Olympic Twizzles vs. OCPD

Figure Skating Queen YUNA KIM
(Photo credit: { QUEEN YUNA })

As I write this, I'm enjoying the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Years ago, I fell in love with figure skating and ice dancing. I attended actual in-person ice shows. Watched the Nationals on TV, and every bit of the Olympics for these sports. Bought videotapes so I could watch performances over and over again.

I admired all the other Winter Olympic sports, too, from short track racing to ski jumping and moguls, even the weird stuff like the biathlon, because doesn't everyone need to ski, then target shoot?

I'm reflecting now, about the very first Olympics I remember watching as a child. At some point, as I watched the Opening Ceremonies, as I watched the tears roll down the face of the athletes from other countries on the medal platforms when their national anthems were played, I realized that they loved their native countries as much as I loved the USA.

Up to that point, I always "knew" that the best country in the world to live in was the USA, and I felt a kind of smug compassion for all those unfortunate people in inferior countries who couldn't also be Americans.

Suddenly I was faced with the idea that were people who believed that they lived in the best country in the world  (however mistaken they might be).

And I realized that my perspective was just that: MY perspective.

One that others didn't always share.

Four years ago when the last Winter Olympics were held, I was still "with" my OCPD ex. As I was for the 2006 Winter Olympics.

It's okay that my ex didn't love ice dancing.

I fell in love, some years after their incredible performance, with Torvill and Dean. I always loved (and never felt competent at) dancing, in any form. But the two of them left me breathless.

But ice dancing, and in second place in my heart, all the other artistic ice sports: individual female and male competition pairs figure skating, I couldn't get enough of.

I "got" that he didn't want to watch it, 24/7, as would have made me happy.

The problem was, he wouldn't let me watch any of it.

When I wanted to enjoy these programs, something always came up. sex; he "wasn't in the mood" for it right now; he had something else he wanted to watch (like a "Cops" rerun he could've watched any time).

It was like Alice at the Mad Tea Party: Jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, but never jam today.

When I pressed to watch ice dancing, or figure skating, on "our" TV via the cable I was paying for, that never happened.

Because, not knowing any better, I initially gave in... Certainly he was more important to me than watching some sports program on TV. Even one I loved. Even though I put up with and tried hard to love the NASCAR races that he loved, and it seemed only fair that he would try to like something I loved, or at least, to tolerate it.

Cropped transparent version of Image:Olympic flag.svg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I'm happy, now, watching these competitions. And I'm sad.

I still think ice dancing and figure skating are breathtaking and beautiful, and I love watching them. But I am sad, too, thinking of my ex.

I don't know why my ex couldn't "let me" enjoy something I loved. Did he feel that he was robbed of something, was he jealous? Was it demand resistance - because he knew he "owed it to me" to be as tolerant as I was of his love for NASCAR, did that unspoken expectation get in the way? Did he have some secret ice skating trauma he never shared with me?

Ashley Wagner skated her short program to Pink Floyd's Shine On, You Crazy Diamond. He loves Pink Floyd... you'd think it wouldn't be that far a stretch for him, for anyone who loves music, to appreciate an artistic interpretation of some of his favorite music.

But it was.

OCPD, its rigidity, control issues, and demand resistance, means those who suffer from it - and their loved ones - miss out of so many of the pleasurable things in life, because they are not on the list, not permitted, too frivolous...

And in other news...

My sister is in the middle of her chemotherapy. Although my brother-in-law has been diagnosed as being in end-stage liver disease (in addition to his stroke), we hope he'll be discharged this week. Family well-being has occupied much of my time and energy, but this blog is NOT abandoned.

Thanks for for love and support.

Your thoughts?

Queen for a Day

Doesn't everyone want to be treated like a Queen (or a King)? At least for one day.

There used to be a extremely sadistic TV show on that premise: women would come on the show and compete in telling a sob story - from Wikipedia:

Often the request was for medical care or therapeutic equipment to help a chronically ill child, but sometimes it was as simple as the need for a hearing aid, a new washing machine, or a refrigerator. Many women broke down sobbing as they described their plights, and Bailey was always quick to comfort them and offer a clean white handkerchief to dry their eyes.

The harsher the circumstances under which the contestant labored, the likelier the studio audience was to ring the applause meter's highest level. The winner, to the musical accompaniment of "Pomp and Circumstance", would be draped in a sable-trimmed red velvet robe, given a glittering jeweled crown to wear, placed on a velvet-upholstered throne, and handed a dozen long-stemmed roses to hold as she wept, often uncontrollably, while her list of prizes was announced.

Not only were they milking the misery of the "winner" for all it was worth, imagine being one of the losing contestants who'd put it all out there, but not "enough" to garner the highest on the "applause-o-meter."

An easier way to score a crown was eating a particular brand of margarine.

I begged my mom to buy that brand, because I coveted one of those beautiful crowns so much, and though my mother told me it was a trick on TV, she caved in and bought it once, so I could find out for myself.

The disappointment was almost as bitter as the margarine.

Anyway, if anyone deserved to be treated like a Queen, it was my mother, but she would never go on a radio or television show to whine about her life.

Mom and her younger brother

She was the oldest of four, and the target of much nit-picking by my (suspected OCPD) grandmother. She signed up for the Coast Guard and served with honor during WWII.

Afterward, on the rebound from a prior relationship, she met and married my father. Also a WWII veteran, smart, and charming as all get out when he wanted to be.

Probably NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder).  They had three daughters, me being the "bonus baby." Not long after that, breast cancer came along.  In those days, the way it worked was, you found a lump, they put you under and sliced you up. You found out if it was serious when you woke up, depending on how much of your body they'd carved away.

In Mom's case, pretty serious. They took her breast, the underlying chest muscles, the lymph nodes, and some of the muscles from under her arm.

Yet she would still smile at everyone.

I believe in the picture, below, she was still recovering from the surgery, because she had to wear those loose-fitting muumuus for some weeks (months?) afterward.

It was Mother's Day

I thought she should be treated like Queen for a Day. It was my idea, but my sisters joined in helping me make a "crown" out of, I think, a brown grocery bag, which I decorated with crayon and tinsel from our Christmas decorations stash. We put her on the "throne" with a fancy goblet of possibly wine, possibly fruit juice. Am not sure if the cushion under her arm was to add the royal touch or because she physically needed it in her recovery.

Prematurely silver hair ran in the family.
The glasses and the silver hair make her look old, at first glance,
but she was only mid-forties here.

I thought - I still think - she was absolutely beautiful, and I was so proud of her, so happy to have her as my mom. She was, in fact, the Best Mom in the World, though some silly people didn't realize that.  And I am still proud of her, and a little of myself, that I did make the effort to let her know how special she was to me.

And yet.

I cannot but think, now, that if only she had made a few different choices... Mom was my model for self-sacrificing relationships, for being sweet and kind and loving to everyone. No one had a bad word to say about her - not at her memorial service, five years later, after the cancer recurred, nor in the years that followed.  My sisters' husbands, who knew her in the years before she died, loved her to pieces. Who adores their mother-in-law?

I have come to believe that putting everyone else first, all the time, and allowing others to treat us badly, can, in fact, make us sick. Sick to death, even.

Doormats wear out.

My mother was a product of her time and her culture, and possibly even the influence of an OCPD mother. She followed all the rules of being nice, being polite, taking care of everyone but herself.  She was loved, yes, but only on rare occasion was she the one being pampered and taken care of.

Today is her birthday, and I'm missing her, of course. But I am also thinking that it would please her tremendously to know that I have learned from my own mistakes, and from her life.

There's a formula now, that we should put  51% of our efforts to ourselves, and no more than 49% to everyone else in our lives, added together. I can't help but think, if my mom had done that, she might have lived past my 10th birthday, and my life  - many lives - would have benefited tremendously for her continued presence in it.

Loving someone is never a mistake. But neglecting our own hearts, souls, dreams, and bodies, in the name of love, can kill us. Figuratively, or literally.

Do you believe in giving up everything for love?

Have you learned to save nurturing for yourself?

Do you have any life lessons from a loved one who's passed on?

Empathy vs. Sympathy vs. File Not Found

When we say we want a partner to demonstrate empathy, is perhaps what we really mean  sympathy?

From Dictionary.com

em·pa·thy

1.  the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.
2.  the imaginative ascribing to an object, as a natural object or work of art, feelings or attitudes present in oneself. By means of empathy, a great painting becomes a mirror of the self.

sym·pa·thy

1.  harmony of agreement in feeling, as between persons or on the part of one person with respect to another.
2.  the harmony of feeling naturally existing between persons of like tastes or opinion of congenial dispositions.
3. the fact or power of sharing the feelings of another, especially in sorrow or trouble; fellow feeling, compassion, or commiseration.
4.  sympathies
    a.  feelings or impulses of compassion.
    b.  feelings of favor, support or loyalty: It's hard to tell where your sympathies lie.
5.  favorable or approving accord; favor or approval: He viewed the plan with sympathy and publicly backed it.

The point has been made by some of my friends battling OCPD is that it's not that they necessarily lack empathy (though sometimes they do). In fact, when someone they love is hurting, they are often all knotted up inside, hurting with and for their partner, but often, none of that shows on the outside.

Spock (Photo credit: Tram Painter)

(Others do state they feel little to nothing for others inside. Mr. Spock is their role model; they take pride in working off a pure logic, no emotions model of behavior.)

It's not really fair to expect another person to be a mind-reader and to know what we need, especially if we know or suspect s/he has trouble "connecting" with emotions, let alone ours.  One spouse shared that when she is sick with a cold or the flu, what she wants is to be periodically checked on, for her partner to offer to bring her water or juice or soup or tissue. Her husband wants to be left the hell alone, just let him go to bed, close the door, and don't bother him.

So, until they actually discussed this, they were each irritating the hell out of one another. The wife felt unloved and neglected, the husband annoyed by her solicitousness.  "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is an excellent rule of thumb, but sometimes it requires some fine-tuning.

Sometimes the hugs need to be coached.

 

I became very good at "coaching my hugs," communicating my needs to my (now) ex. After kissing him hello and expressing how glad I was to see him, I might specifically say to him, "I had a really miserable day at work today.  Can I bend your ear for 15 minutes and just vent? I don't need solutions, just to let off steam. And a big hug afterwards, maybe a back rub."  What I would receive might be:

a.  "Sure, can I make you a drink first while you change out of your work clothes?"* Followed by decent listening, and a hug - sometimes good, sometimes Sheldon-style. (But never, ever the back rub. Back rubs are icky.)
b.  "You think you had a hard day? Listen to this..."
c.  Allowed to begin, but interrupted five minutes into my rant by his work horror stories
d.  Interrupted by advice, "I can't believe you put up with that! You should just tell that client to stick it up their ass..."
e.  "Well, my day didn't start off very well, either, because somebody forgot to wash her cereal bowl, like I have time to clean up after other people all day long."

 *the "change out of one's work clothes" issue was a big deal to him - the idea of relaxing and eating dinner before changing clothes was unthinkable.  Now that I'm on my own, sometimes I change, and sometimes I don't, and if I spill food on my work clothes, I... wash them. What a concept!

Empathy (software) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don't think the problem, in b-d, above, was that he wasn't feeling empathy - clearly, he was emotionally connecting with my "hard day at work" meme.  But instead of giving me the sympathy and support I had asked for, he often springboarded into his own head and his own needs.

On a side note, what he never, ever initiated was negotiation:

a.  "Honey, I am hungry and grouchy - can we postpone your rant till after dinner when I can listen better?"
b.  "Yes, but can we flip a coin, winner goes first, loser goes second? Because I need to vent about my day, too."

In other posts, I've talked about the all-or-nothing, black-or-white nature of disordered thinking, how the idea that people could meet in the middle and both could get their needs met, was something he could only grasp in theory, not in practice. Either it was my way or his way, rarely our way.


One issue that has repeatedly surfaced is lack of support for partners or children of (many, not all) OCPD'rs in a health crisis emergency situation, and not simply because of differing expectations. When I was ill, or experiencing some health scares, my ex refused to come with me to my doctor's appointment, though I invited him and told him it would be extremely helpful to me.

One of my sweet friend Sid's last blog posts included this:

I had a medical procedure, and my doctor scheduled a follow-up appointment on a Thursday. A Thursday where my sister and her family would be visiting my parents' one hour south of where I live.

As I'm often wont to do, I decided to shove "all of my crap into one bag" and go into work that day, go to my follow-up appointment, take Friday off, and hop on the train to visit with my family for the weekend.

First, I look at train schedules. I have two options: Amtrak which goes straight through but the train station is a slight drive south of my folks' home, or Metrolink which is closer to their home but I'd have to change trains.

No decision: Amtrak.

Greg felt differently, however.

G:  You are SO selfish! Now your parents have to go out of their way to get you!

S:  They won't mind.

G: And Metrolink is a few dollars cheaper!

S:  Yes it is.  Could you give me a ride to the station after my doctor's appointment?

G:  Absolutely not. Not if you're taking Amtrak. So selfish, Sid.

This went on for several hours, for a train ride he wasn't taking.

In preparation for the appointment, Greg often reminds me to ask such-and-such of the doctor. I usually ask the questions and share the answers with him, but I never seem to ask it right, or enough, etc. Big point of contention for him almost every time.

S:  If you do take me to the train, you could first GO to the doctor's appointment with me and ask your questions in person. That way you'll know what was asked and exactly what the doctor said without my watering anything down.

G:  No way. NO ONE goes to their partner's doctors appointment. That's crazy.

S:  I don't know. I've seen it happen quite often, but if you're not comfortable... Just trying to get you the information first hand, Dear.

G:  I'll make a list of questions for you to ask the doctor.

S:   No thank you. If you want to control the questions you can do it in person, Sweetheart.

When I refused his question list, Greg refused to assist.  I just planned on taking a cab instead.  Must less agita.

Condensing, a bit: Another friend drove her to the train station. The porters assisted her onto and off of the train (and she ended up vomiting green bile while on the train).

But when I got off the train my mom saw a skeleton, my sister thought I was dead, and apparently I talked in circles that entire first night.

After eating that first meal, my family could see my face fill out a bit within an hour or two.

That weekend with my family, I ate, I slept, and just hung out with loved ones, feeling very safe and accepted.

Unbeknownst to me, my doctor had seen a chemical imbalance between my sodium and potassium in my bloodwork.  Sis talked to a nurse friend of hers who said that my circular discussions were consistent with that condition.

Monday, I returned to Burbank, but instead of beginning a battery of tests at appointments all week, I would admit myself to the hospital for the tests, have a sodium IV round-the-clock, and go through a diet modification and education.

When she got out of the hospital after the tests, Sid was still so weak she could barely walk even short distances. She looked like a Somalian famine victim, except for the red hair and freckles. The "support" she received from Greg while in the hospital was so draining, physically and emotionally, that she asked him to not to come back for the rest of her time there. Two months later, she was dead.  While Sidney was an adult woman, who could and should have taken better care of herself, I also believe that with a more sympathetic and supportive partner, she might still be alive.

I believe that in Sid's situation, in my similar experiences, in those of other people who have shared stories of a denial/refusal to help a loved one during a health crisis - it's not that the OCPD'r doesn't have empathy, doesn't care. So if we think we could have a better result, if only they had more empathy - maybe we're going in the wrong direction. Maybe they already have gobs of empathy, crippling amounts of empathy, but they need training/help in sympathy.

I posed this question on the free forums site: We all know (I hope) that if your spouse tells you, "Honey, I think I broke a bone; will you please drive me to the emergency room?" that The Right Thing to do is get the car keys and not argue - am I right?

Here was one reply, from someone with an OCPD spouse and mother, who suspects perhaps a bit of OCPDness in herself:

I see it as denial or deliberate self-delusion based on caring too much, rather than caring too little. My mental model of it (Note the term mental model - I'm not saying that it's an accurate reflection of anyone's thinking) is:

- It's the OCPDer's job to discover, implement, and enforce all of the rules that keep the universe spinning and keep anything bad from ever, ever happening.

- Something bad happened.

These two things are incompatible. They lead to a choice between two equally intolerable conclusions:

- Bad stuff just happens sometimes, with no way to prevent it, or

- The OCPDer committed an error in performing his job to ensure that nothing bad ever happens.

We know that the first is true. The OCPDer may logically know the same thing. But emotionally, no. To accept that is, I think, to undermine the whole underpinning for OCPD. It would be an instantaneous cure. That's not going to happen.

And the second is equally intolerable. If the OCPDer can make mistakes re: things that are desperately important, like their spouse, then the whole protective structure that they've built around themselves is utterly worthless.

So it's necessary to go on to less logical but more palatable explanations. Some possible explanations that I can see are:

- Nothing bad has actually happened; the event is just an ordinary everyday thing.

- The bad thing is not the OCPDer's fault, it's the fault of the person that it happened to.

- The OCPDer doesn't actually care about the person. Look at them, after all, how imperfect and annoying they are.

Another interesting reply to the question: We all know (I hope) that if your spouse tells you, "Honey, I think I broke a bone; will you please drive me to the emergency room?" that The Right Thing to do is get the car keys and not argue - am I right? came from someone diagnosed with and struggling with this disorder:

Yes, you're right. But you're right in a language the OCPDr, at least in my experience, doesn't grasp in practice. Intellectually, in theory, in fantasy, sure. But in taking action? That alien, otherness that I often speak of - this is the heart of it.

What happens in these situations is a system breakdown, "file not found," from what I can tell. The rest - any action the OCPD'r does actually take - is fallout, dysfunctional, nonfunctional, whatever. Shame, frustration, fear, become defensiveness, anger, blame.

Empathy & compassion flow on impulse, a word more often associated with things like fun and spontaneity. But when you think about situations calling for empathy, some being illnesses, accidents, emergencies, these are unmapped territories that a person acts on with impulse, to caretake, to help, to allow the other to heal and feel better, without concern for doing it right. I'm not talking morally here, I'm talking protocol, even where and when protocol simply doesn't apply. We impose the word moral here sometimes in regard to the OCPDr but as I have before, I disagree with that. OCPD'rs work with plans and maps and protocol, those sorts of sanctioned "right" ways. But no two situations like these are alike, even if an illness repeats, or some detail may be similar, there are so many x factors that each one is completely unknown and uncharted. There's literally no conduit for the empathy to flow from.

Now, if a situation does repeat closely enough, or I've observed someone else taking the exact same action that's called for - I may do fine. If my brain detects a match, inside what happens is "aha, I know this one. I can do this one." Break a second bone a week later and I'll drive you to the ER without hesitation, so long as there's a clean & clear view of action to be taken.

sympathy doll (Photo credit: brendaj)

So, IMO, it's not that those with this disorder lack empathy - but they lack sympathy. They can't express what they feel in a way that is helpful to you. Much like a computer given a command it doesn't recognize, you'll get: File Not Found.  Maybe the average person doesn't need a script, doesn't need to be coached in the appropriate length of a hug, or not to argue with a partner who needs a ride to the hospital or a train station, but those with this and similar disorders do.

To expect them to "exceed their programming limitations" in times of crisis is akin to expecting your bird to start catching mice.


The problem is that when you as the partner are experiencing the heart attack, broken bone, or life-threatening illness, you may not have the time or patience to clearly and calmly help your partner or parent through their meltdown over your health crisis.

Your thoughts?

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.

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chap 10 - Be Consistent and Trustworthy

Consistency (Photo credit: Matt Hampel)

This post continues with Living With the Obsessive: 3 - Be Consistent and Trustworthy 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.

3. Be Consistent and Trustworthy
It's tempting to feign agreement with some obsessives just to get them to stop badgering you.  But this can backfire! Obsessives need to be able to feel they can trust you, either to say openly you're not going to comply (giving your reasons), or actually to follow through on your word. Even in the smallest things, most obsessives respond dramatically to any evidence they can't trust you.  They immediately wonder what other things you've been dishonest about. Can they believe you when you say you love them? Can they ever believe you or trust that you'll do what you agree to do?

<snip> One man stated, "I need consistency in my life - to the extent that that's possible. I feel it would be nice if I came home at night and found consistency there. If I'm told dinner will be at six-thirty and I get home to find it's not even started - "

"That only happened once!" his wife protested, <snip>

***

Here's where it gets tricky. I do agree with the author that we should never BS an obsessive partner or friend, "Yes, yes, of course I'll do it your way," when we have no intention of doing it his way.

But, as in the example above, no matter how hard we try, there will almost certainly be one night after 752 nights where he comes home and dinner isn't even started yet.  And that's what he  latched onto, not appreciating or recognizing the 751 nights where dinner was served at six-thirty on the dot.

Because of their own distorted thinking, OCPD'rs may say they want "consistency," but what they truly expect is inhuman perfection.  

And we can drive ourselves crazy trying to deliver it to them.

Being consistent and trustworthy is a great goal, but it is important not to beat up on ourselves when we turn out to be human and fallible from time to time.  (This is not to say that we use that as an excuse, either.)

I would also argue that "giving your reasons" why you're not going to deliver something s/he wants can too easily turn into JADEing (Justifying, Arguing, Defending, and Explaining).  Better to stand your ground, "Yes, I understand you have a preference as to how you like the towels folded, but when I fold them, I'm going to do them my way. Nope, I don't need you to show me 'how to do it right.' When you fold them, you can do them your way; when I fold them, I'll do them my way."

via Suat Eman at FreeDigitalPhotos

I wish I had a dollar for every time my ex patiently explained to me that he couldn't believe I really loved him because... and then listed some tiny fault or task I'd overlooked, often from some years back. I've come to believe that a "non" can never be "consistent and trustworthy" enough to earn the trust of someone who is focused on finding a reason NOT to trust.

Somehow, he or she must come to a position of realizing that even when we do our best in some area, we're going to fail sometimes. That we still love them, and can be trusted, even if we insist on folding the towels the wrong way, or prepare dinner late once in a while.

Somehow, they have to learn that occasionally putting the toilet paper on the roll in the wrong direction is not the same level of betrayal as having an affair.

Your thoughts?

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chap 10 - Living With the Obsessive

This post continues with Living With the Obsessive 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.

Living with the Obsessive
Living with an obsessive can be challenging. Although I've mostly been describing how their behavior causes them to suffer, it can be equally painful to be on the receiving end of such traits as the following:

Pickiness: You feel as if you can never do anything right. You may begin to wonder if the critical obsessive likes anything about you.

Demand-resistance: You often can't obtain the simple cooperation that oils the wheels of daily living.

Guardedness: You may never feel as if you really know the obsessive, or achieve a sense of intimacy with him. In the face of his or her aloofness, you may (mistakenly) feel unloved.

Rigidity: You can never count on obsessives to accept even minor changes. Instead, they're likely to be annoyed whenever you do something a little differently. And once they make up their mind about something, it's practically impossible to persuade them to change it.

Excessive orderliness: You may be made to feel guilty if you don't share the same level of orderliness. If they insist you meet their standard for neatness, this many put you under a lot of pressure, creating resentment on your part, or a sense of oppression.

Infallibility: You can never win an argument with an obsessive, or point out any errors. So you may chronically get the message that you're wrong.

Workaholism: You may resent how little time and energy the other person devotes to your relationship. His or her chronic absence or preoccupation may make you feel unimportant.

Indecisiveness or inability to commit: You may be unable to make plans because of his or her waffling; you may be unsure where your relationship stands.

If you have an obsessive spouse, friend, co-worker, or relative, you may have only one of these complaints or all of them, or you may have others I haven't listed. <snip>

***

I had all of these, in my relationship with my ex. Plus hoarding issues, which used to be included with OCPD, and will now have its very own category in the upcoming DSM-V.

At the beginning, most of these issues were hidden, or masked by the happy, "we're in love" hormones coursing through both of us. Yes, he was extremely neat and particular about his person, but I liked that, because so many men can be slobs in that area.

I don't believe he was deliberately trying to deceive me. And stars know I have plenty of my own faults. Problem was, he never let me forget any of them, but constantly pointed them out, until I did, indeed, wonder what he had ever liked about me in the first place.

He was super-guarded about his own inner feelings - those were not to be shared. I had always thought a relationship was about two people who trusted each other with their weaknesses, and helped each other. He tried never to let me see a weakness, and turned mine against me.

Now, as far as I could tell, my ex was at the very extreme end of being a Perfectionist Personality. There's a test called a Cammer, not widely used, but which is one way to rate how compulsive a person is.  I tried to trick my ex into taking it - I got him to take the first 8-9 questions, to which he rated himself 4's on all of them, and felt those were the Right Answers, then he got pissy and stopped. I tried answering for him on repeated occasions, hoping perhaps I had been too judgmental, but the lowest I could ever rate him was a 93, and mostly I rated him as a 95/96 (out of 100).

I now don't believe a "non" can have even a relatively tolerable relationship, long-term, with a severely obsessive person, unless that person is:

1. aware of the issue, and that it is his/her issue, not the partner's, and
2. working very hard to combat his/her perfectionist behaviors, ideally with professional help

Not all people are as severe as my ex seemed to be. His behavior was not improved by excessive drinking, either. YMMV. (Your Mileage May Vary.)

But the first step, if you are involved with such a person, is understanding, despite being told it's your fault, over and over again, that it is not your fault. It's an actual, diagnosable mental illness, and while your partner may not be to blame, either, you cannot fix him/her. What you can do is learn about the condition, learn some coping techniques, and later, re-evaluate as to whether this is the way you are willing to live.

Do you recognize the above behaviors?
Which ones are hardest for you to live with?

Your thoughts?

This Time It's Personal

Right around the time I was leaving my OCPD ex, and voraciously reading everything I could on OCPD and hoarding, I came upon an interesting website called My Mother In Law Is Still Sitting Between Us. In it the author chronicled her boyfriend's efforts to clean out the hoarding house of his mother, who'd recently passed away.

Besides the train-wreck fascination of the pictures, the writing! Snappy, funny, insightful, and never mean-spirited or nasty. I fell in serious girl crush. And after finding that the author lived next door, so to speak, I got in touch with her. Once I convinced Sid I was not a crazy stalker-person, we did meet, and became good friends. I lured her into joining my writers critique group. Her voice and ideas were good for our group, and getting out of the house and talking about writing was good for her.  I frequently commented on her blog, and she was a frequent commenter here.

Her boyfriend is also OCPD, and the unhappy relationship dynamics that so many experience, that *I* experienced, were also part of her experience. He was a drinker/she was a drinker, even after it began to create serious health problems for her. She cut back.

Still, the relationship was eating her up on the inside, especially when, over two years into the clean-up process of the hoarding house, there was no end in sight. And of course, he could neither give it up nor hire someone to help. I tried to support Sid, as best I could, without pushing or telling her what to do.

It frustrated me to watch her spirit get eroded over time, drip, drip, drip, but still, it wasn't MY job to save her. She did have a supportive family. And Sid was the stubborn kind of person who needed to do things in her own way, in her own time. So mostly, I was the listening ear who understood, and who told her what a great person she was.

One of my online friends has pointed many to an excellent book called, "When the Body Says No," about the damaging health effects that accumulated stress may have on a person. See, sometimes if WE don't learn to say no, the body says it for us, by getting sick.  Or we swallow our feelings with alcohol, drugs, food, sex, shopping...

Sid was the kind of caregiving person who poured herself out for others.  She took pride in being STRONG, not asking for help, but giving it to others. She blogged and worked part time and was active in Children of Hoarders. She co-founded a local group called SoCalLady Bloggers. On October 8 she appeared as part of this streaming video chat on hoarding on Huffington Post.



Her ex was not and is not a bad person. In his own way, Greg, too, is heartbroken. He was the reason she was found, still clinging to life, after she missed a scheduled meeting with him and he would not let it go. I am very grateful that her parents and I got to say goodbye to her when she was still technically breathing, rather than after lying dead in her apartment for days. But his own overwhelming anxieties did not allow him to SEE how sick she was, or to help her in any meaningful way.  As she described here when she was going to visit her parents, very sick, and he got hung up on the cheapest train fare.

After another hospitalization this summer following that train trip, during which the b-f was anxious, bossy, "knew" more about what she needed to do than the doctors, and demanded attention and energy she simply didn't have left in her to give him, she realized that though she still loved him deeply, if she stayed with him, it would literally kill her. She'd already been making emotional plans to leave; her parents helped her out financially, and she moved into her own place a month ago.

Sid was SO happy in her new place. She could eat, walk, work on the computer, and breathe, without being criticized. She was so proud, showing off her new place - which had been IMMEDIATELY unpacked, no boxes hanging around for her! She showed me her cool rooftop patio and talked about having a party up there, excited, because her ex never wanted to have people over. She still loved him, and they were friendly, trying to work out the sale of their house amicably. She was taking her meds and NOT drinking and working hard to regain the weight she'd lost during the summer, but she was still so frail...

The damage to her body was too great, her remaining physical resources too low. She had a heart attack just a week ago due to the chemical imbalance in her body, and then another, in the hospital. No alcohol found in her system.

Last Monday I sat with her parents and her ex, in the hospital. Both before and after they turned off the respirator.  Today is her "Celebration of Life."

She was beautiful and vibrant and funny and 43 years old.

I am angry and heartbroken. This did NOT have to happen. For all of you still with a disordered partner - I am not telling or urging you to leave.  Only you can make that call, if or when it is right for you. But please, please, PLEASE, do not pour yourself out entirely for your partner and other people, until there is not enough left for your own body or soul. It may be the hardest thing you will ever have to do, but learn to put yourself FIRST.

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chap 9 - Shortchanged Children

Child 1 (Photo credit: Tony Trần)

This post continues with The Costs of Workaholism: The Poisoning of Personal Relationships from Chapter Nine.

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.

The Costs of Workaholism

All these [the previous posts] are very real benefits - but they're benefits of work rather than of workaholism, and they all can be enjoyed even if work plays a more balanced role in your life. <snip>

THE POISONING OF PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
Shortchanged Children

If you do have children, you're likely to tell yourself that you're working as hard as you are for their sake - a sacrifice they may find of questionable value. In their book The Addictive Organization, Anne Wilson Schaef and Diane Fassel recount the words of one grown daughter of a workaholic:

Everything revolved arond my father's work. If we got too playful and made noise we would be quieted because Daddy was wither working or sleeping. When work went poorly, he was moody, angry, and destructive. When it went well, he was jolly... We rarely saw him. Sometimes he stayed in the city overnight or on big projects, he would be gone for weeks at a time... I don't think my mother or our family were ever second place in my father's life, I believe for him we didn't exist at all. I grew up spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about my father, yet never really knowing him. I hate him for this and I miss him deeply.

A child jumping (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

<snip>Other workaholic parents may transform time spent together into time working together. Say it's a Sunday afternoon, and the parent has no pressing obligations; he really could afford to spend a few hours doing what his child most wants to do, say, playing ball. But because of the parent's chronic inner need to be accomplishing something, he hankers to be gardening, or repairing the back fence. So he tries to accomplish two things simultaneously - to spend time with his child and to work on the project - by cajoling the child into working with him.

If the project truly engages the child's interest, it may turn out to be a pleasant shared experience. But if the child senses that the parent is more involved in the fence than in him, the child will resent it. <snip>

Some workaholic parents go one step further, getting annoyed whenever they find their children "wasting time." They want their children to share their own abhorrence for any hint of laziness, and they find tasks to fill the children's time - until the children get used to fleeing whenever they see the meddlesome parent approaching.

English: child (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

<snip> your children's childhoods are composed of hundreds of fleeting experiences: the first laughs of babyhood, the first steps, trick-or-treating at Halloween, high school courtships. Each stage of development lasts only for a very brief time, and once completed, will never be repeated. <snip>

Some people, realizing that this has happened, try to correct it too late. I've had several adult patients who received very little attention from their parents when they were children or adolescents. When the elderly parents (often newly widowed) finally sought companionship, their sons and daughters reacted with dread, shying away from contact and expressing such feelings as, "We have absolutely nothing in common," or "I don't feel any connection to him." Sometimes these adult children have expressed resentment at being approached after so many years of neglect. "Where was he when I needed him?" they ask.

Image via CrunchBase

***

This is part of why I have a problem with Apple computer products: Steve Jobs. I feel like if I were to buy them, I would be implicitly endorsing his publicly admitted neglect of his children and family (though I admit, years ago when I knew less about his personal life, I did buy an iPod).

Much like the workaholics described here, my father rarely had time for me - and usually it was for his own purpose.  If he wanted to talk at someone, he would make me come into the living room to listen to him - during the commercials. I wasn't even important enough to him to turn off the TV and actually interact with.

So when he too became elderly and bored and lonely and decided, then, he wanted to connect with me - too little, too late. I had learned to live without him a long time before that - and in fact, it wasn't truly an attempt to "connect." He just wanted more of an audience.  My oldest sister, who did give him the time of day, had very little of his attention about her concerns and problems, even when she was facing a serious eye problem and almost lost her sight.

I have heard so many stories of OCPD parents who cannot let their kids BE kids, who are like mini-sweatshop owners, instilling a sense of work, work, work, all the time. (I'm talking to you, Tiger Mom!) I love this commercial, because it's about the dad (and the big brother) letting the little girl call the shots.

Let go and have fun with your kids. Be silly. No, you don't have to be a "Disneyland Dad," with fun activities only. Kids do need to learn about mending fences and doing laundry, but neither should you always be looking for Something Productive to Do.

There's an incredible amount of joy and freedom in just being with children, if you let it.

Do you value work over children, or know someone who does?
If you had a parent who always put work first, 
how did that make you feel?

Your thoughts?

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chap 9 - Too Driven

English: Apple iPad Event (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This post continues with Too Driven from Chapter Nine.

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.

A man who loves life intensely must always be jealous of the few exquisite moments of leisure that he has.... His hours of fishing must be as sacred as his hours of business.  ~LIN YUTANG, The Importance of Living

Work permeates every moment of Natalie's carefully planned schedule.  An ambitious public prosecutor, she rises before dawn <snip> After dinner with her family, she invariably works for a few more hours. <snip> Even though her supervisor has urged her to drive herself less furiously, Natalie can't really imagine cutting back her work hours. "My job is like a vortex," she says flatly. "It draws me in."

The Obsessive Workaholic

Most people would call Natalie a "workaholic." Although this is not a psychiatric term, the recently minted word aptly describes a person a having a compulsive need to work. I t applies to many obsessives. For them, work represents much more than just a way to earn a living; it's the central axis around which everything else revolves.

Workaholism is more than just a matter of long hours. No one, for example, would label as a workaholic the impoverished immigrant who sews for eighteen hours a day. She probably has no psychological need to work so hard, and one assumes that were she to win the lottery, she would work less. When most people call someone a workaholic, they are implying that the person works significantly more than he or she has to or is even expected to.

My own definition is that a workaholic is someone who voluntarily devotes practically every waking hour to either doing or thinking about some form of work (though he may not realize his actions are voluntary). This incorporates a very broad range of overly driven behavior. <snip>

***

In American society, we are very competitive about work. It's an area where being obsessive is not simply unnoticed, but often expected and praised.

Because we can do something, doesn't mean we should. Yes, working more hours generally results in more money, which means we can buy more things. And those with OCPD tend to focus on things, rather than people.

There will always be more things to buy. Things are not going anywhere. People, experiences, and relationships, on the other hand, will not always be available to someone works his/her life away.

Take Steve Jobs. He helped bring a lot of cool gadgets to life, but in his personal life:

I wanted my kids to know me,' he told Pulitzer Prize nominee and author Walter Isaacson, when asked why he agreed to a tell-all book despite living a famously private life.

'I wasn't always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did,' he added poignantly at his home in Palo Alto, California.

SINGAPORE - OCTOBER 06: An Apple Ipad 2 showing the Apple website displays a tribute to Steve Jobs, co-founder and former chief executive officer of Apple, at a store in Marina Bay Sands, Singapore on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2011. Jobs, 56, passed away after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976 and is credited, along with Steve Wozniak, with marketing the world's first personal computer in addition to the popular iPod, iPhone and iPad. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

I'm thinking his kids and his wife might have been able to suffer through life with a few less cool gadgets and a lot more time with the guy - but his work was clearly #1, and they were an afterthought, to be fitted in around the edges, if/when he could make the time. Failing that, well, now they can always read his biography on their iPads, after his death. That'll surely give them the same warm fuzzy feeling as actually spending time with their father, feeling not only that they knew him, but that he cared enough to know them, right?

Do you have a compulsive need to work?

Love someone who does?

Your thoughts?

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chap 8 - Doing Everything "In Order" & Too Rigid

from Salvatore Vuono via FreeDigitalPhotos

This post continues with Doing Everything in Order & Too Rigid from Chapter Eight.

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.

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.

Doing Everything "In Order"

Besides organizing their physical surroundings, obsessives also tend to be orderly about their activities - doing them in a methodical manner rather than haphazardly. <snip> Another might have a well-fixed morning work routine - say, insisting on first returning all phone messages before doing anything else, rather than every day trying to decide anew what activity is most urgent.

Being organized usually enhances effectiveness, allowing one to use time more efficiently.<snip>

But the obsessive's orderliness stems partly from his need for perfection, thoroughness, and control. When this is the case, one's need for order will go beyond its adaptive value to reach self-defeating proportions.

There's a scene in Anne Tyler's novel The Accidental Tourist that nicely illustrates this. The protagonist, Macon Leary, who "above all else... was an orderly man," recalls taking his young son, Ethan, to the movies.

 "I got the tickets," he hear Ethan say, "And they're opening the doors in five minutes."
"All right," Macon told him, "let's plan our strategy."
"Strategy?"
"Where we're going to sit."
"Why would we need strategy for that?"
"It's you who asked to see this movie, Ethan. I would think you'd take an interest in where you're sitting. Now, here's my plan. You go around to that line on the left. Count the little kids. I'll count the line on the right."
"Aw, Dad-"
"Do you want to sit next to some noisy little kid?"
"Well, no."
"And which do you prefer: an aisle seat?"
"I don't care."
"Aisle, Ethan? Or middle of the row? You must have some opinion."
"Not really."
"Middle of the row?"
"It doesn't make any difference."
"Ethan. It makes a great deal of difference. Aisle, you can get out quicker. So if you plan to buy a snack or go to the restroom, you'll want to sit on the aisle. On the other hand, everyone'll be squeezing past you there. So if you don't think you'll be leaving your seat, then I suggest-"
"Aw, Dad, for Christ's sake!" Ethan said.

Macon's urge to "organize" his moviegoing experience, his imperative to plan every facet, transforms it into something serious - something very like work.

The teacher or writer who feels compelled to present material in neat, perfectly logical fashion may do so at the cost of boring his or her audience; the excessive orderliness is apt to exclude any humor, spontaneity, or creativity. <snip>

Too Rigid

The greatest danger of the obsessive's passion for order, however, results when it combines with another typical trait: the tendency to resist change, to be rigid. This marriage of orderliness with rigidity was illustrated by a patient of mine named Tim. An enthusiastic jogger who ran at least four times a week, Tim always ran for the same length of time along the exact same route. At one point he told me how bored he was by his unvarying routine, but because he was comfortable with it, he really didn't consider an alternate route. "I know exactly where I'm going. And it fits the time allotment exactly," he said.

Tim offered other rationalizations, but when I suggested good solutions to each of these problems, it became clear that maintaining the order itself had become some sort of imperative. Something about his running routine had taken on a life of its own. Somehow it had come to be the "right" way, and any deviation simply felt uncomfortable, as if he were breaking some rule.

***

Sometimes a routine makes sense, and sometimes a routine needs to be changed. For instance, I work on the West Coast; some of my clients are on the East Coast. It makes sense to check my phone messages and return calls first thing in the morning, because it is already noon (or close to it) where many of them are.

If it was reversed - if I were to move to the East Coast, at the same time most of my clients moved to the West Coast - to cling to that phone routine because it was my routine, would be crazy (not to mention tick a fair number of people off).

My ex seemed married to routines. When I got home from work, I was to change out of my work clothes, have a drink, and only then could be begin preparing dinner. If I didn't feel like having a drink, or changing my clothes that night, it completely flummoxed him. He had a very precise order of The Way Things Should Happen in his head. Unlike some other b-f's I had, we NEVER had a quickie before dinner.

When interrupted in any project or monologue, my ex would almost always have to start over from the beginning. He could not "pick up the thread" partway in.

via jessica mullen at Flickr

I've heard of other OCPD spouses who are so rigid in their grocery shopping protocol that if an item isn't on the list, it can't be purchased. Not even if you're standing right in front of the bread, say, and remember, "oh yeah, we're almost out of bread." It has to be on the list, first, and the list can only be compiled at home. If you skip an item on the list, no going back into that aisle to pick it up, it must wait until the next trip.

And like the example from The Accidental Tourist, my ex would often plan the fun right out of an activity. Planning isn't a bad thing; routines aren't a bad thing; they are good, helpful, useful tools. But they should be employed on behalf of a goal; they should not become the goal.

Have you ever had the fun planned out of an activity?
Been unable to deviate from The Plan or The List?
Your thoughts?