There Is No "Trying It On For Size"

Milton H. Greene [Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons

Like a lot of women, I have no f@#king clue what size I wear, most of the time.  It's not my fault that I don't know.  Some clothing manufacturers vanity size their clothes - so that a size 12, like Marilyn wore, is today equivalent to a size 8.  Other don't do vanity sizing.  Still others size their clothing slightly smaller than industry norm.

I have had times in my life where a size 8 hung on me like a sack, while a size 14 was way too tight to wear.


Guys, now do you get why clothing shopping can be so stressful for women?

We learn what colors and styles suit us, mostly, and a general guess as to our current size for most clothing makers.  Still, women often need to do a lot of trying things on when shopping.

Let me meander over to the point.  One of the things I noticed about OCPD ex-b-f, was his absolute misery whenever I wanted to "try something on for size" around the house.  For instance, there was a spot on the wall that needed a picture, only we weren't which picture should go there.  My way of handling this would have been to hang the primary candidate, live with it for a few weeks, and see if it "felt" right to us.

His way was to think about it for 2-3 years, and only then could we hang the picture I wanted to put up (one that he brought into the relationship, btw, not one of my own.)   He would go absolutely spastic whenever I wanted to decorate for the holidays - and I love decorating for the holidays, all of the holidays, not just Christmas, but Valentines' Day, Easter, Fourth of July, Halloween...

This seems to be a pattern for many with OCPD, similar to something that autistics experience.  Nothing is supposed to change.  Ever.  If you've read earlier comments on this blog, you'll know that one reader has an OCPD husband who will rake the lawn down to dirt, because he can't stand it when there's a single leaf on the grass, even for one day.  I had a friend tell me about a similar "trying it on" experience.  She'd wanted a clock in her living room, and they were throwing one away at her work, so she brought it home and hung it in her living room.  She wasn't sure that she liked it, but hey, the price was right.  So she wanted to hang it and see if she liked it after a few days, or didn't.

Her (suspected Asperger's) boyfriend absolutely freaked out, could not sit still, couldn't focus on conversation with her, but sat drumming his fingers against his knee (stimming) because of this one change she'd done in her living room.  She had to take the clock down and rehang the picture she'd had up on that hook, so that he could calm down and get back to normal.  (Normal for him, that is.)

The other night I was on a chat session that included both people with OCPD and "nons."  I asked them about the "trying it on" experiment, and it was interesting as one of the OCPDrs tried to explain to me, that he needs to know a comparative value.  How can one know if the picture on the wall is good or not - you need something to compare it to (uh, a blank wall?) and who's to say, and how can one say, if this is a quantitively good or bad "fit"?

Another young man had posted that following being placed on medications (not just for OCPD, but for ADHD, and other conditions) he was able, for the first time in years, to go into a store and try on clothing, and buy pants that fit.  He had always felt too self-conscious and "weird" to try on pants before, so he would just guess at the size, and if he got them home and they didn't fit, he would throw them in the closet.  (Taking them back to the store would have been too embarrassing.)

Photo by dailyfood at Flickr

The idea that decisions about minor things don't have to be made, once, for all time <imagine a long reverb effect on the "for all time-time-time," please> seems to be beyond the grasp of many with OCPD.  It's not a case of this time they can choose the salmon at the restaurant, next time something different; they feel they must choose something good every single time, or... what, exactly?  We don't know, but it must be terrible.

This behavior is one of the things that drives Significant Others up the wall, and yet, it seems so petty when we speak or write about it.  So they don't want to order anything different when you go out to eat, so what?  So they don't like moving around the furniture, or putting up holiday decorations, what's the big deal?

One at a time, these things are all minor and no big deal, but all together, because the person with OCPD will often apply them to many, many areas in their life, it is a big deal.

What are your thoughts or experiences with this behavior?

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chapter 2 (cont) Control Over Feelings - Selectively Unemotional

This post continues with Control Over Feelings & Selectively Unemotional, from Chapter Two.

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

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

CONTROL OVER FEELINGS

For many obsessives, control over their emotions is a crucial component of self-control.  By their nature, emotions sometimes defy control, and this unruliness disturbs the obsessive.  Also, through their extremist lenses, many obsessives unconsciously fear that any show of emotion could lead to their humiliating themselves, devastating someone else, being rejected, or even losing all self-control.  For these and other reasons, many obsessives will repress, minimize, disown, or otherwise try to avoid strong emotions altogether.

<snip>   When their feelings are starting to surface in therapy sessions, many obsessive patients like Colette will deliver an intellectual analysis of them, change the subject, joke, of focus on something trivial - anything to avoid actually feeling and exploring this perturbing part of themselves.

Selectively Unemotional

Although a few obsessives have difficulty showing any strong emotions (and thus may appear machinelike), most choke off only certain ones.   Some, for instance, have no trouble showing affection, but can't display anger easily.  With others, the opposite is true.  <snip> 

The Downside of Emotional Control

To survive, work effectively, and relate to other harmoniously, we obviously must modulate some of our emotions.  However, as James's experience illustrates, wholesale repression of feelings can be self-damaging.  Even in moments of leisure or intimacy, many obsessives have difficulty shifting gears and letting go of their need to be in control.  Some may repress their feelings to effectively that they do not know what their feelings are; they come to believe they were born without the normal emotional range present in others.  This causes them pain, as they sense themselves to be defective in some core way.

In their wish to seem normal (to themselves and others) these people may fake whatever feelings they think are appropriate in various situations.  Or they may unconsciously compensate for their perceived defect in an altogether different way, by idealizing it.  Like Star Trek's Mr. Spock, people who take this path disdian feelings and evidence of weakness.  They sneer at emotional people and admire intellect and reason.  They thus convert the pain fo feeling defective into pride in being "strong."

Of course, such defensive tactics in obsessives usually are doomed to failure, because in spite of their best efforts, rage, terror, sadness, infatuation, and other emotions will eventually break through.  Like anyone else, the obsessive person will experience these emotions because, fortunately, there is no completely effective anesthesia against feeling.  Emotions are crucial components of who we are.  And it through expressing our emotions that we are able to make our needs known and achieve true communication with others.  If you can't show that you're touched, hurt, scared, angry, or sad, people can't connect with you, let alone feel empathy for you or love you.  In the emotional arena as in others, too much self-control is self-defeating.

***

I've blogged before about the AngryMan aspect of ex b-f.  While he was able to display a full range of emotion during the courting stage, once we moved in together, it seemed like the only emotion he felt safe showing was anger.  He would be cold and logical and emotionless much of the time, occasionally be in a good mood, but mostly, angry.  As if that emotion was safe - unlike fear, anxiety, loneliness - to express those would have made him too vulnerable.

I am reminded of the distraction aspect too - "cuttlefish!" when they throw up a cloud of ink to distract you from something getting too close to the bone.  The Great and Powerful Oz is... just a small scared man behind a curtain, using smoke and mirrors and distraction to keep people from seeing he's just a man.

When somebody is breathing fire at you, it's pretty much impossible to feel an emotional connection.



We all do crazy things to try to earn love, sometimes.  Maybe we'll let somebody put a dog collar around our necks and lead us around by a chain.  Maybe we'll be patient and sympathetic and allow ourselves to be emotionally abused, in the hopes that once they get it "out of their system" they'll be able to open up and share their real emotions with us.  Maybe we'll put up a front of being strong and invulnerable and unemotional, in the hopes that people will love the shell we've built, even if they don't love the person underneath.

Such a waste of time.  By pretending not to have emotions, all perfectionists do is push people away.

Your thoughts?

Sick of It

I've been battling a cold this past week or so.  I think I have it licked, but you never know.

This is sick in a good way, by kamshots at Flickr

I don't get sick often, but when I do, I tend to get really sick.  In fact, the last time I got sick was over Memorial Day weekend, almost a year ago.  Which spurred the anxiety that caused my ex b-f to blow up, which caused me to reach my "Get Help or I'm outta here" point.

I understand better now, that with OCPD (which as one friend half-jokes, stands for Only Contemplates Potential Disasters) a cold is never just a cold.  It's always a Possibly Fatal Infection, for everyone in the household.

Mind you, I suspect that me getting sicker than "normal" the last few times I got sick - colds progressing to sinus infections or bronchitis - probably had a great deal to do with living with a cigarette smoker, even though he religiously used ashtrays designed to trap much of the smoke.  Not good for the lungs, and on a few occasions, I brought up the idea that him stopping smoking would be good for both of us.  He agreed, even said a few times he wished he could, but that he knew he was too deeply addicted to even try to stop.  Well, we all know, if you think you can't do something, you can't, end of story.  I know the stress of living with him wore down my stamina and immune system, too. 

But I never dreamed of scolding him for me getting sick, as he would me. 

I've now heard stories from other partners of untreated OCPDrs that they can behave extremely badly when illness or injury occurs to someone they love (not every person with OCPD does this, but many do.)  Broken arms, appendicitis, or a head cold, all could (potentially) lead to The Worst Possible Outcome, which means since their head is already speeding ahead to imaging this, the Perfectionist Personality may totally lose whatever emotional equilibrium they have, and be on their worst behavior.

In a normal relationship, being hurt or under the weather generally elicits sympathy from a partner.  In some cases, the Perfectionist Personality will resist or actually refuse to drive their partner to the emergency room, or help with a temporary bandage for a cut.  They may even berate their partners for being so careless and inconsiderate to get sick or injured in the first place.


We may be able to cope to a certain extent, with an OCPD loved one when we feel well.  Setting boundaries, not taking things personally, remembering not to JADE...  But when we're hurt or feeling crappy, the OCPD  lack of expressed empathy, and fussing over their own worries can be especially hard to take. 

Sound effects, too!  Available via Amazon

My ex-boyfriend actually would be quite solicitous of me when I was sick, make me homemade chicken soup (which I loathed.) I know he was expressing his love and concern the best way he could.  The problem was, he couldn't express it in the way I needed.  Even when I specifically said, I would like to eat or drink this, I would like to do X, I would like to nap now - or not nap now, he couldn't hear it.  He expected me to be sick the way he had it scripted in his mind.

What a sad, torturous messy way to think, to live.  I am so glad I can just get sick now.  If I truly need help, I can ask family or friends to make a Kleenex or ginger ale run for me, as necessary.  Without getting bitched at because I wouldn't have gotten sick if I'd been more careful, or being micromanaged as to what I should eat or drink or when I should nap.

What were your experiences with OCPD sickness & health?  

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