Is This Normal or OCD Related?

[Guest wyrd]

When most people are writing a letter, or message of any description, I'm sure it's quite normal to read through it once before printing or sending it, just to make sure everything's right and there are no mistakes etc.

 

Whenever I write a letter or message (even this post I'm making right now), I'm very rarely satisfied that it's ok after reading through it just the once. So I read through it again a few more times, just in case I missed something the previous times I read it. The number of times I'll read something varies, but it's never any more than about 5 or 6, so it's not exactly taking a huge amount of time for me to do. Also, if I get interupted part way through, I'll have to start reading the whole thing again from the beginning.

 

I think I've always just assumed this was normal, and never wondered about it until I had to write a short letter as part of my job, and a couple of the people I work with kept making comments (joking) about me taking such a long time to do it. So that made me realise I probably do take longer than most to write letters, once I thought about it, and I wondered why. It's obvious now that it's because I keep proof reading them over and over again. But maybe I'm just being extra careful not to make mistakes.

 

I don't know if I've thought about this so much that I've now blown it completely out of proportion, and I'm just slightly more careful than average with this kind of thing, nothing more than that. Or whether this is just another OCD thing?

 

Sorry for going on and on about this, I know I think far too much!

[Energetic]

Hi..

I used to do the same kind of thing.. I would be reading stories from a book, and If I skipped one word, I would go back to the beginning of the sentence and reread it to include that word.. I felt very tired and sleepy when I would be reading aloud to them.. But my obsession always won the best of me..

[tictoc]

My colleagues also rib me about taking characteristically (but still relatively) "long" to do writing/editing, and although it is one of my main 'hats' at work, it is not the only one, so they give me some grace, but I've noticed that it's the schedule that's usually goading them on. Phht! I urge you not to fall prey to self-deprecation because of the schedule, or needlessly sacrificing quality for the sake of being "normal" (ie mediocre). I can see that your writing is very well measured. For the most part, I think: so what if you're a tad OC about excellent writing! Why not take somewhat longer to do excellent work? However, for the purpose of your own mental health, it might help if you could find a workplace that placed a higher value on excellence than expedience.