An AHA Moment

Who knew that an ear infection could make you feel so crappy? I just want to sleep….

I had the funniest AHA moment the other day. I was looking at the mess on my desk and thought “My ex would hatehow it looks right now” then it hit me that I was probably leaving it such a mess for that exact reason. And I started to laugh at that realization.

You see my ex had undiagnosed type of OCD – symmetry and ordering to be exact. How can I be so sure it was OCD? Because I lived with him long enough to see the signs and feel the effects of his behavior. The first time I had noticed was when we were dating. I was waiting in his office for him to gather his stuff when I noticed him straightening his desk accessories to an exacting point. So, for fun (and before I knew how bad it was 😬), I put a finger on his stapler while his back was turned and when he started to turn around, he caught me removing my finger and came over to restraighten the stapler assuming I had moved it when I hadn’t. At the time I chalked it up to anal retentiveness.

But over the years, the behaviors became worse. If he noticed something his world order, needed changing or had to be fixed, it had to be done immediately, i.e a light needing changing or a loose handle needed tightening, despite the fact that dinner was ready or we were leaving the house to run errands, he would not let it go until he made whatever adjustment he deemed necessary.  At first the behavior was just a source of aggravation and but over time it became abusive because only he was allowed to set patterns and place things in an order he saw fit. But if I did something counter intuitive to that, he would become upset. Also, if I set a simple pattern for things like rotating his dress shirts (he had like 30 of them at one time) so that he didn’t wear the same shirts over and over, he couldn’t, or most likely refused, to follow the established pattern. And when I would get frustrated with his lack of understanding how I ordered it, would get angry at me saying I was calling him stupid (so not the case!). What was the pattern you ask? Newly clean shirts would be put on the right side behind the ones already hanging that had previously been washed. So you would read it left to right – that simple.

And when it came to his car, yikes! There was no leaving the visors down and it killed him that I kept a small trash bag in his car because he wanted every ounce of trash removed upon exiting the car, which I refused to hold on to used tissues or wrappers until we stopped. One battle that I won.

His behavior was so pervasive that my sister adjusted her behaviors around him so as not to elicit a negative response from him. She’s gotten a lot better (like me, although I will have occasional PTSD moments) but every so often I have to remind her that it’s ok if my nephew leaves a mess or that things are perfect. 

And then there was the fact that I wasn’t allowed to have my idiosyncrasies if they conflicted with his world order, though I had my rebellious streak. Like leaving the car radio on when I shut off the car (he tried to insist I turn it off), and my desk which is organized chaos for me, (although at this point my desk is more disorganized chaos and is starting to drive me crazy 😆). Hence my AHA moment the other night 🤯 (see – full circle 😁).

Look, we all have our little quirks but when the behavior is more than a quirk and adversely affects the other people in your life (or becomes abusive in nature) please consider seeking professional help. Better to address a problem than torment your loved ones.

Note: Not everyone with OCD behaviors projects them onto other people, but if you find yourself expecting others to adjust to your world order or else, you might need to take a long hard look at yourself. And now I need to organize my chaos 🤪.