What is a compulsion of yours that you thought was normal at first?

I wash my hands after doing dishes, taking the trash out, and putting dirty clothes in the washer. To me, this makes sense. In my head, if dishes or clothes need to be cleaned, that means they dirty up your hands when you touch them. Trash seems like an obvious one as well. But my therapist told me I should do exposure therapy with those things (lick my fingers after loading dishes, licking the handles of a trash bag, not washing my hands after throwing in laundry).

I don’t feel these compulsions interfere with my life at all, and I partially do them for sensory reasons, but I guess I do get anxiety when I see others not washing their hands after these things.

Despite all this, I feel like these practices are pretty normal, but she says that she doesn’t know anyone that does this.

Have you ever thought of a compulsion as completely normal and then realized it apparently wasn’t? I’m curious to hear your stories. :)