*I no this is extremely long and ur probably busy, but I would really appreciate it if you’d read and answer my question because I really need ur help. Thank you!

K so a few weeks ago my friend was was telling me how she has obsessive compulsive disorder and although I’ve heard the name many times, I never really knew what it was. So I decided to do some research. The more research I did, the more I started to thinknI have OCD. I was on this site reading people’s real-life stories and mine doesn’t seem that bad (If I have it at all) but I think it would be best to be diagnosed with it now before it takes over my life. Here are some of the symptoms I have. As far as I know these are OCD symptoms, but please correct me if I’m wrong

-when I was about 7 or 8 I would sometimes think "what if i stuck my finger between those two little prongs on an electrical cord and plugged it in and electrocuted myself" it was weird because I had this urge to do it kinda but I didn’t want to and I couldn’t explain why I wa even thinking this and I remember being terrified I would do it.

-everything must be in a specific order/arranged perfectly. For example, I won’t eat a hot dog if the toppings aren’t in the correct order (ketchup, musturd, relish) and same with tacos (beef, salsa, sour cream, cheese, tomatoe, tettuce). I also organize things by colours such as the cloths in my closet (pink, red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, dark blue, purple, magenta, brown [darkest to lightest], white, grey [lightest to darkest], black) and I’ll spend hours arranging and rearranging books by series, author, genre, size,etc. The most recent example I have of random organization is my strep pills. I have strep so I got medication for it and I put them in one of those little daily pill things. I put three in each day and I arranged them so the three in Sunday had the yellow end facing me and the ones in Monday had the red end facing me and so on.

-sometimes I’ll just get random violent urges. Like I’ll be holding my cat and I’ll realize just how easy it would be to snap her leg. It’s like with the plug thing. I dont want to but in scared I might. That’s why reading more about OCD is good cuz I found out ppl with OCD don’t act on these. This Aldo started around when I was 8 but never rly went away.

-when I feel there’s something wrong with my appearance one day (ex. A zit, bad hair day) and I walk down the school hallway I feel like people are staring at me and judging me. Like just this Friday that happened to me. I kept looking at the ground and walking faster and faster desperatly needing to get to my locker where I would feel safe. I don’t think I rly had this sense of "what the hells happening to me?" like some ppl seem to, in fact, until I researched symptoms of OCD I never thought there was anything wrong with me. I just genuinly thought ppl were staring at me cuz I had a zit.

-as a child I would go to the mall with my mom and only step on the white tiles. My mom would get mad at me bc I would run into ppl and thought it was just me playing sone kind of silly game but now I realize it was OCD. That explains why it made me so anxious to step on the blue tiles too. Even now when I’m walking home from school I’ll watch my footsteps carefully and count how it takes three squares between the times I step on the crack and I step on it with my right foot. If this gets messed up someone I have to re-evaluate and may find it now takes two squares and with my left foot. Sometimes I count tiles in the floor pattern in my school and get annoyed when one rectangle has 12 tiles in it and one has 11. Sometimes I count them again and again to make sure I’m positive they aren’t symmetrical.

-I can’t stand not having the door closed. Sometimes I will loom over my shoulder multiple times and still not be satisfied that it’s closed. It even bugs mebwhen someone leaves a door open on tv.

-I suppose I have a slight germaphobia but not in the typical sense. Most ppl will clean their room until it’s spotless. I don’t like clearing it at all because the stuff on the floor is dirty. Like I’ll tidy up the area of the room that I walk in because that’s mostly recent stuff, but honestly that other stuffs been their for like a year so I hate touching it fir fear that it’s crawling with dirt and bugs.

-idk if this has anything to do with OCD but i tend to become way to obsessed with things way to quickly. For example, Adam lambert. I heard his song "whataya want from me" on the radio and added it to my list of songs to download. So one morning I was going thro
my list and was playing music videos cuz I was sick of my old music but too lazy to download new and I realized I’d forgotten just how cute he was and I started reseRchinh stuff about him and downloaded a bunch of his songs and listening to them non stop. (8 hrs in one day listening to nothing but his music and I did that everyday for aweek) so yea I’m completely obsessed with
just remembered one more thing!:

-when I go to the mall, I always buy food. Like it’s uncontrollable. I always swear to not spend money on food but next thing I no, 60 dollars down the drain. The only way I canstop from buying food at the mall is to not bring money. I don’t no if that counts but that seems odd to me.

-I don’t no if this is one either but I eat. I wat all the time. Even when I’m not hungry. And I’m not bored either and I can’t seem to think of a reason why I’m eating. Sometimes I just wanna eat. Like I’ll be watching a half our tv show and I’ll get up 4 tines during that show to either get something to eat or look for something and come back to the couch empty handend. I will often look throught cupboards/fridge, etc looking for food to make sure I didn’t miss anything although I think everyone does that to some degree although usually it’s on a more subconsious level.
It wasnt shyness btw. It was paranoia that everyone was staring at me and judging me and I had to get away and it was very distressing because I couldn’t explain it.

Not all your symptoms sound like OCD behavior. E.g. you being shy and trying to run away sounds more like social anxiety or perhaps just a side effect of being an anxious person. Your germ phobia doesn’t sound like the typical OCD to me. However, all other symptoms, the violence, the arrangement, the tiles, etc. are very typical of OCD. The point I’m getting to is not that you don’t have OCD. You most likely do have it, but you should keep in mind that not all bad things and all anxiety is due to having OCD. Given all this, you are still young. You could learn to manage and overcome this anxiety without medication. Of course, if a specialist disagrees, they are the ones that know best. Your next step is discussing this with your parents and seeking help from a competent clinical psychologist specialized in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and Exposure and Response Prevention.

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