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My OCD Prevents Me From Giving ‘Likes’ To Great Content

It gets along wonderfully with Medium’s clapping system though

Sarah McManus MSc
4 min readJul 3, 2021
Photo by Jennefer Zacarias on Unsplash

I turned 33 years old this week, and my God, that is the worst age I could be. Everyone has their own favorite numbers, lucky numbers, and maybe even numbers they dislike. They may relate to something else that makes them feel this way, or it could be about the way they look. For me, it is as irrational as can be — my OCD thrives on numbers and always has.

When I was younger, no matter what the ritual was, numbers always found their way into it. Whether it was saying a specific phrase every day to prevent people from dying, or which foot I stepped with first, the most important factor was counting those things. Once I picked up a ritual like saying a sentence to myself to ensure tragedy could be avoided, it became vital that I said it 5 times, 10, 15, 20, times.

Confusingly, some numbers could be both good and bad, depending on the context in which they appeared. Three isn’t always negative, (though this double three I have to spend the next year with certainly feels it). For example, accidentally looking at a passing car twice was bad luck, looking a third time would make up for it. Touching the door handle three times before I left the house would bring disaster, adding one more touch to make it…

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Sarah McManus MSc
Sarah McManus MSc

Written by Sarah McManus MSc

Sarah is a UK-based writer with an MSc in Psychology. She writes about mental health & Neurodiversity. She is also the Owner and Editor of The Blade & Beyond.

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