Example Essay (Essay #5)

      Although I have been convinced my entire life that I definitely do not have OCD, there are tendencies that I have where one would think otherwise. There are many occasions where I have to stop what I'm doing in order to organize something that bothers me, or times that I can't continue what I'm doing until what I have done is perfect. There are even times where I get frustrated with others when they don't understand that I need to have some things a specific way, or I can't go on with my day.
   
     I work at a hospital in Food Service, and one of the areas of the kitchen is dedicated to putting together trays for patients. There is a cart with slots for each of the "dry" items they could get, such as salt and pepper packets, jelly packets, etc. I was walking by on my way back to work, when I noticed that someone mixed packets of honey, lemon, vinegar, and jelly all together in two different containers. I considered just walking away, but I knew that it was going to bother me for the rest of the day if I left them mixed up. So I stopped what I was working on, and I took my time to organize the condiment packets. When each item had their own, separate home, I felt comfortable getting back to work.

     Another one of my OCD tendencies, not being able to continue things unless I've made something perfect, makes me an impossible writer. The whole idea of "just a rough draft" where there can be grammatical and spelling errors sounds wonderful to me, but when I begin that process of writing, I have to make sure my grammar and spelling is perfect as I go. I have a need to self-edit as I write, instead of worrying about the content and going back to the basics later. This makes my writing take forever, and it also makes my school assignments that include multiple drafts with significant changes in each impossible to achieve. But if I continue writing knowing I had an easily changeable spelling error, my brain will be stuck on that one word instead of the content I should be writing.

     I have a very small apartment. For the amount of money I make, and because there are only two of us living here, it's the perfect size. When we moved in, I took the time to make everything look almost perfect. I placed everything where it wouldn't look too crowded or messy. But as it is with a good majority of men, if you live with them, you can't expect things to ever stay clean, or stay where they belong. This is the case with my boyfriend, who messes with my stuff and my OCD tendencies quite frequently. If one day he decides to have his dinner on the couch in front of the TV, he will move the coffee table up to the couch, move things off of the table, and move all the cushions around. This would be fine if he put it back how it was when he was finished, but instead, he gets up and leaves everything moved, and leaves all of his dishes and trash on the table. Out of all of my tendencies, this one drives me the most crazy. Immediately I have to put everything back, and throw things away, and wash the dishes he has left.

     Now I wouldn't necessarily consider these OCD tendencies to be "bad" ones. I like to keep things clean and neat, which is a good quality in all people, especially house owners. But maybe I just think that because I don't want people to think I'm going insane... completely insane, at least! I do have to apologize a lot for it affecting what I'm doing, or for it making me take more time to do things. Hopefully one day I can break out of some of these habits, so maybe my boyfriend doesn't have to hear "Michael, clean up after yourself!" for the rest of his life!