OCD and Complulsions and rituals

[HateOCD1986]

ood morning

I have suffered with OCD in a variety of forms since I was around 14. It started of with the typical checking doors/lights were off to remembering specific things that were said to general obsessing over a variety of areas. To unwind I love to play the game football manager but OCD has managed to get it self embedded in here so badly that one of my key hobbies is no longer enjoyable in the same way it once was. I was just wondering if anyone has experienced similar or had any advice? Any imput very gratefully recieved.

There are a number of areas the OCD has managed to infiltrate and have an impact including:

1) Loading a new game requires a huge amount of checking to make sure all the little details are accurate - I also take photos of each screen to make sure and refer back to. If it is not loaded correclty or a button is clicked in the wrong way I have to stop and restart the process all over again. This can possibly last for hours - and has gone on for days.

2) I cannot load a game with a team where the number 13 is invloved in any format - ie they finished 13th last year/13000 season ticket holders/13 years since a trophy as this would be bad lukc and could lead to some form of unspecified doom outside of the game.

3) Choosing a team to manage is an almost imposible task as the OCD links some form of bad luck or possible catastrophy to nearly any reason it so chooses - could be negative things that have happened managing that team outside of the game in the past/the sponsor of that team being linked to something that could be negative - ie finance linked to bankruptcy and that is an omen for me - or if the sponsor is a broadband company this is negative and I worked for one and had a bad experience and this could be triggered with my current role.

I am off work this week using some annual leave and had wanted to start an new game but the OCD will not let me and feels like such a wasted day. Today is the anniversary of one of my wifes friends passing away and the OCD wont let m eload it today as it would always be the game that was loaded on the anniversary of her best friend passing.

Thank you so much to anyone who made it to the end of my rambling and any imput very happily recieved.

Take care all, Luke

[TomFed]

My advice is you should try playing the game without doing any compulsions. If it you can't, maybe better stay of that thing altogether (but then it might be avoidance, so not sure if it's proper). One way or another, you're wasting your precious time on this earth on OCDing. Better find a way to spend all that time on connecting with people around you (family, kids, friends) or at least find some healthy hobby that you could be obsessing about