I want to open up about something I struggle with still, and maybe some of the people I comment and offer help on may in turn have ideas for me? Because we know ocd is a constant path of recovery we coast on I struggle a lot with picture-taking. I feel like any time I notice something I want to “remember”, I need to take a photo of it. And if it doesn’t look exactly like how I’m seeing it (a plant catching the sunlight, my body in the mirror), i need to continue retaking it. This is starting to get to be a problem because I’ll end up taking around 50 or more photos a day. My phone gets super cluttered, and when I can’t find a photo of something actually important/worth keeping, it’s very embarrassing. I go back and delete as many old screenshots and random photos, but until I stop doing it every day I’m basically treading water. I’m not sure if this need to remember something exactly how it was in that moment came about (I think when one of my family members passed away from dementia I got this fear of not being able to preserve things exactly so) but I figure as a community, I could reach out to some of you guys. Thanks for taking the time to read. :)

Hi Casie, I dont struggle with this personally, honestly I am terrible with forgetting to take photos when I've been on holiday or out somewhere new where I should probably be taking them for memories sake, cos my memory is terrible haha. I guess from my understanding though of your post, being a fear you'd maybe forget an important memory or moment you feel you need to get that perfect picture to preserve it. But I think maybe that strive for perfection is what keeps you in the loop? And I guess the only way I could think to break that if it was me, was to take 1, or 2, and be done with it, and if I doubted the photo or photos, just allow myself to doubt it, until my brain doesn't see it as an urgent thing to take so many anymore. I hope this is helpful for you, and apologies if I've misread what you're feeling here.

I actually have something similar. I obsessively take screenshots because I don’t want to forget anything good/funny I read or that I like. And I take photos a lot so I don’t foget too. I actually like having lots of photos but not a ton of screenshots so I try to go back and delete unnecessary ones, but maybe I can practice breaking this habit by not screenshotting something immediately and waiting a bit.

Hi, Casie. Thank you for your openness in sharing your experience. I’m sorry you lost a loved one to dementia. That is such a heartbreak. Your experience resonates strongly with me and is something I’ve struggled with as a former professional photographer. Like you, cataloging my observations and getting what I saw through the viewfinder to precisely reflect the image I snapped was a preoccupation. I could have thousands of images from one shoot on my hard drive at any given time; and, even in post-processing (culling, editing and enhancing ) the raw images, I would spend hours trying to get the finished work “just right,” only to turn the final selection over to my client and obsess about the images after-the-fact. It was utterly exhausting. I stopped photographing paid clients in 2016 - before I was clinically diagnosed with anything that would explain my thoughts, feeling and behavior. I was finally evaluated and diagnosed with c-PTSD, OCD and Dissociative Identity Disorder. In my personal life, the memory deficits I’ve experience due to dissociation and epilepsy, as well as my mom’s sudden death of unknown causes at age 39, have made me all the more hypervigant and anxious to document what’s happening in photos. My phone and laptop can easily become cluttered with images, screenshots, just as you said. My internet bookmarks and Evernote notebooks are a whole other separate but related issue. I frequently feel silly, embarrassed, disgusted and ashamed when I am deleting these items I’ve expended so much of my attention and vital energy to collect. You are definitely not alone in this. I try to remember that I make perfect sense in the context of my experiences in this life. That my fear of not remembering, of forgetting, of not existing, and of leaving no legacy are all very human fears. There’s nothing wrong or messed up about the desire to to leave myself breadcrumbs, or leave a mark that says, “I was here.” That desire is beautiful and life-affirming, and it means I care deeply. *And.* Doing it this particular way hurts me. It saps me of my resources and steals my time, which is so precious. It feels grasping and frantic and awful. So, I continue trying to lean into the tools and skills I’ve learned, and to the personal agency I’ve developed to make a different choice. Here’s to this path of recovery, this falling back down the rabbit hole, and climbing our way up and out again... day by day. Thanks again for sharing and this opportunity to reciprocate. Wishing you peace and presence. I know how exhausting this compulsion can be.

Absolutely. I understand the embarrassment. I’ve never shared about any of this before. I’m brand new here and have my first appointment with a NOCD therapist on Saturday. I wholeheartedly agree: that this is the way we move forward, continue to recover and grow. “Spend time in a moment.” I love how you worded that. I had the impression of surrendering to the possibility of a moment, that is ripe and somehow infinite, even as its fleeting. We deserve to delight in our moments. Thanks, again.