The terrible 'what if': how OCD makes every day a matter of life or death • Hacker News Board

Re: The terrible 'what if': how OCD makes every day a matter of life or death

#61

Post by teahat » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 2:31 PM UTC

SpouseThrowaway wrote: post #58

I’m using a throwaway account and trying to keep personal details sparse to keep this as anonymous as possible. Also, despite my frustration with the situation, I’ll attempt to be as neutral as possible. My significant other was always “germ conscious”; clean hands, no shoes in the house, etc. Nothing over the top or alarming. However, over the years, there have been huge shifts in behavior and routine in regards to…

This sounds very much like OCD. One of the nastier traits of OCD that I experienced with a partner was the tendency for the OCD to hide itself, by convincing the sufferer that they were just a terrible person, or that what they were doing was normal. And this was post-diagnosis. My interpretation was that accepting you have OCD is the first step to acknowledging that the repetitive behavior isn't necessary, which of course the disease fights against.

It was very hard at times and there was often hostility but it was always recognizable to me as a symptom of the disease and not an intrinsic quality of the person.

I met another person with OCD who didn't know they had it - 5 hrs of cleaning each day and they didn't know, they just knew things needed to be clean.

I strongly encourage you to do what you can to get to a diagnosis. What helped the person I was close to in the end was cognitive behavioral therapy and a lot of hard work, to get to a point where things were manageable.

Finally - the biggest mistake I made as a carer was not talking to others about it or recognizing and acknowledging the effect on me. Get support for yourself if nothing else.

Re: The terrible 'what if': how OCD makes every day a matter of life or death

#62

Post by cryoshon » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 2:35 PM UTC

imlina wrote: post #24

the fact that this article got upvoted so much probably also explains why there are always paper towels available and a waste basket near every restroom door in the bay area right? I literally possess binary memory when it comes to "what is clean" and "what isn't clean (touched the floor, public restroom, etc)" for most of my things. Also used to have "San francisco shoes" and "South bay shoes"

>I literally possess binary memory when it comes to "what is clean" and "what isn't clean (touched the floor, public restroom, etc)" for most of my things.

after working in tissue culture where sterility matters (to put it lightly) i have developed a similar mentality. in the lab, it teaches you to be overly careful with things because a lot of the time you have to throw them out if they get dirty, and often the bar for "being dirty" can be as low as "was exposed to air while uncovered". it causes a lot of very wasteful carryovers into real life.

Re: The terrible 'what if': how OCD makes every day a matter of life or death

#63

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 2:39 PM UTC

inertiatic wrote: post #14

193 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, one way out is behavioral therapy. Obsessive compulsive disorder is a form of anxiety disorder. You are afraid of something (sickness, death, loosing control) - then you get obsessive about it and then you do some compulsive action to mentally ease that thought/anxiety. But now you have "learned" to behave in a certain way to feel better. And you are weighting the triggering thought as more important by giving…

Unless you pull a logical trick to reduce every discomfort to fear, I don't agree that everyone that suffers from OCD is afraid of something and anxious about it.

Traditionally the DSM categorized OCD as an anxiety disorder - apparently now it's categorized in the larger envelope "neurotic, stress-related, and somatoform disorders", which anxiety falls under as well. There's certainly an anxiety element, as it causes a great deal of distress to fail to follow the behavior.

Re: The terrible 'what if': how OCD makes every day a matter of life or death

#64

Post by cryoshon » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 2:42 PM UTC

SpouseThrowaway wrote: post #58

I’m using a throwaway account and trying to keep personal details sparse to keep this as anonymous as possible. Also, despite my frustration with the situation, I’ll attempt to be as neutral as possible. My significant other was always “germ conscious”; clean hands, no shoes in the house, etc. Nothing over the top or alarming. However, over the years, there have been huge shifts in behavior and routine in regards to…

this might be medically unadvisable, but i have found that education goes a long way towards disarming the notion that anything can ever really be clean if it is in your house. i helped one of my friends be slightly less obsessed with cleanliness this way.

let's say you bleach down a perfectly smooth countertop in your kitchen. okay, it's clean, there's no bacteria there. for about two seconds. probably less, in reality. we can't see microorganisms with our naked eyes, but they are as much a part of our physical environment as the air.

put differently, you can't make them go away by cleaning compulsively. not even for a moment. not in your home, at least. sure, if you see mold growing on food, throw it out. but you aren't about to out-clean nature's ability to survive.

remember, nature has been playing the game of "gotta inhabit every potential niche, ESPECIALLY if nobody else is there, because then there will be more room for me!" for a few billion years. a lifetime spent applying cleaning products isn't about to make any headway, nor will it prevent disease beyond a certain minimal level.

Re: The terrible 'what if': how OCD makes every day a matter of life or death

#65

Post by rndmwlk » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 2:47 PM UTC

_xlr2 wrote: post #2

I'm appreciative of somebody who also has OCD writing an article like this detailing how the disorder isn't at all like the stereotype of a neat freak. What's funny is, I myself am actually a terribly messy person with books and papers always strewn about (among clothes not quite in the hamper, &c). What's interesting to me from a personal history viewpoint is that one of my earliest compulsions also centered around…

I have the exact same compulsion with locking my door. If I leave my apartment and I don't do my little ritual then I'll either be worried all day, or some times I'll drive back to my apartment and "properly" close the door.

Re: The terrible 'what if': how OCD makes every day a matter of life or death

#66

Post by 8xde0wcNwpslOw » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 2:56 PM UTC

SpouseThrowaway wrote: post #58

I’m using a throwaway account and trying to keep personal details sparse to keep this as anonymous as possible. Also, despite my frustration with the situation, I’ll attempt to be as neutral as possible. My significant other was always “germ conscious”; clean hands, no shoes in the house, etc. Nothing over the top or alarming. However, over the years, there have been huge shifts in behavior and routine in regards to…

I'm not a doctor, but I'm almost certain your SO absolutely needs to discuss these things with someone to have any chance of relieving, or reversing the trend you mentioned.

From my past experiences, I must unfortunately say that you might be just about the last person they want to, or can discuss it with (as strange as that sounds), but without them confronting their habits, it is unlikely it is going to get easier. Even with crippling forms of OCD, it is easier to just "comply" than to challenge it, the latter being "guarded" by great anxiety that feels much more intimidating than even the most time-consuming and difficult routines, even if they fully realize some of the irrationality. (That, too, may be hard to understand from another person's view.)

Re: The terrible 'what if': how OCD makes every day a matter of life or death

#67

Post by liberte82 » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 2:59 PM UTC

rndmwlk wrote: post #65

_xlr2 wrote: post #2

I'm appreciative of somebody who also has OCD writing an article like this detailing how the disorder isn't at all like the stereotype of a neat freak. What's funny is, I myself am actually a terribly messy person with books and papers always strewn about (among clothes not quite in the hamper, &c). What's interesting to me from a personal history viewpoint is that one of my earliest compulsions also centered around…

I have the exact same compulsion with locking my door. If I leave my apartment and I don't do my little ritual then I'll either be worried all day, or some times I'll drive back to my apartment and "properly" close the door.

Oh yeah I've had this one big time in the past. It sort of comes and goes, hasn't been bothering me much lately. But a few times at my old job I drove all the way back into work to verify I'd locked the door when leaving for the night even though I was _very_ conscious about locking it - I just wasn't was totally certain as I felt I needed to be.

If this starts bugging me again I'm going to start taking pictures of the locked doors for myself. :)

Re: The terrible 'what if': how OCD makes every day a matter of life or death

#68

Post by SpouseThrowaway » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 3:01 PM UTC

classichasclass wrote: post #59

SpouseThrowaway wrote: post #58

I’m using a throwaway account and trying to keep personal details sparse to keep this as anonymous as possible. Also, despite my frustration with the situation, I’ll attempt to be as neutral as possible. My significant other was always “germ conscious”; clean hands, no shoes in the house, etc. Nothing over the top or alarming. However, over the years, there have been huge shifts in behavior and routine in regards to…

That's really hard to cope with and a big burden on you, particularly, especially since you see it leaking over to your child. When you mention the hostility, what kind of things were said? How does your spouse justify their behaviour? It sounds like there are attributes both of OCD and OCPD, and that makes for a very tough combination.

I defiantly learned over the years that my approach might have lead to more of these issues. Applying logic to each instance as resulted in the opposite effect and opened new doors in terms of what dirty versus clean is.

My spouse has a tendency to push back against things they might be told. For example, if somebody told them they were gaining weight, they would eat more.

Being somebody who struggles with a hot temper, I've learned that nobody really likes to be told that something is wrong with the way they are behaving. Especially if it's an issue that feels uncontrollable. The hostility purely manifests in pushback and stubbornness; which, of course, leads to heated arguments. I like to call it the "Because I said so" attitude.

In my opinion, the biggest justification is actually correct in it's baseline, which makes it so hard to break out of this cycle. Germs are everywhere and they can cause some real nasty issues. The disconnect comes in the thought pattern that they can eliminate the spread of germs. Of course you should clean things and be careful with raw chicken, diapers, feces, shoes in the house, etc.

Re: The terrible 'what if': how OCD makes every day a matter of life or death

#69

Post by 8xde0wcNwpslOw » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 3:02 PM UTC

cryoshon wrote: post #64

SpouseThrowaway wrote: post #58

I’m using a throwaway account and trying to keep personal details sparse to keep this as anonymous as possible. Also, despite my frustration with the situation, I’ll attempt to be as neutral as possible. My significant other was always “germ conscious”; clean hands, no shoes in the house, etc. Nothing over the top or alarming. However, over the years, there have been huge shifts in behavior and routine in regards to…

this might be medically unadvisable, but i have found that education goes a long way towards disarming the notion that anything can ever really be clean if it is in your house. i helped one of my friends be slightly less obsessed with cleanliness this way. let's say you bleach down a perfectly smooth countertop in your kitchen. okay, it's clean, there's no bacteria there. for about two seconds. probably less, in real…

The OCD notion of cleanliness doesn't always have really anything to do with any real germs or other pathogens. "Dirtiness" is more an abstract concept that varies and develops over time.

Re: The terrible 'what if': how OCD makes every day a matter of life or death

#70

Post by Retric » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 3:09 PM UTC

_xlr2 wrote: post #2

I'm appreciative of somebody who also has OCD writing an article like this detailing how the disorder isn't at all like the stereotype of a neat freak. What's funny is, I myself am actually a terribly messy person with books and papers always strewn about (among clothes not quite in the hamper, &c). What's interesting to me from a personal history viewpoint is that one of my earliest compulsions also centered around…

Would it help if you had a webcam pointed at the door so you could remotely verify it's closed and locked? Or do you need some the actual feeling of the door being closed to end the fixation?