Using writing, and meditation, and ice cream, and reading, and dreams,

and a whole lot of other tools to rediscover who I am,

after six years living with a man with OCPD.



Friday, October 28, 2011

The Shadow Scar

Emotional Healing" ©Beth Budesheim
Go here for more stunning, soul-filled art.
www.PaintedJourneys.com
Some years ago, because I'm naturally graceful that way, I burned myself cooking.

I was baking cookies (despite the distress of my OCPD ex for messing up his kitchen by doing so) and as I removed a cookie sheet from the bottom rack of the oven, I brushed the top of my arm against the edge of the top rack for a few seconds.

It stung, and it left a red mark, about three inches long, a quarter inch or so wide.  It wasn't a bad burn, per se.  It was red, and it hurt a lot at the time, but it didn't even raise a blister, so it didn't cross the line from first to second-degree burn.  I've had burns on my hands from cooking that raised blisters.  As a child and teenager, had sunburns that blistered and peeled.  This particular burn seemed like no big deal.

Yet for whatever reason, this burn damaged the skin in such a way that I still have the shadow of it on my arm, noticeably darker than the surrounding skin, some six-seven years later.

It's a perfect metaphor to me for how emotional scars work, too.  It's not always the biggest wound that leaves the most lasting mark.  Sometimes a small burn, a cutting remark, some tiny soul-injury  that seemed like no big deal at the time, leaves a mark that lasts for years.  Perhaps forever.

We can tell ourselves there is no logical reason it should linger so, try to reason it away.  We can attempt to cover it up, or ignore it.  But maybe what we should do is simply acknowledge it's there, for whatever reason, and show love to ourselves about it.

Do you, too, have scars and wounds you tell yourself you "shouldn't" feel?
How well is that working out for you?
Please share some thoughts in the comments, below.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chap 5 - Demand-Sensitivity & Demand-Resistance

This post continues with Demand-Sensitivity and Demand-Resistance from Chapter Five.

This series will look at a small snippet of The book on the Perfectionist Personality, aka The Obsessive Compulsive disordered Personality, aka OCPD, each week. Please follow along, leave your comments, engage more on the FaceBook website... whatever your heart calls you to do.

Too Perfect, When Being in Control Gets Out of Control by Allan E. Mallinger, M.D. and Jeanette DeWyze was published by Random House in 1992.  If you believe you are dealing with OCPD or someone who is "Too Perfect," whether that's you or a loved one, please buy a copy of the book and read it for additional insights that will not all be covered in these excerpts.

 Demand-Sensitivity & Demand-Resistance
This section opens with three anecdotal stories - the first about a woman who postpones going to bed or making love with her husband - although she always enjoys their lovemaking, and is afraid if their sex life continues to deteriorate, her husband will become interested in other women.  The second is about a man who stays up late watching TV, even though he's physically exhausted and not interested in the programs, leaving him too tired to focus on his work and to do any household projects.
<snip> "I've learned not to come out and say it when I want Gordon to do something.  If I don't ask, he'll do it, but if I say something, I never know when I'll see some action.  I recently made the mistake of asking him to fill out his part of a credit application.  He said he would, and I know he wants the charge card, but that was three weeks ago.  He still says he's going to get to it, but somehow the right moment never seems to arise."
What's going on here?  What's preventing these people from doing things that each of them seemingly wants to do?
Many different factors could explain their behavior.  But in these particular cases, the two powerful factors were a special sensitivity to perceived demands of expectations, and a negative inner response to these demands.
 I call these two conditions "demand-sensitivity" and "demand-resistance."  Although they don't always occur simultaneously, they are related, and both frequently affect the obsessive person.
***
Sometimes, we "let" things get in the way of what we really don't want to do.  (Like filing, my nemesis.)  If you're reading this, on your computer, then you know as well as I do there are eight billion ways to waste time on the computer alone.  And then, whoops, oh how terrible, outta time!

But true demand-sensitivity and demand-resistance are about rebelling against things we truly do want to do.  Like making love.  Like the guy who wants the credit card but won't fill out his part of the application.  There's no good reason for his foot-dragging.  Is it the most fun you could ever have with a pen?  Probably not, but it's fifteen minutes and done, on to something else.

I've heard so many stories about OCPD parents who wouldn't read and sign kids' permission slips or homework acknowledgments, creating tremendous stress with their partners who get caught into a lose-lose scenario.  If they by-pass the demand-resistant parent for signatures, they are "cutting them out of the children's lives."  If they give them the papers to sign, and the other parents drag their feet, then they feel tremendous stress and pressure to get the thing done.

[Answer: offer the paperwork, with a deadline.  "Jimmy is taking this to school on Thursday morning.  I'm putting it right here, so you can review or sign it by Wednesday night, or it's going without your signature, your choice."  Then no "bugging, no reminders or pleas to get it done.]

Every person I know who's dealt with OCPD has some stories to tell about demand-sensitivity or demand-resistance, and there will be much more from Too Perfect on this subject in weeks to come. Speaking as a non, this was one of the things that drove me nuts about my ex - if I didn't broach something just right (whatever that is), he would refuse to do it, just because I'd asked him to.

It should not be treated as a cause for resentment if we ask each other to do things from time to time.  It's also okay to say no.  I recently heard from a FaceBook "friend" (from whom I hadn't heard in over a year) who "invited" me to help with her yard sale last weekend.  I thought, oh, hell no! but what I said was simply No.

Where the mental illness comes in is resisting/saying no to everything as a knee-jerk reaction.

Do you have knee-jerk reactions of demand-sensitivity or demand-resistance?
How are you overcoming that?

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chapt 4 - Making Romantic Commitments & Your Choice

This post continues with Making Romantic Commitments & Your Choice  from Chapter Four.

This series will look at a small snippet of The book on the Perfectionist Personality, aka The Obsessive Compulsive disordered Personality, aka OCPD, each week. Please follow along, leave your comments, engage more on the FaceBook website... whatever your heart calls you to do.

Too Perfect, When Being in Control Gets Out of Control by Allan E. Mallinger, M.D. and Jeanette DeWyze was published by Random House in 1992.  If you believe you are dealing with OCPD or someone who is "Too Perfect," whether that's you or a loved one, please buy a copy of the book and read it for additional insights that will not all be covered in these excerpts.

 Making Romantic Commitmenta
Next time you're torn by an ultimatum, either to make a commitment or end an important relationship, clarify the thoughts that are causing your anxiety.  You'll probably find two sets of concerns locked in battled within you.
If I don't commit:
  • I will will guilty about dashing X's hopes after all this time.
  • I might discover late that I want him or her back
  • I might never again meeting someone who could love me as much.
  • His/her leaving will make me unbearably sad.

But if I do make the commitment:
  • I might wind up regretting that I chose X and be trapped by my conscience in a bad relationship.
  • I'll be accepting the intolerable certainty of never falling in love again.
  • Someone with whom I could have a better relationship might come along, and I would be tied up.
  • I'll be giving up my freedom, and just thinking about that feels horrible, almost like dying.
Now consider these more reasonable beliefs:
  • Although it's sad and painful to end a love relationship, you would recover from such a loss (as would your loved one).  The pain would be neither intolerable nor endless, even though it might seem that way for a while. <snip>
  • On the other hand, if you did make the commitment, it wouldn't be irreversible.  No commitment to a relationship ever is.  Though you shouldn't ever enter a relationship with the idea of bailing out when it gets difficult, if it becomes clear that it won't work, even after every effort to resolve the problems, you can end it.  It would be difficult, but you could if you had to.
  • If you're so close to committing to X, how unsuitable a choice could he or she be?  X might well have some flaws, like most human beings, and it's true that a better choice for you might someday appear, but don't use these arguments to disguise an exaggerated fear of commitment.  If the main obstacle is your terror of closing options, the same problem is bound to come up in future relationships, no matter who your partner is.
  • Finally, it's true that giving up the fantasy of ever having a new love is a painful loss, but it's not unbearable unless you decide it is.  If you insist on telling yourself you can't stand the thought of giving that up, fine.  Have it your way.  But you don't have to think that.  <snip>

Your Choice

I'm not making a blanket recommendation that you commit to your current romance, job, or anything else; I don't have to live with the results.  You alone must decide how much of your reluctance is legitimate and how much is your fear of commitment.
If it's only reasonable caution, you'll resolve your doubts as new data come in.  But if the main obstacle is a fear of decisions and commitments, data won't help.  In fact, you'll just use this additional information to justify your paralysis.  You'll waver, anguished, until external matter decide for your or until you can't stand vacillating anymore and jumo in or out on impulse.
<snip> You can choose to see commitment as an unbearable risk, and the end of your freedom.  Or you can choose to see it as the only way to stop this chronic feeling of painful isolation and lost time.
***

Madonna did Justify My Love, maybe we can ask Lady Gaga to do a song called Justify My Paralysis.

When I look back over my life, my regrets have to do with the men I haven't kissed (granted, I've kissed quite a few), the chances I didn't take re: dating, careers, new activities.  I regret staying in bad love and job relationships because of fear - fear of being alone, or never finding someone else, or finding another job.  And from what I hear, everyone else is the same - they regret the dreams they didn't risk.

My biggest risk - taking 6 months off from work/looking for work after a lay-off, and pursuing writing a book.  Did it sell?  No.  Do I regret that time - absolutely NOT.

Second biggest - moving in with OCPD ex, although I had some misgivings.  I did everything that was in me to make that relationship work.  I'm sorry it didn't work; I'm not sorry I tried.  Even though it didn't, even though in many ways it was an emotionally damaging relationship, in many other ways I am emotionally richer and deeper because of it.  So, no regrets.

Life really and truly does work out - if you decide you're going to make it work out.

What's the biggest risk you decided not to take?
Do you regret "the one that got away" - a relationship that ended 
because you wouldn't commit?
Thoughts, feelings, comments?

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Growing Up Hoarded, Part 3:
Thalia from Tetanus Burger Answers Questions

Metal runs via Tetanus Burger.  Used by permission.
As of October 2011: 
38 trips to the scrap yard;
16.5 tons of metal removed; 
Not counting old cars. 

What would you do if you inherited not simply a houseful of hoard, but an entire junkyard?  (To read Part 1, click here; Part 2, click here.)

Thalia and her sister Tara have been blogging about their experiences cleaning up their father's junkyard - and garages - and work areas - since June 2010.

The shows you may see on TV focus mainly on two things: a kind of train wreck fascination with the visual scope of the (worst) hoards covered, and the anguish the hoarder endures trying to give up any little piece of his/her "treasure."

What is rarely touched upon is what growing up in a hoard does to the children.  How does it impact them socially?  Do they inherit the distorted thinking that "there's a use for that," for everything?  Are they angry, hurt, confused?

Thalia of Tetanus Burger, for whom I hold more admiration for her courage and raw honesty than I can ever express in words, agreed to this e-interview in hopes of shedding a little more light on this issue.  To help those children and teenagers who are even now living with a hoarding parent, and wondering if something is wrong with them.


***

7) You and your sister share writing and photography duties on the blog. Have there been times when the hoard (or the blog) has strained the relationship between you, or has it made you closer than perhaps you might have been otherwise?

The blog does not strain our relationship because I am very careful about what I write on it. 

Rusty Jones makes an appearance on Tetanus Burger
whenever an old car is towed away.
8) On a lighter note, tell me about your jones for Rusty Jones, your red-headed, handle-bar mustached cutey mascot. How was he “born,” and if you ever saw him walking towards you in the flesh, would you flee in terror, or run up and embrace him?

He came about because as a child of the seventies I got his jingle in my head one day as we were junking a car and I thought it would be perfectly ridiculous to have him as a mascot.  Besides the fact that he is a cartoon, he is not, actually, my type.  Perhaps he is the Brawny paper towel guy's type?


9) Tetanus Burger the blog started in June 2010, and I’ve been following almost from the beginning. Refresh me: when did the actual clean-up start? At the current rate of cleanup, health and weather permitting, when do you think you’ll truly be done?

It started actually when I moved back in the summer of 2001; I don't recall what I did, except come back from living on my own out in the sane world where I learned something about what normal looked like.  But I have been told by Tara that my moving back was definitely an impetus to get things going.  My father was still there then and somehow my sister managed to convince him to start getting rid of stuff.  I don't know how; maybe he finally realized he was retiring and so didn't need to keep all these cars.  Honestly, I don't know; logic had never made a dent before so why should it have then?  It went well for a while there, but then Tara got busy and stopped helping.

After my father went in the nursing home, despite the fact that he was no longer there, it all just kind of sat for a few years, until I finally realized that we were free to clean the yard.  Yes, it took a couple of years to realize that.  So there's been a new push since last year, which is when I started to blog to help keep things rolling and to garner encouragement because frankly I just don't get that from this family.

I have no idea at all when it will be done.  I really don't.  I can't even in fact imagine what this yard would look like cleaned up.  I honestly have no concept.  It has been a junkyard all my life.


10) Besides the train-wreck fascination of the pictures, I’ve followed your blog because both you and Tara are gifted and very funny writers. Any plans to do something with that skill?

I don't like to talk about what I really do for a living, which does use those skills, or related ones, because I would like to remain somewhat anonymous.


11) What would you like to say to a young person living with a hoarding parent? What has helped you to grow and find strength and peace as you deal with the mental and physical debris?

I would tell them that it is not their fault.  Their parent's behavior is not their fault and that there is nothing whatsoever they can do to change their parents even if it were their responsibility, which it isn't.  Also, get out as soon as you possibly can.  They are fucked up.  It's not you. Trust me, it's not you.

As to your second question I don't honestly know.  Some kind of stubborn resolve that this is screwed up and needs to be righted, maybe.  Or pure anger and rage at the way I was treated and am still being treated in a lot of ways.   Honestly I think that's what it comes down to: rage.

***

Two things you can do right now, dear reader:


1) Add a comment to show your support for Thalia and her courage in opening up about this very difficult subject.


2) Download this attached .pdf prepared by Children of Hoarders.  It would be great if COH was a big, well-known organization with bucketfuls of money( they do accept donations), who could afford to print out multiple copies and leave them in places like schools, pediatricians' offices, and youth recreational facilities - anywhere a child of a hoarder might find one, and realize s/he is not alone.

For now, they are asking for volunteers, to please print out what copies you can afford, distribute them where you can.  And pass the word.


Thank you.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Growing Up Hoarded, Part 2:
Thalia of Tetanus Burger Shares Some Thoughts

"Before" garage picture via Tetanus Burger.  Used by permission
What would you do if you inherited not simply a houseful of hoard, but an entire junkyard?  (To read Part 1, click here.)


Thalia and her sister Tara have been blogging about their experiences cleaning up their father's junkyard - and garages - and work areas - since June 2010.


"After" garage picture via Tetanus Burger.  Used by permission.
The shows you may see on TV focus mainly on two things: a kind of train wreck fascination with the visual scope of the (worst) hoards covered, and the anguish the hoarder endures trying to give up any little piece of his/her "treasure."


What is rarely touched upon is what growing up in a hoard does to the children.  How does it impact them socially?  Do they inherit the distorted thinking that "there's a use for that," for everything?  Are they angry, hurt, confused?


Thalia of Tetanus Burger, for whom I hold more admiration for her courage and raw honesty than I can ever express in words, agreed to this e-interview in hopes of shedding a little more light on this issue.  To help those children and teenagers who are even now living with a hoarding parent, and wondering if something is wrong with them.


***

4) Let’s talk about OCPD, the need to control not only oneself, but one’s entire environment and inner circle of family. I’ve blogged here before about being lectured by my ex because I left the shower doors six inches from the wall to air out after a shower, and they were supposed to be eight. (Or was it the other way around, lol?) You’ve posted about some of the things your father did to control your household, like post a sign on the wall directing how you should do laundry. But it wasn’t just signs, I’m sure. What happened around your house if the rules were broken?

I don't honestly know how to answer that.  We weren't punished, not overtly anyway; they didn't spank us (except when we were really young), or even ground us (and in high school I was out sometimes till four in the morning on a school night).  I'm not sure what the hold my father had on us was.  It was just the way things were done.

When I was a kid and reading fairy tales I remember once in a while coming across one that was new to me, which had rules that contradicted what other fairy tales' rules were.  I remember almost freaking out at that—how was I supposed to know what to do if the rules were different?  I couldn't see the underlying patterns behind them, which I can now, things like be kind and compassionate, help the unfortunate, be true to your voice.  It was just all about the rules.  And I don't even remember most of those rules, so I can't even tell you what they were.

That's the thing about growing up with a lot of invalidation; your memory is both damaged and discounted from within.  So I can't answer that, except to say that my father sure yelled a lot, and would always scream about how he paid for whatever it was and how that gave him control.  So I guess the underlying threat was that he wasn't going to pay for it, and then what?  We'd starve even more?  Freeze even more in the winter?  Be even more miserable? 

When I was a child—a child—I had recurring dreams about living in a totalitarian dictatorship, usually under the Nazis, who were always watching everything I did.  The only thing I could think to do in those dreams was to hide, which is I guess pretty much what I did in real life too.  What kid dreams of Nazis?  I remember seeing, not too long ago, a tv movie on the Warsaw ghetto, and one of the characters, a Jewish woman, was out doing something against the rules, something to do with the freedom fighters.  She was walking out on the street trying to look like she wasn't doing anything 'bad' with Nazis all around just looking for an excuse to harass her or worse.  I recognized the look on her face as one I must have worn most of my childhood.

My father's need for control was so ubiquitous I couldn't even see it.  Still can't.  There is a thread on the Television Without Pity forum discussing the Hoarders TV show; here and there they mention Tetanus Burger and I read it having Googled my way there.  It is astonishing to me that they talk about my father there a little and call him an absolute control freak, just a miserable asshole.  It is good to hear, but in so many ways I still can't see it myself.


5) Currently, many hoarding sites primarily reference OCD as associated with hoarding, not OCPD, and there is talk that the new DSM-5 will put hoarding in its own separate category. You’ve written that you believe your father to have OCPD, and there is overwhelming evidence that he hoarded. I believe my ex to be an OCPDr who hoards also, regardless of whether “they” decide they’re interwoven together, or two separate disorders. What has been your experience and thought process in learning about your father’s mental disorder(s)?

My father absolutely and without question was a hoarder; the overwhelming evidence is that he had OCPD (as diagnosed-by-proxy by two separate therapists of mine now).  It is not, really, about belief at this stage, or that maybe I'm wrong.  Because I'm not.  And honestly, in downplaying my experience and what I have concluded about it, I hear you downplaying your own.  You may want to think about that; I have noticed you have a tendency to side or sympathize with the abuser, usually in the guise of needing to be fair to them too (which is crap) which is why I am being so picky about the way you worded that.

I don't know where the OCD thing came from; cynical me says that it's a lot easier to get sympathy for someone with OCD than it is for someone with a personality disorder (which, don't forget, also includes sociopathy and narcissism) and so that's how people like Frost and Steketee have framed it.  I don't personally buy the OCD angle all that much.  Because OCD is something the person is aware of, and the person with it usually sees it as not quite right and so they actually want to do something about it.

Whereas so many hoarders, from my own experience and what I have heard hanging out with other children of hoarders, see nothing whatsoever wrong with their behavior, or if they do (for example if they are ashamed of it or try to hide it somewhat, which implies that they do know something isn't quite right) they seem to have no concept whatsoever that what they are doing is harming others. 

I do think that hoarding is one of those things that probably has a lot of different causes, OCPD being one of them (and there also seems to be an awful lot of narcissism involved from what I've seen); but I do think OCPD in relation to hoarding is very overlooked.  But then there are only a couple of 'experts' on hoarding and I can't say I'm very impressed with them. 

My experience and thought process?  Describing my father to that first therapist, she did put it together that it sure sounded like OCPD; but at the time I didn't really understand what that meant.  It's only recently, really, which means, since my father has not been here, in my face, in my life, that I can see a little more clearly, and so I have been able to start putting things together and researching a bit about OCPD and other personality disorders. 

6) Your elderly father is now mentally incapacitated, which has allowed you and Tara to begin this massive clean-up effort. Your mother still lives in your childhood home, as does your sister. I imagine your feelings about your parents must be mixed. Care to share about them, or not?
Kittens via Tetanus Burger.  Used by permission.

Actually no Tara does not live here in the childhood home; it's myself and my mother (and an awful lot of kittens right now).  I will say that, yes, definitely, my feelings towards my mother are mixed (about my father they are not particularly 'mixed' at all; he was a bastard).

My mother certainly has some issues of her own which are not minor and which I am only able to see now that my father's blindingly obvious dysfunction is no longer outshining everything else.

I always thought my mother fought for us and that she was not an enabler, as they say; but now I don't know.  I don't want to get into it much more than that, though it has certainly been very much on my mind recently and is perhaps the most present bit of dysfunction I have to deal with. 

(to be continued...)


***

I do soft-pedal the amateur diagnosis, on our parts, of OCPD for our loved ones, having had it drummed into me that only mental health professionals can properly diagnose mental disorders (and sometimes even they get it wrong).

Guilty as charged as to being mealy-mouthed in this question, and yes, to being sympathetic to those with OCPD.  Having come to know a fair number of people with OCPD in the last few years, as well as their partners and children, I know that people with OCPD are sick, not monsters.

Does that in any way minimize the damage they inflict on spouses, love interests, children, and co-workers?  Hell no!  In fact, (as Thalia has pointed out to me), too sympathetic an attitude can enable this disease, making it worse not just for those who live with an OCPDisordered person, but for the person with OCPD, him/herself.

Yet, my goal here on this blog is to not only learn to heal, personally, but to help others who are also recovering, and not to demonize people with OCPD, but the illness itself.  I would love, someday, for OCPD to be known as well as Bi-Polar Disorder, Schizophrenia, and the "sexier" mental disorders that get all the press, and for the people who have it to get the help they need.

That said, I do not want to discount in any way Thalia's experience, or the experience of anyone else growing up with an OCPD parent, or who spent years with an OCPD partner.  There is damage and pain that will take years to heal - if it ever does.


Two things you can do right now, Dear Reader:


1) Add a comment to show your support for Thalia and her incredible courage in opening up about this very painful and difficult subject.


2) Download this attached .pdf prepared by Children of Hoarders.  It would be great if COH was a big, well-known organization with bucketfuls of money, who could afford to print out multiple copies and leave them in places like schools, pediatricians' offices, and youth recreational facilities - anywhere a child of a hoarder might find one, and realize s/he is not alone.

For now, they are asking for volunteers, to please print out what copies you can afford, distribute them where you can.  Visit the COH site and make a donation, if you can.  And pass the word.


Thank you.  Stay tuned for Part 3, tomorrow.  (For Part 1, click here.)

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Growing Up Hoarded, Part 1:
Thalia from Tetanus Burger Shares Some Thoughts

"Before" Photo via Tetanus Burger - used by permission
What would you do if you inherited not simply a houseful of hoard, but an entire junkyard?

Thalia and her sister Tara have been blogging about their experiences cleaning up their father's junkyard - and garages - and work areas - since June 2010.

The shows you may see on TV focus mainly on two things: a kind of train wreck fascination with the visual scope of the (worst) hoards covered, and the anguish the hoarder endures trying to give up any little piece of his/her "treasure."

What is rarely touched upon is what growing up in a hoard does to the children.  How does it impact them socially?  Do they inherit the distorted thinking that "there's a use for that," for everything?  Are they angry, hurt, confused?

"After" Photo via Tetanus Burger - used by permission
Thalia of Tetanus Burger, for whom I hold more admiration for her courage and raw honesty than I can ever express in words, agreed to this e-interview in hopes of shedding a little more light on this issue.  To help those children and teenagers who are even now living with a hoarding parent, and wondering if something is wrong with them.

***


1) How old were you and your sister Tara when you realized other kids didn’t live the way your family did? How did it make you feel? Were you still able to have friends over, or did the hoard make it impossible?

I don't know how old I was, and I can't speak for Tara.  I think in some ways I'm only just realizing my family was 'different' now.  I didn't have many friends when I was a kid, and only one really who ever came in the house.  I don't think I had 'doorbell dread' like some children of hoarders report, but that's really only because no one ever came to the door to see me.  It was out of my hands in a lot of ways, and maybe that speaks to my father's control of things.  People who came by were usually there to talk to my father about Volkswagens.


2) Were you and your sister pressed into being secret keepers (though obviously, all those cars were a pretty open secret). Did you ever tell anyone about your home situation in hopes of finding some help, or did you keep things private because of shame?

No, not really; there was no shame attached to in in my father's mind; it was what he wanted to do, and had the right to do, so it was good in his mind.  There was no point in keeping anything secret, and I was never told that I couldn't tell anyone about it for example.  I had no idea at all that there was something, well I can't say that I didn't think there was something wrong because on some level I knew it was screwed up, but I had no idea that it was abuse and neglect and that there was help out there, if only possible help.  I had no concept.  I think that is because of both my parents' attitude that the world is out to get you and that things are always bad, i.e. there is no such thing as help so don't bother asking.  In fact the way they framed it, bringing in outsiders was always trouble.

None of that is to say that I wasn't ashamed of the yard.  It was obviously a junkyard and ugly and not like other people's yards.  But I couldn't really grasp it in a lot of ways because it was vigorously defended as absolutely normal and what my father had the absolute right to do. I think I saw the junk more as a symptom of being poor.  I was certainly told to feel ashamed of that, while also yelled at for complaining about being poor, like it was my fault.


3) Your hot water heater broke when you were how old? And someone gave your father - an auto mechanic - one for free, but despite having the tools, the parts, and the mechanical expertise to install it, he didn’t. Tell us a little about that process of living without being able to take showers - was there a time you thought he would do it, “soon,” and then gradually gave up hope, or...? Did you ever think it was romantic, “Oh, we’re living like Little House on the Prairie,” or was it simply pointlessly miserable?

I think it broke when I was six or so; they didn't install it until after I'd moved out in my late 20s.  Or maybe I was in my thirties?  I don't honestly remember when it did get fixed and I'd think I would, wouldn't I?  This—Tell us a little about that process of living without being able to take showers—is a very uncomfortable question for me to think about answering; sounds voyeuristic to me.  Let's just say it really, really, really sucked; yet, of course, I thought it was just what it was, if not, well, 'normal', since I know no one I knew lived like that, still I could never see it getting fixed.  It wasn't, ever, that I, that we the family, thought he would do it; he was always, always, since time immemorial, completely impossible.  So I at least never had any hope that he'd do it.  If he did it would have been considered a miracle.  Which didn't mean we, I, didn't try to convince him (since he also adamantly would not let anyone else, like say a plumber do it, because that would cost money when he could do it).

We always thought (well I always thought) that if he could just be persuaded in the right manner, if we could just talk to him and convince him with logic or appeal to feelings or whatever other humans respond to, that we could get him to do it, maybe.  It was never romanticized, though my mother certainly downplayed it and mocked us if we complained.  She has some problems of her own, my mother, trust me.  The thing is that because my father framed it all as impossible or very very difficult I grew up thinking it was this huge huge deal to install a water heater.  So I don't even know that I would have thought it was pointlessly miserable, because I thought my father had a point about it.

Now of course I can see just how pointless it was since I'm older and can see somewhat straight. That's the thing growing up inside such dysfunction; you can't see it for what it is, not at all, and children for the most part believe what their parents tell them.

(to be continued...)

***
Not going to add a lot of my own comments here, but want to say this part: "if he could just be persuaded in the right manner, if we could just talk to him and convince him with logic or appeal to feelings" really rang out to me.  This was a big piece of my relationship with my ex, and many others dealing with OCPD loved ones have reported similar experiences.  They seem so reasonable and logical; surely the fault is with us, we're simply not communicating in the right way; if we just found that key...  Only there is no key, no "right" way.

Two things you can do right now, Dear Reader:

1) Add a comment to show your support for Thalia and her incredible courage in opening up about this very painful and difficult subject.

2) Download this attached .pdf prepared by Children of Hoarders.  It would be great if COH was a big, well-known organization with bucketfuls of money, who could afford to print out multiple copies and leave them in places like schools, pediatricians' offices, and youth recreational facilities - anywhere a child of a hoarder might find one, and realize s/he is not alone.

For now, they are asking for volunteers, to please print out what copies you an afford, distribute them where you can.  Visit the site and make a donation, if you can.  And pass the word.


Thank you.  Stay tuned for Part 2, tomorrow.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chap 4 - On To Action

This post continues with On To Action from Chapter Four.

This series will look at a small snippet of The book on the Perfectionist Personality, aka The Obsessive Compulsive disordered Personality, aka OCPD, each week. Please follow along, leave your comments, engage more on the FaceBook website... whatever your heart calls you to do.

Too Perfect, When Being in Control Gets Out of Control by Allan E. Mallinger, M.D. and Jeanette DeWyze was published by Random House in 1992.  If you believe you are dealing with OCPD or someone who is "Too Perfect," whether that's you or a loved one, please buy a copy of the book and read it for additional insights that will not all be covered in these excerpts.

 ON TO ACTION
<snip>When a decision must be made, allow yourself a reasonable period to consider the available facts (as well as your own likes and dislikes), then register the direction in which you are leaning.  Acknowledge that it has its drawbacks, as every option does, and that it's not fail-safe; no decision is.  Grant that it might turn out to be wrong.  And just this once, fight the false notion that there is always a single correct choice and that it's always knowable in advance.  Accept that you can live with something less than perfection. <snip>
Once you've made the decision, refuse to question your choice.  Tell yourself that you can continue to doubt other choices if you must, but in this one case, you're not going to allow yourself to wonder about the path not taken.  <snip>
<snip> Tell yourself that you refuse to continue inflicting such pain upon yourself.  Then take a deep breath, let go of the conflicted thoughts, and get on with whatever you were doing.

I'm not suggesting you should never doubt, change your mind, or reverse your course.  If it becomes obvious that your path is wrong and another would clearly be better, by all means change directions.  Then do everything in your power to make that decision work.  Enjoy the positive aspects of the new direction, and resist dwelling upon doubts about it.

***

Life is not a game show - there is no guarantee that the "right" answer is one of the options we are considering.  Buying a shirt, as discussed in earlier Too Perfect posts - we can always find reasons to second guess: the other one was cheaper; the other one was more expensive, but made of a better material so it would probably wash up better; blah blah, woof woof.  Enough!   Just be happy you bought the damn shirt already!

One thing that helped me become more disciplined about decision-making was the deadlines with which I was faced when I was putting out a small newsletter for a private club.  It had to be in green ink, which meant (originally) it couldn't be xeroxed in-house, but had to go to an outside printer.  So, in order to mail on the 1st of each month, it had to be ready to go to the printers by three business days before that, which meant the day before THAT was final drop-dead proofing and tweaking day.  So, five business days before the first, I had to be done with it - any articles typed in, any headlines written, any artwork or graphics inserted.

I could dither endlessly over all those things - was this in the right font, was that the right picture?   Were the borders right, the columns - were there too many columns?

Sometimes I get hung up on prettifying posts for this blog; however, in order to meet my deadline (admittedly, self-imposed) of having a post for Too Perfect Tuesdays, every week until we have worked through the entire book, there comes a time when I have to "put the post to bed."  It will not ever be perfect.  Perhaps, given more time, I could find a more appropriate video clip or photo, but I don't have more time.

Having a regular deadline for any project trains a person to stop procrastinating, and to accept less than perfection, and to learn that good enough really is good enough.  Any act that is done regularly, from brushing one's teeth to stopping at a coffee shop for a morning latte - will become a habit, if repeated enough times.  Meeting a regular deadline is an excellent habit for an OCPD'r (or non) to form.


There's a certain confidence and pride that comes from hitting that deadline, month after month, week after week.  I know I can meet a deadline.  I know how to break it down into baby steps, and "back into it."

If that hasn't been a piece of your life to date, don't despair.  You can do it.  Start with, as Mallinger suggests, a determination that you're going to make a decision about one thing - and stick to it, no second-guessing allowed.  You've made it, you're gonna stick to it, you're going to make it work.

And then another decision.  And another.  You know, the whole "longest journey starts with but a single step."  Don't commit to failure, to "that's such a long way, I don't think I can make it," because you're simply teaching yourself to fail.  Commit to the journey, "I will do the best I can, right now, I will make the best journey, take all the steps I can, today."

Look at that baby - is he running any marathons soon?  No, he's simply enjoying his new skill of walking.  He's present in the now, thinking about the very next step, the way his feet feel on the sun-warmed floor.

Have you ever surprised yourself with good habits you've formed?
Have you made at least one decision today - even if it was something
like choosing toast rather than cereal for breakfast - and allowed yourself
to simply make it and move on?  No second guessing allowed?

P.S. - We're guest posting over at The Garden Gate - please stop over and leave some love.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Of Puppies, Of Floating Volkswagens, and Litterboxes

The Riddle Mother has been giving me a better work-out, these past few weeks, than the toughest boot-camp personal trainer.  Last night/this morning, my dreams featured puppies, a litterbox desperately in need of being changed (methinks the Real World is intruding a bit, there) and a seawater moat surrounding a house, in which there were half-submerged Volkswagens.

from Kid Stradivarius at Flickr
The man (not sure if he was a lover/husband, brother, or father/god figure, he was simply a man) was pushing the Volkwagen (beetles, like I used to own) into the moat, in an attempt to keep people from reaching the house.  Paradoxically, they formed a kind of floating bridge, two vehicles wide, that enabled people to reach the house.

He argued with me, as I prepared to add my own favorite bug to an empty space among the ones already there, "It'll sink, you know."

"I know," I said, "but for now, it'll help me get across."  So I pushed my car in, where it bobbed in the water, then by walking across on hoods and bumpers, I was able to reach the house.

Inside the house, we (a bunch of indistinct people & children) were cleaning up the litterbox, various animal (guinea pig?  hamster?  bird?) cages, and I was blowing up air mattresses to make it more comfortable for everyone to sleep.  Someone was passing around puppies - darling, velvety little puppies with warm soft fur and eager little tails.

When next I went outside, my own bug had sunk - I got the impression "the bottom" was several hundred feet down, and several of the other cars were low in the water.  But somehow there had formed a solid earth connection , a built-in drawbridge, from the house to the yard with the moat simply circling the sides of it now.

Exhibit A.  Yes, it did try to kill me.
I know that some of this dream was sparked by recent e-mail conversations with Thalia of Tetanus Burger, whom I hope to feature here as a guest interview soon.  Her father was OCPD - and a hoarder of automobiles and auto parts.  Specifically, Volkswagens.  Although, as I mentioned, I owned a couple of Beetles myself, and loved them.  (Well, I loved the second one.  The first one was cursed and tried to kill me a couple of times.)


I know it's significant that the cars were trying to cover/protect from an abyss, and at the same time, were both a barrier to reaching the house, and a bridge to it.

Cars can symbolize one's body and identity; they can also symbolize (obviously) something that carries one from one place to another.  It's true that my physical health/fitness hasn't been at the top of my priority list, but I don't think the dream was suggesting it's a good idea to sink it to the bottom of the ocean.

Houses also symbolize the self, life, body - so a dirty house is a sign that sorting out needs to be done. In dream symbology, a man has to do with the masculine energies, power, force, initiation, the focus to make things happen in the world.

Here's what I think my dream means - feel free to chime in with other ideas.  With this blog, and in other areas, I have been using my thoughts, experiences, and coping mechanisms (my bug) and those from lots of other people (the other cars), to build a piecemeal bridge and reconnect with my inner self.  Sadly, it's in a bit of disarray, but nothing that can't be quickly cleaned up.


The second part of the dream is easy - once all the garbage was taken away, there was room for the puppies; puppies representing, according to my dream interpret book, "your most innocent, cute, cuddly, and playful self.  You are realizing how lovable you are, and perhaps you are discovering how lovable someone else is."


from Gore Fiendus at Flickr
FYI, It's National Adopt-A-Shelter Dog Month.  Just Sayin'.


Some (not all) of my friends have suggested I am wasting my time and energies with this OCPD blog.  That I should do what many other exes do, and simply move on with my life.

My gut instinct, and my dream, are telling me I still have some bridges to build and things to learn, (and litterboxes to clean), but on the other side will be much playfulness and joy.

I think that while I do need to be mindful that this blog, and the book I hope to write on the subject someday don't take over my life (they're a big piece, but it's not the biggest piece), it's still not only important to other people, but to my own emotional and spiritual growth.

Thoughts?  Ideas?  Alternate dream interpretations?
As always, your comments mean much to me.

P.S. - In addition to our continuing Too Perfect Tuesdays, I'm guesting on The Garden Gate this Monday.  Please stop by!

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chap 4 - Making Decisions -
A Commonsense Approach


This post continues with Making Decisions - A Commonsense Approach from Chapter Four.

This series will look at a small snippet of The book on the Perfectionist Personality, aka The Obsessive Compulsive disordered Personality, aka OCPD, each week. Please follow along, leave your comments, engage more on the FaceBook website... whatever your heart calls you to do.

Too Perfect, When Being in Control Gets Out of Control by Allan E. Mallinger, M.D. and Jeanette DeWyze was published by Random House in 1992.  If you believe you are dealing with OCPD or someone who is "Too Perfect," whether that's you or a loved one, please buy a copy of the book and read it for additional insights that will not all be covered in these excerpts.

 Making Decisions - A Commonsense Approach
<snip> observe the problem as it is happening and label it: "This is a chronic problem for me."  Don't let it be automatic anymore.
<snip> Dig for the specific fears.
  • It would be awful to overlook some flaw in this car, and then buy it, only to see the flaw surface later.
  • If I wait long enough, facts will accumulate and I'll be assured of making the "right" decision.
  • I couldn't bear it if anyone saw that I made a wrong choice.
  • If I make this date, I might not feel like going when the time comes, and then I'll regret the decision.  And good people don't cancel or change their minds, so once I make the date, I'm really trapped.
  • Once I make this purchase, I'm stuck with it forever.
  • My life would be ruined if I got engaged - or worse, married! and later had some regrets.
  • It would be terrible to have committed myself to an appointment if something preferable came along later for the same time.
  • I can't take a stand because I'm not sure I'll feel the same way later, and changing my mind would make me look like a fool.

Once you've uncovered the particular thoughts that plague you, think about them one by one.  For the most part, they are either inaccurate statements, exaggerations, or arbitrary assumptions badly in need of revision.  And they are damaging you terribly.  You may have hosted such beliefs for a long time, but that doesn't make them true, and you need not hold onto them.  <snip>

How true is it, for instance, that you're stuck with that shirt or even that car "forever"?  And even if you did have to keep it for a while, would that necessarily be "awful"?  Chances are, the only thing that makes it awful, rather than inconvenient or uncomfortable, is your labeling it as such and then stubbornly dwelling on that idea.

<snip> it's crucial to your happiness that you learn to distinguish between temporary discomfort and something intolerable.  So take the time to think about it now and every time this opportunity arises.  Don't let old, untested, irrational thinking habits continue to dictate what you are going to feel.  Think as a person who truly wants to be happier, someone who will do everything possible to make his or her life better.

***
IMO, two things here can't be repeated enough: 


1)  Don't let it be automatic.  Become aware of your knee-jerk responses, take a step back, and ask yourself, is this really what I want to do?  Pro-active, rather than re-active.  Which is good advice whether somebody is OCPD or not.  It's all about becoming mindful.  We may not be able to choose how we feel, but we can choose how we behave.


2) it's crucial to your happiness that you learn to distinguish between temporary discomfort and something intolerable.

We know, with our reasonable, logical brains, that it's not "intolerable" if a child - or an adult - spills a glass of milk.  Or forgets all nine billion steps of the Sacred Shower Protocol, or even if we make a mistake at work and our boss sees it.  Mistakes are part of belonging to the human race.

What is intolerable - and this is why I had to leave my ex - is living with someone who rides us like the Lone Ranger rode Silver, seeking to make sure we don't spill milk or omit a step of the Shower Protocol or make a mistake - any mistake.  Ever.

Can you learn to observe your problems, instead of just reacting?
How about being able to "be" with a little discomfort?

Saturday, October 1, 2011

The Cat Puked, and I Was Out of Paper Towels

You see, Metaphor and I have worked out this little routine. 

She pukes, I scoop up the disgusting warm slimy goop with a paper towel, which I drop into a trash bag, then scrub the carpet with a wet sponge. 

(Then I put a little more food into her bowl, since she is now starving to death.)

Occasionally, she'll puke on the linoleum, where it's an easier clean-up job, but mostly, she prefers the carpet.

So, as I said, I was out of paper towels.  Yet not, unfortunately, out of cat puke.  Flummoxed.

Then, eureka!  I saw I still had paper napkins.  And you know what, those worked just fine.

In a pinch, I could have used Kleenex, too.  Or toilet paper.

And pondering this the other night, as I stored the spare roll of paper towels under the kitchen sink, realized I could also have used any number of things.  Plastic grocery bag.  Washcloth.  Perhaps not ideal solutions, but if all paper towels mysteriously vanished from the face of the earth, I could have found an acceptable work-around.

And that is the difference between someone who is OCPD and someone like me, who is not.  For someone who is OCPD, there is Only One Right Way.  And following such a Terrible Emergency, perhaps a whole system would be laboriously devised to prevent Ever Running Out of Paper Towels again.

This is the tragedy of undiagnosed OCPD, in a nutshell.  Not simply being unable to think "outside the box," but to be unable to realize there is a box at all, and that they're trapped inside.

Your thoughts?