Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chap 10 - Recognize That They May Be Taking Your Quirks Personally

via imagerymajestic
from FreeDisitalPhotos

This post continues with Chapter 10 - Living With the Obsessive: 2 - Recognize That They May Be Taking Your Quirks Personally from Chapter Ten.

This series looks 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.

  

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.

2. Recognize That They May Be Taking Your Quirks Personally
When you resist dong things their way, some obsessives may interpret your lack of compliance as evidence that you don't care about them. <snip>

Hank, a forty-five-year-old engineer, and his wife, Sharon, both told me that one of their biggest problems sprang from Hank's terrible temper.  "He doesn't seem to realize when he's being unreasonable," Sharon said. "When he comes home from work, he looks around for things that haven't been done. Then he explodes at the kids [two teenage boys] and me. We're on the defensive so much of the time."<snip>

...all he asked in return was that they do "a few very easy things": attend to certain gardening tasks, for instance, or keep the contents of the silverware drawer straight. Hank saw these and a multitude of similar tasks as being self-evidently important, and he went to some lengths to get the others to agree that they needed to be done; that if one of the knives was pointing the wrong way, for example, someone could get hurt. <snip>

I challenged Hank to reexamine some of his premises. Would the world really end if the yard wasn't free of weeds, or the silverware didn't all point in the same direction? I urged him to acknowledge that he was requesting certain things because they were important to him, and not because it was objectively imperative that they be done. And even if his demands were reasonable, I asked, was being right worth alienating his family?

<snip> Hank finally began to understand that no matter how "right" he was about keeping things in order, all his arguments, lectures, rages, and logical "proofs" of the correctness of his positions were actually counterproductive. He acknowledged that not only were his demands not being met, but his family literally dreaded his presence. It finally struck home that no amount of logical argument could make Sharon experience the world exactly as he did, and that even when she and the boys yielded to his demands, they did so resentfully, and felt more alienated from him.

<snip> She also learned to avoid agreeing to do a task unless she was certain she really could and would do it, <snip>

***

To a certain extent, we all assume that other people see the world much the same way we do. That's why it can be a shock when somebody we love and respect espouses a really bizarre (to us) religious or political viewpoint.

Hank, above, was really bothered by the weeds, and he didn't see the task of weeding as any big deal. He didn't "get" that his wife Sharon, absolutely loathed weeding with a passion, considering it backbreaking drudgery, and secondly, she didn't see all the weeds the same way he did.

Via Flickr Creative Commons
Some see weeds and trash, others see art

Recently on one board the topic of "testing" arose - an OCPD'r putting something out of place - a leaf om the floor, a few pennies on the counter, etc., to "test" to see what other family members would do - and then blasting them if they didn't do "the right thing."  Something that came up with my ex, when he was sharing a kitchen with his sister, was a small spot on the counter from some dish she'd prepared.  I'm not sure whether the spot was grease, or gravy, or something else, but it was smaller than a dime.  He was damn well going to leave it there and test how long it took that slovenly sister of his to clean it up, though it bothered him for almost a week, until he couldn't stand it any longer.

via Carlos Porto at FreeDigitalPhotos

I remember reading in one piece of material (if I could remember where it was, I'd link it here) that for one obsessive person, you could go into his closet, and move the tail of ONE shoelace exactly one quarter inch, and not touch anything else in his closet, and he could go in there and immediately tell what was "wrong."  This is one of the ways, for many perfectionists, that this disorder is akin to (or perhaps part of) the autism spectrum; things "out of place" can totally rock their worlds, and not in a good way.

Channeled properly, this kind of superfocus on detail can, in fact, be a great gift. There are professional fields where the tiniest flaw or error can result in huge loss of human life - aeronautics is one field that comes to mind; surgery is another - there are many. The problem is that people with this gift/curse 1) don't realize they see things differently than the average bear, and 2) they don't leave their "gift" at work.

Since they would never leave a leaf on the floor, a grease spot on the counter, or tiny weeds in the flowerbed, they are certain that if someone has left these things out of place, it must be deliberate.  Clearly, we are toying with them, trying to upset them.  If we understand this point of view, it is easier to see how they might take these things personally (though not any easier to be on the receiving end of "arguments, lectures, rages, and logical 'proofs'").

The answer is not to try to follow the "Crazy Rules," because trust me, even if Hank's wife Sharon had done an exemplary job with the weeding, there would've been something else - the gravel bordering the driveway needed to be hosed down more often, something.  This disorder is ego syntonic- when something feels amiss to an OCPD'r, they rarely look internally and ask, "Is this me?" but seek outside themselves for the thing that is out of place/dangerous.  When they find something that is not perfect (and you can always find something, if you're looking hard enough), they have this moment of "Aha, that's what it is/was!"  Often followed by rage or lectures directed at the slob/inconsiderate person who "made" them feel that way.

Unless we actually are toying with them (it's not unheard of for office mates of a "persnickety" co-worker to move things on her desk, for example), we have to take a step back from that, and not accept harsh judgment on ourselves. We may not be able to convince them that their world view is wrong (the assumption that everyone shares the same ability to see detail, for example), and probably shouldn't try, but we can know for ourselves, that just because our disordered partner or friend SAYS we are: selfish, lazy, sloppy, careless, [fill in the blank], t'aint necessarily so.

Your thoughts?

A-Z: Everything Gets Under Your Skin If You've Got Hyper-Sensitivity

Nails on a chalkboard.  Every (hearing) person knows and loathes that sound.  Nobody is very fond of the scratchy clothing tag at the back of our necks, either.

But what if many of the sounds, smells, and sights that other people enjoy, or at least, tolerate with seemingly little distress, set your teeth on edge?


You may be a Highly Sensitive Person.

Being highly or hyper-sensitive is not the same thing as actually being allergic to fragrances, foods, etc.  They simply really, really bug the HSP person.

From Being Highly Sensitive on Holistic Healing:

Porous Systems

As we have come to know, Highly Sensitive People's systems are very porous, meaning that external stimuli seems to be more directly absorbed into their bodies. (It has been said that it is as if HSP "have no skin" to protect them from these outside stimuli.) Non-HSP generally are less porous and have natural defenses which defuse external stimuli thereby not directly impacting and overloading their nervous systems.

Another way to think about this is to visualize the curve on a chart: At the point where the Non-HSP would have little or no stimulation, the HSP would be somewhat stimulated. Where Non-HSP would be somewhat stimulated, the HSP would be pretty well stimulated. And, where the Non-HSP is well stimulated, the HSP may be reaching, or might have already reached, a state of being over stimulated, over aroused and overwhelmed, which may manifest itself in Highly Sensitive People as getting upset, frazzled or even angry, needing to get away, or possibly "shutting down" and becoming unable to function.

From The Highly Sensitive Person: 

In defining the Highly Sensitive Person, Dr. Aron provides examples of characteristic behaviors, and these are reflected in the questions she typically asks patients or interview subjects:

• Are you easily overwhelmed by such things as bright lights, strong smells, coarse fabrics, or sirens nearby?
• Do you get rattled when you have a lot to do in a short amount of time?
• Do you make a point of avoiding violent movies and TV shows?
• Do you need to withdraw during busy days, into bed or a darkened room or some other place where you can have privacy and relief from the situation?
• Do you make it a high priority to arrange your life to avoid upsetting or overwhelming situations?
• Do you notice or enjoy delicate or fine scents, tastes, sounds, or works of art?
• Do you have a rich and complex inner life?
• When you were a child, did your parents or teachers see you as sensitive or shy?

from Wikipedia on Sensory defensiveness:

Common symptoms of sensory defensiveness include intolerance of high-pitched noises, intolerance of chewing sounds, intolerance of overhead lights (especially fluorescent lighting); experiencing a feeling of being attacked upon being touched (especially from light touch or sudden touch); intolerance of certain types of fabrics in contact with the skin; becoming nauseated upon smelling something that does not smell bad to neurotypical individuals; difficulty maintaining eye-contact; severe intolerance of foods due to taste, texture, or temperature; and generally becoming overwhelmed when exposed to a lot of sensory stimuli at once.

Intolerance in this context should not always be taken as unwillingness to be subject to the sensory stimuli in question; rather, intolerance is an inability to process the sensory stimuli in any way other than as over-stimulating, because the sensory stimuli provokes a fight-or-flight reaction. This is also known as sensory overload.

High or  hyper-sensitivity has been linked to autism, Asperger's Syndrome, ADD/ADHD, and at least via anecdotes, to OCPD. My ex was offended by my cologne, by the sounds of children playing, by too much light, and he hated being touched by me unexpectedly, whether it was a kiss, gentle touch on the arm, butt-pat in passing. (Yes, this did not have a healthy impact on our relationship.)  I've read dozens of accounts of others with OCPD partners who recount similar experiences.

I've blogged before on the analogy that people can be compared to vacuum cleaners.  We're "sucking in" about two million bits of sensory data every moment.

But we don't process anywhere near that amount, more like 40,000 bits (subconsciously), even less than that consciously.

from Internet of the Mind- How Thought Creates Reality

But what if our filter is damaged, like a vacuum cleaner with a missing bag, or one which is too tightly sealed? We might be taking in too little or too much data. We might be overwhelmed by it.

Many women (myself included) report increased sensitivity to odors during pregnancy, and at different points in our menstrual cycle.  Likewise, the sensitivity to light and other stimuli that often precedes a migraine can also be tied to bodily cycles or consumption of certain foods. This points to the possibility that some chemical imbalance in the brain can be responsible for triggering migraines.

What becomes ever clearer, is the more we learn about the brain, the more we realize there is much we don't know.

My A-Z theme is Issues related to Mental Health or Mental Illness.

Have you had times in your life when you were super-sensitive 
to external stimuli? How did/do you handle it?

Your thoughts?

Related articles

• Sensitivity on a Spectrum - Part 3 (my.psychologytoday.com)
• Sensory Integration (thegraycenter.org)
• Neuroscience: Are You Too Sensitive? (taxi-dog.com)
• Why Nails On A Chalkboard Drives Us Crazy (npr.org)