Hello blog.

I just finished watching Jon Richardson A Little Bit OCD (which you can watch too by clicking that nice link there!) and it had left my brain a little messy.

I had two reasons for watching it:

1) I like Jon Richardson. He is funny.

2) Sometimes I wonder if I might have OCD because of some of the things that I do.

A while ago I was thinking about some of my weird things that I do/feel and it got me thinking about the possibility that I have OCD. I know it's wrong to self diagnose these things, and the fact that I sort of did may have made the whole thing worse, but y'know, it happened. I took a few online tests and, if I remember rightly, pretty much all of them said that it would be worth checking out. I'm too scared to, so I won't.

Most people think of OCD as constant hand washing or straightening things and having everything perfect, but I'm not like that at all.

I do wash my hands a lot, which I think I get from my dad because he does too. I've also started carrying wet wipes around with me everywhere just in case. It's never gone further than that, though. I don't obsessively use sanitiser or anything, and I don't obsessively clean anything else, just my hands if they feel yucky. As for straightening things and having everything perfect, I'm not like that at all. Anyone who has been in my room knows what a complete mess it is, so there's nothing particularly OCD-ish there.

There was one section in Jon's documentary which made me think more than any other. It was when he was talking to someone about how the people with this feel if they don't do the things that they do. For example, when I go to bed I have to check the plug sockets in my room four times and then slide my fingers across them to make completely sure that they are off other wise I can't sleep because I think that they are still on or I've left something plugged in and that something bad will happen and I will die. Sometimes I forget to do this until I am in bed and then have to get up and do it then go back to bed. This seems to only happen when I am alone, though. If I have a friend staying over then I can just go to bed without checking them.

I also have to check Merlin's hutch four times and the lock at the top once before I go to bed otherwise I think that I've left it open (even though I check when I feed him that it is shut and I know that it is shut) and that he will get out and run away and die or something awful. At the same time, before I go to bed, I have to check that the dog has a bowl of water otherwise she will dehydrate and die while I'm asleep even though I know that she can survive a few hours without.

When I go out I have to check my straighteners are unplugged even though I remember unplugging them and then when I lock the front door I have to check the handle five times to make sure it's locked. I also have to check all the other switches in the house to make sure they're off, even the ones I haven't had one. That definitely comes from my dad, though.

I have to carry a bag of tablets, 'girl things', deodorant and a lip balm wherever I go. I also have to have a bottle of water with me at all times because if I don't I might choke on something and die. Like, even if I'm going to Tesco or a restaurant where they sell drinks I still have to take my own in case they won't help me.

The checking things hasn't been this bad forever, it was more feeling ill when I was younger, which actually made a mess of my life a bit. From year six onwards I had a lot of trouble with feeling ill. I always used to feel ill in the morning before school. Mum took me to the doctors millions of times but they never found anything wrong because there was nothing wrong with me, my brain was just using this as a way to stop me going to school. School like wasn't even bad back then, I mean, people occasionally made comments about my size but my friends who were nice outweighed the people who weren't.

So, because of feeling ill I became afraid to leave the house. I was terrified of getting ill and not being able to get back home, because home is safe. This probably explains why my grades dropped a lot. From me being afraid when I felt ill, I started to become afraid of other people who said they felt ill in case they made me ill and then I would get ill and not be able to get home where it is safe. So then I started being really protective of that water bottle that I carry around everywhere. There is literally one person that can ask for some of my drink and for me to give them some without thinking because his tongue has been in my mouth I feel more comfortable around him than anyone else, which is weird considering I haven't known him that long.

I think that paragraph went a little off topic...

Back to the point: I'm not as bad with the 'feeling ill' thing as I used to be. The slightest stomach ache would leave me afraid to leave my room and constantly disappointing my friends when I was supposed to be meeting them or not making it to school when I really needed to be there. Now I'm beginning to understand that I am not really ill when I think I am because it feels different to actual illness. Well, I've always known that it feels different, but I was too afraid to just get on with life.

I'm not really sure what this blog post was meant to achieve. I guess nothing, but it was quite nice to write. It's probably very likely that I don't have OCD at all and I'm just a bloody weirdo. I can't help these things. It's just the way that I am. I didn't even mention how I can't see red and green together unless it's Christmas...