OCD or not OCD?

The actress Tuppence Middleton has written a memoir that describes in detail her struggles with an extreme form of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

A couple of weeks ago she gave several interviews in which she discussed her symptoms. One or two sounded familiar so I did some research.

According to the NHS website, common types of OCD include:

• cleaning and hand washing
• checking – such as checking doors are locked or that the gas is off
• counting
• ordering and arranging
• hoarding
• asking for reassurance
• repeating words in their head
• thinking "neutralising" thoughts to counter the obsessive thoughts
• avoiding places and situations that could trigger obsessive thoughts

Thankfully I have none of the symptoms listed above except one - a compulsive need to check, multiple times, that the doors are locked when leaving the house.

Sometimes, having locked the front door (checking and re-checking that it is in fact locked), I then unlock it and go back in to the house to check that the back door, which I locked only a few minutes earlier, is also secure.

I then return to the front door and repeat the process of locking and checking until I am satisfied that it is locked, and I can get in the car. I have however been known to get out of the car and return to the front door for one final check.

I go through that process whenever I intend to be away for more than an hour. It gets worse when we’re going on holiday and may be away for a week or more.

On those occasions I ask my wife to witness me locking the door. I then invite her to check the door herself to confirm that it is indeed locked. Like Tuppence Middleton, who describes this affliction as her ‘biggest challenge’, I have started taking photos so I have ‘proof’ that the door is locked.

Variations on this include checking that no tap in the house is left dripping. Again, I have started to take photos to reassure myself and woe betide anyone who washes their hands after I have confirmed that every tap has been properly turned off!

This pattern of behaviour irritates my wife but it gets worse because, once or twice, I have driven for 10 or 15 minutes with a niggling worry in my head until I can’t go any further without returning to the house to check that I haven’t, by accident, left the iron on.

Even though our iron automatically switches itself off after it’s been inactive for ten minutes, the thought that I may have left it on is arguably an even bigger fear than leaving a door unlocked because in my imagination there is only one outcome.

That’s why, just as we are driving off on what is meant to be a relaxing holiday, I invariably ask my wife to confirm that our home insurance policy is up-to-date and covers house fires. (I won’t repeat her response.)

Once, to put my mind at rest, I even asked her to contact a friend - who lives ten miles away - to pop round (with the spare key we’ve given her) to check that the front door was locked and I hadn’t left the iron on.

Despite that I don’t really think I have OCD. Or if I do it’s an extremely mild version compared to Tuppence Middleton.

But there was something else she mentioned that I identified with. According to Tuppence, she gives ordinary inanimate objects human feelings. It’s not on the NHS list of OCD behaviours, but I used to do that too!

As a child (under the age of ten) I treated quite a few objects as if they had feelings. If I had some pocket money, for example, I had to spend the coins in a particular order, prioritising the ‘older’ ones.

I thought it might hurt their feelings if I ignored the coins I'd had for a while in favour of those that had only recently come into my possession, so I made sure the new additions went to the bottom of the pile.

I grew out of it but it’s good to know I’m not alone!

See: Actress Tuppence Middleton: my life with extreme OCD (The Times)