To be very annoyed by “OCD Cleaners?”

[sweetkitty]

There’s a cleaning company local to me called OCD Cleaners presumably as a nod to the fact they clean as well as people with OCD.

I am really annoyed with this, I am a member of OCD-UK and know OCD is one of the most debilitating mental illnesses there is. It is so much more than just being super-clean. It is really debilitating and leaves sufferers feeling very isolated and shameful. There’s 6 different types and Fear of germs is just one type.

My 21 yo DD suffers from it and she literally has no life, she cannot work, go to college, care for herself and go outside without a parent. She feels an utter failure. I have heard so many sad, horrific stories from other parents of sufferers too.

I feel like contacting them and saying stop making light of a serious mental health condition you wouldn’t call a company Bipolar or Depression would you? Or would I come across as a bit of a Karen, am I super sensitive because of my DD?

Having a DD with OCD this sort of thing does make me cross...ooh I'm a bit OCD....are you really??
My dds OCD has absolutely nothing to do with cleanliness (infact,unfortunatly she is a very messy person) she has obsessive thoughts about things she considers to be dangerous and it is quite debilitating.

Depends. I have OCD myself, so I do find it in poor taste. However they could be a van load of cleaners who do have OCD who have channelled it as a positive.

I sigh inwardly when people are so ignorant about the many, many different types of OCD and how they manifest. Imagine thinking that all OCD people just hoover and dust all day 🙄

But I wouldn’t say anything, I’d just be inwardly irritated by it and move along.

x

Absolutely spot on.

WHO have never listed OCD in the top 10 debilitating conditions. That's a much quoted myth.

Depends if they have OCD! But it seems a slightly strange thing to advertise.

If they actually have OCD, they would not be a good match for me as a cleaning service - I suffer from OCD (I know some people don’t like the use of the terminology ‘suffer from’ - but trust me, I suffer!) and it affects me in a few different ways, one of which pertains to things being done in a very specific order - if their OCD required it doing in a different order we’d both be in a permanent state of anxiety around the other.

It seems a very niche market if they actually have OCD though. I’m well aware that many of my OCD related routines annoy the hell out of or at the very least bemuse any (non OCD) friends or family around them often enough … so maybe I’m being overly sensitive but depending on the routines of the cleaner, I’d think that could cause them not to gel well with a potential customer too.

So the only people they’d be marketable to are people who are incredibly laid back and probably not likely to be at home, and willing to pay for a lot of hours cleaning (assuming the OCD is in relation to the cleaners cleaning, and not another matter like checking door handles or similar!).

I don’t like to make assumptions … but my more likely go to is that they’re playing on the stereo type that ocd means very clean - which not offensive to me personally, I think is somewhat misjudged!

Instead of messaging them to explain their error in the first instance, could you ask for clarification what they mean by their name??

ps - I WISH my OCD meant my house was super clean and tidy!

I have ocd, I also hate cleaning. So many people think that it's just a quirky thing where people clean or do everything a certain amount of times.

Ocd is an absolute bastard and it controls everything in your life. It's not fun and quirky, it's isolating, scary, and fucking exhausting

Ok I take your point about the Karen but even people called Karen can say they are being a Karen (I should know)

Back to the OCD Company, I really do not believe people who have suffered the hell of OCD and recovered enough to feel they can form a company (you never fully recover it’s always there it’s whether you can be in control of it or it you) would then name the company after their illness. And would they not know OCD is not only about obsessive cleaning it’s about your brain telling you over and over again you must move your books on a shelf until they feel “just right” so that it takes you 4 hours to clean one shelf. It’s about intrusive thoughts that convince you you’re a paedophile. It’s about always having to do things 2 or 4 times. It’s about washing your hands so many times the skin is peeling off red and bleeding. It’s about not wanting to breathe the same air twice so turning your head each time you breathe. It’s being so scared of germs you never leave your room. It’s about trying to unalive yourself as you cannot cope with your brain anymore.

Mental health charities came out very strongly against that show though.

Is this the company in Edinburgh op?

I have ocd. It can be a horror show. And I clean fuck all tbqh, so I don’t know why it’s even a stereotype. Hoarding even used to be part of the ocd diagnosis but now is a separate condition.

i hear you OP! It’s a horrible name for a business. It’s in no way similar to using the name ‘Karen’ in a casual way (although that is quite unpleasant too).

I have recovered with therapy online. Luckily my psychologist is really professional and competent. She is an OCD specialist too. She has just started YouTube Channel name " Empathy Bliss" You can subscribe she will upload videos there or let me know will share her email. She remained in contact, kept track of my progress and i recovered. She totally changed my thinking patterns

YANBU. Drives me mad. “Oh I can’t stop cleaning because of my ocd” “have to have my fridge lined up”

Shut up. If you really had OCD you’d know it was a lot, lot more severe than that. People talk like it’s cool or cute. Nah. I’d give anything to not have it

They did and one of the shows cast owns a business in the UK called OCD cleaners. May be the one ops talking about. Not sure, as there are double figures of cleaning companies in the UK with OCD in the name. I honestly didn't realise there were so many

You're not coming across well OP!

It might not be the correct clinical definition of psychiatric OCD but definitely not the same as using someone's Christian name as a misogynistic slur.

Would you feel better if people used the term 'being OCD' in the way you have used 'karen'

Pot & kettle comes to mind.

You are definitely not being unreasonable, but I think a lot of people who have not been around OCD have absolutely no idea how debilitating it is and how miserable it is for the people who have it.

They did at one stage
https://www.ocduk.org/ocd/world-health-organisation/

and that's part of the problem. The media portraying OCD as quirky & funny. I remember that show and it got a huge backlash from MH charities. They do the same thing with Tourettes syndrome, portraying it as people 'who just swear' and making viewers laugh. I can assure it is nothing like that. The compulsions from both illnesses can kill. The motives and intentions of the 'TV show' producers is to draw viewers and not necessarily to spread awareness for sufferers so there is more understanding and they can get help.

I think you should go on the MH threads and read what posters are facing at home. A poster's 3-year-old DD who had cleaning OCD, was found in the about 3am, half passed out at the bathroom sink, she'd got out of bed to use the toilet & had been washing her hands all night. Her hands were red raw almost bleeding or the poster whose 10yr old ds was found running around his bed, opening & slamming shut wardrobe doors at bedtime and screaming, 'Mummy pls help me, make me stop!". OCD is an awful horrifc and frightning illness. It is not a quirk you use strengthen 'to your advantage'. It's like having another voice or voices living in your head telling you, and compelling you to perform the same ritual over and over again. It's a terrible thing.

I thought this.

If you look into that more thoroughly at the criteria used they actually used anxiety disorders as a whole - actually eating disorders giving the 'score' for being disabling rather than OCD. Once eating disorders were separated out then OCD and other anxiety disorders disappeared from that.

All anxiety disorders are unpleasant & disabling but there is absolutely nothing 'special' about OCD over other anxieties & there are certainly much more severe & disabling psychiatric disorders - Dementia, schizophrenia, anorexia etc.

This is interesting.
I'll look this up.
Thanks.

I think all of those are pretty bad honestly!

100% with you OP I have OCD and it ruins your life. People just laugh about it like it’s a joke. Imagine joking about people with bi polar or eating disorders. Imagine a diet plan saying ‘you’ll look anorexic’ or something equally vile. No mental illnesses are funny it just makes people feel so much worse to be taken lightly and mocked.

I actually think OCD is the worst anxiety disorder I worked with - apart from EDs - and I have worked with all of them. There is also the OCD/OCPD thing which is another whole can of worms.

Funnily enough, I saw a van with OCD cleaners on yesterday (close to Baldock services, if that’s anywhere near you) and did a double take. I’m quite shocked to learn that I wasn’t dreaming it.

Its ok to be offended 🙄 its just a feeling it will pass