There are anti-anxiety medications that would help with the symptoms you describe. Many OCD problems are rooted in anxiety issues. It's probably better than trying to "hack" your OCD.

(As an aside).

The most anxiety ridden person I've known in person offline, turned out to be an old acquaintance that went into "theoretical physics".

When this person started taking medication to deal with anxiety, they gave up theoretical physics/string theory, etc ... completely. (I don't think this person ever got around to even publishing a single physics paper).

EDIT: It was as if this person's mind turned into mush.

Some people don't respond well to certain drugs, though it honestly sounds like they were prescribed more serious anti-psychotics than simple anti-anxiety drugs.

Most of the anxiety (and some paranoia) is centered on whatever treadmill my ocd is focused on.

For stuff from my previous ocd treadmills (such as dvd movies, comic books, music cds, etc ...), there is absolutely no anxiety anymore. For comic books, music cds, or dvd movies, I can use and consume them as a normal "non-ocd" person does. (ie. Actually reading the comic books, listening to the music cds, watching the dvd movies, etc ...).

For that matter, I don't have any anxiety in other parts of my life (such as family, work, general well being, etc ...).

In regard to ocd in general, it is largely only focused on my hobby based treadmills of collecting/hoarding/completion of physical items. It doesn't manifest at all in other parts of my life. (ie. It is very compartmentalized). For example outside of the ocd bluray habit, completely absent are behaviors like: repeatedly checking things + washing hands, looking for perfection, pervasive intrusive thoughts, etc ... Outside of recreational "hobbies" based on collecting, it's as if I am a normal "non-ocd" person.


EDIT: I also find that when I don't drink any coffee and/or booze for long periods of time, my ocd collecting/hoarding mentality is greatly reduced. (I don't know yet if it can be entirely eliminated).

In hindsight, my worst bouts of ocd collecting/hoarding were in the days I was going to happy hour every day after work. This was largely during the time my ocd was heavily focused on music cds, over the entire 1990's and into the mid-late 2000's.

EDIT2: I recently stopped drinking 4-5 cups of coffee every day, to zero cups. It took several weeks for the caffeine withdrawal symptoms to completely subside.

(Going offtopic).

Arguably and hypothetically, if my ocd mentality is later focused on something like string theory, I can see the ocd "looking for perfection" thing as something that might perhaps flare up and go into overdrive.

For example, such as finding exact solutions to complicated integrals and/or sets of differential equations, etc ... without making too many approximations. In contrast, most of the integrals and differential equations I came across in my previous engineering courses, were kinda simple and relatively easy to solve.

Hopefully something like this will largely remain compartmentalized and restricted to "string theory". (In the past, I was not a hardcore perfectionist at all).


EDIT: In principle, I don't know if it's any better to focus my ocd onto an abstract/non-physical thing like "string theory" or "theoretical physics", in regard to general mental health. (On the other side of the coin, I may very well be fooling myself into believing that this is "better" than my present ocd bluray collecting/hoarding habit).

What would be amusing is if there exists a hardcore holdout that still insists on watching the CED versions of the original Star Wars movies, and actively boycotting the dvd and bluray versions.

Well, I assume the Laserdisc versions were the last 'best' unmolested copy available, right? Maybe that one-off DVD set?

I wonder if anyone actually watches CEDs anymore.

This strip seems appropriate here...

I think that 2-disc Star Wars DVD set had the best unmolested version. It was just the Laserdisc transferred to DVD, non-anamorphic, single layer disc (I think).

It was nothing more than a cheapie response to all the pirated copies of the Laserdisc online.

I gave up on CED back in the mid-1980s. I remember many of my discs used to skip like crazy but the picture quality was better than video cassette.

That's exactly what it was, which was almost more insulting than not releasing it.

The world needs more theoretical physicists....and fewer lawyers.

Theoretical physics pays very little in the long run and the fight for academic tenure is a bloodbath. There is a reason so many smart people in our society gravitate towards lawyering, as dishonorable as it is.

I'll take this guy:

I've heard a lot of stories about tenure battles from former classmates that went into academia. It sounds just as bad as trying to make "partner" at a high profile law firm.

For me, it would probably be largely pointless in trying to go into academia for something like string theory or theoretical physics. The "publish or perish" pressures alone would be extremely nerve wracking.

Blu-ray remorse? No. I just started buying blu-rays not too terribly long ago and I'm not done yet.

Having said that however, I am starting to look at my collection and wonder how I can trim it down a little. I started out with 1 - 72"x48" 6-shelf bookcase that will hold about 500 (or so) DVDs. Filled that up and started lining them up on the top of the bookcase. Ran out of room and had to buy another bookcase (72"x36" 6-shelf) and thought that should be more than enough.

Well, now it's filled too (as well as lining them up on top), and I'm starting to feel a little guilty about having so many DVDs/BDs. Started weeding out the ones I really don't much care about and selling them on Ebay (slow process, but I paid $$$ for them and I'll be damed if I'll just give them away or toss them).

Buying everything new on blu-ray, even replacing some of the poorer quality DVDs on blu-ray (and selling the DVD), so blu-ray remorse? No. Video remorse? Maybe just a little...

The only times I bothered buying new cases, was for dvd/bluray sets where it was difficult to take the discs out of the original packaging (such as the Indiana Jones, Star Wars, House of Cards season 1, etc ... "digibook" bluray sets), and/or if multiple discs were stacked on top of one another (such as those Sony "complete series" dvd sets which had 10-15+ discs all stacked on top of one another on a spindle).

It basically came down to the fact that my collection was starting to take up every bit of free space I had left (we're mainly talking DVDs here). I was planning to build custom shelving to hold everything, but it would have covered at least two whole walls in a small guest bedroom. I suppose I could have filled a few bookcases two rows deep and made it work, but I had been wanting to pare the collection down for some time. Selling off incomplete TV series was just one step toward achieving that.

The sets I sold were mostly serialized shows bought on impulse because they were cheap that I still hadn't gotten around to watching after several years. Then there were shows that I mildly enjoyed, but was annoyed by the inconsistent packaging design. For instance, I like Aqua Teen Hunger Force and owned the first four volumes, but - other than volumes 2 & 3 - the spines don't match at all and look like crap sitting together on the shelf. That, coupled with the fact that the show doesn't really lend itself to marathon viewing (what I find hilarious in 15 minute nuggets on Adult Swim gets tiresome after watching for an hour straight on DVD) gave me a reason to sell those sets off. I certainly didn't ditch every series I haven't finished collecting. I still have several seasons of The Simpsons, South Park, Psych -- shows I know I enjoy and will revisit, regardless of whether I collect the entire run.

I mostly purchase used titles, but having any kind of shelf wear on the cases really triggers my OCD (yeah, I feel like a kook ). Getting a new DVD/Blu-ray in an eco-case is also irritating. I know the disc is perfectly safe if you handle the case properly, but I just can't stand those things.

At the present time, I'm pretty much at the point where I don't really buy "new" shows much anymore on dvd (or bluray), whether first-run or older catalog stuff. (ie. Largely to avoid jumping onto a particular show's "treadmill" in the first place).

But with that being said, I'll be taking a "wait and see" approach with new upcoming first season shows, largely to see whether any shows have any rewatch value for me. (At the present time, the only upcoming first season shows catching my attention, are network ones like Stalker, CSI Cyber, etc ...).


For some reason, my ocd was never really triggered at all by packaging inconsistencies.

My ocd goes into overdrive when it came to bad sectors due to manufacturing defects. Even for $2 blurays, I still run each and every $2 disc on the computer and extract the undecrypted isos in their entirely, mainly to check for bad sectors.

I suppose ocd manifests differently in different people.

In a more general picture, at times I wonder how much of the decline in dvd/bluray sales, are due to:

1 - Blockbuster going bust.
2 - The hardcore collectors reaching their "fatigue stages" and significantly reducing their buying.
3 - Tons of product being dumped into discount/dollar stores.
4 - Walmart heavily discounting 1+ year old titles.
5 - Amazon's aggressive discounting.

Most likely 3 and 4 are the symptoms of the consequences of 1 and 2.

If 2 was significant at all in the first place, one wonders what percentage of sales were due to such hardcore collectors during the heydays.

One thing that is helping me buy less is the realization that quality content (films, music, books, etc) is being created every second. As much as I like the tons of stuff from the past that I own, I really like some of this new stuff too. In fact, there is more good stuff being created than I'll ever have time to enjoy, let alone time to rewatch everything.

On one hand, I have enough great entertainment to live in a vacuum for the next 100 years. On the other hand, I could lose every possession I have and be thoroughly entertained forever. But in all honesty, I'm a hoarder who will likely never fully change; but hopefully these small steps like focusing on digital will lead to bigger steps.

Definitely.

In some cases, it may even be a huge "embarrassment of riches" in decent quality stuff.

(Going offtopic).

In my recent exploration into the ultra-nerdy/geeky subject of "string theory", I came to the realization there's thousands of free string theory papers posted at a popular online physics preprint server, all submitted by the original authors (ie. a lot of physics professors from places like Harvard, Princeton, Caltech, MIT, etc ...). Every day, there's a half-dozen or more brand new string theory papers published at this preprint server.

Since I'm not up to date on the topic of string theory, it's not easy to figure out which papers are important to read and which ones are not. It's almost like trying to find diamonds in the rough.

My ocd mentality wants to read every paper published. But I know very well that doing so would be largely pointless. (About as mindless as wanting to watch every tv show episode and/or movie ever produced).

(This may sound very very strange and "sudden").

It just dawned on me today that I don't care anymore about $2 blurays. I passed by a discount store earlier today to get some cleaning supplies. I also went through the $2 bluray dump bins, and found that I had no interest anymore in the sci-fi/fantasy/action titles. (ie. I don't care anymore).

How exactly this happened, I have no idea. (I don't know whether I should be rejoicing or not).


Somewhat tangential, earlier today I noticed the bluray version of the original Battlestar Galactica series might possibly be released in the UK.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Battlestar-G.../dp/B00MFQV56A

If this happened back in 2011 or 2012, most likely I would have been making an immediate preorder for something like this. But today, my immediate feeling about it is "meh" and I don't really care much anymore.

(The original Battlestar Galactica is the only dvd season set that I watched over and over again obsessively. It was also my favorite tv show back when I was a preteen).


More generally, nothing much else in my life has change in over the last month, other than I drank 2 cups of coffee this morning (after not drinking any coffee since the beginning of august).

No idea whether this is just a temporary reprieve, or a more permanent change in my ocd mentality (albeit being very sudden). I guess I'll know in several weeks (or months), if my ocd compulsive impulse buying mentality ever comes back.

Just offloaded quite a few items on a couple of different sites.

People do realize that for many, many Hollywood films, the Blu-ray will have the best A/V quality of any available version for possibly decades? The fraction of films receiving true 4K upgrades will be vanishingly remote. A quality Blu-ray is far more likely to remain the ultimate home version for many years in a way that DVD never was.

really? i dunno. there's gotta be something bigger and better in the near horizon and that is what worries me. i bought so many, too many, repeat movies on Blu-ray just cause i wanted the best quality visually and aurally, but it really is grating on me lately...