hear it right. From left to right. Meaning: when I want to wear pants, I have to put in my left foot first before my right. And when I want to wear a shirt, I have to put in my left arm first before my right. I guess this is the worst symptom that I could think of and also the one that won't annoy anyone by myself. What if I'm in a rush, I wouldn't realized whether I wear my clothes from left right or the other way around, right? No. I'd feel it. I'd feel that something is wrong and after recounted everything from the moment I wake up until I get out of the house and don't find anything wrong; the only conclusion I can get is I must've worn my clothes in the wrong way. I've experienced this before and I just have to find the closest toilet soon, undressed my self and wear it the right way. And tadaaa! Everything's cool again for me :)

Nobody elase has the right to be annoyed with this but myself.

7. I can't stand to see something out of place. When I go shopping and see a clothes fall off the rack, I automatically pick it up and hang it at the right place. When I see a book fall out of the shelf anywhere, I just have to put it back on. When I see a row of chairs and there's one that's located a bit outside the line, it's an eyesore until someone (more likely myself) put it back in line. When I sit in front of a table and it happens to have a DOT that doesn't belong to its pattern, let's just say I'd be pissed without a reason and will keep looking at it, wishing that the dot will disappear.

This also, more annoying to myself than others. Everything just has to be in place.

So what do you think after reading all of my so called 'symptoms'?  Some that I've heard are BORING, CONTROL FREAK, PERFECTIONIST. Wanna add something else?

After I made the list, curiosity got the best of me. I browsed the net to get to know what actually OCD was. To my surprise, I didn't think that it fit me no matter how people said so. You can read the descriptions HERE and HERE.

Instead, it led me to another condition called Obssessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder of OCPD. From what I have described above, I could say that I do show symptoms of OCPD but reading this page, I feel better for getting to know myself more even though it described OCPD somewhat as problematic as OCD. I do realize my inflexibility to things, my way of having to be in control most of the time and doing things "my way" and I'm still thankful that my close friends were pointing them out to me no matter how many times I chewed them out with my words of denial.

So there you go. OCPD. Not OCD. But I still have to change.