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The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

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Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#11

Post by Hamuko »

I think a similar case I read somewhere was a case where someone was having trouble showering because they had body image issues and they didn't want to see their naked body in the shower. Therapist had a simple solution: "Try showering without lights on."

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#13

Post by acuozzo »

Hacks like this often work wonders.

Reducing the burden of OCD is necessary to get in the frame of mind required to make breaking cycles a habit.

Taking a daily photo of the stove dials with my iPhone helped break the cycle for me and was the first step I took on my long road of (successful!) recovery.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#14

Post by silvestrov »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #2

Seems like a good solution to me if that was the only major issue. If the underlying cause becomes an issue again, then maybe look at longer term solutions. I’ve always had an issue with leaving light switches on. So I installed a bunch of home automation stuff. Now my light bulbs turn themselves off when I leave the house and a few turn on when I return. It’s a lot easier than trying to fix the problem of forgetting…

Bringing the hair dryer along can be the best road to treating the OCD, because you can then do the treatment in small steps.

If people can't go swimming because they are afraid of drowning, you don't give them medication and then throw them out in the deep end. Instead you let them take as small steps into water as possible in a way where they feel in control all the time.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#16

Post by MarkusWandel »

Seriously, I wasn't even through the second paragraph before I thought the same thing - just take the thing with you. It doesn't try to solve the OCD, but it solves the problem.

Nobody in my household has OCD, but we had a garage door that sometimes, unpredictably, would decide that there was an obstruction at the very bottom, and go back up. Did you really, really watch it go all the way down before driving off? Did you?

Engineer's solution rather than psychiatrist's - simply rig something that lets you check over the internet and close the door (but not open it!) if necessary. I've since debugged the garage door too.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#19

Post by hallway_monitor »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #9
sunshineforever wrote: post #6

The idea that the entire psychiatric community wouldn't be completely on the side of the author is one of the reasons that I have such little faith in their field. The reason being is that the underlying condition could always be worked on after first taking the small, practical steps to dramatically reduce the impact of the problem. I have personally experienced situations like this and it was so frustrating until I…

I’ve had the same problems with regular doctors and medical issues. A lot of my problems turned out to be a milk allergy.

In my experience most doctors are pretty useless trying to solve a difficult problem. I had my daughter's colon biopsied before someone suggested using a hypoallergenic formula.
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