Anyone here know someone with OCD, schizophrenia, Asperger's
Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2008 3:47 pm
Okay, I'm at my wits' end.
If you check my HabitCal you'll see I'm doing great at everything except the last calendar, which is my attempt to not want to strangle my mother-in-law, with whom my husband and dogs are obliged to live. She is 80 something years old and not physically ill enough to go to the nursing home, nor demented enough in a cognitive sense to ditto. However, to put it bluntly, she is stark, staring, barking mad.
In her entire life she never has given a royal rat's patootie about anything except herself, and her desire to accumulate THINGS, which takes the textbook classic OCD model of (a) buying things, (b) going into debt and (c) hoarding the !#@#ers until her part of the trailer (yes, trailer, i.e., small) looks like Miss Haversham's quarters in "Great Expectations" (any movie version allowed ). This is why she has been thrown out of every abode she's ever lived in, and why her cousin-niece (unsure of relationship), a "good Christian lady from East Texas", finally threw up her lily white hands and sicced her on her only son, my husband. Her entire existence revolves around a twice-monthly excursion to Walmart. She has the classic OCD horror of "germs" and won't ever bathe, but douses herself with alcohol, Lysol and Brut (I am not making this up, as Dave Barry used to say). She won't eat anything fresh or that has not been boiled.
Never mind that she has repeatedly told said son that she wished she'd never been born, and treated him so badly that he ended up in a children's home when he was young, and herself in the bin undergoing shock treatment. She also allegedly told him that he should divorce me should I not have children, which I chose not to have at the age of 20 something and underwent tubal ligation.
I don't know why, but I've never, ever been able to stand the woman. I've had some difficult relationships in my life, but this one is the worst. While I don't wish to explode violently in her direction, nor do I wish her harm per se, I can't be in the same room with her without an anger so huge that it gives me chest pain. No amount of meditation, chanting or even Reinhard type programming seems to help. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to observe that she represents my deepest fear of ending up just like her when I get to be that age, or worse, even younger, even though I don't have OCD and have gone to the opposite side of the spectrum Buddhist-wise and am loath to accumulate things, and prefer wide open, empty spaces (gee, I wonder why... ). She would never admit there's anything wrong with her and won't take medication.
The husband does not want to go through the power of attorney thing or declaring her incompetent because she will put on an act that would put Vivien Leigh to shame and convince the judge there's nothing wrong with her. She will never go to a nursing home until they drag her there unconscious on a gurney, and she won't live in public housing because they have "concrete floors".
Even though she eats total crap and gets NO exercise whatsoever, she's in terrific health and might live another 20 years.
If anyone can give me some kind of advice to deal with this, I would be eternally grateful.
f
If you check my HabitCal you'll see I'm doing great at everything except the last calendar, which is my attempt to not want to strangle my mother-in-law, with whom my husband and dogs are obliged to live. She is 80 something years old and not physically ill enough to go to the nursing home, nor demented enough in a cognitive sense to ditto. However, to put it bluntly, she is stark, staring, barking mad.
In her entire life she never has given a royal rat's patootie about anything except herself, and her desire to accumulate THINGS, which takes the textbook classic OCD model of (a) buying things, (b) going into debt and (c) hoarding the !#@#ers until her part of the trailer (yes, trailer, i.e., small) looks like Miss Haversham's quarters in "Great Expectations" (any movie version allowed ). This is why she has been thrown out of every abode she's ever lived in, and why her cousin-niece (unsure of relationship), a "good Christian lady from East Texas", finally threw up her lily white hands and sicced her on her only son, my husband. Her entire existence revolves around a twice-monthly excursion to Walmart. She has the classic OCD horror of "germs" and won't ever bathe, but douses herself with alcohol, Lysol and Brut (I am not making this up, as Dave Barry used to say). She won't eat anything fresh or that has not been boiled.
Never mind that she has repeatedly told said son that she wished she'd never been born, and treated him so badly that he ended up in a children's home when he was young, and herself in the bin undergoing shock treatment. She also allegedly told him that he should divorce me should I not have children, which I chose not to have at the age of 20 something and underwent tubal ligation.
I don't know why, but I've never, ever been able to stand the woman. I've had some difficult relationships in my life, but this one is the worst. While I don't wish to explode violently in her direction, nor do I wish her harm per se, I can't be in the same room with her without an anger so huge that it gives me chest pain. No amount of meditation, chanting or even Reinhard type programming seems to help. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to observe that she represents my deepest fear of ending up just like her when I get to be that age, or worse, even younger, even though I don't have OCD and have gone to the opposite side of the spectrum Buddhist-wise and am loath to accumulate things, and prefer wide open, empty spaces (gee, I wonder why... ). She would never admit there's anything wrong with her and won't take medication.
The husband does not want to go through the power of attorney thing or declaring her incompetent because she will put on an act that would put Vivien Leigh to shame and convince the judge there's nothing wrong with her. She will never go to a nursing home until they drag her there unconscious on a gurney, and she won't live in public housing because they have "concrete floors".
Even though she eats total crap and gets NO exercise whatsoever, she's in terrific health and might live another 20 years.
If anyone can give me some kind of advice to deal with this, I would be eternally grateful.
f