The Hoover Has Lost Its Suction

Early electric vacuum cleaner by Electric Suction Sweeper Company, circa 1908, predecessor of Hoover vacuum cleaner (1922). Exhibit in National Museum of American History, Washington, DC, USA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When I started this blog, I had recently moved out from a home I shared with my (undiagnosed) OCPD boyfriend, though at the time we were continuing to "date."  As things progressed, I realized I was not and never could be happy with him, and decided to make an official split after the New Year, about three years ago.

And then, I couldn't wait. I couldn't, absolutely could NOT, be "with him" to ring in the New Year as part of a couple, when I was all but chewing my own leg off to be completely free. So, I made an official break with him, in between Christmas and before New Year's, though we have "stayed friends," and I have seen him from time to time.

And he is... not, miraculously, cured. He is always on his best behavior when we meet or speak, and hoovers as best he can. He tells me he loves me, he thinks of me every day, misses me, blah blah, and yet

• He has not made a move to get of  any of the items that cluttered our home and garage. In fact, the hoard has increased in the room that had been our shared office.
• He has not "had time" to set up the computer I gave him over two years ago when his old one was failing. (He has no real day job, and he used to work on computers for a living, so it's not beyond his skillset.)
• He is very proud of his anorectic "discipline" in losing weight and fitting into his older jeans. (He was 160 lbs on a 6'1" frame - he looks to have lost at least 10-15 lbs. And he's critical of me because I have gone in the opposite direction.)
• He continues in monologue "loops" repeating the same thing 3-5 times in the course of several minutes. Much of what I say to him doesn't "stick" in his memory till the next time we talk, and his "conversation" is more a kind of verbal diarrhea/loosing the floodgates. There is no interrupting, changing the subject, or squeezing a word in edgewise until he's talked himself out.
• I don't know if he is drinking to excess all the time, but he seems to do it quite a bit before he calls me, or on the rare occasions we've visited together. Doesn't help the monologuing.

He's made various attempts to control me, to no avail. For instance, there was a family event to which we were both invited, in September. (One of the reasons I can't entirely cut him out of my life, he has a decades-long friendship with several members of my family.) He called to ask if I could give him a ride to/from the event (in theory, so he could save on gas, but actually, so he could drink). I said I would, but as part of the event included a religious ceremony beforehand, I would need to pick him up at XX time.

Well, he didn't want to go to the religious ceremony. It would be too hot, he whined. (This was three weeks before the event.) I said, yep, it's hot right now, it could very well still be hot then, or it might not, but I was going to the religious ceremony, so if he wanted to ride with me, he'd have to deal with it.  Or we could see if another family member could give him a ride, and I could give him a ride home afterwards. Then he got all snippy about how he was perfectly capable of getting there by himself and didn't need a ride from me. I think he thought I'd apologize for offending him, as I would've done, back in the day, but I just said, "Okay, whatever."

At the event, he fastened himself to my side like a barnacle.  Which was fine; it was a very noisy venue, and it wasn't like I was planning to pick up a date or engage in serious conversation there anyway.  Then he left in somewhat of a tiff because he got offended at something or I wasn't paying him enough attention, who knows?! I think he was simply overwhelmed - by the crowd, by the noise - and because he was driving, he wasn't able to drink enough to quell his anxiety.

I had him over for drinks on Thanksgiving - but did not ask him to stay for dinner, and declined his invitation to come to his place (our old place) for dinner, but did go see him last weekend, though NOT on Christmas itself nor Christmas Eve.

 Oh, hilarious, I showed him a recent picture of one of my sisters, who he knows, and he thought she looked "scary" because she was wearing "too much makeup." (Trust me, she wasn't, and even if she was, he thought saying that would endear him to me?)

On TV, because he always has the TV on, he had on some surfing documentary (he surfed as a teen, before he decided he hated the beach because it has icky sand and salt water). Primed by that, he engaged in his lecture mode which I remember so well. Obviously, he'd seen the program before - perhaps several times. He would parrot the points the narrator had either just made or was about to make, seemingly unaware that he wasn't bringing anything new to the table. He used to do this several times a week when I was living with him, and it drove me crazy. Now I find it pitiful and only slightly annoying, though I also know I could NEVER stand a steady diet of it again.

I noticed the sofa and chair are now entirely covered by towels and blankets, so as to keep the material from getting soiled.  He kept offering me food and drinks, trying to press me to drink something more, something more even though I declined.

War Horse (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We also watched a movie he wanted to share with me. (I brought one down with me I thought he'd like, but he couldn't deal with a change of plans.) So we saw War Horse, which I did enjoy very much, though I found I had to slip into old habits to block out his babbling during the movie. At a few dramatic scenes, he held my hand, and I let him, but I felt... nothing for this alcoholic old man, almost 60 now, but pity and revulsion.


It's so sad, all in all. I know he is bitterly lonely. All these things are his efforts to connect; he just doesn't have in him a way to connect that is real and honest and interesting.  At the risk of being rude, I will say it - he BORES me now. His old man crochets and his whining fussiness and his monologuing and his nervous chain smoking...

Yuck, I came home and couldn't get my clothes off fast enough, as despite the many smokeless ashtrays and air cleaners my clothes smelled like an ashtray.

The single, part-time job he has - being property manager of his little house, and one up front - has now thrown him for a tizzy because he may have to find new renters for the front house.  Which means he might have to go online (he's kept subscriptions to all the movie channels, but not for internet access, because I paid for that, and he can't afford the expense. *snort*)  I suggested that he get internet access, or go online through his best buddy, or at the library. (In other words, don't look at me, dude.)

He tried all the rehearsed moves he had made decades before, the husky whispers, the "I'm still so in love with you," and they left me cold. His lips have apologized many times for hurting me - but he never really understood how and why he hurt me, and he still doesn't.  The last time I tried to discuss one of the more egregious instances, he insisted that "in an emergency situation" ( a hot water pipe had burst) he was entitled to scream obscenities at me (for not mopping the floor fast enough). While I held to the bizarre notion that even in a true, life-threatening emergency - which that was not - neither of us had the right to scream obscenities at one another, but were still obligated to treat each other with dignity and respect, even if we got excited and raised our voices.

Of course, he has no intention of getting professional help for body or mind.  Doesn't need it; can't afford it.

Although he is showing few signs of the explosive anger that used to frighten me back in the day, I'm not convinced it's gone. He cried over the Sandy Hook massacre, but I'm not entirely sure he won't "suicide by cop" someday, or decide to punish me for humiliating him via this blog, or when I begin dating again.  I don't expect it, I have no grounds to report him as an imminent threat to me or himself, but it wouldn't surprise me. Like the guy who just ambushed the firefighters in Webster, New York, my ex is not in his right mind, AND he has a cache of several weapons and plenty of ammo.  So, I will be careful, and continue to keep contact between us to the minimum, with no false promises or hints of reconciliation on my end.

I can and do pity the man, but the Hoover has lost all suction for me.

The Most Amazing People Are "Crazy" - Like The Bloggess

So in the middle of the A-Z, one of the reasons I didn't get enough visiting/commenting done on the A-Z was I took a night off to go to The Bloggess's book signing.



Yep, that Bloggess. Jenny Lawson. NY Times motherfuckin' #1 author Jenny Lawson.

Who took over 10 years to pull this book together. Who suffers from.... mental illness.

Yep, mental illness. Anxiety disorders, OCD, and depression. And brilliance so hysterically funny it has come near to causing more than one childish accident as I almost wet myself laughing.

Like a lot of people, her gift has come at a price.



 Please know, if you "have Issues"... you don't have to give up. 

Please know that you're not alone.

Please know that even after years of pain/struggle, you may have something magnificent in you.

It may not be a NY Times bestseller.

But it will be something beautiful, and glorious; something only you can give to the world. Or even just give to your family or roommate.

You are worthy. You are amazing. You are crazy - perhaps. So what?

You're in excellent company.

Your thoughts?

Related articles

• And Then Jenny the Bloggess Signed My Tongue (dontspeakwhinese.com)
• A-Z: I've Got a Huge Girl-Crush on The Bloggess (writinginflow.blogspot.com)
• I Talked to The Bloggess: Let's Pretend This Never Happened Without a Confidence Wig (blogher.com)
• Book Review: LET'S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED by Jenny Lawson (popculturenerd.com)

A-Z: Work on Yourself

from styledip.com

When we're in a relationship with a person with a mental illness, we want them to "go get fixed." Am I right?

Here was my personal progression, when my OCPD ex and I moved in together.

1) We're having a very rough transition into this living together business. Surely things will settle down in a few months. After all, I know we love each other deeply.

2) He's having a rough time, but after all, he did just recently lose his parents. He has the right to grieve; I should just be loving and supportive, and with enough time and love on my part, he'll get over it.

3) Self doubt. This is a nightmare. Maybe everything is my fault. Maybe I just don't try hard enough, love enough, give enough. I don't know how I could give/try/love more, but I should find a way.

Or maybe I should just give up, now. *fantasies of slitting my wrists, letting all the blood and pain drain into the sink*

from Unwanted Advice

4) There is something wrong with him. It's not me - or at least, it's not ALL me.

5) Oh! It's OCPD. Now all I have to do is let him in on it, in the Right Way, and he will be eager to get counseling, because I know he deeply loves me, as much as I love him. We will be able to fix this problem and live happily ever after.

6) I join a couple of OCPD support boards, to get the info on the exact Right Way to broach the subject. Because all I need are the magic words, he will have a Light Bulb Moment, and go get himself fixed.

7) Okay, so the Big Reveal isn't a good idea. Still, this is a mental illness. I wouldn't run out on a partner with diabetes or a heart condition, right? If I am loving enough and caring enough, and broach it in exactly the right way, he'll be willing to go get fixed. Maybe I can talk him into getting joint counseling...

8) A year into my individual counseling, and he still isn't willing to even talk to my counselor. Not even though I beg him, as a way of helping me.

9) I realize can't "save" him. I don't doubt, for an instant he loves me, as much and as deeply as he has ever loved anyone. I love him so much it makes my heart ache, but I can't save him. In fact, everything I do is probably enabling his disorder and making him worse. (Two years now after I left, and I still weep as I type these words.)

10) After a fight that is no worse than others, yet which served, for me, as the last straw on the camel's back, I moved out. Began focusing on me, on my pitifully weak boundaries, on figuring out who I am and what I want.

from Brandozin's Weblog

Your path and your journey are undoubtedly different. Yet here is the reality.

We can't save other people 
unless they want to be saved.

I didn't understand that. When I joined the support boards, in the beginning, I was sure there was some magic word/key/answer they were selfishly withholding from me. Or that, perhaps, only I was smart enough to figure out. (Hello, ego!) I would figure out what it was and share it with everyone and I would be acclaimed as this brilliant OCPD monster-slayer.

When everyone kept advising me to "work on yourself," I thought they were smoking crack. "Hello, he is the one with the problem. Just tell me how to convince him that he needs to get fixed, that's what I'm looking for."

I felt like I was asking, "What's 2 + 2?" and I was being answered, "Tangerines and corduroy, with a  splash of Chanel No. 5."  Really, WTF?

The reality of dealing with a loved one with mental illness, is there is nothing an outsider can do to reach inside those distorted thoughts and neurotransmitter imbalances to "fix it" for them. We cannot control other people. What we can do is to take a look at ourselves - our own thoughts, our own behaviors, our own automatic reactions.

Sometimes, when we address our own behaviors, erect the kinds of healthy boundaries we need for our own sake, there will be a dramatic shift in the way the disordered person behaves.

Sometimes, this will serve as what my OCPD friend LizaJane calls "getting hit in the head with the cosmic 2 x 4" and spur the person with a mental disorder to seek or accept help, and change.

Sometimes, it will not.

One thing is certain. We cannot control, fix, help, adjust, or otherwise move a person who is disordered or troubled when we ourselves are not "coming from" a place of stability and mental healthiness. We just can't. It's like seeing someone drowning and jumping in after them. without a life preserver or even being able to swim, ourselves.

We really and truly have to work on ourselves first. Put on our own oxygen mask first, and all that jazz.

I get it now. They were not smoking crack when they said, "Tangerines and corduroy, with a splash of Chanel No. 5."

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

Have you ever experienced the
"Work on your own issues first" directive?

How did you react?

What did you learn?

Nightmare on Hoarding Street

Titanic painting via Wikimedia

When I was living with OCPD ex, I used to have nightmares, not infrequently.  I would dream of being on a sinking ship, or in a big magnificent house with the roof all tattered and open to the elements.

Once I moved out, the dreams mostly stopped having that horrific nightmare quality, though I do still dream, and they aren't all rose petal on the bed fun dreams.

Last weekend, I had my ex over for a brief afternoon, friends-type of visit, for the first time in many months.  The cat loved playing with him.  I was glad to see him - and relieved when he left.  Because he's still untreated OCPD, and some of the signs and patterns leaked out, although he was on his very best behavior.

I was filled with sadness and pity for him, but not even marginally tempted to take up where we used to be.  An objective person might find him attractive, for his age.  I see him wearing the cheap straw cowboy hat he obsessed over on one of our vacations, and it's a total turn-off.

Anyway, although our visit wasn't dreadful, I'm pretty sure my dream that night was related.  One of those horrible nightmares where you wake up with your mouth dry and your heart pounding.  (My dream interp books say these are "venting" dreams and one should be grateful for them.  Mentally, I can accept that, emotionally, it's harder to get there.)

In my dream, I was both observing (like watching a movie) and being the lead character, a young woman in her mother's hoarding house.  Not a horrible hoarding house, either, probably along of the lines of Living Room #3, here.

However, the items that had been hoarded were all possessed and/or morphing into portals into another, creepy dimension, a la Poltergeist.

So I/she was hiding out in the stark, uncluttered bathroom, trying to devise a plan to leave/escape.  Her mother was there, too, very sorry and finally ready to admit there was a problem.  We removed the shower rod and found some other stick/rod/poker kind of device, to beat back any attacking items as we tried to leave.

When we opened the bathroom door, all was quiet.  We headed for the first door to the outside, and opened it only to find another, locked door behind it.  Still the clutter didn't attack, though I saw some of it, crawling up on the walls, oozing and transforming into something threatening.

Reached the sliding glass door, pulled it open, and RAN.  Thought briefly about grabbing the cat, but was afraid to slow down or delay.

Once outside on the sidewalk, I/she found groups of neighbors gathered at another house, across the street and a couple doors down.  (The mother was no longer in the dream, although there wasn't the sense she'd been left behind in the house.)  There'd been a burglary and ransacking at that house some nights previously.  I began wondering if perhaps the creepiness of the hoard had been all in my imagination, if I'd somehow picked up the other bad vibes from the robbery and projected them into the hoarding house.  It looked so normal - from the outside.  Then about 7-8 dogs on their owner's leashes all turned to face the hoarding house and howled.  And I knew I'd been right to get the hell outta there.  The cat came strolling out then, and I felt a little scared of it, though it seemed normal.

It looks so harmless, here...

Then for some reason, in order to leave the neighborhood I had to walk past the house between it and the garage, which had several big glass windows, and I saw inside the garages mounds of clutter, topped with old Christmas paper and garland.  And I knew that it, too, was possessed by evil spirits, and I was terrified of being sucked by in, but I made it through, safely.

In the last scene/frame I was adjusting a GPS tag/marker that would be attached to the hoard, which my boyfriend ( a dream boyfriend, not anyone I know in real life) was preparing to sink to the bottom of the ocean.  Not quite sure what the mechanics were (how the clutter got gathered up, who did it, and how it got onto a raft into the middle of the ocean, all bundled together with yellow hazard tape), or the logic behind it, I just knew a tremendous feeling of relief, knowing it was sinking, and that it would no longer be able to threaten me or anyone I loved.

Pacific Ocean Garbage
Don't hate me - I know it would not be okay to ACTUALLY
dump more crap in the ocean.  It was a dream metaphor.

And I woke up.  Feeling like I'd done some heavy lifting.

I have several good dream interpretation books, and I pretty much know what all these dreams have meant: sinking ship (feeling overwhelmed), damaged roof (damaged/missing boundaries), and this latest, as well.  I definitely believe that dreams are worth paying attention to, though we must be thoughtful and leave some wiggle room when working to decipher what they are trying to tell us. 

If you'd like to add your own thoughts/impressions in the comments, or share a scary or thought-provoking dream you've had, I'd love to hear about it.

Too Perfect Tuesdays: Book Review - Chapter One, The Obsessive Personality

On Amazon for as low as less than $3

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.

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.


Chapter One
The Obsessive Personality

This is a book about people who are too perfect for their own good.

You know them.  You may be one of them.  And if you are, you have much to be proud of.  You're one of the solid, good people of the world: honest, reliable, hardworking, responsible, exacting, self-controlled.

But for many people there is also a dark side to the perfection.  The very traits that bring them success, respect and trust can also cause them serious problems.  These people aren't fully able to savor relationships with others and with the world at large, nor are they at ease with themselves in their universe.  Consider:

• The person so driven to meet professional and personal goals that she can't abandon herself to a few hours of undirected leisure without feeling guilty or undisciplined.
• The person so preoccupied with making the right choice that he has difficulty making even relatively simple decisions usually regarded as pleasurable: buying a new stereo, choosing where to go on vacation.
• The person so finicky that his pleasure is spoiled if everything isn't "just so."
• The "thinkaholic" whose keen, hyperactive mind all too often bogs her down in painful worry and rumination.
• The perfectionist, whose need to improve and polish every piece of work causes her to devote much more time than necessary to even inconsequential assignments.
• The person so intent on finding the ultimate romantic mate that he seems unable to commit to any long-term relationship.
• The person so acclimated to working long hours that she can't bring herself to cut back, even when confronted with evidence that overwork is ruining her health or her family relationships.
• The procrastinator who feels angry at his "laziness" - unaware that the real reason he is unable to undertake tasks is that his need to do them flawlessly makes them loom impossibly large.

<snip>  Recent articles and books have also made the lay public aware of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), the malady that drives its sufferers to such acts as repeated hand-washing, checking routines, or other paralyzing rituals.

When I use the term obsessive, however, I mean something quite different.  I'm referring to a personality type, not to an isolated behavior or clinical disorder like OCD.

***

I (this is now I the blogger, not I the book author) began this blog because I was coming "out of the fog" with a Too Perfect personality, someone whose need to control me led to verbal and emotional abuse.  I know my life wasn't the only one which was "Perfectly Awful;" his was pretty dreadful too.

Morro Bay & the Morro Bay Rock on the Cali Coast

This is not to say that life with OCPD ex-bf was torture-chamber horrible 24/7; it wasn't.  There were some wonderful times together, fabulous trips, fun giggling times watching TV, making love and happy family celebrations.  If it was horrible 24/7, nobody would stay with these people.  We who love these troubled people have had great times - especially in the beginning of the relationship. 

We may even sense the root of this disorder - overwhelming anxiety.  So because we know there's a good person in there - a worried person, but a good one - we may hang in there.  We'll help them to see they don't have to be perfect, that we love them, flaws and all (as we wish they'd love us.)  Hoping with enough love and patience and kindness, we can "fix" them. 

Doesn't work.  Because each of us can only fix ourselves, and as they mention in the first paragraph, the person with this issue often doesn't perceive that his "strengths" are killing him, and his relationships.  Just as an alcoholic or drug addict must recognize he has a problem and be willing to get help, so must the Perfectionist.

Mine wasn't willing or able to do that.

So why, now that I'm out, hash this all over again?  Because I'm not over it, yet, I am still processing a lot of thoughts, feelings and emotions.  Because someday, I'd like to have another relationship - and next time, I want to recognize the warning signs for somebody like this.  Because I'd like to help my friends - the ones I know, the ones I haven't met, yet - to understand this better, too, and to share in our mutual journey of healing.

And because I know that I have some of these traits, too.  To the point they damage my life?  I don't think so... but I haven't been thinking clearly in a very long time.  Something that happens to those in a relationship with a disordered person is they pick up fleas: the behaviors, habits, and sometimes even thought patterns of the other person.  I want to make sure that I pick off each and every flea, keeping only those traits that make my life better, in moderate amounts.

I have problems with the first item, here, the feeling that just kicking back and having a good time is wrong, somehow.  That pleasure must be earned.  I don't stress over buying things - I try to research and make a careful choice, and then trust that I have and let it go.  I tend to make the best of a bad situation; nothing spoils a good time for me.  But I do tend to get bogged down in worry and rumination.  I don't get slowed down trying to create perfect work, though I do procrastinate over things I don't enjoy doing, like filing.  A commitment-phobe.  Hmmm.  Maybe.  I don't work long hours, although right now, I do work a day job then come home and write for several hours.

I'm thinking my flea infestation - at least on these points - isn't too bad.  How about yours?

Have you read Too Perfect? 

Did you experience a light bulb moment?

Or are you having one now?