"When does being organised and having a routine become compulsive? There are many things which I do in a certain order or arrange in a certain way: I sit on the same seat on the train everyday, have my minidisks in alphabetical order, stack my books with the largest at the bottom, magazines with all of the spines facing I one direction and place most of my other objects at right angles to each other. I have one pair of scissors for sellotape and one pair for paper which must never be used for the others purpose. Shoe laces have to be the same length on each shoe, towels have to be hung squarely, just as the bed has to have the same amount of duvet hanging over each side.

These are some of the freaky things which I do. I first noticed that I was doing things very orderly when I was at boarding school. I noticed that I was brushing my teeth in the exact same way each night; as soon as I had noticed this I became unable to do it differently, if I brushed the wrong side first or brushed for too long in one area I would have to start all over again. This then spread to washing my hands and not being unable to touch anything once I had washed them. Luckily I have managed to get rid of these freaky ways but now I have a new thing - counting. I seem to catch myself counting everything all of the time, the main object being white lines at junctions in the road. The council recently painted new white lines at a junction right next to my house which really troubled me as it ruined my odd even-odd-pattern of white lines.

My obsessive tendencies are starting to fade now; hopefully it's just a phase and not an organised pattern of a series of compulsive phases which will take over my life and leave me alienated from the unorganised world."

Jacob Wrathall