That's quite a journey! What's your thought process if you couldn't get a watch? What's the smothering feeling about?

Thank you for sharing! I think the same thing happens for a lot of folks who have it, where you may get "but you're not neat at all!" Or,"you don't wash your hands until they become red" as a sign that you don't have it. It can happen differently for different folks.

I think it would depend if you were using it to try to mitigate an intrusive thought that's unwanted or harmful and maybe you keep doing it even if you don't want to or wish that you wouldn't. I wouldn't necessarily classify as OCD but I'm not an expert! But I think those are some of the factors involved that might take it from having a passion and thinking about something a lot, to a disorder level experience.

Hmm. I wouldn't say so, only because no one is really trying to stop or shame me for buying more. It's actually the other way around, that the watches have become a vehicle for it. Perhaps if someone was shaming me for buying them, and I said "oh no it's because of OCD" I can sort of see that? But that's not the case, here, and mostly just trying to see what others are experiencing. Curious why you would think that someone is using OCD as an excuse, though. Care to expand?

True about the terms, but I guess I wouldn't agree that we "just all suffer from liking shiny...." stuff. As an example, if someone were to prevent me from buying a watch, it's not that I would just get frustrated that I can't get what I want but that "without that watch, I can't move on and I can't have a life that I want" and there's an anxiety there, even if you know that rationally it's not the case. So, I guess I'm trying to see that line between liking shiny stuff and someone who has OCD and is "caught" in the watch realm.

Agreed! It's a misunderstood condition and I wanted to separate the ways the terms are used as much as possible. I haven't been diagnosed, but I had a therapist say I had "OC tendancies" but that it hasn't reached disorder level, yet. BUT, it would be interesting to me to tally up the money and time that I have spent or that others have spent that they would have rather been doing something else and also asking "what happens/what do you feel if you DON'T get this watch?"

How so? Only if you want to share.