OCD AND ME.

I have OCPD (Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder), but you will not come to my house and think to yourself "this lady has OCD" because my house looks lived in.  I'm not a museum curator.  I'm a homemaker.  

I know that seems contradicting.  People often assume that my home will be like a shrine of cleanliness, but it isn't.  The thing about OCD that people misunderstand, is that it doesn't necessarily make you the most organized or clean person out there.  At least not in a well rounded way.

What it does instead (for me at least) is cause me to obsess about one thing to the point of distraction.  For example, let's assume that I need to do dishes, laundry, vacuuming, and dusting.  If I could focus on doing each of those tasks moderately well, I could easily get them all done in a few hours, right?

Not this lady.  Instead I start to load the dishwasher until I notice a dirty light switch, then I clean the light switch and notice a tangled phone wire on the kitchen counter.  I untangle said wire and notice fingerprints on the cordless phone.  I then Windex the phone but decide phones are really gross and use bleach.  

While I have out the bleach, I think I should clean the toilet.  I put bleach in the toilet bowl and see the clothes I left on the bathroom counter.  I hang the clothes but see a crumbled cracker on the closet floor (thanks Harrison).  I vacuum the cracker but decide the vacuum needs emptied.  

I want to shower after emptying the vacuum canister because I have allergies and just ewwwwww .  

I get out of the shower and see my coffee cup on the side of the sink. "RIGHT!  I'm doing dishes!"  Back into the kitchen I go, to finish loading the dishwasher, but before I get to the sink, I notice a coolaid stain on the kitchen grout.  

Cut to two hours later and you will find me still scrubbing grout with a toothbrush.  The dishwasher is half loaded, I have vacuumed three feet of one closet, my toilet is soaking in bleach, both my phone and one light switch are sparkling clean, and I am still wearing a towel.

That shit gets exhausting.  I feel like I am constantly cleaning and never getting anything done.  I get really anxious about getting everything done, so I chronically make lists.  I spend a lot of time making lists.  Lists make me anxious, but marking things off my list calms my nerves, so I make more lists.

* Note to self : "make a list of ways to calm yourself, other than making lists."

In between list making, I reallllllly like to wash my hands.  The last time I renewed my driver's license, the tag office had to get the state to exempt me from having a fingerprint on my ID.  They literally could not finger print me because I have stripped my fingers of their prints.  Yes.  That is apparently possible.  Wanna rob a bank with me???

Now let's talk about unnecessary tidying.  Say that there are six bills lying out on my table.  I'm not going to pay bills until tomorrow, so I want to keep them out where I can see them.  I can't forget about them so I won't stack them and put them away.  No, no, no.  That would make me anxious.  

Instead I will spend about twenty minutes, laying them out in order of who I plan to call first.  I make a little grid of sorts, on the counter, so that I can see all the pertinent details at a glance.  A while later, I will start making dinner and be worried about spilling something on my display of bills, so I will decide to stack and file them after all.  A reminder note is then required- *Add to the list "pay bills tomorrow".

I know, I know.  You are wondering how I stand it...Well, I CAN'T STAND IT.  That's where the liquor and the Xanex come in.  

*Add to the list:  "go to the liquor store".

Do you suffer from OCD?  What is yours like?  I'd love to compare notes!

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