BadMalibu

Dakota-

Remember that OCD isn't about what were doing, but it's more about what our sub-conscious is thinking and how those feelings and emotions come out. Of course if you left your stove on your house burning down would be horrible, but for me what I think is that you make the connection with bad things happening in your life when you look at the stove because if the stove was left on, and the house did burn down, how much control would we have over this to stop it?

We manipulate things in our enviornment like the stove, washing machine, TV remote, anything we can because it's concrete and we can control it. Sometimes there are things bothering us that we can't control, and that's what makes the OCD flare up. Disasters, illnesses, sickness, accidents, we can't control any of it, so that's when our OCD flares up and slaps us in the face trying to get our attention. But as we all know, OCD over does it a bit.

My suggestion would be since your stove has four knobs. Try promising yourself that you'll check 3 instead of all 4. Work with that for awhile and gradually progress when you're comfortable to only checking 2...then 1..then none. You'll see as you gain confidence in yourself that you'll be able to leave the house without checking any of them, and when you come home your house will be where you left it.

Hope this helps!