My name is Melissa and I'm an Obsessive Compulsive Collector.

You see, I have this condition where I go crazy over a certain breed of items and each year (or maybe every few years) I go crazy over a different thing. It first started with harmless stationery, then proceeded on to costly CDs. Last year, it was clothes from blogshops and now, it has moved on to nail polishes.

There's this urge, this magnetic attraction, pulling me to whatever I'm collecting at the moment. It pulls me into any shop (it doesn't have to be a brick and mortar shop) and it refuses to loosen its grip on my reins until I walk in. Once in there, if the sales staff are friendly, I'll fall prey to my compulsion. And when I finally pay for the item and put it in my bag, I feel this insane high. Whoever said you needed drugs to get high was lying.

The worst thing is I never feel the pinch because most of the time, I pay for my items using nets. Without actually touching cold hard cash, the act of typing in my pin number doesn't even hurt at all. At least not until my bank statement arrives every month.

If you add up the money I have spent on stationery, I am sure it will run up to the hundreds. At my peak, I used to buy at least one CD a week, sometimes, even up to three. At one point in time (last year), my mother thought I was addicted to online shopping. And now, I have to hide my nail polishes in the cupboard I store my textbooks in, so as to hide my addiction from everyone else. Right now, the polish count is up to 80 when I receive my latest batch from the spree in 2 weeks time. Not to mention another 2 bottles that are being produced in the USA at this very moment, which I have already paid for.

This obsessive compulsive collector disorder, it's much like being a shopaholic. I always feel this urge to have to have everything I see in my collection. I constantly look for things that are missing and then things I have to buy to make up for it. I always need to have the latest CD or the prettiest shade of polish.

I'm glad to say that I now only buy pens and markers only when I need them (with the exception of a few which I needed to have, but I make full use of), and the last CD I bought was more than 1.5 years ago. The last piece of clothing I bought online was 7 weeks ago. However, I can't seem to stop myself from buying polish.

It's polish or perish in my mind right now.