If you have OCD, are you difficult to live with?

[bastidius]

I'm sorry it's a blunt question but I don't know anyone else to ask.

My sister has had OCD for around ten years or so. At the beginning she wouldn't get help and it was horrible living with her. I know it's horrible of me to say that but it truly was. Since then she's had medication and a few rounds of CBT too which have helped her manage it.

Day to day she is fine BUT only if we can hide certain things from her / not mention certain things/ do certain things when she isn't there. If she suspects something we "have to" lie. Basically, everything you double check in your head to make sure it won't cause a scene.

She also seems to pick on people she can get away with it with like me and our DM. Other people she is ok with, completely fine.

It's like walking on eggshells, constantly double checking everything you do/ sat around her. I felt like I couldn't breathe. She would have massive , huge arguments if we didn't comply with her if she requested us to do a ritual. It affected my mental health and I didn't realise it at the time when I finally moved out and could just breathe.

Is this is what it's like living with people with OCD? Is this how it is?

Of course please please don't get me wrong, I am fully aware how hard it must be for her. A million times. However, I am human too.

Wow. You see I can't even believe that you would just accept if your dh didn't do what you wanted him to do. Obviously I know you would have thoughts about it and keep going over it on your head and it would be hard for you. But she would never do that. If she tells you to do something then that's it. You'd have to do it. Another thing is, she picks and chooses who she is like this with. That is another thing that I find hard to deal with. Surely if it's the OCD that makes her like this, she would be like this with everyone.

An example I can remember is our DM came home from a long 10 hour journey and she went straight to the bathroom as you would. Whilst there she decides to empty the bin. She never washed her hands when emptying the bin. My DSis then made her wash all the door handles. She hadn't even sat down for a rest from her journey yet.

Is this level of cruelty, which is how I see it, is what OCD does to people, or is she just mean.

In my personal situation, if I was worried about the door handles I wouldn’t make someone else do it. I’d do it myself, obsessively, until I felt satisfied and my anxiety subsided. I really don’t want to speak for everyone with OCD because everyone is different. It’s just that from what therapists have told me, OCD often comes with a heightened sense of responsibility so you personally want to control everything. That means if something feels contaminated, you personally want to clean in because you don’t really trust anyone else to do it right. I can see why she would push for her to wash her hands in that scenario, but I can’t see how she could ‘trust’ her to wash the door handles.

I understand why she'd want her to wash her hands and clean the door handles. But she should do it herself and if our DM refuses to wash her own hands, she should accept that she can't make her to. Instead she tantrums

Hi bastidius.

I have severe OCD, though I live on my own (albeit in supported accommodation) and have done for over ten years. When I was still at home, I know that my dad found me difficult to live with, but not because I was insisting that he do things my way. I became more and more secretive and simply stopped cooking and eating food from the kitchen, instead subsisting on food and drinks that I could consume in my room straight from the packaging without touching, heating or using cutlery. If I needed to do anything that required a ritual (ie, almost anything) I'd try and only do it when he was out of the house so that he wouldn't hear it (or, more importantly, be able to make a noise that would distract me). So I was hard to live with, but more in a creepy, malign ghostly presence kind of way!

Like Buttercup, I don't really understand how your sister can trust that your mum is doing the cleaning and hand-washing to her standard; despite the complexity of my washing rituals, and all the referencing numbers, words and phrases that I use to help me make sure I'm doing them properly, I still frequently can't trust my own eyes even as I'm watching myself doing it, and have to start again. No way would I trust anyone else to clean a door handle or anything else!

Re the tantrums: it might be that she is being generally mean, or targeting individuals on whom to "safely" take out any unhappiness because she trusts they will be there for her regardless, or it could be that this is just an example of OCD logic, where she genuinely has an issue with some people and not others in a way that would make no sense to you, because you don't just not have OCD, but you don't have her OCD. I could describe some of the contradictions I recognise in my own presentation, but I'd be here all day.

Can you prompt her to talk to her GP about being referred back to services? It sounds as if she might need whatever strategies she learned in previous rounds of CBT to be reinforced. Not that I'd know anything about that, because nothing's ever worked for me. It's also possible that there might be something else going on, as others have said. But I don't think the current state of affairs sounds good for any of you and something has to change.

That was my understanding too. I thought if you had OCD, you wouldn't trust others to have cleaned it properly, so you'd do it yourself. Instead what's happening is our DM is becoming a slave to her demands.

This is one example. There are countless other things that she does for her if DSis isn't happy with something.

Do you mind me asking flourella, do you live in supported housing because of your OCD? Does it make it difficult for you to have a job?

I fear I'm risking everybody on this thread, but having read all the OP's posts, and replies from people with OCD I have to ask: does she actually have the condition?

Is there any chance that she's (and I really hesitate to say this, but please bear with me) pretending to have the condition in order to control her family? Or could she have started out pretending, then somehow it's become reality, albeit by her rules?

It's just from what people here with the condition are saying, that they wouldn't trust someone else to clean the doorhandles, for example, and the fact that she seems to be able to control who suffers, makes me wonder if this is actually a conscious decision by her. Were you the favoured child and this was how she could get attention? And it seems she has you all right where she wants you, pandering to her and too scared to breathe. It just seems very manipulative.

It depends on the OCD I think and the sort of person you are too - my OH is OCD about locking doors and windows and rechecking them. He will constantly checked that I've locked my car and the doors, invariably I have forgotten. He also washes his hands religiously and very frequently e.g. after picking up a peg off of the floor or whatever.

The result is that I let him be in charge of all keys and locking and checking (he has usually put my stuff away for security reasons and I often can't find it). It doesn't bother me - I mean at least I know it's done. With the hand washing I just put a tub of hand cream on each wash basin so his hands don't get too sore. He was away a couple of weeks ago for work (course) and when I woke up the next day I realised I hadn't locked the doors as for over 23 years I've not had to!

This thread has really saddened me.

Thank you for everyone of you who has shared your experiences.

I feel extremely sorry for my DM who is the one who has to deal with this everyday. I "escaped" but it has affected my mental health badly whilst living with her and unfortunately it has had a damaging effect on my relationship with her.

OP, I really feel that something has to be done about your sister's attitude towards your mother in particular. As I said, I personally don't understand how she can rope other people into her OCD, and generally speaking secretiveness is a significant part of the condition, but it's her willingness to inflict her problems onto family members that is the worst thing about what you've described.

She owes it to herself and all of you to seek further help. There might be more intense OCD-specific therapy available locally through the NHS, or, if she's been through all the levels on offer there, she may qualify for treatment at a national specialist facility. I am on the waiting list to go onto a hospital ward for mine.

All these aggressive meltdowns and making a slave of your mum are not part and parcel of OCD. To be honest, she does sound quite manipulative, maybe not in a pathological way (like in those with a personality disorder), but certainly in a way that shouldn't be allowed to continue. I'm sure my dad hates the way my life has turned out, but I couldn't live with myself if I were imposing my problems on him like that.

Does she work? Can she not move out? To answer your questions of me, I have a few additional diagnoses but OCD is the one that has the most negative impact on my life. I have been unable to work for about 13 years.

Second that it depends on the OCD.

I've been at a point before where I've been so anxious and my thoughts have been so intrusive that I've ended up counting the corners of ever tiny tile on the wall. If interrupted I would get angry and cry. I also get fixated on things. If I decide something needs cleaning, or tidying, or buying, etc, I need to do it, now. If not my world is going to implode.

I think it's so important for those around you to try and understand and be entirely non judgemental.

My mum has undiagnosed mental health issues, we now suspect OCD. Growing up with her was really hard and I put a lot of my own issues such as my anxiety and low confidence down to what it was like living with my mum. She still is very controlling and honestly cannot cope if things don't go her way. She behaves like you would expect a toddler to even now.

It's difficult because I love her and I know she did her best.

When I was a child/teen and young adult I was hard to live with yes. I did get angry when my rituals were interrupted or people didn't answer me right. Mainly because I was panicking and it came out in anger. It felt like my world had collapsed when people interrupted me or didn't help me. It was pure fear.

Now, i'm not like that, but it took a lot of work.

My 19 year old son with OCD can be a nightmare, because he wants constant reassurance and I hear his constant obsessive rumination which ends up stressing me out. I also find it so very hard to see him struggling because I know exactly how he feels. Rumination is a ritual and he certainly involves me in that. I don't give him a lot of reassurance but it doesn't stop him seeking it and becoming upset and frustrated.

I would have loved people doing some of my rituals for me actually. I never lock up at night, always leave it to DH because that way I can go to bed without fear, so I can see why your sister would want someone else to wash the door handle. It is sometimes easier to see someone else do it and I do trust that other people will do a better job of locking up etc than me.

Everyone with OCD is different of course and deal with it in different ways. I did everything I could though to get help and help myself. Not always successfully but I tried and was very aware of what it did to people around me.

Your family has my empathy OP.

Forgot to add. There were some rituals I wouldn't allow anyone to do for me, but there are some that I would have been happy for people to take over.

I have had severe OCD since childhood, after undergoing recent treatment that finally worked I would consider it moderate now. DH likes a clean house so hasn't been all that impacted. DC get annoyed when I insist they wash their hands before going in the food cupboards or fridge. My mother used to complain that I used too much bleach when I used to clean the house from top to bottom as a teen .

Mine has always been mainly distressing intrusive thoughts and images without rituals though. I have never really involved anyone else physically in it apart from seeking verbal reassurance from DH. I hid it for most of my life and didn't even know what it was until I was 38.

Your sister's behaviour to you and your mother is certainly not usual of OCD. Could she be on the autistic spectrum? DS is and he also displays some OCD traits in his ritualistic behaviour and his thoughts with the added joy of meltdowns!

When you describe the 'cruelty' to your mum, lack of empathy is also well known as a feature of autism.

I have OCD, severe at one point, I would consider it fairly mild now though it does flare during times of stress and anxiety.

My rituals revolve around food and general hygiene. I’m mostly ok now but there are 2 parts of the OCD I know I’ll never recover from, hand washing and raw chicken. I mention this because whilst hand washing is my own thing my OCD means I can not deal with raw chicken at all, dealing with it and cooking it is a chore I gladly pass on to my DH. So whilst I’m sure if I could do it I’d not poison myself or anyone else I trust that my DH will do a good job and cook it properly. Sorry I know it’s probably a backwards way to try and explain it but perhaps your sister trusts your mum to actually clean the door handles properly and perhaps even thinks she does a better job, and if it’s not that she thinks that then it’s that she sees it as a contamination issue.

As an example; I can’t watch my DH chop and prepare raw chicken because if I do I suddenly become aware of everything he’s touched, everything the chicken has touched or even just been near and in my head it’s all contaminated and I just want to run around bleaching everything. It’s nuts and I know it’s me being obsessive so I deal with it by avoiding it completely and deploy the tactic of if I didn’t see it then it didn’t happen and then I can’t obsess about it. It’s not curative but it does help.

Somewhere in the back of your sisters mind she knows that if she were not there and had not seen the bin change/unwashed hands incident then the door handles would have been contaminated and would not have been disinfected and actually everything would still have been fine. The problem is (for your sister) is that she was witness to the incident and following contamination (in her mind of course) and so of course she can’t relax and not obsess until they are clean and she doesn’t want to clean them herself and not because she is being mean or lazy but because she doesn’t want to contaminate herself in the cleaning process.

I mostly recovered by exposing myself to some of my fears and anxieties and very slowly realising the terrible thing I was imagining didn’t actually happen. I did this without any help for medical professionals but only because at the time I was very ill with it I had no idea what it was and I didn’t know that it was even something I could as for help with.

OCD is terrible and can absolutely rule your life as it did mine for a time and I completely empathise with your sister but also very much so with you and your poor mother. I can only give insight into my own thoughts as a sufferer and suggest that your sister needs perhaps a more intensive or different kind of therapy.

Wishing you and your family all the best OP

Yes, having OCD certainly can make you difficult to live with, and it’s also extremely difficult for the sufferer. It’s a horribly cruel disorder with affects that ripple through the family. There’s no point trying to rationalise your sisters behaviour when the condition itself is irrational.

Has your DM said she wants help with your sister and her mental health disorder?

I m sure Mil has this but there is not a whisper in the family that she maybe ill, they all buy into it bar dh

So they act just as nervously around things as she does and fil also like a clean house, so he buys into it. It's driven dh mad and fil has tried to get us to act the same in our home!!

So instead of helping her and getting her to relinquish control in other people's homes. She tries to do it in ours and gets fil to help.

All very well but it makes me furious because she has destroyed dh self esteem and driven him to the edge of insanity with it. I'd have far more sympathy if it was presented as an illness she can't help

I wonder if relate does family counselling for all of you?

Dd2 has OCD and is medicated. Her rituals and compulsions are very personal and don’t really affect the family. She does have some hygiene triggers but more to do with the way she has to perform ablutions rather than environmental. Really it’s very hard for her - but only worrying and concerning for the rest of her to watch her struggle, rather than actively involving us.
I do want to shout out to Lillygolightly though - when dd was dx it became clear that some of the obsessive traits are likely to have been passed down through me - and Lilly just made another piece click into place for me with the raw meat scenario (and others with the handing off of tasks being easier than obsessing over them yourself).
Some of the things you have said do sound as though there may be some PD present as well op. But extreme anxiety can manifest in control and outbursts. Anxiety does not excuse abuse though, and it sounds as though her medication and/ or therapy regime needs a rethink.

Lillygolightly I get what you're saying - maybe someone else cleaning it will avoid her getting contaminated. But it's got to a point now where DM washes up after her. Her clothes are left on the bedroom floor for her to pick up and wash. She also does very little around the house but thats nothing to do with the OCD.

I've had therapy for other stuff and it's what got me thinking about this whole situation. I don't think DM would want to but I can suggest it.