Wednesday, December 3, 2008

OCD?

Some things in my life have been, well, overstated. If you've known me for longer than five minutes you know I abused my brother when we were children--the now infamous story being that his first sentence was, Mommy, sissy hit--you know that when I was quite small I made my newlywed aunt and uncle read me a book while they took a bath. Together. Presumably with no clothing on. And you know that my family thinks I was born missing my off switch. My dad doesn't think there was a time, from the development of my language skills until I left for college, when I wasn't talking. These stories are becoming legendary. Or, at least, they should be with as often as they're told.

Speaking of legendary. I come from a long line of cleaners. My dad. His mom. I'm sure a great-grandparent or two. My clean gene has always manifested itself in the nice, neat little compartment of organization. I certainly don't keep the cleanest house I've ever seen. My shelves can rarely pass a white glove test and sometimes I'll go weeks without cleaning the least frequented bathroom. I probably didn't need to confess that. I'm sure you think less of me now. But when it comes to being organized well...I should have maybe majored in it. I'm way better at that than I am at acting.

When I was little (and by little I mean eight or nine) I used to clean my closet. For fun. I loved to get things in better order than they were before. As the story goes, I was playing with a friend when she and her sister had to clean their own closet. It was horrors worse than my own closet and I acted as the drill sergeant making her get rid of things she hadn't used in several months. I can remember helping other friends and neighbors organize their own rooms throughout high school and college.

Then I married a piler. Troy really enjoys piles. Loves them, even. He maybe would have married a pile if it was decidedly female. They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks but, the truth is, you kind of can. I know this because, the longer Troy and I are married, the less clutter my house takes on. I even see myself wearing off on him in ways I could only have dreamed of five years ago. There's only one problem. The better he gets, the worse I get. Oh, I don't replace his piles with my own. No. I replace his piles with higher expectations heaped upon him. My brother, the psychologist, says that everyone has areas of their life that are obsessive/compulsive. The problem is that my area, which I've always known was a severe allergy to clutter, is getting worse. And I can see it.

In my mind, all things have a place and when other things are added to that place, I feel uneasy. I feel, truthfully, a compulsion to move it that either must be consciously suppressed or must be acted upon. For example, my end table currently has three Christmas decorations and several Christmas books on it. That's fine. They can live there. But if someone (read: Troy) puts a cell phone or a newspaper or a set of keys on it, I have to move them to their rightful home. The phone goes to the night stand or into a pocket, the keys onto the hook by the door and the newspaper into the recycler because, well, it's after 10:00 am so it should be read and ready for recycling by now.

I know what you're thinking. You're wondering how I have a toddler, aren't you? Honestly, I spend a lot of my day picking up after him but I also let him have his way with his playroom constantly. It's not that I can't let him play and destroy spaces, I just have to "fix" them when he's finished. The trouble is I can see it getting worse and what worries me is not the fact that I am ruining my son's life--really, truly, he destroys his spaces on a daily basis--but the fact that I am 27 years old. What, on earth, am I going to be like at 40 or 50? I don't have to wash my hands three thousand times before I flip the light switch 82 times and then turn around in three circles and spit twice into the toilet or anything like that but I do, often times, have crazy urges to declutter things.

So the bottom line is this...is there medication for this? Or do I have to chalk it up to my clean genes and go about my life either driving those around me crazy or feeling all twisty and psychotic inside as I stare at a television remote thrown haphazardly onto the couch instead of placed neatly inside the cabinet?

10 comments:

  1. Except for the acting part, I could have written this. Of course things have a place and they should be in them. It is a simple universal rule that all should understand, but only a few of us do. :) Anyway, keep picking things up and putting them where they belong, but do it quietly. "Reminding" Troy to do it is akin to nagging, and that is just not a good thing to do. Just be glad you are not in my shoes, coming in to work on a Tuesday after the entire church leaves stuff on my desk on Sunday. J

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  2. And I cleaned my closet - for fun - when I was 8 or 9 as well. J

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  3. I am the opposite. Stuff is psychotically clean and I start to feel crazy if it's not. But I have lots of clutter.

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  4. Oh, here we go...
    First of all, it shall be duly noted that I am in no way, shape, or form, a psychologist. That is just false advertisement. Secondly, it is not necessarily that everyone has a smidge of OCD, but everyone has some smidge of at least one mental illness. I myself do have a portion of OCD. For me, it is checking. If I set an alarm, I cannot check it once. I have to check it two or three times, just to make sure. Thirdly, yes there are meds, but you don't need them. You could take certain antidepressants that act on the serotonergic systems in the brain. Among these are Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, and Celexa. More often used are behavior techniques, such as exposure and response prevention. In such techniques, you would be exposed to anxiety-provoking stimuli (clutter) on a gradual basis, and not allowed to fix it. Its a slow process, but does work. You need neither of these, because you don't have full-blown OCD. Neither do I. Wait, did I lock the door? Is my alarm set? AHHH! I could write more, but considering the fact that I have thoroughly bored even myself, I'll stop.

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  5. Just know that your clean gene never completly leaves you. When I find things in places they are not supposed to be I tell grandpa that when he is alone and has to keep the house clean he can put things where he wants to until that time we have to have a neat house.

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  6. I forgot to mention that I am a CLEAN neat freak. No clutter. No dirt. I walk in the house and first thing I do is check the kitchen counter for stuff (grit, water stains, etc.). God and my family love me anyway, for reasons I can't understand. J

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  7. HELLO monica gellar! i'm right with you on this one. the thing with me is, i think i've relaxed (or become lazy) quite a bit to the point where i purposely ignore the clutter UNTIL i learn that someone...anyone...is going to be dropping by. that's when i go all ocd and my husband wonders where his sweet lazy wife has gone. i do, however, feel little tingles of happiness when i have an afternoon to organize my dresser or pantry.

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  8. Ok well before you medicate yourself come over and visit me. Maybe you can rub off on me. Unfortunately I am a piler who married a piler. Although I have no de-clutter genes I do have chaotic feelings about clutter and I go crazy, well a bit neurotic to be truthful. I am on the computer right now to avoid my kitchen, which is piled high with stuff. The junk mail Jeremy insisted I want to go through. Instead of arguing I let him leave it. The mail that he went through is still there. And so on. So if you are for hire or give classes sign me up.

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  9. When you are 40, you are going to be like me, which is a lot like you, but in possession of more "systems" and lists, and your husband will probably make you crazier than he does now. I, too, married a piler/collector. I think one of the joys of our different styles is that he fulfills my need to go to Goodwill once a month, and I keep his crap... I mean stuff... under control so it doesn't smother him in his sleep.

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  10. Oh I TOTALLY get this one. I have become increasingly obsessed with cleanliness since I hit the nesting stage being pregnant with my son 5 years ago. Since then I could never completely turn it off. Some couples fight about money. We fight about not cleaning up after each other. Socks around the house. Newspapers in the bathroom. GRRRRRRRRRR. My blood pressure is rising as I write this.

    And then I think of wine and all my troubles go away. Hee hee. I've got no answers or suggestions for you. I'm in the same boat. High fives.

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