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?

YANBU at all!! I'm a generally easy going person but people glibly referring to being clean, tidy or organised as being 'OCD' pisses me right off!

I watched OCD destroy my sisters life for ten years. Happily, she manages much better now. Things started improving in her early twenties and I hope that's the same for your DD ❤️

Such an insensitive thing for people to say though, and grossly inappropriate for a company to incorporate into their name. Idiots!!

Edited to add, this riled me up so much that I've contacted them 😅

YANBU. OCD is a terrible illness, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

I have OCD and it’s really damn hard to live with. Would I contact them? No. Do I think it’s an inappropriate name? Yes! I just shake my head at these kinds of things and think, if only they knew! Unfortunately, people like to claim to have it, or say I’m a bit OCD when it’s clearly not the case. They just have no clue how much we suffer or I don’t think they would do it.

I’m a messy ocd person - turns out I have ocd and adhd

This!

To PPs who don’t see the problem with the name, it’s not harmless. It perpetuates the myth that OCD is about being a neat freak and means that people with it don’t recognise the problem so they can get support. It usually takes years for diagnosis and stereotypes don’t help. OCD means people carry out compulsions (which can be physical or just in their own mind) to alleviate a fear. These compulsions and fears are so varied and as a lot of PPs have said, they often don’t involve nearness/cleaning at all. Where someone is compulsively cleaning they are doing that as an irrational fear response e.g. if I don’t clean for hours a day my children will get contaminated by germs and die. I don’t know anyone who has been diagnosed with OCD turn it to their advantage. It’s a hideously debilitating and sometimes deadly illness. Carrying out compulsions only makes it worse and treatment includes overcoming your fears by facing them and not giving into your compulsions. So anyone with actual cleaning OCD setting up a cleaning business feeding into their fears is an idiot. I highly doubt that’s the case with any of these cleaning companies.

I get why you're annoyed and how easily the term OCD is thrown around. Oh so you like your ornaments lined up in a row, so you must be OCD.
My DH developed OCD when our daughter was born 12 years ago. Never had it before, he became obsessed with checking door locks and used to wake up every hour to check she was breathing. The older she got the calmer he got with checking her but the doors remained an issue. Then when she was 5 my dad passed away suddenly from a heart issue (they were very close as they worked together) and the OCD ramped up again, checking the door handles saying 1,2,3,4,5. He said if he didn't check it 5 times our children would die. So debilitating. He once described it as a nightmare because you are fighting with your own mind and can't win.
If you feel this strongly, complain, I don't see how anyone can say you are being unreasonable.

"'I have to sort my books!' she cried,
^^
With self-indulgent glee;
^^
With senseless, narcissistic pride:
^^
'I'm just so OCD!'
^^
'How random, guys!' I smiled and said,
^^
Then left without a peep -
^^
And washed my hands until they bled,
^^
And cried myself to sleep.

I understand OP. Having been suicidal due to OCD the glib use of the term irks.

I think this was meant kindly but this shows a common misunderstanding about OCD. It’s not the kind of thing that can be turned into a hobby and indulging in compulsions makes the OCD worse. People with more severe OCD can become so afraid they end up housebound.

As someone with OCD I’m surprised you’d suggest it can be channeled in a positive way by indulging the compulsion?

OP I think you might have this wrong.

I found an ocd cleaning company and there is more than one in the country

OCD stands for office commercial and domestic. In other words, they clean all those types of premises

Assumption is the mother of all fuck ups and also, people are far too easily triggered by everything and anything.These days.

I'm sorry about your daughter, but probably nobody is trying to belittle her illness.

I'll post the photo and link, but it might take a while for it to show.

See here

I hate it when medical stuff gets bandied around. Remember art attack on CBBC in the early 90s? The advert I saw was the presenter holding his chest and saying "I think I'm having an art attack!"

This was right after my dad died suddenly of a heart attack, aged 39. Cunts

The name of that company seems rather forced though. I don’t believe that it isn’t deliberate.

There was a tv show called OCD cleaners the people on there absolutely used it for their personal benefit

DOC cleaning? COD cleaning. Both are a bit daft. Cleaning services for fish or doctors.

DCO is the only other abbreviation that would possibly work, but maybe there was a reason they couldn't use it.

The website makes it very clear what it stands for you when you go on there, but people just have to be offended.

My mum claimed she had OCD. No she did not, at all. My best friend has it and it's bad. My daughter is suspected as having it (not diagnosed but obvious).
I miss my mum but christ she could talk nonesense

The thing is how do you know they actually had OCD? It was a reality TV series. In order to have diagnosed OCD the compulsions have to be causing significant distress, and they get worse the more you do the compulsions, in a vicious cycle. If any of the cleaners in that show actually had OCD, then they were mentally ill and vulnerable and they would likely have made their condition much worse. Lots of PPs have basically said the same.

Are you in Gateshead, OP? It annoys me too whenever I see it, as someone who suffers from OCD.

What a hypocrite you are OP. A “bit of a Karen”. Ffs.

Agreed. Karen is Sexist misogynist and ageist. But she is going on about a cleaning company.

So using OCD as a business venture is not ok but using a female name as a slur is totally fine?

I'd say they know exactly what they are doing here.

There's no way they didn't make the connection. They chose to exploit it.

Let me get this straight: you think exploiting a debilitating mental illness like OCD for profit is somehow less offensive than using a woman’s name as a slur? This isn’t about being ‘easily offended’ it’s about protecting vulnerable people from being publicly reminded of their private hell and triggering further compulsions. You wouldn’t name a company after bipolar or schizophrenia. Trivialising their suffering for business gain is far more damaging than a throwaway insult or slur. This is exactly the kind of ignorance that keeps real sufferers misunderstood and unsupported.

No you got that completely wrong. What's ignorant is reading something into my post that I didn't say and getting outraged about it.

@Liverpool52 You’re right, I didn’t quote you word for word. I responded to the logic behind your post, which downplayed the harm of exploiting mental illness while elevating the offense of a slang term. Your concern seems focused on the discomfort of being called a 'Karen', while the far more serious issue of trivialising OCD goes unaddressed. If that’s not what you meant, then maybe clarify your priorities. Because right now, they speak volumes.