Hi Everyone.  I suppose I should introduce myself better.  As you can guess from my username, I am a washer.  I have done many more of the "types" of OCD, but washing is the majority.  As I type my hands are pretty sore.  But I get on. 

I suppose my earliest OCD memories would be when I was around the age of 3.  I would wash these Nativity stauettes of Mary and Joseph.   The first time I did it, they really were dirty.  I felt great about cleaning them.  So great that in fact I would keep doing it.  I remember not being tall enough to reach the sink without pulling up a stool.  I would stand there for hours, so I'm told, washing Mary and Josephh.  Oftewn to be ousted by some adult who needed to actually use the restroom.  People didn't know that it could've been OCD, they thought it was cute little kid quirk. 

I don't really remember OCD interferring much in my life until I was in my early teens.   I caught a cold with a sinus infection.  It really scared me.  I kept asking my Mom when I would get better, or if I was seriously damamged from having this cold.  I didn't know why she would get so upset with me for asking 100s of times.  Well, I eventually get well, but the fears didn't leave.  I didn't want to get sick again that was for sure, so I was really careful about washing.  Too careful.   And  I would flake out in public were anyone to cough or sneeze.  Habits that still bother me to this day. 

I've done "other" OCD habits,  I've checked, counted, I have words I don't like, thoughts I don't like, and colors, and numbers, that I don't like.  Almost all of those come with some sort of ritual to make myself feel better.  About the strangest thing that my OCD has made me do is to eat a whole can of canned corn.  I had eaten earlier at a restaurant, and as I was eating corn, I had a bad thought.  I had no more corn on my plate , that I could eat while thinking a "Good thought" to undo the "Bad thought" that I'd had.   So I had to "undo" it when I got home. 

That's all for now………