How can you hide your OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Behavior) behavior from your friends or in the public ?

Question

I often find my OCD behavior to be annoying since It can make me embarrassed a lot, particularly in the middlle of many people.

How can you cover-up your OCD from happening in the public?

Only on your private room that you will show your OCD behavior.

Answer 1

Short answer, you shouldn't.

Why bother? They're your friends, they shouldn't even care. And if they do, they're not real friends.

Answer 2

I have mild OCD - and I don't give a d**n who sees it or notices it. If you're confident and content about who you are - then others will be too... because (unlike myself) the majority of society perceives and judges an individual based on how that person views his or herself.

My advice: Be like Jack Nicholson's character in As Good As It Gets.

Re to Additional Details: I used to have it pretty chronic like yourself. I have ADD in addition to OCD, and when I got prescribed on Adderall for my ADD, surprisingly (even though it's not used to treat OCD) - it worked wonders for my OCD. I don't know what's in it - but it mellowed out my brain to where I don't feel the urge to get up and check things 3,000 times anymore, and blah blah blah. I talked to a friend of mine about it who is in med school and he said that my assumptions were probably right - adderall acts in a lot of ways like an anti-anxiety medication. I'm guessing the reason that they don't prescribe it for OCD is that it is highly addictive to someone that doesn't have ADD - but I would at least talk to my doctor about it.

Answer 3

If you don't like your obsessive compulsive behaviour, it's a sign that you may be able to avoid doing it if you want to.

But don't worry, if this is not the case, just remember that it is a part of who you are.

Unless you just HAVE to take your shirt off in public, or HAVE to know the colour of everyone's underwear, OCD isn't a problem, it's a quirk.

Personally, I have quirks.

I 'shiver' my eyes and crack my knuckles when I am bored; I always curl my ring finger around to touch my palm when I am not using my hands; I absent-mindedly click my teeth together when I forget what I'm thinking and I HAVE to have notepads with me everywhere I go.

Don't be ashamed of what you do, embrace it, it's who you are.

If you can't get rid of it, it's the same as collecting baseball cards or having a favourite number, it's what you do, it's who you are.

If someone points out what you are doing as odd, either shrug it off or [what I prefer to do] turn the comment back around on them:

'What am I doing? What does it look like?! Obviously I'm making sure all the pens in my pencil case are pointing due east. What are you, stupid?"

[no offense if this is something you do and you think I was mocking you. I wasn't]