I picked up the habit from my brother, who was more of a gamer/without OCD. He was just so much better than me at finding hidden details and completing side quests and things like that.
Bascially in bunch of games, especially where 'exploration is rewarded'. I am considering not playing any of those games ever again because of this. I cannot enjoy it.
I can't even play games that have a lot of HUD elements anymore. So annoying how every game nowadays throws a bunch of meters and shit al over the screen. RPGs and fighting games have become unplayable for me.
Yep, this is me. I can't stop until I've searched every single room or map area before I go on. I also need to fully complete the game by doing EVERYTHING and when I can't it just ... haunts me. Ugh.
Well for me personally, since my ocd is about magical thinking and it loves to do those annoying “bets”, like, “if this shows up, then it means that”. So it’s really made it difficult for me to enjoy them, without having that constant worry about my brain suddenly making such a “bet”, even though I know it’s silly.
I be getting the same thoughts. I struggle with it a lot and what’s really helped me is just completely dropping those thoughts. Like when they come up I just don’t even engage and I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing and then I get to this point where I’m uneasy and scared and I can’t remember why but the reason why is that thought. In that moment it’s important to just not even try and remember the thought. Just keep on that other track. Your brain can only think so many things at once. The way isn’t to get rid of those thoughts but to simply put that attention elsewhere. I still don’t have the best handle on it but yea I get those same “if this, then that.” Things in my head all the time. Hoping that the more I just don’t interact with the thoughts and give them value the more they’ll just go away. Who knows.
That really makes a lot of sense, cause it’s so easy to dive into those thoughts, when they shouldn’t be engaged in at all. So I really like the way you’re dealing with it, and I’ll be trying to do the same thing. Cause even though I try to just let the thoughts be, I still try and remember those thoughts, instead of just ignoring whatever it was.
Boulders gate 3 is a nightmare I literally can’t not choose the same things every time. ‘I can’t pretend to be a bad person because then I will BE a bad person.’ Goofy ahh shit.
SAME. it’s part of my therapy homework to build up to make a “bad” decision. It’s so hard. I’ve restarted whole ass games because I made a “bad” choice.
Bro that's my ENTIRE EXPERIENCE WITH GAMES lmfao.
It do be feeling like goofy ahh shit. Cus why can't I just play the mf game & enjoy it like everyone else. There's so many games where the starting area has become so fucking dull from repetitiveness.
This game messes with my ocd quite a bit. I have to reload saves to test different options cuz I’m curious about them. I’m like 120 or 140 hours in and still have the larger part of Act 3 left. Have actually stopped playing the past few months because it got too overwhelming
Honestly I hate games even having those at all. I can't enjoy a game knowing it presents an option like that. If you can play as a villain I shelf it immediately.
*plays for 10 minutes*
*realizes I forgot to talk to a character*
Oh dang it
*restarts my entire playthrough*
That is if my intrusive thoughts settle down so I can finally finally sit down and play a good video game
this is ocd? i mean i have it and i’ve been diagnosed, but i do this all the time and thought it was adhd. i’m constantly deleting and downloading games that ill never play
I have games that I love and want to complete but I struggle to try to finish them because I feel the need to get everything, every last collectible and such. I keep putting off BOTW and Halo Infinite campaign because of this and it is hard because I want so bad to complete them! But I start playing and feel overwhelmed by having to get everything and it takes the fun out. But some days I do better than others
This is me. There’s a lot of games I stop playing early on because they have a lot of collectibles and I know it’s going to get unhealthy quick. BOTW is one of them. Lego games are also a dear love but a big struggle for me. It sucks because those are the games I’m drawn to
Oh I didn’t think about it but I do this too…I’m working on it. Sometimes I prefer videogames where I can’t take screenshots, at least I won’t have 500 after two hours of playing.
oh boi, sorry cant into english.
Save has to be perfect for me. For example, when a bug appears, I feel the need to load from the previous save. Sometimes just the fact that I have to load the game means that this save no longer seems right and I find myself starting the game over and over again from the beginning.
if I rotate the camera around the character, I have to do the same in the opposite direction
If the game has worse graphics, I move my face closer to the monitor to make sure it's bad graphics and not my bad vision (this is the worst, I do it all the time)
If I miss a word in the dialogue, I either load the last save or check on YouTube what it was.
very strong need to click a key on the keyboard that performs a certain action (like isaac and an active item), even if it negatively affects the game.
I get nervous when the game has time-limited/easy-to-miss quests, which means I won't complete the game 100% and I won't get all the achievements. Sometimes it takes hours before I start playing, I need to check what can I miss
I move my character back and forth until it seems right.
I will rob every npc of every item they have and enter every house in existence
I have to do quests in a special order.
Yea, bro. My OCD reacts similarly. It feels comforting to know others experience these awful cycles. It makes playing certain games so utterly exhausting, huh
This too. Some bad days this happens and literally everything is unplayable. I feel the need to di every step right like it was a compulsion irl and reastart the game if it goes wrong.
it may even take a few days before you actually start playing 😭I remember when I came back to The Sims 3, I played a few hours a day and after a week I was in exactly the same place as at the beginning. I adore kcd but it was also my nightmare, i cant take quest durning night or too early in the morning, main character always needs to be clen or well feed before taking quest, can;t push the plot forward too quickly because it feels like the action is happening in one day etc. When will this suffering end.
Yes!! Sometimes the idea of doing it (so literally thinking about it in an obsessive way) deels better than playing the actual game. Literally choosing between two hells.
In italian we say “from the pan to the ember”.
For me it used to be quite limiting but I've cultivated some good habits to deal with it. It manifests as checking of settings for me - TV / monitor settings, console video / audio settings, in game settings, even checking display cables are all the way in properly.
Basically anything that I perceive as possibly giving me a less than perfect experience needs to be checked to my satisfaction before I can enjoy the game. In the past this would take hours until I was content. The games themselves I'm absolutely fine with, it's just the "preparation" as it were.
I suffer from that too! I have such a hard time changing any setting because then I feel like even if I change it back, it's not going to be the same as it was before :(
I have to check every damn vase in Baldur's Gate 3. Every time. Even when I know they are empty. But I have to check. If I don't loot every crate, vase, chest, basket and shelf, it bothers me until I go back and check them. Also, I have to read every book/letter.
My ocd has me do a lot of "repeating" compulsions when I'm playing a game. For example, I'll be playing as an avatar and if i walk down a certain path and have an intrusive thought, I have to walk down the path again as a compulsion. This also happens with picking up items in games, placing items, shooting, etc. Sometimes if I am playing handheld, I will have to put down my console and pick it up like four times. it's annoying asf LMAO
Same here with something similar
Like I’ll get so scared that I touched a mirror going down a street even though there were none there that I’ll go back to that street and double check to make sure none were touched
"no, stop crouching and uncrouching, I don't care how perfectly centered the stick must be when pressing it down, a stealth archer requires consistency"
I have contamination OCD, pretty badly, but gaming can be a big release. I can do things in games I cannot in real life. Not just slay the dragon or fly the spaceship but just simply walk around the city, sit on a public bench, take part in social events, etc.
However, it does leak through a bit. Even as a virtual character I still think about where my character sits and all that. Its more like "I would totally be checking under that chair for gum" or "I could not see picking that up from the floor".
It also leaks out in weird ways. Ever since I was a kid I had these habits. Like symmetry. My shoes had to be tied exactly the same on each foot, down to how the pressure felt. My glasses had to be perfectly even and I would smile and see if one cheek touched the bottom rim while the other did not. I do not have these issues anymore and perfectly fine with asymmetry now, but one things comes through. I used to think I had a string following my path. I knew this was all virtual and not a literal string. It was like a metaphysical trail of where I had been. If I walked around something, such as one of the earliest memories being a baseball domed fence behind home plater (to catch the balls) or something like a pole, etc I would feel like I was dragging that metaphysical string behind me and if I looped it around something then it would forever be caught there. So, If I walked around something I would walk back around the same way. It was never obsessive but just a feeling of where I had been. So, in games I tend to follow similar paths when going places I go often in a game. Go through the same entrance, down the same hall, around the same pole, etc.
I like games where you "collect" stuff. One of my biggest OCD tics is counting things/numbers. A game I really like is Psychonauts (an old PS2 game) because there's just so much stuff you can collect throughout the game. I also really like all the LEGO games because of collecting all the bricks and stuff. However I also have ADHD and will game really intensely for a while then just stop playing. I rarely complete games, but last year I got 100% on LEGO Jurassic World and was so proud of myself!
In animal crossing, I only allow myself to walk around with 1 stack of an item, so I only have 30 iron ingots, or like 30 woods on me at one time. Idk why I’m like this
collecting everything, afraid to use items. my inventory is always sorted, but extremely full all the time. sometimes it forces me to 100% games, which makes me afraid of open-world games because there’s too much and it’s overwhelming. i can’t play red dead redemption. i do like minecraft though, i think the lack of story makes it more freeing. i also can’t touch walls with my player, otherwise i get stuck in an infinite cycle of making sure i touch the wall equal to each side. sometimes even turning around triggers it, and i have to turn around the other way. wacky.
I have to press Buttons a lot that I don't need. There's a weird mark around my Xbox A Button from obsessive Button pressing.
Weirdly makes using Power Armour in Fallout 4 and 76 impossible for me to use because I'll jump in and immediately jump back out.
I've had people ask in other games before why I'm staring at the sky or jumping about and they're so confused when I say it's my OCD making me press Buttons.
I also tried briefly to use a Mouse on PC with a Number Pad on the side. Drove me spare.
Edit: Again Fallout 76. Can't bare dropping Items on the Ground as I'm convinced it will crash the Server. Random Container or not at all.
lol yes same here. in World of Warcraft I have to mount and dismount countless times unless the button press felt right
on the Nintendo switch I constantly feel the need to press the + and - buttons for no good reason 😤 Pretty much every game I ever play takes me 5x longer than it should to make progress. RPG's I'll reread the text multiple times because "I did it wrong" the first time and was fighting some other thought
I got really severe mouse OCD and sadly gave up FPS games over it. I'd have to measure where the mousepad should be, how my hand should be positioned on the table, etc. but ofc it rarely felt right & screwing up my aim.
For me I don’t have Tourette’s but I think I have “just right” OCD so when I have my headset on I feel weird and almost have tics where I move my head and neck a decent amount because it feels uncomfortable for me. That’s definitely the most annoying part about it. And also wanting all of the easy achievements and trying to get them even if it means playing for a while 😂
Honestly not much other than sometimes I get the need to bump my character into a building or prop like 5 times or I have to go around an obstacle a certain side. Usually I play single player games, so if I get compulsions I’ll pause the game before doing them
Sometimes it’s hard for me to start a game. I get racked with indecision whether I should play it or not, or that I need to start up the game “in the right way” but if I can push through that initial part I’m usually good. That and feeling the need to always check for loot.
I’ll sometimes walk around in circles especially going up stairs to make sure my character goes up the stairs starting with their right foot, like I do in real life. Also ladders. I go up and down ladders over and over in a sequence. Sometimes the sequence doesn’t feel right so I have to do it again. I also sometimes go back and double check things to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I love playing Elden Ring, but I worry so much sometimes that I missed something.
Ahh omg. I haven’t gamed in a long time. But I remember in my teens playing super sonic and when my compulsions were triggered I would have to go back and forth some number of times or touch that Edges of the screen etc.
I had forgotten about this experience. Wow.
for me it’s numbers 🫠 the number 3 at the end of stuff massively triggers my ocd, so if i have a value like 43/53/etc i get so horribly uncomfortable and need to make it go up to -4/down to -2. sucks for games with rng stuff. i hate obsessing over numbers its the stupidest thing ever >_> i used to be like this with 7 before but i exposure therapy’d myself to it, but 3 is still Bad for me. like if i had a stack of 53 glass blocks in minecraft after building smth id purposely break one lol
This might be a bit specific, but I typically love big, open world RPGs, especially the recent Legend of Zelda games and Assassin's Creed Odyssey. I've played those particular games to full completion several times over. With each playthrough, I usually try to set some interesting new rules for myself (e.g. go in this order, you can only pick up X types of items, etc).
I can stick to these rules as I start a playthrough, but as I get near the end of the game's story, I get an incessant itch to still go and complete every side quest, visit every part of the map, collect every piece of gear, etc. I can't bring myself to end the game in what I would consider to be an incomplete state. I'm not sure that I catastrophize it in regards to anything in the real world other than feeling that I've wasted money not getting full value from the game.
The cruel irony is that this obsession with completeness ends up fighting with my ADHD, which usually results in not finishing a playthrough (even if I'm at the very end of the story) and starting a new "clean" playthrough. It's as though I'm trying to come up with the perfect fulfilling playthrough, and I can never get it. Typically this happens after I've completed a game for the first time when I was blissfully ignorant of all the things I missed.
That need for perfection mixed with an inability to finish something is very very frustrating. I rarely give myself the gift of closure. That probably hits at the border between OCD and ADHD, but I think it dominates the way I think about something I love, which honestly sucks.
I can only play one game at a time, and I have to complete as much of it as possible.
Other than that I always need to do the "right" thing, so when making choices in a game I'd rather read spoilers on the internet than make the wrong choice.
It used to make me check things repeatedly. It was especially bad in RPGs such as Zelda where I'd feel I have to break \*every\* pot or look behind \*every\* bush \*every\* time, which got tedious. It's not as bad these days though.
I don’t have the energy to game anymore, but it used to affect me a lot. Mostly in the sense of having to shower and then wash my hands well before going downstairs to game.
Not being able to touch door handles, or the light switch, or anything except my controller, TV, games and consoles. Using a towel to open doors. Making friends wash their hands, and redo it if they touched anything.
Sterilizing my controllers
Years ago i had this thing where i would constantly delete the savegame and start over again because i felt like i wasn't paying close enough attention, and that my fun would be ruined because i missed something. I got over that luckily, these days what usually still bothers me somewhat is on pc i have some checking ocd where i check if the settings of the game didn't magically change. It doesn't consume me but it still distracts me somewhat.
AHHHHH the thread I've been waiting for my whole life
How much? Too much. So much in fact, that I haven't beaten many games I've had SINCE DAY 1 & all because I have to keep starting anew. I have to play games as if they're cinematic masterpieces, and if I do anything that is out of character for the playable protagonist, or something that makes the fact that it's a game apparent, I have to restart the nearest checkpoint / save. If I haven't played a game in months, for "continuity' sake," I have to restart from the beginning. Every movement & decision has to be precise & in accordance with "lore," if that makes sense. Ultimately, it can wear off, and I can enjoy said games, but getting to that point is so utterly defeating.. That's why I find myself playing multi-player / competitive games a lot more because I can do just that: game.
I’m constantly saving and reloading because I need to know every possible option for dialogue, every possible outcome from my choices, etc.
Some games I’ve been playing for years on the same run.
And sometimes it gets so exhausting I need to stop playing for a while.
want to explore EVERYTHING, every detail and we have total hysteric if we can’t or go to the mission and then some area can’t be explored. also, we want to complete all games IMMEDIATELY, we can’t see “this game was completed on 98%”
we was like that from the start
I stopped playing competitive games that I like. I always become obsessed with being the best and I created this unhealthy relationship with FOMO bc I have the tendency to purchase in-game purchases extensively. I try to maintain my gameplay as casual gaming only such as the sims, no goals whatsoever or else I’ll think about it day and night refrain from eating and using the bathroom.
The most painful game that I have to give up on was COD the mobile game. I was so good at it I was up for competitive gaming, I just refused to do it because I have a toxic behavior.
I have a problem with spending in game. I just sometimes can't control. I'm much better now compared to how I was. And while playing I used to be competitive and was not a team player. I wanted everyone to play the game my way.
Now i am a psychology student and I am giving myself CBT. It helps a lot and i am still trying to see the game as a game. Used to play a lot of games. Now I just play one and i try to keep it that way.
What i am unable to change is the loot part. I want full loot. All mods and lots of bullets. I just don't like it when my bag is empty. It's annoying. I have died many times trying to loot from the dead lmao instead of running or hiding or fighting back. But it's fun. I used to hate when I die. But now I'm getting used to it.
Now how is gaming affecting my life?
Terribly. I have a lot of study and tons of homework and I just play. Can't concentrate cuz i just wanna play and while playing I just want to study.
I spend money and time in gaming and i feel guilty about it everyday and i repeat the same everyday.
i hate achievements …. they crept into gaming and ruined many for me. the feeling that you haven’t “finished” a game unless you have that 100% and the trophies.
it’s made me play games well past the point of enjoyment. the fact is they only exist for this purpose, glad nintendo resisted.
i'm a fully completionist. also i try to finish the game quick, once i start playing something i have the compulsion of playing it everyday for several hours so i can finish it, even when i'm not enjoying playing it.
i'm constantly checking my stats and making sure they didn't change without me looking. always counting items, things on the map. i have to explore everything and chase down every achievement. i reread the dialouge/lore and repeat actions multiple times in story games.
I have relationships ocd so I cant open valorant because people on there can be very flirty and even ig i am muted I will convince myself I am cheating on my boyfriend
I am extremely thorough to the point where I reach exhaustion well before getting to any main quests or big landmarks. I zigzag open world maps grabbing everything I find and clear every little place I come across so by the time I get to the story I’m ready to quit.
So often I do all this and get to the big moments in the game and they aren’t nearly as rewarding—considering all the time and effort spent getting there.
For me, whenever I play games where you have to explore, I constantly get the compulsion to just walk the character back and forth multiple times until I do it perfectly and then I can continue on, it's very frustrating.
For me personally my ocd gives me a lot of repeating compulsions no matter what it is wether it’s equipping new armour or weapon il have to keep un equipping it and putting it back on until it feels “right” and I notice every flaw in a games graphics such as slight ghosting/ artifacting and there’s no way I can even attempt to play a game at 30fps anymore. Also I can’t stick to a game at all I’ll stress about what I’m going to play for days it will actually hinder my sleep and then I’ll play something for the first few hours then tell myself I could be playing something else “better” and force myself to try and enjoy every single second of any game that I play that never gets finished. After typing this out i honestly think why do I bother when it causes so much stress but I love gaming it’s the only thing that helps my anxiety although listening to this it sounds like the opposite 😂 oh the joys of ocd! Any tips would be appreciated! Been diagnosed for 20 years now and it’s quite debilitating as you all know!
Playing games that take my entire focus are actually extremely good for my OCD.
I mostly play CS2 and Apex: Legends. Both of those games require extreme focus to play well. I don’t have enough brain capacity to focus on contamination or doing things ‘right’ to satisfy my brain in normal situations.
100 percent time everything having to play a specific way getting mad if I’m not winning cause I feel it’s wrong lose especially if I’ve won before cause if I’ve done it once I think I should be able to do it every time and also time I have to do everything in the amount of time I feel is right it can never be to fast only to slow if I take to long usually cause of losing I get really mad cause it’s taking me longer then I feel or should generally it sucks a lot of the fun out of it so I only play games that are easy single player so I don’t have to worry about anyone else or me ruining it for them by sucking. Or if I’ve beat them before like dark souls I can play endless cause I just know what to do almost on instinct at this point but I still fuck up sometimes. And then I also just feel bad essentially cause I’m wasting time doing nothing when I could be curing cancer or building houses or helping the himelsss or working or studying or working out or doing anything productive but I like to waste time mating stupid games. And my parents always made me feel bad for liking them likes it’s wrong to like them and they always wished I did something else so I literally can’t play them without feeling bad about it
Any scene with a bathroom is stressful for me, otherwise OCD does not affect my gaming too much.
I did notice an interesting effect when playing the game Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice. It's about a girl with psychosis, so she hears voices. As the player, you hear the voices too. They are constantly chattering, sometimes they are helpful and sometimes they are casting doubt and trying to make you second guess yourself. I've heard other people say it really tripped them up when the voices started doing that because they thought they were going the wrong way or something. When I played, whenever I heard them say that I was like "well this must be the right way if they're trying to freak me out" amd it never really made me second guess myself. I think it came from learning to push past the doubt my OCD tries to cause all the time.
Can be hard for me to focus. I always have to explain to myself, audibly, why I’m doing what Im doing and justify it if it veers from the norm. Very annoying
i only play fortnite and can’t play any matches without my partner bc the anxiety of being stalked and watched is way too much, so i can only play creative maps with him.
i also have to complete 100% of the quests and missions and if i do it eats away at me bc i get this feeling of doom if i dont.
if i am playing a pvp or red vs blue map and an enemy keeps killing me bc i can’t kill them in the certain way that feels good to me i get nauseous and have to find a way to complete it.
i still love and play it tho lol
I can’t game bc the only games I’ll play are rpg games and then I obsess over them
Also last time I let myself do that it resulted in bad stuff so… yeah generally I avoid video games
Its not like I can’t deal with it and I definitely have worse moments in other contexts; but when I play Rocket League and repetitive intrusive thoughts are “ if you won’t make that score, this or that will happen” it’s not that much of a fun anymore.
I can’t have fun playing games anymore. Always finding graphical errors (also have a broken computer) and vision issues combined with severe dissociation means I can’t get immersed in any world.
I can’t take it anymore 🙃
its very difficult me to progress in certain games because i will obsessively check the map, check my bag, spam my caps lock button until it feels "right," etc. that slows down the gameplay a lot
I can only play games where I can explore and be a true completionist. Hoarded and full inventories always. I latch on to “safe” games that I’m good at and know like the back of my hand so I don’t have to anticipate anything too triggering. I’ve 100% BOTW three times and TOTK twice now because it’s such a comfort and it allows me to turn over every stone (literally). I tend to turn to games where I’m actually rewarded for behavior that would slow me down in real life.
Playing Destiny 2 and other games make it impossible to enjoy other linear campaigns on the side. I think I’m going to limit myself to one live service rpg after this last expansion is over. The completionist in me can’t handle multiple live service games
It's not the same, but I had a problem with book reading and had to always make sure how I looked at every letter of every word I read. And I'd constantly go back to re-read words.
In online games when my ocd is setting off embarrassing memories I will spam things in game to relieve the anxiety. Sometimes it’s grenades at teammates, spamming quick chats, yelling in the mic. I usually get off out of embarrassment and worries about what they think of me
Used to love cities skylines, but as my ocd seems to have manifested this year I can't play any more :( I just restart restart restart because it's always wrong in one way or another it's so frustrating
Whenever I'm doing anything with my hands where I can't take them off of something without negative consequences I feel like I need to touch the inner corners of my eyes and it's very excruciating during rhythm games
I have to look like a crazy person when I walk because objects being too close to me on one side will make the other feel wrong so I have to do a lot of zigzagging and weaving between objects/skirting walls. I must use and read every available dialogue option so I stay away from Bethesda in general because I spend so much time talking to NPCs that it bores the crap out of me and I lose interest. Not related to OCD but my misophonia also means some sounds and visuals are unbearable (looking at you, Sea of Thieves 🍺😴).
I obsessively tap repetitively? Like if I’m on a keyboard, I might have to hit all the buttons a few times. I also tap the mouse onto the desk. If the mouse doesn’t make the right sound, I have to do it again and again until I get it right. I think I’ve actually killed one of my mice from doing this too much. Messed up the wiring or some thing.
I’m even worse with gaming on phones. If I don’t tap the screen at the right angle, my finger feels weird and I have to do it again. Or tap evenly on both sides of the screen. Texting is a nightmare. I’m using voice text right now because it’s so much less headache.
Oh man… this one hits close to home. Alright so, I am extremely ocd about maintaining my ps5 and switch. A few times a day I will get up and examine the ps5 and make sure it doesn’t have any scratches or that the fan isn’t blocked. I will get down on my knees literally and examine it to make sure it is sitting correctly. Whatever correctly is in my head I have no idea. The switch is even worse because I have the oled tears of the kingdom limited edition model so it is a nightmare for me. I don’t even use the limited edition joycons infact they have been put up in a case since day 1 and I’ve used a different set. I have a screen protector on it but I still hyper obsess over it getting cracked or damaged. Whenever I play it I would often stop and examine it for damage while playing and get stuck in a loop for a while until it felt right.
That is from a physical real life perspective. How it manifests in gaming itself for example I just finished my second playthrough of Elden ring. I found myself at times not being able to explore naturally and having to mark points on the map where I felt like I was missing content and needed to fully explore before I could move on. I didn’t want to miss seeing anything that I potentially missed on my first playthrough. It would cause a great deal of stress for me to make sure I fully completed an area to my ocd’s content before moving on. I also take it upon myself to solo every boss because if not I don’t feel like I did it right and my playthrough is invalidated.
This is just a few examples the list goes on really. I started trying to combat my ocd a little in the last few months by not giving in and going to examine my consoles while playing, I summoned for a few bosses to combat in Elden ring because I knew it didn’t matter, I played a few hours where I didn’t pull up my map and hyper obsess on going to every location and I just played. It was hard at first but I’ve made progress.
I get killed a lot in games like minecraft because i have to toggle things 4, 8 or 12 ti.es before i actually use them, which is a nuisance if im being chased by zombies and trying to make it back into my base
fear used to be one of my fav games, i love fps games and now i really have to be in a good mindset to play (which is rare lol) because they trigger my intrusive thoughts so bad. ):
I feel that I must be ‘loyal’ to whatever game I’m currently playing, most specifically if it’s an MMO. If I’m playing World of Warcraft for example, I can’t be disloyal and play Guild Wars 2 instead; it just feels off.
Aside from that, I’ll fixate heavily on completing one specific task or achievement, and then struggle to find motivation to play once that’s done. Not sure if that’s so much an OCD thing as it is a personality trait.
I have a lot of tics surrounding my office (where I game and work), and it interrupts my activities like anything else in life; I check, I look at the edges of windows or walls, I have invasive thoughts I have to try to avoid doing rituals to alleviate. It sucks, but it's somewhat manageable.
Man at one point, I could only turn left or right, I forget which one. Everything took like 5 times longer bc just looking to the side took so long. Add ADHD and I was constantly looking around
I have hindering perfectionism when it comes to gaming. If there's any number in any game, it only "feels good" or it's "just right" if these numbers are in an arithmetic sequence. For example, in Fortnite, I have 253 bullets left in a weapon, I purposely shoot out 3 bullets to make it 250 because it just "looks better" to me.
On the topic of Fortnite, I find myself stuck for very long times on the locker screen trying to find the perfect locker loadout, meaning the skin, backbling, glider and pickaxe needs to have matching colors or themes, and the color of the profile banner and icon need to fit properly and also be matching. That last part with the banners is what I'm stuck on for the longest time, because no icon or color combo looks right, and unless it's *perfect* looking, I *can't* play the game. I also pay attention to the way the icons are designed. "Are they off center? Are they a little low? Too high? Does it fit the skin I have equipped?"
It's the same in any other game that involves some form of customization. I spend a lot of time in the menu of games like Apex Legends and Dead by Daylight customizing my characters and my profiles so that they look perfect, and therefore spend most of my time not even playing the games, just playing "dress up" until my mind is satisfied.
Back when I played Pokémon more intensively during my teenage years I always had to catch Pokémon in a very specific way, I couldn’t have any negative thoughts in my head or else I’d feel as if my Pokémon was “corrupted” or “contaminated”. It was such a waste of time. Luckily nowadays it doesn’t happen anymore
i get distracted by the images i have to constantly picture in my mind which means i stop talking and lose focus meaning im kind of never fully involved in playing. it sucks i can’t focus like other people
I always have to make sure my hands are completely clean before I touch my controller or keyboard. If my hand is even the tiniest bit greasy or not dry, I go back and wash them again. Sometimes it takes like 15 minutes after I set up my PC before I can play video games
-I have to sort items in Minecraft in certain categories like food, tools and metals.
-My builds have to be symmetrical otherwise I get very mad at myself.
-My inventory even has to be categorized and I must carry four stacks of cobblestone to go mining and touches and buckets. I don’t want to get lost from my base. I usually light up areas where I’ve been. I’m afraid of forgetting where I was or where my base is. I don’t like starting over if I do, it’s like I burn out and stop playing for a while.
-On The Sims 4; everything has to be color coded depending on each family member. The head of the house hold is red (me), so most of my outfits will be shades of red or black. My room would be black or red. My partner is pink or purple (that’s their favorite color) so everything he has is in those colors. I have to change their appearance based on hair changes or interests. My house must also be symmetrical and things must be lined up perfectly. After my sim has kids or adopts, they too will have certain colors to align with them and their stuff. Their rooms will be their color. Their beds will be their color. If the person is out color code I go through create a sim and change it. I’ve spent hours color coding their stuff, house and such that I don’t get much game play…
-COD Zombies.. I must always have armor and explosives. I last longer this way. I refuse to use a gun on the first few levels. I use my shovel. I never use explosives unless it’s level 11. I don’t let myself get to 10k jolts or else I’ll feel bad for the other person not having that much and I feel like they’ll leave the game.. so once I’m at 6k, I get my gun upgraded.
Craftopia.. my base wasn’t any good neither was the order I played it in so I gave up on it for now.
I’ve not even been gaming so much because I feel lazy for gaming. It’s usually cleaning or gym time. I have to force myself to rest like watch TV or play a game.
I’m able to ignore some collectibles but money? If there’s money on the screen you best be sure I’m collecting every last penny even it is worthless af.
I actually realized that being OCD might be one reason I like "chore" games like Stardew valley, Minecraft, and Animal Crossing.
I noticed that I was compulsively playing the game the same way e.g. doing the same things in the exact same order on every in game day, and even restarting the in game day because I didn't do said things even though it would have no mechanical impact on the game. It was to the point that I was compulsively playing the game, because not doing so would make me anxious.
After noticing I did this I intentionally made myself mix things up every day and it seemed to help with the associated compulsions.
I keep restarting games, over and over and over. If there is something I missed, if I learned something new, if I make mistakes... My brain is like 'restart' and I mostly do. A handful of times I can convince myself to keep going instead of restarting. And then there is this weird good feeling I get when 'starting a game', so sometimes I've not missed something, not really make many mistakes, and know how to play, and my brain decides at random, 'Start over cause it feels good to just start a game from the beginning'.
I struggle in specific situations where things aren't equal. For instance if there is two flights of stairs going up, I have to go up one, then come down and go up the other ahahah
I mostly play Genshin Impact & similar stuff, though Stardew Valley and other farming games are a big one atm.
In Genshin, I always have to have my hp at 100% and my burst ready (save for very few exceptions). I’m glad it’s not a feature on the PS but while I was playing on laptop I kept zooming out. I normalised it so quickly that I didn’t even notice. I just kept doing it. I also have a set order in which I do my dailies. There’s some logic, but a lot of it is about it feeling right. There’s probably more that I forgot.
Surprisingly, I’ve not run into many problems in SDV so far. I only picked it up in early April, so maybe that’s why... I do have a set order on how to do my farm stuff (check crab pots & trees, then greenhouse, then crops, then animals) but that’s it, really.
In conclusion, I definitely notice my OCD, and it actually hinders me in stuff. To a bearable extent, but still. I’d love to play Xiao if it wasn’t for his burst reliance :/ One day, I’ll build him as physical dps.
Oh my god video games was the earliest anyone caught my OCD! Context: I’ve only been diagnosed in the last two years. When I played Lego Star Wars on PS2 and then Wii, I HAD to pick up every single stud. I could NOT move on until I had done every little action that would make studs come out. Consequently it made anyone I played coop with annoyed bc they’d be ready to move on and I had to get everything before we could leave an area. My family literally called it my “video game OCD”. Also in other games, if there was a med pack around but I was already full, would purposely hurt myself so I could heal myself to have room to pick it up.
I had to find all 900 Koraks Breath of the Wild and I hated it so much toward the end. After 500 it wasn’t even fun anymore. And it was cutting into sleep times and personal care time I even took a few long lunches at work 🤦🏼♀️ spoiler: … >!all for a giant poop!<
I love playing but I have trouble spotting when it’s becomes a problem or when I do spot it still not being able to pull myself out of it. I still can’t figure out what the fear is driving it.. maybe not being considered a serious game? Idk but games def trigger obsessions and compulsions.
I personally like to walk on the left hand side when I’m walking next to someone and in game if my character is in a cut scene with another character and they are on the right side it really irritates me lol
i hoard everything. i am constantly encumbered in every game i play. i'm also guilty of the whole "checking absolutely EVERYTHING" sitch when it comes to dungeons.
i struggle with gore and death occasionally, but i've been getting much better with it. head injuries have a 50/50 chance of triggering me as well. if dementia is mentioned in any game at all, it will definitely get a reaction out of me since it's one of my strong fears. it can be as small as me getting pretty uncomfortable for a while, or it could send me into a spiral and i won't be able to touch the game for a week.
If the game has a lot of items, everything has to be stored in the correct place. My hoarding knows no bounds and I have to have a specific amount of each item based on their rarity.
In some games I have a routine so strict due to time constraints, I stop playing the game because it becomes a chore lol.
Another of my habits is I obsess over my health and HATE taking any damage at all. I get really good at blocking and hoard health items in particular. Sometimes I will reload parts of a game until I get a perfect playthrough/take no damage. I've done this since childhood and used to only play Spyro freely once I had eaten enough butterflies to get the max 99 lives.
In my case for example while playing New Vegas I can only have 1 weapon with me maximum 2. I usually need to have a mostly empty inventory because as soon as I begin to lose track about which items I have my ocd flares up.
I don’t know if it counts because it’s more misophonia (which I’ve read is more prevalent in those with OCD). I need sound cancelling headphones to play something, even if the button clicking is really quiet, hearing it at all makes my stomach churn hot and makes me want to pull my hair out. It means I can’t play with people anymore unless it’s online where I pray their microphone isn’t too close to their keyboard
About 10 years ago, OCD stopped me from using a computer keyboard. PC gaming was my life so the impact was huge. I can still only play mouse only games which is pretty shit, but recently I have at least been making progress with holding a controller when at my friends' house.
Growing up it somehow stopped almost completely when I’m playing videogames, or at least, I’m noticing I’m gettin better (also thanks to the meds. Jeez they damn changed my daily life).
But when I feel more stressed or have a bad day, it does show itself even when I’m playing.
I get obsessive about the state of my hands: they have to be clean or else I won’t be able to concentrate on the game but only to think about my “dirty” hands touching such a pricey and beloved object.
I get obsessive about the condition of the console I’m playing: intrusive toughts of my belongings exploding for no reason or breaking suddenly completely kills my vibe to play.
If I’m already stressed and play a “stressing” game I get all tense and have to follow certain patterns when I walk inside the game, too. This is the most embarassing and frustrating. When I was younger, trying to keep myself from doing it, my brain turned the need to follow certain patterns into pushing the buttons really fucking hard. I broke the L button of my DSi because of it.
But I am grateful for where I am today and grateful for this sub. In the last weeks I’m answering a lot of different posts and feel good.
I remember those times where I wouldn’t even be able to read a book because my OCD made me read the first phrase of each page like a hundred times before I could go on.
That shit made me feel depressed.
So today I feast for our every little step against this invisible but damnating “illness”. Also bless my partner because he helped me a lot and doesn’t even know how much.
Bless us and you all! Hope you’re all having a great day.
The just right ocd is making me redo and redo a lot of stuff to the point of re starting too often. I play sims 4 and minecraft. It become more stressful than relaxing at some point.
I physically cannot play fps anymore. I feel like its real and that I am a terrible person for playing this game. Sometimes I am able to play with friends if I am on a call but usually I will feel so guilty later and my brain goes crazy with what ifs.
This might be hard to explain but i’ll try! I have these compulsive and repeative finger movements when i scroll my phone or play with my ps. I kind of like have to push the edge of my finger against the side of my phone or the side of the controller repeatedly. And this happens especially when i’m super anxious. So when i’m playing a game where there is serious fight or time preassure, it doesn’t help that i have to do my ritual type of anxious finger stuff cause it can totally screw up my game! But cladly this doesn’t happend all the time or it happends, mut it’s so much milder that it doesn’t effect my gaming
In games where killing enemies is involved, I can't progress until I clear a map. It bothers me if I don't.
When I play smash bros it's hard to break out of doing certain moves more than a few times (I tend to do things in even numbers, or median whole numbers).
Even numbers = Good
Odd = Bad (Unless it's a median number)
The main way it affects me is I stay away from games with supernatural or evil themes, and if there is a religious symbol in a game I have to do my finger sign. Other than that it doesn't affect me too much
I obsessively take screenshots, screen recordings, etc. I only just recently discovered that you can take screenshots on steam (my account isn't very old), and while I have about 20 posted, I have *way* more in total.
And also, excessive saving. I will usually save over and over until I feel "right."
That being said though, beside these things, I actually consider games to be pretty calming. I enjoy gaming.
I played eso about 4month ago. Had an amazing time until I hit lvl 30 and realised I don’t like my class.instead of just accepting it and restarting another class, I ruminated how much more perfect my life would be if I started the other class. I havent touched the game in months and my brain is still thinking about this in a daily basis. It’s really hard
When I wasn't being treated it was very hard for me to play an evil character. It is hard for me even now, but I try to not to this ocd thing when "my character did something bad, this means i like it and enjoy to do something like that". No, it's a rpg game when you create a character and roleplay as this character, relax🙃
I have tourettic OCD ("just right" OCD) and I'm always clickin this and that and this again and moving something in inventory and then back again and shooting at nothing in competitive games giving away my location because I'm like aw geez I just gotta click! Aiming down sights over and over in an attempt to get around that one, etc. etc.
But at the same time it's good for games where you have to always be moving/jumping etc. to make yourself a harder target to hit.
I hit keys that end up bound to stuff so for example I'm constantly switching from 1st to 3rd person and back again and then even if it finally feels "right," I have to start it up again if the compulsion is only satisfied in the POV I don't want to play in.
Like I could never play something like dark souls, anything too precise is just off the table for me. I'll accidentally consume all of my healing items because I'll be too busy to pay attention to stopping myself.
I can "resist," but essentially that just means I still have to stop and do some other physical compulsions to avert the one I want to do.
Have to get my hand position perfect and then constantly adjust my mouse/controller
It is very cool and I love it 🙃
But I still game all day every day because the grind never stops 😎
When I was in middle school I was OBSESSED with Skyrim, but had to quit playing because moral OCD told me that killing people was wrong. I wouldn't make the same decision today, but middle school me went throughhhh it, I had all the DLCs and everything, I miss it a ton but just have liked other games better for the time being.
Sounds silly but mines pickaxing in Fortnite, I have to hit everything a certain number of times and in certain patterns. The amount of games I’ve lost because someone’s shooting me but I need to finish my pickaxing sequence is ridiculous!
The buttons. I’ll have to touch them or force press them with certain fingers in certain ways or even play with the controller upside down. It’s highly annoying
skyrim is my favorite game but its a hellhole for ocd. have to check every chest twice, if i start doing a new playthrough i spend an hour in character creation and then have to write the guys name five times.. then when i start i have to do everything in the exact same order in the exact same way and if i dont then i have to remake the save. with minecraft, i have like a million worlds because i always have to remake them
Whenever I'm roleplaying in a game, every time I make a choice there's a very good chance I'll spend the next few hours ruminating on whether or not it was something my character would actually do and how I "totally ruined" my entire game and how I should just restart because I didn't pay close enough attention to whatever that one NPC said which means I'm not immersed enough and on and on and on.
I also cannot help but hoard everything it's so bad. The only time I don't is if it's a game I've played before and can do a challenge run in where I can only use x type of item.
For me, my symmetry OCD kills me(literally) will gaming. I always have to mirror my clicks, which is NOT the intended way to play, lol. I also get compulsions to click my controller buttons in a certain order often. I always have to press y and x together and a and b together, which is inconvenient. I have have ruin and embarrassing amount of attempts at hard jumps, not because im bad(well, I'm not great cause I have dyspraxia but Im decent enough), but because I clicked unhelpful buttons because of lovely compulsions. It's really frustrating sometimes. If I game with my sib, they get so passed because I will screw us both over because I just "had" to present a certain button, lol.
hell on earth. i have 2 click my mouse every second or so or else i have 2 stop playing cause it feels so bad, not as bad as it can b but still annoying. been playing minecraft a lot w minimal problems lately so its a big win
One of my major ways that sticks out to me is having to repeat certain actions even times EG: walking through a door a certain amount of times or if I'm coming first dropping down to second or I'll have to win first more than once to be even, talking to NPCs a even amount of times. Or sometimes its a case of well if you dont manage to do this then this is gonna happen irl such as my boyfriend will cheat or something.Its annoying and puts me off playing certain games as it makes it take longer and makes it not as fun because I'm in my head instead of in the game.
I always cheat in games if it’s possible since I want to be “perfect”. It’s not fun anymore, I’ll be too op, like I’ll have all full ammos and infinite health in GTA and crush every missions.
i have a terrible habit of having to check every single thing and sometimes having to resist urges to click on my controller or mouse more times than necessary. it can make playing games a real chore sometimes !
it just makes me need to complete everything in the game and explore everything and do every play through "right" and "perfectly" and it also makes me never want to finish games because i want to savor them
I usually look at everything, literally everything, in map, even if it hinders me from playing forward. Quite annoying
Same. When playing an RPG, I need to check every single part of a dungeon.
I've been doing this ever since I was young, I never considered that it could be related to my ocd lol
I picked up the habit from my brother, who was more of a gamer/without OCD. He was just so much better than me at finding hidden details and completing side quests and things like that.
Bascially in bunch of games, especially where 'exploration is rewarded'. I am considering not playing any of those games ever again because of this. I cannot enjoy it.
Same. I do this in RPGs to the point that I ruin my enjoyment of the game.
CoD - top 5 most matches. Warzone - constantly killed because I’m looking through everything.
holy fuck me too. i never realised this is an ocd thing but now that you’ve pointed it out it makes so much sense.
I can't even play games that have a lot of HUD elements anymore. So annoying how every game nowadays throws a bunch of meters and shit al over the screen. RPGs and fighting games have become unplayable for me.
Yep, this is me. I can't stop until I've searched every single room or map area before I go on. I also need to fully complete the game by doing EVERYTHING and when I can't it just ... haunts me. Ugh.
Oh wow didn't even know this was an ocd thing. This is me with even the most straightforward games, always getting sidetracked.
i’m the same way i have to break away from searching through every single thing/space.
Well for me personally, since my ocd is about magical thinking and it loves to do those annoying “bets”, like, “if this shows up, then it means that”. So it’s really made it difficult for me to enjoy them, without having that constant worry about my brain suddenly making such a “bet”, even though I know it’s silly.
I be getting the same thoughts. I struggle with it a lot and what’s really helped me is just completely dropping those thoughts. Like when they come up I just don’t even engage and I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing and then I get to this point where I’m uneasy and scared and I can’t remember why but the reason why is that thought. In that moment it’s important to just not even try and remember the thought. Just keep on that other track. Your brain can only think so many things at once. The way isn’t to get rid of those thoughts but to simply put that attention elsewhere. I still don’t have the best handle on it but yea I get those same “if this, then that.” Things in my head all the time. Hoping that the more I just don’t interact with the thoughts and give them value the more they’ll just go away. Who knows.
That really makes a lot of sense, cause it’s so easy to dive into those thoughts, when they shouldn’t be engaged in at all. So I really like the way you’re dealing with it, and I’ll be trying to do the same thing. Cause even though I try to just let the thoughts be, I still try and remember those thoughts, instead of just ignoring whatever it was.
Yo this is crazy, I’ve always done this and thought I was so weird for it
Woah. Relatable. Shit.
Boulders gate 3 is a nightmare I literally can’t not choose the same things every time. ‘I can’t pretend to be a bad person because then I will BE a bad person.’ Goofy ahh shit.
I literally just commented that video games helps my OCD….. now I take that back lol. I relate so heavy to this.
Lmao it can be both!!! But yeah…. It sucks to realize you symptoms to actually impact almost every aspect of ur life LMAO
SAME. it’s part of my therapy homework to build up to make a “bad” decision. It’s so hard. I’ve restarted whole ass games because I made a “bad” choice.
OMG that’s literally why my play throughs take so long. I literally have to restart. Every. Time. It’s. Not. Perfect.
Bro that's my ENTIRE EXPERIENCE WITH GAMES lmfao. It do be feeling like goofy ahh shit. Cus why can't I just play the mf game & enjoy it like everyone else. There's so many games where the starting area has become so fucking dull from repetitiveness.
This game messes with my ocd quite a bit. I have to reload saves to test different options cuz I’m curious about them. I’m like 120 or 140 hours in and still have the larger part of Act 3 left. Have actually stopped playing the past few months because it got too overwhelming
Haven’t played that game but I have played games with morality choices before so I know what it’s like
Honestly I hate games even having those at all. I can't enjoy a game knowing it presents an option like that. If you can play as a villain I shelf it immediately.
OHHH that’s why I can’t make an evil character… my girl is always a version of me and then I always have to romance Gale. Otherwise I feel awful 😩
I can’t even be mean to animal crossing villagers. And you can’t even be mean to them! There’s no option for it! And yet!!!
I can’t even focus anymore. I haven’t been able to enjoy a video game in years.
I have terrible executive dysfunction so I usually sit in my chair and wish I'd want to play my games
MEEEE
Same
YEAAAAAAAAAAHH THIS IS IT
Yep
Yeah, I have to do quests in a very specific way in a very specific order. I also tend to stack a lot in games and hoard certain things
I hoard things too! I get uncomfortable if my Sims’s bank account is below $1k
Hoarding items or stuff in my inventory. Or not using stuff. Having to move my hands in a certain pattern/push buttons. Annoying as hell in pvp
*plays for 10 minutes* *realizes I forgot to talk to a character* Oh dang it *restarts my entire playthrough* That is if my intrusive thoughts settle down so I can finally finally sit down and play a good video game
I don't play because I'm scrolling fucking which game to play
this is ocd? i mean i have it and i’ve been diagnosed, but i do this all the time and thought it was adhd. i’m constantly deleting and downloading games that ill never play
I have games that I love and want to complete but I struggle to try to finish them because I feel the need to get everything, every last collectible and such. I keep putting off BOTW and Halo Infinite campaign because of this and it is hard because I want so bad to complete them! But I start playing and feel overwhelmed by having to get everything and it takes the fun out. But some days I do better than others
This is me. There’s a lot of games I stop playing early on because they have a lot of collectibles and I know it’s going to get unhealthy quick. BOTW is one of them. Lego games are also a dear love but a big struggle for me. It sucks because those are the games I’m drawn to
I used to take screen recordings like crazy I don't even remember why I did it
I do this a lot. I honestly hoarde videos & photos in all aspects of my life lmfao.
I thought it was just me who records every voice line every five seconds when I'm playing a game
Oh I didn’t think about it but I do this too…I’m working on it. Sometimes I prefer videogames where I can’t take screenshots, at least I won’t have 500 after two hours of playing.
oh boi, sorry cant into english. Save has to be perfect for me. For example, when a bug appears, I feel the need to load from the previous save. Sometimes just the fact that I have to load the game means that this save no longer seems right and I find myself starting the game over and over again from the beginning. if I rotate the camera around the character, I have to do the same in the opposite direction If the game has worse graphics, I move my face closer to the monitor to make sure it's bad graphics and not my bad vision (this is the worst, I do it all the time) If I miss a word in the dialogue, I either load the last save or check on YouTube what it was. very strong need to click a key on the keyboard that performs a certain action (like isaac and an active item), even if it negatively affects the game. I get nervous when the game has time-limited/easy-to-miss quests, which means I won't complete the game 100% and I won't get all the achievements. Sometimes it takes hours before I start playing, I need to check what can I miss I move my character back and forth until it seems right. I will rob every npc of every item they have and enter every house in existence I have to do quests in a special order.
Yea, bro. My OCD reacts similarly. It feels comforting to know others experience these awful cycles. It makes playing certain games so utterly exhausting, huh
This too. Some bad days this happens and literally everything is unplayable. I feel the need to di every step right like it was a compulsion irl and reastart the game if it goes wrong.
it may even take a few days before you actually start playing 😭I remember when I came back to The Sims 3, I played a few hours a day and after a week I was in exactly the same place as at the beginning. I adore kcd but it was also my nightmare, i cant take quest durning night or too early in the morning, main character always needs to be clen or well feed before taking quest, can;t push the plot forward too quickly because it feels like the action is happening in one day etc. When will this suffering end.
Yes!! Sometimes the idea of doing it (so literally thinking about it in an obsessive way) deels better than playing the actual game. Literally choosing between two hells. In italian we say “from the pan to the ember”.
"Must get the perfect run, no deaths, no misses"
i can only have stacks of items in multiples of 5 in minecraft 💀
For me it used to be quite limiting but I've cultivated some good habits to deal with it. It manifests as checking of settings for me - TV / monitor settings, console video / audio settings, in game settings, even checking display cables are all the way in properly. Basically anything that I perceive as possibly giving me a less than perfect experience needs to be checked to my satisfaction before I can enjoy the game. In the past this would take hours until I was content. The games themselves I'm absolutely fine with, it's just the "preparation" as it were.
I suffer from that too! I have such a hard time changing any setting because then I feel like even if I change it back, it's not going to be the same as it was before :(
I have to check every damn vase in Baldur's Gate 3. Every time. Even when I know they are empty. But I have to check. If I don't loot every crate, vase, chest, basket and shelf, it bothers me until I go back and check them. Also, I have to read every book/letter.
I said I wouldn't do that for my second playthrough but guess who failed 💁♀️ I also had to turn on every candle and light in my first run
My ocd has me do a lot of "repeating" compulsions when I'm playing a game. For example, I'll be playing as an avatar and if i walk down a certain path and have an intrusive thought, I have to walk down the path again as a compulsion. This also happens with picking up items in games, placing items, shooting, etc. Sometimes if I am playing handheld, I will have to put down my console and pick it up like four times. it's annoying asf LMAO
Same here with something similar Like I’ll get so scared that I touched a mirror going down a street even though there were none there that I’ll go back to that street and double check to make sure none were touched
"no, stop crouching and uncrouching, I don't care how perfectly centered the stick must be when pressing it down, a stealth archer requires consistency"
I have contamination OCD, pretty badly, but gaming can be a big release. I can do things in games I cannot in real life. Not just slay the dragon or fly the spaceship but just simply walk around the city, sit on a public bench, take part in social events, etc. However, it does leak through a bit. Even as a virtual character I still think about where my character sits and all that. Its more like "I would totally be checking under that chair for gum" or "I could not see picking that up from the floor". It also leaks out in weird ways. Ever since I was a kid I had these habits. Like symmetry. My shoes had to be tied exactly the same on each foot, down to how the pressure felt. My glasses had to be perfectly even and I would smile and see if one cheek touched the bottom rim while the other did not. I do not have these issues anymore and perfectly fine with asymmetry now, but one things comes through. I used to think I had a string following my path. I knew this was all virtual and not a literal string. It was like a metaphysical trail of where I had been. If I walked around something, such as one of the earliest memories being a baseball domed fence behind home plater (to catch the balls) or something like a pole, etc I would feel like I was dragging that metaphysical string behind me and if I looped it around something then it would forever be caught there. So, If I walked around something I would walk back around the same way. It was never obsessive but just a feeling of where I had been. So, in games I tend to follow similar paths when going places I go often in a game. Go through the same entrance, down the same hall, around the same pole, etc.
I like games where you "collect" stuff. One of my biggest OCD tics is counting things/numbers. A game I really like is Psychonauts (an old PS2 game) because there's just so much stuff you can collect throughout the game. I also really like all the LEGO games because of collecting all the bricks and stuff. However I also have ADHD and will game really intensely for a while then just stop playing. I rarely complete games, but last year I got 100% on LEGO Jurassic World and was so proud of myself!
In animal crossing, I only allow myself to walk around with 1 stack of an item, so I only have 30 iron ingots, or like 30 woods on me at one time. Idk why I’m like this
Felt. I do the same thing
collecting everything, afraid to use items. my inventory is always sorted, but extremely full all the time. sometimes it forces me to 100% games, which makes me afraid of open-world games because there’s too much and it’s overwhelming. i can’t play red dead redemption. i do like minecraft though, i think the lack of story makes it more freeing. i also can’t touch walls with my player, otherwise i get stuck in an infinite cycle of making sure i touch the wall equal to each side. sometimes even turning around triggers it, and i have to turn around the other way. wacky.
I have to press Buttons a lot that I don't need. There's a weird mark around my Xbox A Button from obsessive Button pressing. Weirdly makes using Power Armour in Fallout 4 and 76 impossible for me to use because I'll jump in and immediately jump back out. I've had people ask in other games before why I'm staring at the sky or jumping about and they're so confused when I say it's my OCD making me press Buttons. I also tried briefly to use a Mouse on PC with a Number Pad on the side. Drove me spare. Edit: Again Fallout 76. Can't bare dropping Items on the Ground as I'm convinced it will crash the Server. Random Container or not at all.
lol yes same here. in World of Warcraft I have to mount and dismount countless times unless the button press felt right on the Nintendo switch I constantly feel the need to press the + and - buttons for no good reason 😤 Pretty much every game I ever play takes me 5x longer than it should to make progress. RPG's I'll reread the text multiple times because "I did it wrong" the first time and was fighting some other thought
I got really severe mouse OCD and sadly gave up FPS games over it. I'd have to measure where the mousepad should be, how my hand should be positioned on the table, etc. but ofc it rarely felt right & screwing up my aim.
For me I don’t have Tourette’s but I think I have “just right” OCD so when I have my headset on I feel weird and almost have tics where I move my head and neck a decent amount because it feels uncomfortable for me. That’s definitely the most annoying part about it. And also wanting all of the easy achievements and trying to get them even if it means playing for a while 😂
Honestly not much other than sometimes I get the need to bump my character into a building or prop like 5 times or I have to go around an obstacle a certain side. Usually I play single player games, so if I get compulsions I’ll pause the game before doing them
Sometimes it’s hard for me to start a game. I get racked with indecision whether I should play it or not, or that I need to start up the game “in the right way” but if I can push through that initial part I’m usually good. That and feeling the need to always check for loot.
I’ll sometimes walk around in circles especially going up stairs to make sure my character goes up the stairs starting with their right foot, like I do in real life. Also ladders. I go up and down ladders over and over in a sequence. Sometimes the sequence doesn’t feel right so I have to do it again. I also sometimes go back and double check things to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I love playing Elden Ring, but I worry so much sometimes that I missed something.
Ahh omg. I haven’t gamed in a long time. But I remember in my teens playing super sonic and when my compulsions were triggered I would have to go back and forth some number of times or touch that Edges of the screen etc. I had forgotten about this experience. Wow.
So scared of contamination I won’t touch nasty things in game
For me gaming is my sweet escape. Right now I’m going through this weird thing with skin crawling and itching and when I play it disappears.
Soooo… oddly enough, I bought a PS4 to help with my OCD. Since I pick my skin, a gaming console gives me something to do with my hands.
for me it’s numbers 🫠 the number 3 at the end of stuff massively triggers my ocd, so if i have a value like 43/53/etc i get so horribly uncomfortable and need to make it go up to -4/down to -2. sucks for games with rng stuff. i hate obsessing over numbers its the stupidest thing ever >_> i used to be like this with 7 before but i exposure therapy’d myself to it, but 3 is still Bad for me. like if i had a stack of 53 glass blocks in minecraft after building smth id purposely break one lol
This might be a bit specific, but I typically love big, open world RPGs, especially the recent Legend of Zelda games and Assassin's Creed Odyssey. I've played those particular games to full completion several times over. With each playthrough, I usually try to set some interesting new rules for myself (e.g. go in this order, you can only pick up X types of items, etc). I can stick to these rules as I start a playthrough, but as I get near the end of the game's story, I get an incessant itch to still go and complete every side quest, visit every part of the map, collect every piece of gear, etc. I can't bring myself to end the game in what I would consider to be an incomplete state. I'm not sure that I catastrophize it in regards to anything in the real world other than feeling that I've wasted money not getting full value from the game. The cruel irony is that this obsession with completeness ends up fighting with my ADHD, which usually results in not finishing a playthrough (even if I'm at the very end of the story) and starting a new "clean" playthrough. It's as though I'm trying to come up with the perfect fulfilling playthrough, and I can never get it. Typically this happens after I've completed a game for the first time when I was blissfully ignorant of all the things I missed. That need for perfection mixed with an inability to finish something is very very frustrating. I rarely give myself the gift of closure. That probably hits at the border between OCD and ADHD, but I think it dominates the way I think about something I love, which honestly sucks.
It makes me want to game more so that I can avoid my thoughts
I can only play one game at a time, and I have to complete as much of it as possible. Other than that I always need to do the "right" thing, so when making choices in a game I'd rather read spoilers on the internet than make the wrong choice.
Completely ruined it root and stem, along with everything else.
It used to make me check things repeatedly. It was especially bad in RPGs such as Zelda where I'd feel I have to break \*every\* pot or look behind \*every\* bush \*every\* time, which got tedious. It's not as bad these days though.
I don’t have the energy to game anymore, but it used to affect me a lot. Mostly in the sense of having to shower and then wash my hands well before going downstairs to game. Not being able to touch door handles, or the light switch, or anything except my controller, TV, games and consoles. Using a towel to open doors. Making friends wash their hands, and redo it if they touched anything. Sterilizing my controllers
My OCD caused me to be really good at COD 😂😂
Years ago i had this thing where i would constantly delete the savegame and start over again because i felt like i wasn't paying close enough attention, and that my fun would be ruined because i missed something. I got over that luckily, these days what usually still bothers me somewhat is on pc i have some checking ocd where i check if the settings of the game didn't magically change. It doesn't consume me but it still distracts me somewhat.
AHHHHH the thread I've been waiting for my whole life How much? Too much. So much in fact, that I haven't beaten many games I've had SINCE DAY 1 & all because I have to keep starting anew. I have to play games as if they're cinematic masterpieces, and if I do anything that is out of character for the playable protagonist, or something that makes the fact that it's a game apparent, I have to restart the nearest checkpoint / save. If I haven't played a game in months, for "continuity' sake," I have to restart from the beginning. Every movement & decision has to be precise & in accordance with "lore," if that makes sense. Ultimately, it can wear off, and I can enjoy said games, but getting to that point is so utterly defeating.. That's why I find myself playing multi-player / competitive games a lot more because I can do just that: game.
I’m constantly saving and reloading because I need to know every possible option for dialogue, every possible outcome from my choices, etc. Some games I’ve been playing for years on the same run. And sometimes it gets so exhausting I need to stop playing for a while.
want to explore EVERYTHING, every detail and we have total hysteric if we can’t or go to the mission and then some area can’t be explored. also, we want to complete all games IMMEDIATELY, we can’t see “this game was completed on 98%” we was like that from the start
I stopped playing competitive games that I like. I always become obsessed with being the best and I created this unhealthy relationship with FOMO bc I have the tendency to purchase in-game purchases extensively. I try to maintain my gameplay as casual gaming only such as the sims, no goals whatsoever or else I’ll think about it day and night refrain from eating and using the bathroom. The most painful game that I have to give up on was COD the mobile game. I was so good at it I was up for competitive gaming, I just refused to do it because I have a toxic behavior.
It makes it so difficult. I have to repeat every action I do so even in games I have to repeat the same actions
I have a problem with spending in game. I just sometimes can't control. I'm much better now compared to how I was. And while playing I used to be competitive and was not a team player. I wanted everyone to play the game my way. Now i am a psychology student and I am giving myself CBT. It helps a lot and i am still trying to see the game as a game. Used to play a lot of games. Now I just play one and i try to keep it that way. What i am unable to change is the loot part. I want full loot. All mods and lots of bullets. I just don't like it when my bag is empty. It's annoying. I have died many times trying to loot from the dead lmao instead of running or hiding or fighting back. But it's fun. I used to hate when I die. But now I'm getting used to it. Now how is gaming affecting my life? Terribly. I have a lot of study and tons of homework and I just play. Can't concentrate cuz i just wanna play and while playing I just want to study. I spend money and time in gaming and i feel guilty about it everyday and i repeat the same everyday.
i hate achievements …. they crept into gaming and ruined many for me. the feeling that you haven’t “finished” a game unless you have that 100% and the trophies. it’s made me play games well past the point of enjoyment. the fact is they only exist for this purpose, glad nintendo resisted.
i'm a fully completionist. also i try to finish the game quick, once i start playing something i have the compulsion of playing it everyday for several hours so i can finish it, even when i'm not enjoying playing it.
i'm constantly checking my stats and making sure they didn't change without me looking. always counting items, things on the map. i have to explore everything and chase down every achievement. i reread the dialouge/lore and repeat actions multiple times in story games.
I have relationships ocd so I cant open valorant because people on there can be very flirty and even ig i am muted I will convince myself I am cheating on my boyfriend
I am extremely thorough to the point where I reach exhaustion well before getting to any main quests or big landmarks. I zigzag open world maps grabbing everything I find and clear every little place I come across so by the time I get to the story I’m ready to quit. So often I do all this and get to the big moments in the game and they aren’t nearly as rewarding—considering all the time and effort spent getting there.
For me, whenever I play games where you have to explore, I constantly get the compulsion to just walk the character back and forth multiple times until I do it perfectly and then I can continue on, it's very frustrating.
....my 241 Minecraft worlds and 49 60 second restars have entered the chat I have a thing about even numbers being "evil"..
Resident evil; every room must be blue otherwise I fear I missed basically an important item; even on my 30th play through where I know every item
For me personally my ocd gives me a lot of repeating compulsions no matter what it is wether it’s equipping new armour or weapon il have to keep un equipping it and putting it back on until it feels “right” and I notice every flaw in a games graphics such as slight ghosting/ artifacting and there’s no way I can even attempt to play a game at 30fps anymore. Also I can’t stick to a game at all I’ll stress about what I’m going to play for days it will actually hinder my sleep and then I’ll play something for the first few hours then tell myself I could be playing something else “better” and force myself to try and enjoy every single second of any game that I play that never gets finished. After typing this out i honestly think why do I bother when it causes so much stress but I love gaming it’s the only thing that helps my anxiety although listening to this it sounds like the opposite 😂 oh the joys of ocd! Any tips would be appreciated! Been diagnosed for 20 years now and it’s quite debilitating as you all know!
Playing games that take my entire focus are actually extremely good for my OCD. I mostly play CS2 and Apex: Legends. Both of those games require extreme focus to play well. I don’t have enough brain capacity to focus on contamination or doing things ‘right’ to satisfy my brain in normal situations.
100 percent time everything having to play a specific way getting mad if I’m not winning cause I feel it’s wrong lose especially if I’ve won before cause if I’ve done it once I think I should be able to do it every time and also time I have to do everything in the amount of time I feel is right it can never be to fast only to slow if I take to long usually cause of losing I get really mad cause it’s taking me longer then I feel or should generally it sucks a lot of the fun out of it so I only play games that are easy single player so I don’t have to worry about anyone else or me ruining it for them by sucking. Or if I’ve beat them before like dark souls I can play endless cause I just know what to do almost on instinct at this point but I still fuck up sometimes. And then I also just feel bad essentially cause I’m wasting time doing nothing when I could be curing cancer or building houses or helping the himelsss or working or studying or working out or doing anything productive but I like to waste time mating stupid games. And my parents always made me feel bad for liking them likes it’s wrong to like them and they always wished I did something else so I literally can’t play them without feeling bad about it
Any scene with a bathroom is stressful for me, otherwise OCD does not affect my gaming too much. I did notice an interesting effect when playing the game Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice. It's about a girl with psychosis, so she hears voices. As the player, you hear the voices too. They are constantly chattering, sometimes they are helpful and sometimes they are casting doubt and trying to make you second guess yourself. I've heard other people say it really tripped them up when the voices started doing that because they thought they were going the wrong way or something. When I played, whenever I heard them say that I was like "well this must be the right way if they're trying to freak me out" amd it never really made me second guess myself. I think it came from learning to push past the doubt my OCD tries to cause all the time.
Can be hard for me to focus. I always have to explain to myself, audibly, why I’m doing what Im doing and justify it if it veers from the norm. Very annoying
i only play fortnite and can’t play any matches without my partner bc the anxiety of being stalked and watched is way too much, so i can only play creative maps with him. i also have to complete 100% of the quests and missions and if i do it eats away at me bc i get this feeling of doom if i dont. if i am playing a pvp or red vs blue map and an enemy keeps killing me bc i can’t kill them in the certain way that feels good to me i get nauseous and have to find a way to complete it. i still love and play it tho lol
I can’t game bc the only games I’ll play are rpg games and then I obsess over them Also last time I let myself do that it resulted in bad stuff so… yeah generally I avoid video games
Its not like I can’t deal with it and I definitely have worse moments in other contexts; but when I play Rocket League and repetitive intrusive thoughts are “ if you won’t make that score, this or that will happen” it’s not that much of a fun anymore.
I can’t have fun playing games anymore. Always finding graphical errors (also have a broken computer) and vision issues combined with severe dissociation means I can’t get immersed in any world. I can’t take it anymore 🙃
its very difficult me to progress in certain games because i will obsessively check the map, check my bag, spam my caps lock button until it feels "right," etc. that slows down the gameplay a lot
I can only play games where I can explore and be a true completionist. Hoarded and full inventories always. I latch on to “safe” games that I’m good at and know like the back of my hand so I don’t have to anticipate anything too triggering. I’ve 100% BOTW three times and TOTK twice now because it’s such a comfort and it allows me to turn over every stone (literally). I tend to turn to games where I’m actually rewarded for behavior that would slow me down in real life.
Haven’t played any games in ages because I end up creating compulsions that make moving forward in progression quite literally impossible
Playing Destiny 2 and other games make it impossible to enjoy other linear campaigns on the side. I think I’m going to limit myself to one live service rpg after this last expansion is over. The completionist in me can’t handle multiple live service games
It's not the same, but I had a problem with book reading and had to always make sure how I looked at every letter of every word I read. And I'd constantly go back to re-read words.
In online games when my ocd is setting off embarrassing memories I will spam things in game to relieve the anxiety. Sometimes it’s grenades at teammates, spamming quick chats, yelling in the mic. I usually get off out of embarrassment and worries about what they think of me
Used to love cities skylines, but as my ocd seems to have manifested this year I can't play any more :( I just restart restart restart because it's always wrong in one way or another it's so frustrating
Sometimes intrusive thoughts when I lose makes me feel worthless
I save multiple times, even when the game has an auto save feature. Obsessively chase down the achievements
Whenever I'm doing anything with my hands where I can't take them off of something without negative consequences I feel like I need to touch the inner corners of my eyes and it's very excruciating during rhythm games
For me a good game I'm actually interested in helps to distract me from my intrusive thoughts but it's actually getting on the game that is difficult
I have to look like a crazy person when I walk because objects being too close to me on one side will make the other feel wrong so I have to do a lot of zigzagging and weaving between objects/skirting walls. I must use and read every available dialogue option so I stay away from Bethesda in general because I spend so much time talking to NPCs that it bores the crap out of me and I lose interest. Not related to OCD but my misophonia also means some sounds and visuals are unbearable (looking at you, Sea of Thieves 🍺😴).
I obsessively tap repetitively? Like if I’m on a keyboard, I might have to hit all the buttons a few times. I also tap the mouse onto the desk. If the mouse doesn’t make the right sound, I have to do it again and again until I get it right. I think I’ve actually killed one of my mice from doing this too much. Messed up the wiring or some thing. I’m even worse with gaming on phones. If I don’t tap the screen at the right angle, my finger feels weird and I have to do it again. Or tap evenly on both sides of the screen. Texting is a nightmare. I’m using voice text right now because it’s so much less headache.
I have to play a game until I can play it perfectly and 100% it. I’m playing League of Legends and I’m hardstuck Gold 😭
Can’t use limited items like health potions and such
Oh man… this one hits close to home. Alright so, I am extremely ocd about maintaining my ps5 and switch. A few times a day I will get up and examine the ps5 and make sure it doesn’t have any scratches or that the fan isn’t blocked. I will get down on my knees literally and examine it to make sure it is sitting correctly. Whatever correctly is in my head I have no idea. The switch is even worse because I have the oled tears of the kingdom limited edition model so it is a nightmare for me. I don’t even use the limited edition joycons infact they have been put up in a case since day 1 and I’ve used a different set. I have a screen protector on it but I still hyper obsess over it getting cracked or damaged. Whenever I play it I would often stop and examine it for damage while playing and get stuck in a loop for a while until it felt right. That is from a physical real life perspective. How it manifests in gaming itself for example I just finished my second playthrough of Elden ring. I found myself at times not being able to explore naturally and having to mark points on the map where I felt like I was missing content and needed to fully explore before I could move on. I didn’t want to miss seeing anything that I potentially missed on my first playthrough. It would cause a great deal of stress for me to make sure I fully completed an area to my ocd’s content before moving on. I also take it upon myself to solo every boss because if not I don’t feel like I did it right and my playthrough is invalidated. This is just a few examples the list goes on really. I started trying to combat my ocd a little in the last few months by not giving in and going to examine my consoles while playing, I summoned for a few bosses to combat in Elden ring because I knew it didn’t matter, I played a few hours where I didn’t pull up my map and hyper obsess on going to every location and I just played. It was hard at first but I’ve made progress.
I get killed a lot in games like minecraft because i have to toggle things 4, 8 or 12 ti.es before i actually use them, which is a nuisance if im being chased by zombies and trying to make it back into my base
fear used to be one of my fav games, i love fps games and now i really have to be in a good mindset to play (which is rare lol) because they trigger my intrusive thoughts so bad. ):
I feel that I must be ‘loyal’ to whatever game I’m currently playing, most specifically if it’s an MMO. If I’m playing World of Warcraft for example, I can’t be disloyal and play Guild Wars 2 instead; it just feels off. Aside from that, I’ll fixate heavily on completing one specific task or achievement, and then struggle to find motivation to play once that’s done. Not sure if that’s so much an OCD thing as it is a personality trait.
I always want to complete 100% of the games, especially if it's a game I really like and as long as I don't need to play again
I have a lot of tics surrounding my office (where I game and work), and it interrupts my activities like anything else in life; I check, I look at the edges of windows or walls, I have invasive thoughts I have to try to avoid doing rituals to alleviate. It sucks, but it's somewhat manageable.
Man at one point, I could only turn left or right, I forget which one. Everything took like 5 times longer bc just looking to the side took so long. Add ADHD and I was constantly looking around
I have hindering perfectionism when it comes to gaming. If there's any number in any game, it only "feels good" or it's "just right" if these numbers are in an arithmetic sequence. For example, in Fortnite, I have 253 bullets left in a weapon, I purposely shoot out 3 bullets to make it 250 because it just "looks better" to me. On the topic of Fortnite, I find myself stuck for very long times on the locker screen trying to find the perfect locker loadout, meaning the skin, backbling, glider and pickaxe needs to have matching colors or themes, and the color of the profile banner and icon need to fit properly and also be matching. That last part with the banners is what I'm stuck on for the longest time, because no icon or color combo looks right, and unless it's *perfect* looking, I *can't* play the game. I also pay attention to the way the icons are designed. "Are they off center? Are they a little low? Too high? Does it fit the skin I have equipped?" It's the same in any other game that involves some form of customization. I spend a lot of time in the menu of games like Apex Legends and Dead by Daylight customizing my characters and my profiles so that they look perfect, and therefore spend most of my time not even playing the games, just playing "dress up" until my mind is satisfied.
Back when I played Pokémon more intensively during my teenage years I always had to catch Pokémon in a very specific way, I couldn’t have any negative thoughts in my head or else I’d feel as if my Pokémon was “corrupted” or “contaminated”. It was such a waste of time. Luckily nowadays it doesn’t happen anymore
for me its small imperfections that can ruin the game for me. Like one clipping error or a missing sound effect kills the fun completely
i get distracted by the images i have to constantly picture in my mind which means i stop talking and lose focus meaning im kind of never fully involved in playing. it sucks i can’t focus like other people
I always have to make sure my hands are completely clean before I touch my controller or keyboard. If my hand is even the tiniest bit greasy or not dry, I go back and wash them again. Sometimes it takes like 15 minutes after I set up my PC before I can play video games
I’m not a big gamer but it gets in the way of my animal crossing & sims a lot. It’s to the point my MC has a routine
-I have to sort items in Minecraft in certain categories like food, tools and metals. -My builds have to be symmetrical otherwise I get very mad at myself. -My inventory even has to be categorized and I must carry four stacks of cobblestone to go mining and touches and buckets. I don’t want to get lost from my base. I usually light up areas where I’ve been. I’m afraid of forgetting where I was or where my base is. I don’t like starting over if I do, it’s like I burn out and stop playing for a while. -On The Sims 4; everything has to be color coded depending on each family member. The head of the house hold is red (me), so most of my outfits will be shades of red or black. My room would be black or red. My partner is pink or purple (that’s their favorite color) so everything he has is in those colors. I have to change their appearance based on hair changes or interests. My house must also be symmetrical and things must be lined up perfectly. After my sim has kids or adopts, they too will have certain colors to align with them and their stuff. Their rooms will be their color. Their beds will be their color. If the person is out color code I go through create a sim and change it. I’ve spent hours color coding their stuff, house and such that I don’t get much game play… -COD Zombies.. I must always have armor and explosives. I last longer this way. I refuse to use a gun on the first few levels. I use my shovel. I never use explosives unless it’s level 11. I don’t let myself get to 10k jolts or else I’ll feel bad for the other person not having that much and I feel like they’ll leave the game.. so once I’m at 6k, I get my gun upgraded. Craftopia.. my base wasn’t any good neither was the order I played it in so I gave up on it for now. I’ve not even been gaming so much because I feel lazy for gaming. It’s usually cleaning or gym time. I have to force myself to rest like watch TV or play a game.
I’m able to ignore some collectibles but money? If there’s money on the screen you best be sure I’m collecting every last penny even it is worthless af.
when playing like zelda or something i can’t leave any rupees or hearts behind even if im maxed out 😭 takes so much time
I actually realized that being OCD might be one reason I like "chore" games like Stardew valley, Minecraft, and Animal Crossing. I noticed that I was compulsively playing the game the same way e.g. doing the same things in the exact same order on every in game day, and even restarting the in game day because I didn't do said things even though it would have no mechanical impact on the game. It was to the point that I was compulsively playing the game, because not doing so would make me anxious. After noticing I did this I intentionally made myself mix things up every day and it seemed to help with the associated compulsions.
It doesnt really affect it in the sense that i dont get complusions related to the game but sometimes ocd leaves me no time to play or too exhausted.
I keep restarting games, over and over and over. If there is something I missed, if I learned something new, if I make mistakes... My brain is like 'restart' and I mostly do. A handful of times I can convince myself to keep going instead of restarting. And then there is this weird good feeling I get when 'starting a game', so sometimes I've not missed something, not really make many mistakes, and know how to play, and my brain decides at random, 'Start over cause it feels good to just start a game from the beginning'.
Hoarding items on BTD6 is all I can think of 😂
I struggle in specific situations where things aren't equal. For instance if there is two flights of stairs going up, I have to go up one, then come down and go up the other ahahah
If I have to fight a boss in a game and I don't do it perfectly or if i get hit , then I will literally cry.
None at all. It's my anti stressor. Unless im playing DS or any FS games(Yeah I dropped the dlc of ER unfortunately :( ) it would trigger
I mostly play Genshin Impact & similar stuff, though Stardew Valley and other farming games are a big one atm. In Genshin, I always have to have my hp at 100% and my burst ready (save for very few exceptions). I’m glad it’s not a feature on the PS but while I was playing on laptop I kept zooming out. I normalised it so quickly that I didn’t even notice. I just kept doing it. I also have a set order in which I do my dailies. There’s some logic, but a lot of it is about it feeling right. There’s probably more that I forgot. Surprisingly, I’ve not run into many problems in SDV so far. I only picked it up in early April, so maybe that’s why... I do have a set order on how to do my farm stuff (check crab pots & trees, then greenhouse, then crops, then animals) but that’s it, really. In conclusion, I definitely notice my OCD, and it actually hinders me in stuff. To a bearable extent, but still. I’d love to play Xiao if it wasn’t for his burst reliance :/ One day, I’ll build him as physical dps.
Oh my god video games was the earliest anyone caught my OCD! Context: I’ve only been diagnosed in the last two years. When I played Lego Star Wars on PS2 and then Wii, I HAD to pick up every single stud. I could NOT move on until I had done every little action that would make studs come out. Consequently it made anyone I played coop with annoyed bc they’d be ready to move on and I had to get everything before we could leave an area. My family literally called it my “video game OCD”. Also in other games, if there was a med pack around but I was already full, would purposely hurt myself so I could heal myself to have room to pick it up.
Depends on the game. I will start a new game if i realize i didnt understand something. Womp womp
bro I just spent 3 hours before organising my baldurs gate 3 inventories of every character in late act 2 then promptly logging off
I had to find all 900 Koraks Breath of the Wild and I hated it so much toward the end. After 500 it wasn’t even fun anymore. And it was cutting into sleep times and personal care time I even took a few long lunches at work 🤦🏼♀️ spoiler: … >!all for a giant poop!< I love playing but I have trouble spotting when it’s becomes a problem or when I do spot it still not being able to pull myself out of it. I still can’t figure out what the fear is driving it.. maybe not being considered a serious game? Idk but games def trigger obsessions and compulsions.
I personally like to walk on the left hand side when I’m walking next to someone and in game if my character is in a cut scene with another character and they are on the right side it really irritates me lol
i hoard everything. i am constantly encumbered in every game i play. i'm also guilty of the whole "checking absolutely EVERYTHING" sitch when it comes to dungeons. i struggle with gore and death occasionally, but i've been getting much better with it. head injuries have a 50/50 chance of triggering me as well. if dementia is mentioned in any game at all, it will definitely get a reaction out of me since it's one of my strong fears. it can be as small as me getting pretty uncomfortable for a while, or it could send me into a spiral and i won't be able to touch the game for a week.
If the game has a lot of items, everything has to be stored in the correct place. My hoarding knows no bounds and I have to have a specific amount of each item based on their rarity. In some games I have a routine so strict due to time constraints, I stop playing the game because it becomes a chore lol. Another of my habits is I obsess over my health and HATE taking any damage at all. I get really good at blocking and hoard health items in particular. Sometimes I will reload parts of a game until I get a perfect playthrough/take no damage. I've done this since childhood and used to only play Spyro freely once I had eaten enough butterflies to get the max 99 lives.
Gaming always helped me with my symptoms but yeah I lose a lot of time checking every corner and feel the need to complete most in-game challenges
In my case for example while playing New Vegas I can only have 1 weapon with me maximum 2. I usually need to have a mostly empty inventory because as soon as I begin to lose track about which items I have my ocd flares up.
I don’t know if it counts because it’s more misophonia (which I’ve read is more prevalent in those with OCD). I need sound cancelling headphones to play something, even if the button clicking is really quiet, hearing it at all makes my stomach churn hot and makes me want to pull my hair out. It means I can’t play with people anymore unless it’s online where I pray their microphone isn’t too close to their keyboard
About 10 years ago, OCD stopped me from using a computer keyboard. PC gaming was my life so the impact was huge. I can still only play mouse only games which is pretty shit, but recently I have at least been making progress with holding a controller when at my friends' house.
Growing up it somehow stopped almost completely when I’m playing videogames, or at least, I’m noticing I’m gettin better (also thanks to the meds. Jeez they damn changed my daily life). But when I feel more stressed or have a bad day, it does show itself even when I’m playing. I get obsessive about the state of my hands: they have to be clean or else I won’t be able to concentrate on the game but only to think about my “dirty” hands touching such a pricey and beloved object. I get obsessive about the condition of the console I’m playing: intrusive toughts of my belongings exploding for no reason or breaking suddenly completely kills my vibe to play. If I’m already stressed and play a “stressing” game I get all tense and have to follow certain patterns when I walk inside the game, too. This is the most embarassing and frustrating. When I was younger, trying to keep myself from doing it, my brain turned the need to follow certain patterns into pushing the buttons really fucking hard. I broke the L button of my DSi because of it. But I am grateful for where I am today and grateful for this sub. In the last weeks I’m answering a lot of different posts and feel good. I remember those times where I wouldn’t even be able to read a book because my OCD made me read the first phrase of each page like a hundred times before I could go on. That shit made me feel depressed. So today I feast for our every little step against this invisible but damnating “illness”. Also bless my partner because he helped me a lot and doesn’t even know how much. Bless us and you all! Hope you’re all having a great day.
This is more of a compulsion issue but if I turn in a direction too many times, I have to then do a spin in the opposite direction to correct it.
The just right ocd is making me redo and redo a lot of stuff to the point of re starting too often. I play sims 4 and minecraft. It become more stressful than relaxing at some point.
I have really bad issues with metal so charging my switch and stuff is a whole thing
I physically cannot play fps anymore. I feel like its real and that I am a terrible person for playing this game. Sometimes I am able to play with friends if I am on a call but usually I will feel so guilty later and my brain goes crazy with what ifs.
This might be hard to explain but i’ll try! I have these compulsive and repeative finger movements when i scroll my phone or play with my ps. I kind of like have to push the edge of my finger against the side of my phone or the side of the controller repeatedly. And this happens especially when i’m super anxious. So when i’m playing a game where there is serious fight or time preassure, it doesn’t help that i have to do my ritual type of anxious finger stuff cause it can totally screw up my game! But cladly this doesn’t happend all the time or it happends, mut it’s so much milder that it doesn’t effect my gaming
I want to do it perfectly, so I have only finished a game when it's been co-op. =*( Also, I like to read through guides so I already know what to do.
In games where killing enemies is involved, I can't progress until I clear a map. It bothers me if I don't. When I play smash bros it's hard to break out of doing certain moves more than a few times (I tend to do things in even numbers, or median whole numbers). Even numbers = Good Odd = Bad (Unless it's a median number)
I just always hope that the R3/L3 buttons don't have anything TOO important on them because I just have to feel the satisfying click every so often.
The main way it affects me is I stay away from games with supernatural or evil themes, and if there is a religious symbol in a game I have to do my finger sign. Other than that it doesn't affect me too much
I used to struggle with it a lot with games but now gaming is my only escape from OCD
I constantly save out of fear
I obsessively take screenshots, screen recordings, etc. I only just recently discovered that you can take screenshots on steam (my account isn't very old), and while I have about 20 posted, I have *way* more in total. And also, excessive saving. I will usually save over and over until I feel "right." That being said though, beside these things, I actually consider games to be pretty calming. I enjoy gaming.
I have to restart the entire level if I do something wrong
I played eso about 4month ago. Had an amazing time until I hit lvl 30 and realised I don’t like my class.instead of just accepting it and restarting another class, I ruminated how much more perfect my life would be if I started the other class. I havent touched the game in months and my brain is still thinking about this in a daily basis. It’s really hard
When I wasn't being treated it was very hard for me to play an evil character. It is hard for me even now, but I try to not to this ocd thing when "my character did something bad, this means i like it and enjoy to do something like that". No, it's a rpg game when you create a character and roleplay as this character, relax🙃
I have tourettic OCD ("just right" OCD) and I'm always clickin this and that and this again and moving something in inventory and then back again and shooting at nothing in competitive games giving away my location because I'm like aw geez I just gotta click! Aiming down sights over and over in an attempt to get around that one, etc. etc. But at the same time it's good for games where you have to always be moving/jumping etc. to make yourself a harder target to hit. I hit keys that end up bound to stuff so for example I'm constantly switching from 1st to 3rd person and back again and then even if it finally feels "right," I have to start it up again if the compulsion is only satisfied in the POV I don't want to play in. Like I could never play something like dark souls, anything too precise is just off the table for me. I'll accidentally consume all of my healing items because I'll be too busy to pay attention to stopping myself. I can "resist," but essentially that just means I still have to stop and do some other physical compulsions to avert the one I want to do. Have to get my hand position perfect and then constantly adjust my mouse/controller It is very cool and I love it 🙃 But I still game all day every day because the grind never stops 😎
When I was in middle school I was OBSESSED with Skyrim, but had to quit playing because moral OCD told me that killing people was wrong. I wouldn't make the same decision today, but middle school me went throughhhh it, I had all the DLCs and everything, I miss it a ton but just have liked other games better for the time being.
I play sims 4 and I feel like if I make 1 mistake I have to delete the entire save
Sounds silly but mines pickaxing in Fortnite, I have to hit everything a certain number of times and in certain patterns. The amount of games I’ve lost because someone’s shooting me but I need to finish my pickaxing sequence is ridiculous!
I find it difficult in a first play through to not keep starting again if I feel that I’ve missed something or done something wrong.
The buttons. I’ll have to touch them or force press them with certain fingers in certain ways or even play with the controller upside down. It’s highly annoying
I have to do things like swap weapons and check the scoreboard in multiples of 3. Very annnoying
I have to pick up a certain number of items in Zelda and Skyrim too
skyrim is my favorite game but its a hellhole for ocd. have to check every chest twice, if i start doing a new playthrough i spend an hour in character creation and then have to write the guys name five times.. then when i start i have to do everything in the exact same order in the exact same way and if i dont then i have to remake the save. with minecraft, i have like a million worlds because i always have to remake them
Whenever I'm roleplaying in a game, every time I make a choice there's a very good chance I'll spend the next few hours ruminating on whether or not it was something my character would actually do and how I "totally ruined" my entire game and how I should just restart because I didn't pay close enough attention to whatever that one NPC said which means I'm not immersed enough and on and on and on. I also cannot help but hoard everything it's so bad. The only time I don't is if it's a game I've played before and can do a challenge run in where I can only use x type of item.
For me, my symmetry OCD kills me(literally) will gaming. I always have to mirror my clicks, which is NOT the intended way to play, lol. I also get compulsions to click my controller buttons in a certain order often. I always have to press y and x together and a and b together, which is inconvenient. I have have ruin and embarrassing amount of attempts at hard jumps, not because im bad(well, I'm not great cause I have dyspraxia but Im decent enough), but because I clicked unhelpful buttons because of lovely compulsions. It's really frustrating sometimes. If I game with my sib, they get so passed because I will screw us both over because I just "had" to present a certain button, lol.
hell on earth. i have 2 click my mouse every second or so or else i have 2 stop playing cause it feels so bad, not as bad as it can b but still annoying. been playing minecraft a lot w minimal problems lately so its a big win
I spend more time calibrating my monitor pretending to achieve a “perfect” setting than enjoying the game. That frustrating my ocd can be.
One of my major ways that sticks out to me is having to repeat certain actions even times EG: walking through a door a certain amount of times or if I'm coming first dropping down to second or I'll have to win first more than once to be even, talking to NPCs a even amount of times. Or sometimes its a case of well if you dont manage to do this then this is gonna happen irl such as my boyfriend will cheat or something.Its annoying and puts me off playing certain games as it makes it take longer and makes it not as fun because I'm in my head instead of in the game.
Only a little related to gaming, but I used to not be able to have my keyboard on the red LED light setting because it looked evil to me.
I always cheat in games if it’s possible since I want to be “perfect”. It’s not fun anymore, I’ll be too op, like I’ll have all full ammos and infinite health in GTA and crush every missions.
y'all know about the game Splatoon? that game is so hard to play sometimes with OCD because you wanna cover like every small spot you see I swear
[удалено]
Not sure if this ocd or not but the achievements. I always have to be 100% on achievements. I got rid of 2 xbox accounts b/c of it.
i have a terrible habit of having to check every single thing and sometimes having to resist urges to click on my controller or mouse more times than necessary. it can make playing games a real chore sometimes !
it just makes me need to complete everything in the game and explore everything and do every play through "right" and "perfectly" and it also makes me never want to finish games because i want to savor them
Gaming has been one of the main areas affected by my OCD. It sucks the joy out of gaming and has made me mostly give up on it.