I used to be OCD. Between the ages of 10 and 15 my room was really tidy, and my toys and shoes were always lined up in immaculate rows (or something bad would happen). My mum fucking LOVED me. But it also meant I had to go to the toilet 3 times before bed, couldn’t share a sandwich with my dad, and had to count the words in every sentence before I said it. Luckily I grew out of it, and can now rest easy in my slobby bedroom, eating food off the floor. But when it was happening it was all a bit strange. If only they’d had the internet back then - I could have just completed one of those handy quizzes to diagnose myself.
WORDS: ELIZABETH SANKEY
Not wanting to be left out in the psychological cold - here at Platform we’ve done shit loads of research and created our own OCD quiz. Go ahead and find out if you’re mildly mental too!
Most people have a basic routine when they wake up, which of the following most closely resembles yours?
A. Roll out of bed, literally, the duvet stuck to your bum, then blindly search for a half empty can of Stella which you take a gulp from and swish round your cotton mouth. Teeth brushed and material ripped from arse, you’re ready to start the day!
B. I will answer this question as soon as I have washed my hands.
C. I used to have a set routine, then I broke it one morning and something terrible happened to my family. Now I just sit in the white room with Gerald, playing chequers and counting syllables.
D. No way do I have a routine! I live life for the moment, sometimes I don’t even get out of bed, I just strap it to my back and take it with me! Like a fucking snail!
Do you like to collect things?
A. Yeah, women. Haha. No. Not really. Not women. Women tell me I smell like shit and have stuff round my mouth. Women tell me I look like a drowned Elizabethan, like Anne Frank’s demented anaemic brother, like a skeletal panda dressed by Stevie Wonder. So no. I don’t collect women. I don’t collect anything.
B. I will answer this question as soon as I have washed my hands.
C. Yes. (That’s all I can say about that due to legal reasons).
D. I collect joy and peace! And sticky back issues of Viz.
Do you find yourself repeating actions for no apparent reason? This could be locking and re-locking a door, repeating sentences, repeatedly checking something after you know it is fine?
A. I cry repeatedly into an album full of photos of my dead dog. It includes a newspaper clipping from the day he died. The clipping isn’t actually anything to do with his death - it’s about a small blonde child in tartan shorts who won a spelling competition - but that’s not the point. It’s the memory that counts. It’s the symbol for my grief. Anyway, I repeat that. I repeat that action nightly.
B. I will answer this question as soon as I have washed my hands.
C. I guess the only pattern I repeat is the dull monotony of the paltry existence that is laughingly known as ‘my life’. It’s like Groundhog Day 2: The Institution Years, except without Andie McDowall’s corkscrew hair to lighten my hours. So I guess my life is just the repetition of a rodent pulled out of a cupboard in a tree. Day after day after day. (I’m the rodent in that analogy).
D. I repeat the action of not looking to repeat anything. You know that guy Danny Wallace – ‘Yes Man’? Well I was completely inspired by the film of that, and based my life on being exactly the same as Jim ‘Somebody Stop Me!’ Carrey. I LOVE Jim C, and I love saying yes to everything. But more than that I love having no sense of who I am, or why the hell I am living my life, other than for it to become some half-arsed anecdote down the pub! Yes man!
Which is more irritating to you?
A. Your pounding loneliness taking over once again as you struggle to keep your head above the pooling tragedy of your desperation. Oh and the flavour change of cheese strings. Cheese strings are the fucking best!
B. I will answer this question as soon as I have washed my hands.
C. The screaming from the bed next to you every night at 4.17am. Charles thinks he sees dead rabbits clawing the bloody walls and trying to eat his legs. He doesn’t – well apart from that one time, but Gerald was just winding him up.
D. Dullards with no zest for the crazy life! Chill out, join the mentalist brigade, and live for the wacky!
Have you worried about acting on an unwanted and senseless urge or impulse, such as physically harming a loved one, pushing a stranger in front of a bus, steering your car into oncoming traffic; inappropriate sexual contact; or poisoning dinner guests?
A. Define “inappropriate sexual contact”. Isn’t it only really bad if you film it? Because surely if you don’t film it then it “didn’t really happen”. Surely?
B. I will answer this question as soon as I have washed my hands
C. Well, now I do! But before ‘the accident’ I was very carefree.
D. I want to go on Come Dine With Me - then I would totally poison my guests! Yeah I would! One way to win isn’t it?! HahahaahahaHAHAHAHAH. (Kill me).
MOSTLY A
Woah Momma! What happened here eh? You’re clearly not OCD - how could you be you tardy waster - but you seem to have “issues”. How glamorous! Everyone loves a bit of mystery, especially if that mystery makes them emotionally unstable and therefore not ‘very good’ at ‘relationships’. Perhaps you should consider using that to your advantage. Give your face a scrub and start standing in the dark recess of bars, nursing a whisky and some sexy stubble (only males need the stubble - don’t go drawing it on) then wait for some insecure, “I can fix you type” to wonder over and pout with dewy eyes.
MOSTLY B
You’re absolutely fine.
MOSTLY C
Considering you already seem to be in some sort of rehabilitation, we’re slightly perturbed as to why you even bothered taking this quiz. Could it be that you weren’t serious in your wish to discover the truth about your mental state? Could it be - god forbid - that you actually saw this as some sort of time wasting/NOT REAL enterprise?? And weren’t looking to assess yourself AT ALL?! You make me sick.
MOSTLY D
You don’t have OCD. But you should try and develop it. If only to help you inch slightly closer to owning a personality. I mean, Danny Wallace? Are you fucking serious*
*(I have never actually read anything Danny Wallace has written - is it good?)