OCD

[Littleg94]

Hi everyone I fee like I struggle with OCD is as a councillor once who said I didn’t but I clean a lot! Not constantly but the house has to look a certain way or I get anxiety and angry and sometimes take it out on my partner. I vacuum every day and everything has to be in its place! I recently had our in-law stay with us for a month and due to covid and being stuck from the uk there staying til June but where sharing it between here and my sister in-laws there about to come back for another four weeks and I can’t deal with my anxiety of them coming back and me not being able to control my environment and cleaning ect! I always get super paranoid about what they think of me as I come straight home from work and vacume I feel like they think I’m crazy or something just need help or advice to stop this 😞

[AlwaysForgotten]

Hi Little G,

While obviously I am not a psychologist, I am someone who has spent a great deal of time learning as much as I can about a great variety of subjects, especially given that my wife often jokes about having OCD herself.

To be honest, it sounds like you may have a very mild case of it (similar to my wife). The primary key here is "disorder", and something has to actually cause a negative effect on your life as a result of you following through on the action that you believe is OCD. For instance, when my wife puts on make up, she taps the foundation 3 times... its always 3 times. If I play a trick on her and tap just twice... she has to tap once more to finish it off. While we make a joke of it, I do understand and appreciate that it can be a struggle for her.

What is interesting however is that instead of having OCD (or it being the problem), it is more likely that the compulsion is the way in which your anxiety relieves itself. Often when we dont feel like we have control, doing something that we can control can alleviate those feelings. So from my educated (but not qualified) assessment, I think that cleaning has become a surrogate for whatever is the underlying reasons for your anxiety.

One way to consider it would be for me to ask you a specific question: "I haven't vacuumed for 3 days, what does that mean about me as a person?"

If you tell me that it means nothing, then you have highlighted that you treat yourself differently than you do others (ie you worry what they think of you not cleaning, but when reversed you think nothing of it). If you tell me that it has serious repercussions that badly reflect on me as a person, we can see if this holds up for all people (ie is your Grandma equally as bad if she doesn't vacuum for 3 days?).

I think the best way to handle this is to first understand where it is coming from, to cut yourself some slack & accept that you are not doing this on purpose, it is what it is &the more you know & understand about yourself the more you can take action to alter that.

Hope that helps

[Littleg94]

This has helped a huge amount and yeah I get that I do have to understand where it comes from to fix it but I really don’t know I fee I’ve always been an overly clean person even as a child however since moving out and my nan passed away it got worse it’s just me and my partners home and I feel that if anyone comes over or stays I cannot relax and have to clean up behind everyone not to the point where I make people feel uncomfortable but I get like as if I have an itch and I wanna itch it and can’t and that’s when I get frustrated! I am extremely paranoid about having the in-laws stay with me and when I get home from work every day I pick up the vacume that there gonna judge me as it’s not how they live? However if I don’t go home and vacuum I can’t relax until everything is vacuumed and I’ve wiped down the kitchen and everything is back in its place? I wish I wasn’t the way I am and that annoys me also I wanna be a more relaxed person and not have to do these things but when people stay with us my anxiety gets worse which makes me wanna clean more and I get frustrated and don’t handle it well and then get snappy and cause arguments it goes around in circles really

[Littleg94]

I do get that and I feel I’ve always been a pretty tidy and clean person but I find I can’t even relax until I’ve come home vacuumed and put everything back in it’s place first! I wish I wasn’t like this I want to be a relaxed person but I am not! It can cause arguments with me and my partner as I can’t control my anxieties and then I get snappy and cause an argument especially when I am feeling out of control! I get uncomfortable having friends over and get on edge about the house not being tidy and I don’t want to be this type of person! I am extremely anxious about the in-laws moving in for a month as I get paranoid when I come home every day and vacume that there gonna think I’m a psycho? Haha! My partner will say the floors are clean and don’t need doing and I don’t know if it’s more of a habit or anxiety thing but I don’t feel relaxed until this is done?

[AlwaysForgotten]

I will let you in on a little secret... I was adopted and I realize now that because of the feelings of being abandoned that I have always had this need to be useful to others, to be "worth" their time & attention, to be valuable to them, and to be liked and wanted by them. For years I struggled with this, it drained me to have to keep putting in so much effort, all the time fearing that I would never be good enough. So much so that I married young to the first person that showed an interest in me & changed everything about myself to be the perfect husband "for her". I just couldn't keep it up & ended up leaving.

For a long time I wracked my brains trying to work out how to not be like that, to not feel the need to be like that. What I discovered is that it is practically part of my DNA now, there basically is no changing it & it is who I am. So instead of trying to change "who" I was, I changed the "way" that I was true to myself. There was no way I could stop myself wanting to be helpful to others, to give whatever I could, but instead of giving everything no matter the harm to myself, I put mental checkpoints in place. I decided that I would still give, as long as it wasn't taking away from me, that I was still free to be the person I am, just not to the point of running myself into the ground. I found that by balancing that part of me I cannot change, with what I already know I should be doing for my own self-preservation I could actually still feel like myself as well as taking baby steps towards not going too far.

So perhaps something like that may help for you. Accept that this is who you are & will always be, but just incrementally add some "checkpoints" that bring this in balance with looking after yourself. So maybe one or two days a week, instead of doing the vacuuming, you do a "once over" (ie spend only half the time you normally would). See how that feels, pay attention to the fact nobody even noticed a difference. Try that for a few weeks & then give it another nudge & perhaps not vacuum at all for just one day. Notice again how nobody can tell the difference.

It isn't easy & it isn't done overnight, it took me a long time to get to a point of balance, but I no longer feel that I "have" to be helpful to others... I just am because it is who I am.