Sorry for digging up such an old thread, but there’s actually a good reason for it. I have this friend who’s also my roommate—we’ve known each other our whole lives—but over the last year or so, she's been dealing with stuff that makes me think she really has OCD. I’ve looked up symptoms online and some things definitely line up, though I guess it varies from person to person. Based on talking to her about everything (well, we live together, so I know her inside and out), it feels like her state is driven by phobias and maybe even some superstitions. Basically, it boils down to one massive fear—probably fear of being alone—and then this dread of "bad luck" hitting her, which is hard to define. If you really dig into the root of it, it just circles back to those two phobias.
The symptoms are like this: It all started with odd numbers. Everything revolved around the number three. If she looked at something once and accidentally touched it twice, she couldn't leave it at two; it had to be three. If it happened four times, she’d add one more to make it five, then go back to three...
Later, there was this specific phrase she’d repeat every single time she said the same word at the exact same time as someone else. Imagine getting out of an Uber and saying "bye" at the same time as the driver. She’d turn back and practically beg the guy to say that phrase one more time, just once, so she could complete the cycle. If the guy messed up and the count was off, she’d fall back into that same math logic with the numbers mentioned before...
Then it spread to walking. Once, she walked almost half a mile just counting steps using that same pattern: one, two, three; one, two, three, four, five; one, two, three... that makes eleven, so then she’d start again with another eleven, then add those eleven to the first eleven... you get the idea?
After that, she started hating the color yellow because she associates it with some terrible event...
I should mention how that phrase thing worked: We were sitting in a cafe and we both said the same word at the same time. In the US, we have those little jokes where you say something like "knock on wood," but here I just said, "the sky is black." Within half an hour, her ex showed up in town with his new girlfriend. This happened a few times, so she started saying a sentence whenever she spoke in sync with someone: "the sky isn't black," and she’d try to force the people around her to say it too. If someone just told her to shut up, she’d actually feel relieved because then nothing bad could happen since she’d done her part, but she’d still keep repeating it to herself following that pattern...
Now, it’s gotten much harder. She stopped using that phrase (in the meantime, she’s basically started withdrawing from people because she spends the whole night worrying if someone will say a word at the same time as her, and trying to trick them into repeating it so it fits her pattern).
Even a simple trip to Target turned into a nightmare back then. She blocked everyone on MSN because she was afraid something might happen, and she avoided most social groups. All of it stems from those two phobias. But later, she stopped doing that. I should mention that thoughts started playing into the repetition too. If she noticed I was thinking the same thing at the same time as her, the same process would trigger. If I refused to play along, but she saw a chance that I might eventually give in, she’d argue with me for hours until I did, because she knows I’ll cave eventually since I understand why she's doing it...
Basically, it was way easier for her when someone just totally brushed her off and made it clear they weren't going to repeat the word, even if she kept pushing...
Nowadays, if someone says the same word, she’ll just repeat it once more to make it three times. If the rhythm gets broken, she goes through the whole ritual again, even if she’s just doing it silently to herself...
However, some other things have popped up, like obsessive showering before bed. It’s not that she’s super neat—she’s clean and tidy enough, not a perfectionist at all—it’s just that someone told her that if a drop of urine hits her underwear, it’s a disaster. That’s why...
There was also the knocking on wood thing (I live with her, so I hear it). Now, she flips everything in the cabinets if they aren't perfectly aligned, fixes clothes if they aren't sitting right, drinks her water all the way to the bottom, and there's no way she's drinking two glasses of water in a row without a third one...
My girlfriend feels like she’s getting these constant, new mental commands every single day—all connected to the ones before them—just to make sure nothing bad happens. It basically boils down to two major phobias and one tiny one, but sometimes she doesn't even realize that's what it is. She just feels this sense of impending doom, and later when she breaks it down, she realizes it was tied back to those same fears...
She's struggling big time with everything right now, especially studying. Like, if she's reading a lesson (unless someone tries to distract her right before an exam), and her eyes accidentally drift to a word on the next line, she ends up having to reread that specific word two or three times just to feel okay. If she gets thrown off, it's the same deal with numbers. Honestly, because of all that internal pressure, she can't even focus on the actual material; she's too busy worrying about doing everything "perfectly"...
And there's a million other things...
Basically, if she has one good day, she immediately expects something terrible to happen, like she doesn't even deserve to be happy. She'll start thinking, "Oh, I'll pay for this later." Then she retreats into this quiet little bubble she creates—it's not a place she actually likes, but she thinks it's better to have nothing happening at all than to risk something bad occurring. The only time she can actually ignore this nonsense is when she's genuinely, deeply happy, but those moments are getting rarer and rarer. Looking at the symptoms you guys mentioned, it feels like hers are spiraling out of control, and it's like something new pops up every single time...
So, what do we do? If we went to a shrink, they’d probably label her as totally out of it. Everything is such an extreme conflict right now—like her obsession with cleanliness, where she'll pull a milk carton out of the trash if she didn't take the last sip, or if she didn't take it in exactly three sips, or five, then back to three...
Looking for some mature advice here...
