#it feels like such a ridiculous hindrance but it's such a habit I hardly even think about it. much less how to actually stop

[melon-dot-com]

OCD for me is weird because I swear most OCD related posts are either of these: obsessive cleanliness, or intrusive thoughts (like moral dilemma).

While I did have the latter pretty badly and... maybe still do. The most pressing is that I fixate on adjusting things: my sheets. my plushies. my pillow alignment. my desk monitors. the way I sit at my desk. the way my blanket is laid (pattern print is facing outward). the crafting materials I have lined up on my right side of my desk (it's L shaped) to be at the end of the surface but not so far it could easily fall off, but not so inward it takes up unnecessary room. And many more, but I want to say those are some of the common ones.

I do have some of the cleaning one too. But with certain things. And I seem to have more ''contamination'' OCD than anything. Or at least that's the closest that seems to fit. Sometimes I'll just feel like something I touched left a residue on my hands. Even if said thing likely didn't. I can Feel it. I am always wiping off my desk- though partially this is because of hair or cat fur that I am worried I can't see and will later feel or will get on my food/drink at some point. (There's probably other stuff I just don't want to type it out)

All of this I noticed causes me to tense and stress wayyy more than I should be. My back and sometimes body in general ends up hurting. But it's like. What do I even do about all this :/

I've managed to do better at times... I mean when you are literally sore and burnt out, you just can't continue. Although I sometimes still try to ''fix'' stuff anyways. Some days I practice exercises in my head to tell myself that what is currently happening is ''correct'' and attempt to avoid adjusting. And then some days I'll have what I call an ''OCD attack'' where I fixate on adjusting / folding / lining / organizing *one thing* for so long it ends up burning me out because I've been doing it for an hour+.

I've cried afterwards a few times. Knowing I saw the time go but still couldn't leave the task alone. Telling myself if I just do a little bit more, it'll be done. It'll be over. I just need to take that bit of extra time... and then after I finally step away from it. I realize I was obsessing over nothing. It wasn't as big as a deal as it was when I was fixated on every detail.