Ruby Grimshaw is obsessive compulsive

I think I am showing the beginnings of OCD. When someone comes to the house to pick me up to go shopping or to have lunch, I pretend I have to go back because I have forgotten my keys or my purse. I know that both things live in my handbag, which I already have on my arm. Other excuses might be to check that Bella, the cat, is not locked in the living room (but in winter she is invariably draped across the floor at the entry to the kitchen under which the hot pipe runs). Or I might mutter I need to check my teeth for lipstick. What I am really doing is checking that the back door is locked (which is daft because I haven’t been out in the garden yet), or making sure that the oven and knobs are all off (which again is unlikely since I only have a cup of tea and a bowl of cereal for breakfast), or I am looking to see that the tap has not been left running in the bathroom.

My friend G is getting suspicious. “You aren’t wearing any lipstick,” she said impatiently, the last time I tried that one. “You’re definitely losing it, Ruby.”
I’ve even started it at night. I’m all tucked up in my duvet, listening to Book At Bedtime (or rather, missing it. I often have to hear it again on BBC Listen Again because I snooze through the end), and then I suddenly wonder if the front door is definitely locked. Of course it is, but I still have to creep out in the cold and check. And while I’m down there I might as well make sure the back door is locked and the oven is off…

“I pretend I have to go back because I have forgotten my purse”

Well, I‘ve taken myself in hand and with a mixture of cognitive behaviour techniques, in which I dappled when I was a physio, and Buddhism (‘awareness’ and ‘being in the moment’) – I think I am improving. But a worrying thing happened one morning last week. There was a knock on the door and, although a bit early, I thought it might the postman bringing me a late Christmas parcel. (I remain ever optimistic in my mental states.) It was my neighbour who was leaving for work. “I just found your keys in the lock,” he laughed. “Must have been there all night!”

Now that is something I have never done before, so does this mean I am going the other way and becoming too laid back? Is it better to be burgled than to have a gas explosion?