But the internet told me that OCD is just a quirk that makes a person align objects on a table! /s
I had OCD, fortunately mostly gone. I always had to step on every distinct surface no more than five times, or something horrible would happen. The overwhelming sense of dread was not pleasant.
My wife is OCD cleaner, I tell people and they’re like lol mine too… no brah. If she is stressed we have to change the bedsheets daily. Toilets and sinks are cleaned minimum once per day but more like 3 times. Vacuums the house 2 to 3 times, mops the whole fucking house 2 times and then like mops random spots 10 times a day. I do all this shit too on my day off while she is at work because I love her and don’t want her to do it all when she gets home and then if I forget one thing it’s an argument… and she will just redo it all anyways so I didn’t have to actually do it. Hours upon hours are spent cleaning. Sometime she is up in the middle of the night like 1am putting on a load of washing or unpacking the dishwasher
I was expecting this to devolve into a joke about getting too many HJs or something
Me too. Something something fifty extra strokes to make sure he finished.
I can easily imagine how hopeless such a situation is.
Even more so when medication and therapy is being used.It would leave me stumped.
.
One rule of thumb is to think, do you get more good than bad out of a relationship.
If you get more bad, consider making changes.In this case - you cannot help a person like this if you’re burned about the situation yourself.
I have a SO like this. 8 Years now, it gets more easy over time, a bit at least. Real OCD is no joke, its like being insane while knowing. One knows on a logical level that it makes no sense to do this repetive actions, but has to do it anyway. Its often not only external stuff like washing hands, rotating objects till “they feel right”…a lot of ODC action are internal. Like saying certein sentences internal for X number of times.
As a Partner that can be frustrating causd you want to help the person u love but there is nothing u can do. You just have to accept it is like it is.
The internal permanent tention can be very exhaustig. Most people can have ‘empty head’ moments where you just chill and think nothing to relex for a moment. When u have strong OCD that dosent exists, every second your head is rotating, doing loops of things in your mind. Even simple things like catching a bus at a certein time can become extreme hard tasks cause you ‘cant just go’ no. U have to do all the internal and external OCD tasks before u can walk out the door.
All u can do as a partner is having patience, lots of it, and understandinf that the pressure to do this OCD tasks is as real to there brains as the need to breathe to us.
Does meditation help at all?
For non-OCD folk, it really helps keep the brain from running around in circles. It can de-rail the temporary insanity train.
I kinda totally understand OCD, because my adhd prevents me from doing certain things and it’s really hard to explain to people. I can do them, i just can’t(?). It’s obviously not as bad as what OP described and your wife goes through. But my question is, what happens if let’s say your wife needs to use the light switch 50 times because… And you just grab her hand and take her away. She left the room without the clickedy clack and the world didn’t end. Does she get like a nervous breakdown or resist? I’ve always wodered but never dared to ask anyone with actual ocd. Most people i know have the funny ocd that they know from monk.
Not the person you replied to, but one of my partners is mildly OCD and has to check all sorts of things before leaving, and she stresses tf out if I don’t let her do her thing on the way out.
Meds help. Without them it would be way more extreme to a degree where it isnt managable by non healthcare professionals.
The only thing that shuts it down 100% are benzodiazepines but those are not a valid long therm solution, and are for emergency situation (heavy panic attacks) only. Benzos are allready very addictive to normal people, now imagen how addictive they are when they allow you do be free from your 24/7 OCD stress.
Yeah, I wouldn’t want to play with benzos at the best of times, but I know they have their place. It’s just unfortunate how zombified they get when they have to take one when a panic attack truly sets in…
If i interrupt a external OCD task (lightswitch example) then SO compensates by doing more internal tasks, it just shifts to something that is not external and thereby not stopable by anyone.
This all is allready with meds, without meds a ‘normal’ life would not be possible.
On a logical level they understand that the world dosent end if the task isnt finished, but to deeper parts of the Brain it still feels real, and the stress created by the fear of it is real, as real as it gets.
Just get her into something repetitive but productive. Like knitting or cross stitch. Same motion, over and over. But something comes out of it.
Or speedrunning. Get them twitch bux. Infinite hole to consume someone’s mind rather than body
Damn, wasn’t expecting actual OCD.
I wish people would stop saying OCD to mean they like to sort things.
This sounds like actual OCD, or am I missing a joke you’re making? Or you jus’ sayin’?
Liking to sort things is not OCD, OCD is having to sort things otherwise you can’t function as a human being.
The post is not talking about that “likes to sort things”
hands feel even
Strangely enough I know exactly what she meant by that. Over a decade ago I used to do this thing with words and sentences. Take the word “word”, for example. W goes to the left. O goes to the right. R goes to the left and so D goes to the right. We ended on the right, so it’s fine. But if we ended on the left, then I had to add another word and turn this little mental exercise into a decent sentence.
Sentences were kind of cheating, though, because even if I ended on the left then I just added a dot, which would fill a single “spot” and so make me “end on the right.”
Yep. Convoluted, I know. It used to keep me up at night.
My brain does something similar when I’m having high fever and it keeps me from having good sleep. Must suck being stuck there.
