N.N.

Another alternative would be to continue with something sound-based, but instead of just an alarm, something different... Like something you like. To help you understand better, let me give you an example:

When I had to go to school, I never woke up with my alarms and was always late until my mother had an idea. Instead of setting alarms, she started showing me episodes of My Little Pony, and then I would start dreaming about it a few seconds before waking up. And this strategy was more effective than the alarm clock because it woke me up with energy and enthusiasm to get things done.

• In summary, the two options are:

☞ One: Earthquake.

It's talked about like being obsessively neat or repeating pointless tasks is the main part of it, when really those are just potential symptoms.

The main thing behind OCD is not being about to turn off a thought. There's a thing where most people can just stop thinking about something. If it's over, it's not relevant, it doesn't matter anymore, people can turn their attention away. For OCD, that mechanism can get stuck. And some thought that was supposed to just temporarily pass through your head just stays there. An image of an object rotating. An anxiety about something bad happening. A wish that you made on a dandelion. These are all things that have at some point gotten stuck in my head, sometimes for years at a time.

The compulsions, the rituals, are the person trying to address the thought so it can go away. After all, if you're worried about the door not being locked you can check the lock. But for someone with OCD, that doesn't make the stuck thought go away. So they check it again. And again. And they made a ritual, maybe if I check it exactly five times, I'll know that it's locked and I can let this worry go.

It helps a little. It feels like you're doing something. But it doesn't solve the problem. Actual therapy for OCD involves not doing the compulsion. Instead, you ignore the thought, move around it, try not to give it space in your life. Your mind won't let the thought go normally, so instead you fill yourself with other thoughts. Other parts of your life.

Also touching things repeatedly until I had touched them an even number of times, and trying to stop it I forced myself to touch it an uneven number of times.

It made me extremely uncomfortable at first, but I was like “ok this is good it’s progress”. Then I got stuck with the uneven number of times instead

I also got one of breathing in/out a specific number of seconds or times depending of what I’m looking at. If I like it I breathe in, if I don’t I breathe out, if it’s even/I have no idea I try to keep it even between seconds I breathe in/out. I don’t know where it came from and I don’t know how to get rid of it

@nn-the-doodle Yo the beathing IS your thing, exactly as you told me omg—

I just read the breathing part and I knew were this was going. And let me tell you, having to breathe in and out for every line of text I see on the street is not fun at all. Especially if, when I finished imagining each stroke, I ended up inhaling instead of exhaling, and I had to find something to replace that stroke with in order to exhale.

I'm sorry, I'll be to be more active!