Parents annoyed by excessive cleanliness

[sofiaparker]

I am very very OCD and I do hygiene tasks a lot like regular surface disinfection and laundry loads. I change my bed once a week and this really annoys my parents. They think I'm being wasteful. I used to have super long showers before but have cut it down drastically to 15mins max now with the tap off most of the time while I'm lathering soap and scrubbing the shower before rinsing and maybe a quick shave. My parents get so triggered by my hygiene routines.

I've heard parents being annoyed at messy kids. But I'm not messy at all and still getting yelled at!!

AIBU?

You're not ocd, you are normal. Most people change bedclothes once a week, or some of them anyway and who times their showers? Blimey, your parents need to live with my son who has 50 minute baths followed by a shower rinse unless he ahs to be somewhere quickly I used to like that too except when I was getting ready for work and had to be quicker.

When you have kids you have the washing machine on most days.

I must say I was never overly fastidious about house cleaning.

Make it clear this is none of your parents' business. What are they thinking of, criticising you for normal hygiene?

Presumably you contribute to the bills.

I think this is probably very accurate. I suspect the OP is minimising the impact of her OCD on her parents and disregarding the impact of living with someone who has OCD has on those around them.

Your parents aren't 'triggered' - they are more likely to be annoyed at the cost, the noise, the stuff everywhere.

How often are you doing this regular surface disinfection and laundry loads? Do you dry the laundry inside the house, so it's always there? Who is paying for the electricity? Are you the one going to the shop buying the endless cleaning products?

You've been diagnosed, keep up with your treatment. You might think it's normal, but it is a disorder.

Changing the bed weekly is perfectly normal. Your family on the other hand are slovenly if they're not changing theirs for months. It sounds as though your parents have an extremely relaxed attitude to hygiene, which your sister has picked up. You however have gone the other way and maybe you're overcompensating for their laziness. The bed thing is fine, but if you're constantly disinfecting things this can be harmful in the long run. Are you getting any professional help to deal with the OCD OP?

If the op had genuinely been diagnosed with ocd her first sentence wouldn't say im very very ocd. She would say i have ocd or I suffer with ocd or im diagnosed with ocd.

Agreed.

Especially given the things she lists are perfectly normal.

What doctor would think washing bedding once a week signalled a serious mental illness?

Bedding weekly is ok (as long as it’s not the full duvet and pillows and only the covers) 15 minutes is a very long shower - 5 minutes is more normal unless shaving or dying hair, as they are paying the bill they have every right to be annoyed by daily I’m guessing 15 minute showers

If you are old enough to do all that you can move out then live how you want

OP, if you were my daughter I would love to have you living with me and being vigilant about cleanliness and hygiene. People who pay attention to these things make everyone's lives so much better and healthier

Not true. We need clean houses, we don't need houses cleaned obsessively and repeatedly. Over-use of chemicals is actively harmful, as is over-use of water in some areas.

I have never met anyone who obsesses over being clean and doesn't have serious mental health issues in other areas

Gently Op what you are describing is excessive cleanliness. Your parents push back as it is excessive and doing you no favours whilst wasting money for them. Bills are are very high right now Op and if you were living alone and paying them you’d end up in debt using so much water and energy on laundry and showers. It also won’t serve you well becoming independent and living with someone else as it will rile them too. Have you been to GP and asked about cbt to try retrain your brain to cope with more normal levels of hygiene? Or tried medication?

In her second comment the OP has stated that she has been diagnosed with OCD. Assuming this is the case, you are suggesting that she somehow puts a good spin on what is a very serious and debilitating mental illness. That she should even capitalise on it and get a cleaning job. That she should just implement good sleep hygiene and everything will be hunky dory. A person’s OCD can’t be put to good use. It doesn’t work like that. I am honestly lost for words.

I think your parents are maybe dirty people? I am not a super clean person by anyone's standards but once a week for a bed change is not excessive. It doesn't sound like you are either?

You have done phenomenally well @sofiaparkerto cut your showers down to 15 minutes. That’s what my youngest son is doing at the minute. Cutting his showers down. He’s at about an hour all in, what with the pre shower hand washing that takes about 20 minutes alone. Those rituals are so hard to fight. I hope you are getting ERP therapy. It is slow, but works over time. I know this is your mental health battle and that’s the most important thing here, but don’t underestimate how hard it is for those around you. My son can’t attend school because his OCD is so severe and my life has effectively ground to a standstill too. I’m his carer and his safe person. Perhaps you feel your parents don’t fully understand, but that doesn’t mean they don’t care. But sometimes loved ones get completely exhausted and wrung out by it all. I’m under no illusion that my child is suffering every minute of the day, but it absolutely affects me too and sometimes I get frustrated because I’m only human.

Changing bed sheets once a week is fine.

But if you consider a 15 min shower to be one that is “drastically” shorter than it used to be, I can see why that would annoy them. 15 mins is a long shower.

Are those the only two points of contention?

My bed doesn’t get changed every week - my partner does the laundry and I think he does the beds about every two or three weeks - but I don’t think it’s unusual or excessive for someone to change them weekly. Pretty normal really.

However - if you had to leave your bed linen on for a couple of extra days, how would that affect you? Does it make you anxious? Would you get distressed or upset by having to leave them on for ten days now and again? Because that would be irrational and a sign of your mental illness. Changing sheets weekly = normal. Feeling compelled to do it and getting upset or anxious if you can’t = not normal.

If you have diagnosed OCD, and your 15-minute showers are a drastic reduction, and you also have an obsession with disinfecting surfaces, I suspect perhaps there’s a lot more to this than just sheets and that your parents’ objections are part of a much wider concern about your OCD habits in general.

Sorry, but this is bollocks. Not everyone talks about their conditions in the same way. Just because ‘I’m OCD’ isn’t the politically correct phraseology, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a diagnosis.

I certainly wouldn’t say ‘I’m OCD’ myself, but there are absolutely people with a diagnosis who do say that.

Similarly the term ‘Asperger’s’ isn’t used by the medical profession any more and most autistic people take issue with it, but there are still some people, with official diagnoses of autism, who refer to themselves as having Asperger’s. I don’t know why they’d want to do that - maybe it was the term they grew up with and they’re resistant to change, I don’t know - but it doesn’t mean they aren’t diagnosed.

Its not about it being politically correct or not i have eupd and the old term is bpd but I still use bpd as I hate eupd, but I dont go round saying im very very bpd.

Changing bedding every day would be excessive. I change mine twice a week and think thats pretty normal!
15 min daily showers though is expensive!

That’s nonsensical. Totally illogical.

So…if a child is diagnosed with, say, autism, they only have autism once officially diagnosed?

I do wonder about some pps on here….🙄

Have you tried CBT, my OCD was debilitating, looking back I don’t know how my family put up with me? The therapy has made an incredible difference to my life.

You are wrong.

What i was meaning there are a significant amount of people especially young people who are self diagnosing without even knowing what the condition actually is I've heard multiple people say I'm so ocd because they like a clean house that is not what ocd is.

In this case the OP does know what it’s like as she sufferers from it.

It is very likely she is cleaning and washing stuff way more that she realises. Part of my therapy was my therapist sent an anonymous survey to I think 50 people where she worked . It was asking about people’s bathroom cleaning routine. We went through all the replies and the penny dropped that I was cleaning my sink something like 30 times more than the next biggest cleaner.

But does she or is she the same as a significant amount of people who like to say im so ocd because they wiped the kitchen sides down and not realise about the rituals and compulsions and obsessions and the actual reality of what ocd actually means and then says shes diagnosed with it after being called out for misusing words.