I am Shari, and I am Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)? Huh??!?

[Shari]

I keep a copy of wee difficult child's records in a 3 ring binder. In addition, I generally email my mom about his daily behaviors, so I print the emails to my mom instead of keeping a seperate behavior log, and I use the emails to track behavior.
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I took wee difficult child to have another evaluation by a different dev pediatrician. He saw wee difficult child first for an hour, then at a seperate appointment a couple weeks later, he saw me.
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In the meantime between appointments, before he met me, he decided I was Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) because of the binder of records!
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I just had to laugh. That binder is WORK for me. Keeping my house, car, and desk in any shape besides hurricane aftermath takes a lot of effort on my part. Anyone who knows me knows that, while I like to be organized, it is not my forte. Anytime I need that binder, the day before I need it is like a college cram session, running around, copying records, updating the binder til midnight! And here's a man who's first impression of me was that I am organized to the point of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
***
OMG that had me rolling on the floor laughing.

 

[jal]

Well Shari, if your Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) then I am right in the trenches with-you. I used to be so organized until I had difficult child. Now all the real organization is in his 3 ring binder. I have never been outed as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) for it (which I am not), but I have had many a professional be impressed by it. Don't know if it was for the content or the shear size of it (HAHA).

 

[gcvmom]

Geez, if he is that quick to pass judgement on someone, how reliable is his assessment of a difficult child?

 

[AnnieO]

Wow, then I must be Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) to the point of hospitalization.... I have, literally, thousands of pages... Not just on the difficult children but on BM too!

 

[crazymama30]

He needs to re-read the DSM. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) involves rituals and repetitive intrusive thoughts. Like counting floor tiles or repetitive hand washing. Guy needs refresher course.

Now you could have obsessive compulsive personality disorder, lol, but that is another diagnosis.

Maybe the guy needs to go to a few hundred or so appts with a difficult child to realize the importance of the binder.

 

[Shari]

He asked me how I feel if the binder is not organized. lol
"uh, fine."
Then he asked if it bothers me when its not together.
"Only the night before I need it." lol

He asked if I've ever gone back to the house to make sure the doors are locked or anything like that. Uh, no. We don't lock our doors. I only go back to check if its something that will burn the house down - like an iron or the oven and I'm fairly certain it DIDN'T get turned off. Does that make me Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)?

I also think he eluded to the sheer number of people that have seen difficult child as a piece of it, and possibly the number of times Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) has come into play. I think I will clarify next time that a lot of those people and evaluations were not MY idea.

Right now, there is laundry on my couch, my bed, my floor, and my porch. There's at least 2 wet towels on the bathroom floor. There are 18 soda cans on my desk in a haphazard way from the last couple of months, you can see less than 30% of the desk surface because of various pieces of paper laying around. The dishes are piled on the kitchen counter cause I didn't empty the dishwasher last night. The mail from yesterday is on the floor of the passenger side of the car.

And as of 7 months ago, I had given up looking for anything additional about difficult child.

I don't think I fit Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) too well.

I just looked up Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD), too. Don't think that fits, either. I don't like the way my husband folds my t-shirts because he folds the front to the inside, and I fold the front to the outside, like a store does. If he folds the laundry, I will probably re-fold my t-shirts because I identify the shirt when I get it out to wear it by what is or isn't on the front...so I either re-fold it when I put it away or I wait til I have to unfold it to see what shirt it is, then re-fold it and put it away cause its not the one I wanted.... Does that make me Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD)?

 

[crazymama30]

No, no no. I was just being a smart aleck. Going to my corner now.

 

[trinityroyal]

If he folds the laundry, I will probably re-fold my t-shirts because I identify the shirt when I get it out to wear it by what is or isn't on the front...so I either re-fold it when I put it away or I wait til I have to unfold it to see what shirt it is, then re-fold it and put it away cause its not the one I wanted.... Does that make me Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD)?

Nope. You'd be Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) or Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) if you had a burning need to refold the t-shirts, or if you got agitated at the thought of the t-shirts not being folded properly, or something like that.

Funny that the therapist would jump to such a conclusion on the basis of one binder full of your difficult child-notes. Given how much stuff you have to keep track of, it seems to me that a binder is just logical.

Now I have a lot of behaviour that could be considered Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)-ish. Soup cans go in the soup place in the pantry. All lined up, labels to the front, in order of soup type. T-shirts all folded and marshalled in the dresser, sorted by colour...etc.

BUT this is because of Aspie tendencies. If I'm not ruthless in keeping stuff organized, then I can stand there in the kitchen for an hour, paralyzed, because I can't find the soup even though it's right there in the pantry. If it's in the baked beans place, I'll just never find it because soup in the baked beans place doesn't compute in my brain.

I'm sure your therapist would have a field day with that, but it's a simple survival mechanism for me.

As long as he's doing good things with wee difficult child, I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Trinity

 

[AnnieO]

Wow Trinity... I thought this was "normal" to do!

I make sure all the canned goods are together - vegs on the left, beans, etc. in the middle, soup and broth on the right. Breakfast food has its own shelf. Baking stuff in a different closet.

I didn't think this was weird!!!

 

[trinityroyal]

Wow Trinity... I thought this was "normal" to do!

I make sure all the canned goods are together - vegs on the left, beans, etc. in the middle, soup and broth on the right. Breakfast food has its own shelf. Baking stuff in a different closet.

I didn't think this was weird!!!

Step, I think that is normal.

I just have to take it to the next level. Vegetable soup in one row. Vegetable beef soup in the next, then vegetable alphabet, then minestrone, then beef barley, then onion, then chicken noodle, then chicken rice, then chicken gumbo...etc. If they're not in order (notice the order isn't alphabetical, but sort of kind of by ingredient...), then my head gets scrambled and I can't find the soup...

 

[totoro]

I am getting wound up just reading this! LOL
When you wrote about leaving things lying around!!! OMG! I wanted to go pick them up at your house.
Clothes, yes I do have to re-fold them. It WILL bug me and there is a "force" that makes me do it.
I wouldn't say I was completely Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)... but I have issues! LOL

I have had to let a lot of things go since the kids and husband.
What is weird though is my ADHD like qualities make it hard for me to complete tasks but I am obsessive about them.
Like laundry, I have to have laundry done. I hate it pilling up.
But once it is clean and lying on my bed, it may take me a day or 2 or 3 to fold it and put it away!
It drives me crazy but I will be on to another task!

I also do the cleaning before we go somewhere.
I agree about the files for our kids though.
I run rampant through the house copying and organizing to get things ready for a new apt.

I have everything organized in my way! But anyone looking in would only see chaos!

I think to have a difficult child you would have to be a bit like all of us?

Shari embrace your Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)/Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) self! LOL

 

[Shari]

Crazymama, no need to run to the corner! I was just curious. But I don't fit that, either.

Trinity/Step, I admit that among all the chaos, my pantry and my tool box are my "organized havens", tho I can function if they are in disarray. My pantry has all like items together. Peas in one spot, soup in a spot, corn in a spot, etc. The "spot" is irrelevent as long as its together. And if the kids get stuff out to play store and don't put it back in the "right" spot or back in order, its not big deal...I deal with it til I have some time to fix it. And this really has come as more a product of making daily life easier - grocery shopping is easier if I can glance in the pantry and see we are out of xxxxxx.

My tool box...also came of necessity. The boys (all of them) would borrow it, leave it a mess, and lose tools. I became anal about organizing the tool box so I can see what's missing immediately and we can find it before its out of mind and I have to go buy a new one to replace it. I am currently missing a 9/16ths wrench, tho, and it has yet to surface.

Toto - you just knock yourself out! Heck, I might buy you the ticket if you are so compelled to come clean my house! lol I will even re-fold my own t-shirts if you don't do it front-out! lol My mom comes and helps out on occassion and she never puts things in the same place I would, so I'm used to that part - some come on and have a ball! lol

I have never been a neat freak, but before wee difficult child was a full blown difficult child (and after DEX left - he was a pig), I had a generally managed house. I, too, have had to learn to let some things go. Sometimes, they go too far the other way now, tho. LOL

I think this doctor has just never had to live with a difficult child. This is survival, in my opinion.

 

[flutterby]

I have some Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) traits, but as I've become sick it hasn't been as prominent. Although, I have a really hard time not re-folding the towels. You fold them length-wise, not in half, and the corners have to meet up; which can be challenging because they are not perfect rectangles. If my hands and arms weren't so weak, I'd be redoing them. It drives me up the freaking wall.

I used to not be able to go to bed if anything was out of place.

But, seriously, I would be wondering about a therapist who leaps to that because of one binder.

 

[Shari]

I am approaching with caution. I like the rest of what he has had to say so far, tho nothing has been earth shattering. So I'm not going to discount him based on this yet.

For me and this crcle of people (the board) and the docs I deal with here (at the university), a binder like that is the norm. He even said it was a great help. But he may not have a clientel that does something like that, I don't know. This guy is 6 hours away, in a private practice, so I don't know what "they" do in that area. I do know the signs on the interstate are far different than here. LOL

 

[AnnieO]

Although, I have a really hard time not re-folding the towels. You fold them length-wise, not in half, and the corners have to meet up; which can be challenging because they are not perfect rectangles.

Lengthwise with corners meeting, then in half, then in thirds.

But this is because they won't fit in the cabinet otherwise. The lengthwise is so it's easier to hang them up!

I just have to take it to the next level. Vegetable soup in one row. Vegetable beef soup in the next, then vegetable alphabet, then minestrone, then beef barley, then onion, then chicken noodle, then chicken rice, then chicken gumbo...etc. If they're not in order (notice the order isn't alphabetical, but sort of kind of by ingredient...), then my head gets scrambled and I can't find the soup...

Beans go in the back, then green veggies, then yellow. Then mushrooms and chiles. Sauces and tomato paste/diced tomatoes next. Fruit, canned meat (tuna mostly), the broths in the back (beef then chicken) and then soups in the front. On the far left is peanut butter, honey, jelly, etc. - I leave this alone for the kids.

I don't get scrambled, but I can spend 20-30 minutes just staring in if I can't find something. Like it's going to magically appear.

 

[muttmeister]

Although I do alphabetize my spice cupboard and I hang my clothes in the closet (if I can ever get them off the floor and the chairs) according to color, I'm pretty sure that doesn't mean I'm Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). In fact, I started out my younger years as one of those people who didn't want you to straighten up my desk because, even though the piles were high enought that they were in danger of falling over, I had a pretty good idea which pile what I wanted was in. I have become more organized as I have gotten older. I think it's partly because I now have more time to put things away and also as you become older and more forgetful, it is important to have a logical place for things so you don't spend all of your time looking for stuff you lost. I still have to hunt for my glasses about w 10 times a day. Unfortunately, about 5 of those, after I've searched for 5 or 10 minutes, I find them on top of my head. But if anyone is kind enough to fold my laundry for me, there is no chance in the world that I'm going to refold it.
It seems to me that this guy is certainly too quick to jump to unfounded conclusions and I'm afraid it would make me wonder how accurate his diagnosis of a difficult child could be if he was that far off for you.

 

[lovemysons]

I used to have some Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) issues before I started taking Abilify.

No, I don't think you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) either.
Tammy

 

[Lothlorien]

Alphabetizing spices, folding towels, organizing veggies.....wow, I'm a total slob! Actually, my house is clean, but it's not always neat.

Shari, I have a folder....albeit, it's not organized. I do have all of Missy's records, tests, etc. in the folder. I wonder what her docs have thought of me over the years. In the beginning of this whole process, one of them had me so seething mad, they called a social worker to calm me down. I would love to see what SHE wrote in Missy's file.

 

[AnnieO]

Loth... I don't think you're a slob! The rest of my house is piled sky-high with everything - the detritus of day-to-day life plus kids. And an undiagnosed possible-ADHD/maybe Aspie husband.

It just happened that the summer after we moved in, I took 2 weeks off work while the kids were there. Played stay at home mom. Day 4 - I was already insane and completely organized the kitchen and pantry area. COMPLETELY. Day 5, my parents took the kids to the zoo and I got my oil changed and relaxed, BY MYSELF, all day. That enabled me to go camping days 6-8 and have a fune subsequent week. But I threw out my fantasy of being a stay at home mom. I couldn't do it!

difficult child 1 wants to do the same to our "workroom" which is between the garage and kitchen - used to be a 1-car garage. I think I'm going to let her. And pay her. because I'm not sure I could do it again! I can organize, I just don't like to. Normally.

 

[KTMom91]

This has been a very interesting thread. The towels have to be folded to a certain size, because they don't fit in the closet otherwise. The food needs to be organized by type, or I'll buy several more cans of beef broth to make brown rice (Miss KT's favorite food). And I totally lose it and scream when I can't find something that I KNOW I put away.

Now, the important records etc.? Are in a manila envelope by the bedroom door.