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I have OCD.

Yes, that's the chronic and uncurable brain disorder where people become obsessed with order, cleanliness, and more. I personally have mild order problems, severe contamination/cleanliness issues, and moderate problems with something called scrupulosity.What is Scrupulosity? It is an obsession with religion and goodness. It has given me a lot of problems.

For example, I am a big fantasy buff, and one time when my scrupulosity flared up I became afraid that G-d would cause me to asphyxiate if I did not swear off of all fantasy and take all related books and objects I owned and put them under my bed, out of sught and out of mind. I also felt that G-d would smite me if I didn't do all good and be a perfect person, going to Temple a lot and saying prayers daily (I'm a reform Jew, so ...) and also acting as good as a superhero. It took me ages to get over that one.

Also, another time I started running around doing good past the point when it hurt. I stood up for everyone and everything. (Once, when I was camping and we discovered gravitational shift much to our discontent and people started complaining, I even defended gravity, saying that it didn't mean it. Seriously.) It was vey helpful to everyone until I started feeling like I had to do more things than I possibly could do as a human being in order to be agood person. A lot of tears when I realized I couldn't save everyone.

Yeah, OCD is hell. And it's really hard to tell what is a scrupulosity attack and what isn't because religion itself is such a gray area already.

What are we supposed to discuss? I don't know, I guess I just wanted to... raise awareness? Search me; I just want to be acknowledged as special. But, yeah, raising awareness.

OCD can be so subtle that most people around the OCD sufferer don't even know it's there. They just admire the nice clean house and the positive behavioral example (scrupulosity). It can also be so severe that everyone around can tell within moments that the person "ain't right."

One thing I will say is that if you're OCD, Judaism is probably the religion for you. There are 613 mitzvot to obey, in all their particulars. It gives an OCD sufferer a focus for their detail-orientation, and it may keep them safely reined in and away from other matters that would suffer from over-attention. In fact, observant Judaism thrives on a light dose of OCD -- think about the many details of kashrut, of family purity laws, of Shabbat!

However, there's danger even in Judaism, as the ancient sages knew. Maimonides cautioned against fanaticism, warning that being too thoroughly engaged with the laws created a danger of idolatry, worshipping the process and forms of Judaism rather than the Creator, becoming overly legalistic at the expense of one's own humanity and the welfare of others (keeping the letter of the law but ignoring the spirit of the law).

Remember the laws, the halachot. Keep them as well as you can reasonably do. However, don't forget that the laws were created
SPACE to create and strengthen our relationship to Hashem,
SPACE to create and strengthen our relationships to one another as human beings, and
SPACE to create and strengthen our relationships to other living things.

In other words, the Law was created for us, not us for the Law.

Yep, either way, it's you. Monitor yourself, but don't go nuts with it, you know what I mean? Don't second-guess yourself every single time you do anything, wondering "Am I doing this because it's genuinely me, or because it's part of my OCD?" Don't let it hinder you.

I was waiting for someone to bring this up. Turns out there are a lot of us. It can be hell at times. Personally, I'm not That bad. It's meant to affect most people ever so slightly. My personal symptoms include:

.I cannot sleep in a bed someone else has touched.
.I will only eat food if it has not been touched by anything other than sterilized silver and my mouth.
.I turn lights on and off before turning them on/off, to ensure perfect timing between light.
.I make everything in the room either parallel or perpendicular (sp?) before sitting down.
.I CANNOT stand open doors.
.I wash, shower, clean, brush and scrub constantly and unneccesarily.
.I take pills for everything and anything I think might be wrong with me.
.I break out into paranoia, in a similar way to Lummany:
(I once stared at a packet of pills (see previous point), and noticed one container-bit of 12 was empty. I went into a fit of massive panic, as my insane brain told me that if I opened that container-bit, all that would come out was Evil (I am clinically insane at this point). G-d would punish me for releasing this Evil, and I would be forced to face an eternity of pain in the afterlife. However, I then thought that perhaps it was full of Good, and if I didn't open it Bezeelbub would destroy everything. At this point I was having a panic attack, and ended up flushing my still-full skin medication down the toilet and then locked myself in my room only to sink into deep depression... again.) Once more, I am Insane.
.I cannot own, wear or be anything that anyone else is, has or is wearing. For that reason, I have a drawer full of clothing I cannot wear again, have changed my personality (an odd process) 3 times, and have destroyed a CD that I thought none of my friends would have... See previous post (last sentence) for why.

And more.
I swear, escaping here or into a good book is one of my favorite things.

But you have to realise, it's also a good thing. Because of it, I forced my parents to pay for Hebrew lessons at the age of 11. I bought many kippahs, and wear them when my parents aren't around. I bought tephilin, but rarely wear them in case I do something wrong and G-d punishes me. I learnt the Shema, which was a step forward. I insist on celebrating Jewish festivals, even if everyone else prefers Christmas to Hanukah.

And away from religion, it's the only reason I can think of for my impossible memory and mathamatical skill. It's allowed me to sympathise with people suffering from Schitzophrenia, Manic Depression (Bipolar Disorder) and Insomnia

To be honest, though, its not an attribute...

In my family, it seems to be genetic, as is eccentria.

My uncle has a problem with light which led to him staying up till 3am, waiting for his neighbours to go to bed because the knowledge that they were awake and had the lights on were keeping him from sleeping.

On the eccentric side of things, we both have to be forced to cut out nails. A weird mix with the cleanliness...

I don't take medication for OCD particularly, but I do for depression, skin problems, vitamin deficiancies, STDs (yet strangly still a virgin, probably because of OCD) and everything else.

If you want to know more about OCD and its sufferers, the film As Good As It Gets with Jack Nickolson is a great place to start.

My diagnoses are complicated.

My psycologist says I have Aspergers but my Dad (also a psychologist) and my psychiatrist say I do not. Thus, I have "Aspergers'like tendencies."

It's pretty much understood unanimously that I have OCD, though.

--

BTW I have a pet peeve about people getting psychologist and psychiatrist mixed up. The fromer uses psychoanalysis and the latter perscribes medicine.

Don't say that; Psychologists are good for problems best sorted with talking, whereas psychiatrists have to take charge with chemicals if needed. My psychiatrist does a great deal of taklking first to determine my perscription.

But if you want to be a therapist, then Behatzlacha! (Pun totally intended) May you help many people.

The irony is biting. xp