If you are married, in love, or have friends, family, or coworkers who accommodate your compulsions, do you attempt to curb the effect you have on others, or attempt to squelch your habits for the sake of harmony at home or in the work place? Or do you expect others to accommodate your illness as any other affliction?
I can’t volunteer my experience as I’m still smarting from years of accommodating and tolerating a spouse’s OCD, and I’m pretty bitter and angry about it years later. I wouldn’t have felt the same about a physical handicap or most any other mental or emotional glitch, so I have no excuse about my inability to keep my “in sickness and in health” vows with regards to my spouse’s constant checking and tics. Can those with similar experience on either side of the equation share some insight?
Not exactly what you’re looking for, but I always apologize when I tic in front of others and I sense their discomfort. I can’t help it and I would hope they understand this. But I still feel like I should apologize anyway.
Wow. Despite a background and vocation that requires a knowledge of psychology, I somehow missed this distinction.
“OCPD occurs in about 1% of the general population. It is seen in 3–10% of psychiatric outpatients. The disorder most often occurs in men.”
How did I get so lucky?
So for suffers of OCD, you are fine with friends, family, spouses, and children who don’t obey your self-imposed rules? My experience was with the rare OCPD champion who expected me to also suffer his idiosyncrasies?
Hmm. I just posted in the other thread and ended by saying that I don’t think my habits affect other people really at all. Not to the extent that it would ruin relationships, for damn sure.
My mom has recently started claiming to have OCD, though she refuses to talk to anybody about it or try to get help for it. My dad is ready to divorce her because she’s so controlling and crazy. I think there probably isn’t really anything wrong with her except that OCD is an easy enough thing to mimic and then use as an excuse to be a bitch. I don’t know why anybody would do that but I really believe that’s exactly what she’s doing.
Well, I’m not sure what all is attributed to my OCD and what is attributed to other things. I mentioned in the other thread that I strongly request that my daughter not turn on the ceiling light in her bedroom without also turning on the table lamp. And I never even have to ask her not to turn on the ceiling lights in the living room or hallway because I took the lightbulbs out of them. We were at Staples the other day buying school supplies and I decided to get some pens for the house too, and she knew to look for blue ink ones, not those black ink abominations. But these aren’t just a couple examples out of like a billion, they’re just a couple examples out of several. So I don’t think it’s too bad. I haven’t seen her have any OCD habits herself.
On the other hand, I’m like pathologically impatient and judgmental about things like other people driving like idiots, and I know that does affect her, but I don’t know if it’s an OCD thing or not.
Both of these things would be exhausting to me. I mean, I often have friends and family for dinner and I attempt to accommodate certain things like food preferences, but if I felt that I needed to allow enough time to level every painting and ensure that Mom’s Christmas gifts were addressed in blue ink rather than a black or red pen if I had one handy, I’d resent it. Not out loud, but I’d resent being compelled to support what I consider frivolous demands. Of course I don’t suffer from the compulsion, so it’s ungenerous of me to label those expectations and attitudes frivolous, but that’s my general feeling towards supporting another’s idiosyncrasies to the point that it impacts my behaviors and plans.
I don’t feel that I’m explaining this well. Leveling every painting and the color of the ink pens at the ready aren’t remotely important to me, and even though “fixing” those things to suit a family member wouldn’t take an inordinate amount of time, I’d resent the chore since I’m not the one who makes those things a priority.
That’s kind of where my dad at is right now, I think. I don’t know what goes on over there but I know he’s getting very edgy and impatient with my mom’s shit. But she expects him to conform to her whims. I really don’t. Like I just said in the other thread, if I need help hanging something and it isn’t JUST SO I can get frustrated but I try not to need help and I try to level my own paintings.
My “everything must be just so” thing seems to have gotten better since having children and all the chaos that they bring. Even I know that it some things just aren’t feasible anymore. I keep saying “I compensate” and it really is just like that. I don’t expect other people to accommodate me, I make up new rules so I can accommodate myself.
This is such a hopeful, inspiring outlook that I feel it should be repeated. Of course, not everyone who suffers from OCD plans to have children or will find the mess they create a remedy, but it’s a hopeful sentiment all the same. Priorities can change, when they must.
Thank you for this distinction! Not many people are aware of this difference (and there is a big difference). I am borderline OCPD, so I’m aware of the “driving-yourself-and-everyone-else-nuts” qualities
The only other people I’ve ever lived with are my parents. They got annoyed with my rituals and ‘must-do’s’ sometimes, but they were never extreme and it was just chalked up to normal families gotta live together stuff. The biggest problems were me liking to keep the blinds shut on the big picture windows which pissed off my mom, and me wasting time on rituals.
My OCD manifests in more checking. I’m one of those people who needs to check the door is locked, the stove is off, the hair straightener is unplugged, etc. When I lived at home it was easier because my OCD recognized that my parents would make sure the door was locked before bed and the stove was off after using it. It got much worse after I moved out on my own.
When I stay over with friends, I get away with it because they’re okay with dealing with my idiosyncrasies for a little bit. Plus my OCD tends to change in new environments. I might need to check the dead bolt at home, but not have that compulsion in a new place.
Did you ever allow her to enjoy the view? I paid quite a bit for a larger piece of property and spend a lot of time gazing out the windows enjoying the flowers and the birds. I’d be terribly put out by being trapped in a darkened house. I’d actually argue with my child/spouse/sibling over such a demand. How did you two compromise?
To be clear, that’s a quote not from a psychologist but from -er- my xgf, who had OCD, but thankfully not OCPD. She had to check that the doors were locked a few times before she went to bed, which drove her crazy. But she never made me check that the doors were locked. And there was open acknowledgment that her OCD stuff was ridiculous: hey it drove her crazy as well! [sup]1[/sup]
I did have to tolerate her odd habits, but that wasn’t a problem for me. Also, certain pharmaceuticals (Zoloft???) took some of the edge off of her OCD: I don’t think she checks the doors more than once nowadays. Not sure though.
[sup]1[/sup]Meaning, apologetic transgressions are a lot more tolerable than the domineering kind, or the ones based on a delusional sense of propriety.
Of course we are. We constantly remind ourselves of all the downsides. That’s what makes the patterns so distressing. This even applies to the mental rituals. You’re not doing them all the time, and, outside of an obsessive episode, the whole thing seems ridiculous.
I also am not aware of a causative link between OCD and OCPD. I was always taught they were two separate disorders with similar symptoms. If they are in fact connected, that explains a lot more about my childhood. I don’t remember anxiety provoking my childhood rituals, just feeling anxiety when things didn’t go according to plan. To this day, I still have a problem when things don’t go the way they are “supposed to.” Now, unfortunately, it mostly manifests itself in the form of anger.
What really makes it hard is that I do generally think that I have legitimate reasons to be upset–the problem is the degree. The things in question are things that should bother people. It just shouldn’t make me so dadblasted mad.
And, yeah, this should have probably been in the other thread. But it just came up naturally here. I think anger is one of the things people don’t realize about OCD.
What is it that makes you feel that your anxiety or anger should trump the actions or behaviors of people around you who aren’t compulsive? Is it entitlement? A sense that you are suffering and that “normal” people owe you accommodation?
I really think it’s possible. Kids sort of forced it on me and I’m not sure I would have come to same conclusions without them (and therapy but, really, mostly them) but, for me anyway, OCD seems to be my way of exerting control in a life that feels so beyond my control sometimes. So I can still have the same level of control within myself and my environment even if I have to shift my focus sometimes. It takes work and sometimes it feels impossible but it’s totally worth it. I do wonder what will happen to me if I start swinging too far in the other direction and wind up not giving a shit about anything, but I think that’s fairly unlikely. Of course, I’m about to add a baby to the mix with a toddler and a 10 year old and I can already see all the ways this is going to be even more overwhelming than when I added a baby with just a 7 year old. Fingers crossed and I fully intend on experimenting with various pharm options (something I’ve never done before for this) once I’m done breastfeeding.
Anyway, I do think there is a lot of hope for people who feel the way I do.
I’m better now. The only way it would have ever affected anyone is sometimes being late to things (checking delay). I might ask my SO to not do some things, but even if she doesn’t have OCD there are plenty of things she also asks me to do/not do that are on the face irrational but easy to accommodate.
