Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and my husband
The other day my husband took our 3-year-old son to a water park. Most people, when they go to water parks, leave their electronic devices in some kind of locker. My husband decided to take his with him as they walked through the park. At one of the “rides” where the little kids run around in the water my husband tried to get in front of our son to take a picture with his cell phone and he fell. He was fine; his phone submerged.
Fast forward 24-hours and a replacement phone was on the way. Now my husband had the task of transferring all of his photos from his old phone to a data card so he could put them into his new phone. My husband takes a ton of pictures on his phone. You could say he is obsessed. The photos are mostly of our kids. It is actually like a photo journal of the time he spends with them except the pictures are a crappy 1.5 mega-pixels and will never go anywhere other than his cell (and to the friends and family on his distribution list.) He had well over 400 photos he needed to transfer, one-by-one, over to the data card so that he could put all of those picture into his new phone. It was three days of hell… for everyone in the house. Had it been me I would have just said forget it. I would have looked for a dozen favorites and moved on — but not my husband…. losing even one photo would have been like letting a memory disappear forever!
I am convinced my husband has undiagnosed Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I am not sure how OCD is officially diagnosed, but anyone who knows my husband can tell you, he’s got OCD. He probably has Attention Deficit Disorder as well (ADD)… but maybe not, because put on a baseball game and he can sit for hours — unless he happens to see some dirt on the floor or he notices a DVD in the wrong place. It is actually quite entertaining to see how these two things, the ADD and the OCD, play off each other. However, he’s really managed to make it work to his advantage. Below are three things that his OCD helps enable him to do that impress me…
1. Rarely does he lose anything! Everything has a place, whereas, on a daily basis I am searching for my keys (why the hell I can’t just put them in the same spot every day is beyond me.)
2. At work he manages a ton of different projects, does his “day” job, and has people calling him for random shit all hours of the night, not necessarily because he is the only one that knows how to get it done, but because the people calling know if they ask him for it — come hell or high water — it will get done.
3. Cleaning. Oh my goodness… can he clean.
I will leave the three things that his OCD helps enable that infuriate me for another blog.
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You’re not lying. He was sending so many pictures at one point that I had to ask to be removed from the distribution list. Of course, I didn’t mean forever, but I presume that’s how he took it since I haven’t received a single photo from him since. I didn’t say I NEVER want to receive another photo, just not 12 a day. It got a little out of hand when it was like – kids at breakfast, kids in car, kids at park, kids in car singing (video), kids at burger king, kids on front stoop, one kid watching tv, the other kid asleep… you get my point.
I cannot stop laughing! I personally like it when he adds caffeine into the mix. I also am one of the people calling him at all times of the night. In Jared, We Trust.
having hundreds of photos of family and friend is one of those luxuries that we certainly didn’t have back in the 80s. remember how difficult it was to process photos? first, we had those awful 110 cameras that looked like miniature VCRs. and then those 35mm cameras…they were great, but you still had to buy film and then get the money to process those pictures (i used to use a mail-away service because it was cheaper–it took WEEKS and they even lost a few rolls of film that i will never get back!). and then the disposable camera rage…cheap to buy but then you still had to fork over about $10 to develop the photos.
i love looking at old photos. the ones from elementary school and high school are even more precious. people who took their cameras to school back then were just creepy and annoying, so most of us didn’t do it often. and now i treasure these photos so much. so, i say, snap away, and download them all, even if it takes late nights that spill over into a weekend or two. the memories are priceless. once our brains get cobwebbed and dusty and memories fade, it is the photos that will take us back each and every time.
Well, how does a person like this not drive you nutz.
My boyfriend has ocd, I belive and sometimes I have to raise my voice a little because he gets caught up in his obsessions.
any advice if you love the person?