I diagnosed myself with OCD decades ago.
I also happen to fill a B.
A. in Psychology,the field I entered most probably to better understand my self. My first OCD ritual was counting cars. This habit began between the ages of 6 and 11, after my parents divorced, or my mother relocated us to a city where I felt out of place and I was not allowed to grieve that I missed my father. To clarify,I did not count all cars, just Pontiacs, or because that was what my mother drove. This habit persisted over at least three years: it ended because I could not remember exactly what my count was,but it was greater than 3000. My next ritual was listing songs I heard on the radio. I wrote down every song I could mediate of, including the artist, or the album and I indicated whether or not I knew the lyrics. This habit persisted from my teenage years until I reached college. What ended my habit was finding a book that listed the history of Top 40 music dating back to the 1970s. Suddenly,I had all of my information in one book. I fill since spawned other OCD behaviors and fill learned to tell myself when to quit. I recognized long ago that my OCD rituals were ways to bring approximately successes during times when I felt so much anxiety approximately issues seemingly beyond my control. I was not born with OCD, but rather adapted to using OCD behavior to address my anxiety. OCD is Procrastination taken to an extreme level. When a person procrastinates, or he or she often engages in a ritualistic behavior that can more easily be accomplished in place of working toward a goal that brings approximately the horror of failure and may not be accomplished so easily. Making lists or hoarding are repetitive behaviors that are easy to achieve and bring approximately the sense of success. Other OCD behaviors may not be easy tasks,but rather the inability to leave a task incomplete, as this is perceived as personal failure. My mother works Crossword Puzzles, and I followed this ritual,completing daily Crossword Puzzles, Sudoku and Word Jumbles as these became daily validators of my Intelligence. I felt great anxiety whether I could not solve a puzzle or word jumble, and because then,my self-concept was challenged. My breakthrough was realizing that I was equally intelligent whether or not I solved the daily puzzle. I had to wean myself off of these rituals, but every year, and it seemed something else would fill the void,so I had to remove inventory of my behaviors and recognize when I was hoarding, listing or engaging in another OCD behavior mainly to reinforce my self-esteem and sense of accomplishment. OCD is a reaction to the pervasive Anxiety over not feeling smart enough or good enough in some other way, or faulty; OCD behaviors help us feel we are in control of our environment. That is why OCD behaviors are addictive: they bring a sense of gratification,similar to the addictive behaviors used by other people:gambling, drugs, and sex,video games. It all comes down to “urgent the button” that leads to a release of the endophins that we want to feel in our brains.
Source: nami.org