Aa
Denial?
Hi, When my wife washes her hands, it takes at least 10 good min each time. She blames on the rings she wears(only 4) and stings her nails inside the soap bar in order to clean under her nails. I use one soap bar around every 3 months while she uses 10 for the same period. When she goes to the restroom, it takes her one hour. When she warms up food(not even cook), it takes her around 30 min for each person. She says that she doesn't have OCD but meticulous and her motto is "Better do it slowly and good than fast and mess it up". When she goes outside, whenever she goes to the restroom, as I don't go to women's restroom I don't know what she's doing but it takes her around 15 min to 30 min and when she goes home she washes her hand again or use the shower if she pooped. She is a maniac of cleanliness but the shower and sink are full of mold (not the whole restroom but enough to notice that it's not normal) while the other restroom that I and my son use never has mold and the restroom floor is stuck with brown/orange-ish stuff. The kitchen is stuck with food and water liquid that I have to clean as we have kids. My guess is it started when she was young and she had food poisoning and had to go to the hospital. And her very heavy sweaty hands doesn't help the case. Does she have OCD? I would like an answer from OCD specialists because she always denies and only accept what she like to hear, remember only what she likes to remember and always use righteousness to justify her arguments but as I'm not good at arguing back I can't argue with her although I do know deep down that her argument is wrong. We went to a marriage counselor once and when we went home, I told her that I was right for ... but she replied that she (my wife) was also right for ... but she said that the counselor is wrong for what she (the counselor) said I was right.
I'm apparently not allowed to share that website on here so here is what it says:
1. Educate yourself.
The first responsible thing you can do is to educate yourself. Because you can’t really spot a type of disorder without knowing its symptoms. In guessing that a sister is depressed, you should know if there have been any significant changes in her diet, sleep, energy, and so forth. You can’t really assume your brother-in-law is bipolar based on Matt Damon’s performance as a pathological liar/bipolar freak in “The Informant!” or that a friend is obsessive-compulsive because her behavior resembles Jack Nicholson’s in “As Good As It Gets.”
Educating yourself is not only going to help you gather the facts that you need in order to know how sick your loved is, but it is going to help you feel more in control of the situation—so that you can guard yourself against the fruitcake that will be hurled at you come Christmas dinner. It won’t be a TOTAL surprise.
2. Gather the information.
Here comes the fun part. You get to pretend you are a detective for a month or so and gather any facts you can about the person without a) invading her privacy, or 2) bringing on an awkward confrontation. If you think she is depressed, ask about her diet. “Are you still eating Chipotle’s Burrito Bowl for lunch? No? Why not? Are you still playing tennis on Tuesday nights? Why have you stopped? What book are you reading for your book club? Have you hosted any of the meetings recently? It’s helpful to get together with any mutual friends and/or family members who would have additional information, so that together you can get a truer picture of what’s going on. The person may tell you something that contradicts your sister’s information, and the discrepancy can be even more significant than either of the answers. After studying the symptoms of the disorder that you think your loved one has, you will better know the information you need to find out.
3. Make a plan.
Here’s where it gets hard, because there is no right solution, and you can’t know the appropriate approach until it’s over. There is, of course, the intervention: when you gather together family and friends of the person and you all publicly confront the person with his behavior. Everyone either expresses a way that he/she has been affected, or reads a letter, or does something that ultimately communicates, “Dude. Uncool.” The intervention is the most extreme approach, and isn’t right for every situation. It can be when a person is in danger of either hurting himself or hurting someone else –by suicide, recklessness, or severe substance abuse. In some cases, police may even need to be called.
As much as we’d like to be able to force a sibling or friend or parent into treatment, we simply can’t. They have to meet strict criteria for being committed involuntarily to an inpatient hospitalization program. Someone has to prove that they are incapable of meeting their own basic survival needs (paying bills, proper hygiene, nutrition) or that they are a danger to themselves or others. States vary with regard to the criteria, but it is not easy to make the case because you have to bypass all those human rights and stuff that we have.
So, that leaves ….
4. State the facts.
You’ve studied up. You have the evidence. You know that she is depressed, but not so severely that she presents a risk to herself or to her family. And yet … the disorder is clearly wreaking havoc on her home life as well as her friendships and job. What do you do?
You start with the facts, and depending on how the conversation is going, you end with the facts. No one can dispute facts. They are what they are. They have no emotion or judgment or attitude attached to them. And they are especially heard when spoken from a person who has done her homework.
For example, when I was in that spot—being confronted by a friend about my severe depression six years ago—she simply listed a few things that I couldn’t deny: 1) there was food on my robe, 2) I couldn’t stop crying, 3) I had lost 15 pounds in two months, 4) I wasn’t speaking in coherent sentences, 5) she wasn’t the only one worried about me — there were at least three others.
My husband could have told me in vague language that he was worried about me, but I probably wouldn’t have listened because he wasn’t a doctor and he wasn’t laying down concrete evidence. I could hear what my friend was saying because I knew she had done her homework and was merely calling out the obvious, not making a general judgment of me.
1. Educate yourself.
The first responsible thing you can do is to educate yourself. Because you can’t really spot a type of disorder without knowing its symptoms. In guessing that a sister is depressed, you should know if there have been any significant changes in her diet, sleep, energy, and so forth. You can’t really assume your brother-in-law is bipolar based on Matt Damon’s performance as a pathological liar/bipolar freak in “The Informant!” or that a friend is obsessive-compulsive because her behavior resembles Jack Nicholson’s in “As Good As It Gets.”
Educating yourself is not only going to help you gather the facts that you need in order to know how sick your loved is, but it is going to help you feel more in control of the situation—so that you can guard yourself against the fruitcake that will be hurled at you come Christmas dinner. It won’t be a TOTAL surprise.
2. Gather the information.
Here comes the fun part. You get to pretend you are a detective for a month or so and gather any facts you can about the person without a) invading her privacy, or 2) bringing on an awkward confrontation. If you think she is depressed, ask about her diet. “Are you still eating Chipotle’s Burrito Bowl for lunch? No? Why not? Are you still playing tennis on Tuesday nights? Why have you stopped? What book are you reading for your book club? Have you hosted any of the meetings recently? It’s helpful to get together with any mutual friends and/or family members who would have additional information, so that together you can get a truer picture of what’s going on. The person may tell you something that contradicts your sister’s information, and the discrepancy can be even more significant than either of the answers. After studying the symptoms of the disorder that you think your loved one has, you will better know the information you need to find out.
3. Make a plan.
Here’s where it gets hard, because there is no right solution, and you can’t know the appropriate approach until it’s over. There is, of course, the intervention: when you gather together family and friends of the person and you all publicly confront the person with his behavior. Everyone either expresses a way that he/she has been affected, or reads a letter, or does something that ultimately communicates, “Dude. Uncool.” The intervention is the most extreme approach, and isn’t right for every situation. It can be when a person is in danger of either hurting himself or hurting someone else –by suicide, recklessness, or severe substance abuse. In some cases, police may even need to be called.
As much as we’d like to be able to force a sibling or friend or parent into treatment, we simply can’t. They have to meet strict criteria for being committed involuntarily to an inpatient hospitalization program. Someone has to prove that they are incapable of meeting their own basic survival needs (paying bills, proper hygiene, nutrition) or that they are a danger to themselves or others. States vary with regard to the criteria, but it is not easy to make the case because you have to bypass all those human rights and stuff that we have.
So, that leaves ….
4. State the facts.
You’ve studied up. You have the evidence. You know that she is depressed, but not so severely that she presents a risk to herself or to her family. And yet … the disorder is clearly wreaking havoc on her home life as well as her friendships and job. What do you do?
You start with the facts, and depending on how the conversation is going, you end with the facts. No one can dispute facts. They are what they are. They have no emotion or judgment or attitude attached to them. And they are especially heard when spoken from a person who has done her homework.
For example, when I was in that spot—being confronted by a friend about my severe depression six years ago—she simply listed a few things that I couldn’t deny: 1) there was food on my robe, 2) I couldn’t stop crying, 3) I had lost 15 pounds in two months, 4) I wasn’t speaking in coherent sentences, 5) she wasn’t the only one worried about me — there were at least three others.
My husband could have told me in vague language that he was worried about me, but I probably wouldn’t have listened because he wasn’t a doctor and he wasn’t laying down concrete evidence. I could hear what my friend was saying because I knew she had done her homework and was merely calling out the obvious, not making a general judgment of me.
I did find this on the web. It would apply to OCD as well so maybe give it a try.
http://************.com/blog/archives/2011/10/23/11-ways-to-help-a-loved-one-in-denial/
It the work place when things are going south, they always say document, document, document. Well your marriage and family life are going south, so document and hopefully she will take the evidence for what it is and agree to get some help.
http://************.com/blog/archives/2011/10/23/11-ways-to-help-a-loved-one-in-denial/
It the work place when things are going south, they always say document, document, document. Well your marriage and family life are going south, so document and hopefully she will take the evidence for what it is and agree to get some help.
I know she must be the one to realize but 10 min x 6 = 1 hour, it means she has 23 hours a day to live left. Every time I ask her such questions like "What took you so long?", she uses the excuse that she's a woman and has more needs(at first) then when she knows that I noticed that she spend 10 min to wash hands she blames on the rings as she can't blame anything else(yet). Now she doesn't go outside any more unless for emergency. She doesn't feel yet that there is a problem because she lives at her own pace. As I have a 6 month old daughter, we take turn to take care of her but even though she spend much more time taking care of her, most of the time she just hold her or warm up food (not even cook) for herself, me and my son while I have to do the remaining: go do errands, wash dishes, put clothes in washing machine, put trashes out... Lots of time, when she has dirty hands, and our daughter needs attention like change diapers, she hesitates for quite a long time (at least 1 to 5 min or more when we argue) to choose what she should do. I seem to complain but I just need a confirmation if she has OCD in order to find a way to help her.
Hi there....I'm not going to take sides. All I can tell you from my own OCD experience (which makes me an expert at having OCD but obviously not a counselor) is that she definitely has a cleanliness problem that only applies to her person. Usually there is a trigger and it could be the food poisoning. Every person's OCD is different. I had food poisoning from pizza in college that landed me in the hospital but I never developed a hand washing problem or cleanliness problem. Actually I'm pretty messy if I think about it. So again, everyone is different.
Your wife does not feel she has a problem even though clearly you see it. She has to feel like she spends the good majority of her day doing these things and it interferes with daily life. Again, you see it as a problem and she does not. Until she feels that she has a problem, then there is no way to fix this. What does she say when she comes back from the restroom at a restaurant after 30 minutes and you say "what took you so long?"
Your wife does not feel she has a problem even though clearly you see it. She has to feel like she spends the good majority of her day doing these things and it interferes with daily life. Again, you see it as a problem and she does not. Until she feels that she has a problem, then there is no way to fix this. What does she say when she comes back from the restroom at a restaurant after 30 minutes and you say "what took you so long?"
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