trying to resist - once more!

Well it's been a long time - this is an attempt to restart the story of my ocd-related struggles. I have a long-term aim to discover good methods of coping better with compulsions ; and a short -term aim to distract myself from the dictator in my head by writing this instead of carrying out his/her/its completely inane orders.
In my case, and at present, the ocd takes the form of a need to carry out symmetry and repeating rituals to remove and prevent anxiety.
The rituals can be any actions - just ones that "stick" - I don't know why. One minute I'll be fine, then I'll move hand in a certain way, and then I have to, or I have to try extremely hard not to, move the other hand in the same way. (This then doubles and triples and quadruples and goes on and on, with variations and post rituals and other actions get added, like walking up to 5 steps on the stairs, then back to the kitchen, then 4 stairs, back to kitchen, 3,2, 1 then up to the top of the stairs, into the bathroom, then across the landing into my bedroom, take shoes off, into bed, covers over, stay for a second , then out of bed, put shoes back on, go down the stairs, into the kitchen, sit on chair, get up, walk to sink, then back upstairs, then repeat 16 times, then back to the bottom of the stairs and begin the trip to 5 steps on the stairs, back to kitchen, 4 steps, 3 2 1 and then repeat the longer upstairs ritual. )
And I am tired of doing this, so I have tried to stop, as it has mushroomed in my mind - and in my pathetic mind, I believe i have completed 9 of these rituals, ; they are grouped in 5s, so I have completed one group of five, and then left over I have completed four of the last five, so I need to do one more complete ritual to complete the second lot of five, and then I will feel fine again. I have been carrying around the anxiety from not doing the last final one of five for the last day and a half. The need to perform that ritual cloaks everything,and makes life dull and deadened. Because I am not really here. I am away in my head, even through my attempts to distract from the urge to complete the ritual. I have a terrible urge to do it - of course it is difficult because I need to have the free time to use the stairs, and I'll have to wait till everyone is out on Friday to do it - but at least then my mind will be clear once more, and I can think and be myself once more.

And will I? Will I give in and do the precious last one? I am trying to forbid such action, reciting my catechism of ocd treatment: doing it will make it worse in the long-term, they are only thoughts; I own my own head; the actions that comprised the nine earlier rituals were the wrong actions, not the other way around - ie i have five plus four MISTAKES, so the best thing I can do is not do another mistake - but it is so ridiculously difficult, living with this feeling of unevenness. It is like a phantom limb that torments me by its very absence.
I feel incomplete without the actions notched up on the bedpost, a lack of integrity.

I don't know how long I can resist the urge to perform this ritual - I am doing the first bits in dribs and drabs, walking up the stairs to the fifth, fourth, third stairs, with the kitchen walk, but I have so far resisted the upstairs ritual. I don't know why it has got so unshakable this week; I have I am sure been more able to resist in other weeks recently.
This ritual started while I was seeing the nurse this week. I started pushing my nails into my opposite fingers which I had made into an arched shape. I was listening to the Nurse talking but at the same time I was arching my fingers and pressing my nails in, first one side, then the other, then move the the nails on top of one hand, then the other, all very even. It was a very hot day. I had driven from my boyfriend's that morning, in a state as usual because of our relationship, and I had a short time at home to prepare myself for the nurse. I think I was quite flustered still, because when I got into the car afterwards, instead of resisting the urge t0 continue my arching nails ritual, I let myself sit in the hot car ( I could not open the window because everything needed to be the same as when I'd got into the car and begun the routine) and the ritual seeped into me.
Later I was back to the car to perform another duplicate part, I was on the kitchen chair pretending it was a car seat and opening and closing an invisible door handle, and I was back in the ocd world.
It just became worse from there, and the whole week has been dominated by this ritual, and the need to finish in order to remove the anxiety. A completely pointless anxiety, but anxiety nevertheless, that covers everything and prevents me engaging with anything at all, because it is as though the need for the ritual's completion takes precedence over every other thought. Activity is more difficult and irksome than it should be because all I want to do really is do the bloody rituals. And perversely, I would have energy for those, an insane energy that comes from nowhere.
I am tired now. Please if anyone reads this don't reply that I am a selfish bastard for worrying about such things - I have had enough of people who think I musn't have enough to worry about if I have ocd - if they believe in it at all. What I feel is very real and it spoils my life. Not all the time, but lots of the time. That's all, and that's everything.
Rosie