Do I have...OCD?

Hello.

I've completed school last year (july 2010) and I've been unemployed ever since. Living the 'easy life'. The first few months, I mostly played some vidya, watched some movies and went to parties with friends. I kept telling myself I'd get a job 'later'

All was good until mid-january. I sold my old computer and bought a new one with it. It took a week to arrive and I don't have anything besides the computer. I spent most of the days watching television (and helping out my parents/brother with stuff). One day I was watching a movie on television and I was browsing the audio setup when I dropped the remote and the old audio settings got erased. I picked up the remote and changed the settings to "standard". This is where things started to get 'weird'. Ever since changing the settings, my audio sounds 'different'. Different to the point where it irritates me when watching television. I don't understand why. (since I'm pretty sure it was on standard before too). I've tried every other option too but they all irritate me.

When my pc finally arrived 1-2 days later, I wasn't happy. I'm usually happy upon seeing all kinds of new hardware...but I wasn't then. (I felt...depressed because of the sound issue). I tried to forget about it, but a few days later I started getting irritated by the sound of the television downstairs too (the one my parents use). It's like I'm starting to hear "bad sounds" while listening to tv on purpose. Note: it's not all the time though, but only on certain parts of the sound. It's gotten so bad that I ran upstairs during one movie and I had to cry...I felt like I'm going crazy. I started to eat less, sleep less (go to bed at 1-2am and wake up at 8am) and feel bad.

I finally decided to go to a doctor and tell him about the situation. I told him the televisions sounds weird and he found some fluid in my ears so he gave me a nose spray. When I told him about the 'depressive' feelings, he told me to get a job and I'll feel better.

I felt a tad better and went home. Once I was home, I started feeling bad again though. Because I still got irritated when watching television. (same thing for radio sound or PC spealers). Somehow...I started to get irritated less two days later...it felt like it was gone and I was happy again. (I still heard the "bad sounds" but they bothered me less, figured the nose spray was working) This took about a week. After one week, I was browsing my computer at 23:25 when the thoughts returned. "Will I ever be able to enjoy television again without worrying about the sound?". I felt a really weird feeling on my shoulders....I knew the bad feelings returned. I shutdown my pc and went to bed. Hoping it would be gone the next day but it wasn't....It was back.

I went to my doctor after a few days and told him I still hear the television 'different' and that I still felt depressed. He told me to go see an ear specialist and to get a job to get rid of the depressive feelings. I'm pretty sure I didn't tell him it was the television thoughts that made me depressed. Maybe that was my mistake.

I had to wait ONE MONTH to meet the ear specialist. It was horrible. I felt depressed most of the time because I was pretty sure the sound problem was the cause. But at the same time, it also created a depression. So did the sound problem cause the depression? Or did I get some kind of sound OCD AND a depression? No idea.

In this period, it got worse because I also started getting irritated by moving my mouse. Yes, that sounds weird but it's like that. I had a steelseries WoW mouse (it never irritated me before, I got it in september 2010). but people online also said it wasn't a very good mouse. I guessed it was the mouse and bought a new mx518. Problem? This one also started to annoy me. It's hard to explain, but I feel tiny 'stutters' when moving it. (using a hard plastic mousepad, but I've been using that one for a very long time and it never irritated me before). Since I also got the sound problem, I linked it to that. Maybe I got an OCD or something? Oh well, it was just what I needed... another thing to irritate me. These things started getting so bad, that it wasn't the depression making me feel bad anymore. It was thinking about sound and mice movement 24/7. When I would leave the house for shopping or anything, I couldn't focus 100% on that...I kept thinking about the sound and mouse problem.

I survived though. (even when my head was filled with these thoughts, and suicide thoughts sometimes). Finally went to the ear specialist and he told me my right ear hears worse than my left ear. Thing is, I've always had my right ear work less good than my left ear. I'm also positive hearing the television worse isn't the problem. It's the fact I keep hearing "bad sounds". To make it worse, the specialist was on his computer...using his mouse. For some reason, I kept thinking 'why can he use his mouse without getting irritated, why I don't?". He gave me 3 medicines and my next appointment is 6 april. For some reason, I keep hoping this is related to the bad sound problem. (I had the flu one/two weeks before the sound problem appeared and it could of caused it. But then again, wouldn't it just made me hear less instead of hearing "bad sounds" and making me think of it 24/7?).

I'm almost at the end of my story. There is one thing that's bothering me besides these. Before this 'bad' period, I've been a tiny bit obsessed with stutters/framerate in video games. Not sure if it's related at all. I think that started around 2009/2010 (when I got into pc gaming). I played alot of WoW and the game would sometimes have a tiny delay or stutter (apparently it's normal since it's loading stuff) but it irritated me. Not sure why. I upgraded my pc a lot those days, just to get rid of the stutter. New SSD/gpu/cpu/;.. but it kept happening. I'm pretty sure it was game related but I just couldn't "accept" it. I would tweak and edit my config.wtf file or adjust my Windows7 all the time. Everytime I start the game, I would make sure every other program is closed. I even began to think my keyboard's "z" (which I use to move forward) had a delay or something...just because I couldn't "accept" the stutter/delay. It irritates me that much. I kept thinking I should upgrade my pc further, even while it was pretty high-end. (i5 760 4GB ram gtx275). I even got to the point where I kept changing drivers to see the difference. I even began to think it's the hardware's fault (my gpu/ram/hdd is broken). Same thing with the sound/mouse problem. "I should buy a new television/mouse" slips my mind, even while the television sound never bothered me before.

I bought the 3DS yesterday and pokémon yesterday. I was pretty sure I couldn't get irritated by it, because I couldn't have the "maybe I should upgrade it" thoughts with a 3DS. But when I started playing pokemon Black, I DID get slightly irritated just by moving around. No idea why. I never got irritated by a pokémon game before. It's like I think the game isn't playing "smooth" enough.

Whenever I see someone else use their computer mouse, or watch television...or just play vidya...I keep thinking "why can't I do those things without getting irritated/thinking about it? Why can't I just launch a game, play it, and forget about the rest? I used to be able to.."

I've been looking online for anything that sounds like this. So far, OCD/ADD/depression come to mind...but I've been to forums and I haven't found a single person like me (who gets irritated by television sound/mice movement/vidya stutters). I'm not sure what to do anymore.

And yes, I'm still trying to find a job. It will probably keep me occupied during the day (I hope) but I will still get irritated when I get home and I want to watch tv...or play vidya...or browse the internet using the mouse. (I'm currently using a laptop and the touchpad is annoying me too..)

Hey...

I'll admit that this could be related to OCD, but I think you'd have to outline more OCD traits in order to get a diagnosis of it. Simply being irritated by certain things isn't enough. We all become irritated by things, and some can be quite unusual. If you have OCD, then you might also be a very ordered/neat person, for example, and you might do everything by a schedule (and nothing is 'free' or ad-lib). Are you like any of these? Going to those doctors was never really tackling the issue because they were thinking something physical, when it seems that it's something mental. If you have ADD, then 'everything' would be difficult and/or mildly annoying to you, and not just certain things.

I don't know... perhaps you could say to your doctor that you believe this to be something mental, as opposed to physical.

Kevin

Well,..

- I always take a new glass when I drink anything. (My parents are sometimes annoyed by it because I use 5-6 glasses each day instead of the same glass).

-Whenever I want to play a videogame or movie on my computer, I close every single other program running in the background

-When my computer makes a noise, I always think the worst "Maybe it's broken". If my movies/games have even the slightest delay in frames, I always assume there's something wrong with my computer or myself (because most people don't notice it). I've been to my brother's place and his computer is waaaay slower but he doesn't get bothered by it.

-When I move my mouse around and feel even the slightest jitter/stutter, I get irritated too. I also start thinking "the mouse is broken" while that's impossible. I usually begin to change settings in Windows etc,.. but that only creates a placebo effect.

-Hearing "bad parts" while watching a television movie/program/series

That's about it.

I've had the first two for a very long time, but they never bothered me. I've had the thirth one for a year or two now, but it only got worse since a few months (since september I think). But I only really started to get depressed/annoyed when the sound problem arrived (and the mouse irritation)

Did you ever tell your doctor about everything, Celltra?