What my uOCPDw is afraid of

[Jsinjin]

I've been talking a lot to my uOCPDw and I've learned some things.  Many of her absolute / black and white behaviors are connected to strange fears.

An example is the trash/recycling.   She is dogmatic like a nasa safety engineer about the very specific rules about the way trash and recycling is set out.   She can't handle it if I'm a few inches closer to or away from the street as the "rules" on the website say "12-18 inches" and "not blocking roads or sidewalks". 

What she finally told me while crying is that "when I grew up I was poor and worked in different services and other jobs and I can't let us ever appear to be disrespecting the people who do service jobs, we have to follow their rules so they understand we value them"

She was actually angry then, like physically shaking at people who "just dump their trash bags out by the street assuming they don't have to follow the rules"

I tried to talk about the fact that it's highly likely that the trash services company doesn't care about the exact distance and they have ways to put post it flags at your home if you break the rules.  She couldn't hear me through it.   The rules are the rules.   

This didn't help me at all but at least I got an understanding that it's not arbitrary. 

I asked about the details on old advertisements.   We have collected over 25 years of curcullars and fliers and newspaper and mail ads at every home we have lived in.

What she said was that "these are people in our community who matter and work hard for their businesses and if we just throw their ads away, what does it say about us as some sort of rich people who just don't care about their small businesses.   And she uses the references to tie together people and businesses politically to her work as an elected official.  And her memory on these things is amazing.  She can remember directly, some roofer's sale flier from years ago, what the discount was , how local they are and if they have donated to causes or not and she maintains that set of details like a database.   

Again, it doesn't help me and it's still irrational but at least I'm learning a bit about how she is motivated.

[SeaBreeze]

Perhaps this might be enabling but...would your wife be open to scanning digital copies of flyers, expired coupons, etc and organizing them in an actual database? Maybe if you promise to back it up in 2 additional locations like a flash drive and cloud server? With the agreement the original prints, past a certain date perhaps, be recycled to help the environment? Just thinking of some solutions where maybe, maybe, you and your wife can find compromise?

[square]

I don't kow if OCD has anything in common with OCPD. With OCD, the neurological condition comes first. The way it manifests depends on what is important to the person.


So one person could have OCD and it manifests in hoarding because of childhood experiences or whatever. And another person's OCD manifests in checking or handwashing or whatever it may be because of their experiences or personality or what have you.

But the disorder came first, the manifestation follows. Sometimes kids have more generic OCD as children, such as rituals turning light switches on and off, that may be abandoned as they grow older and find a way to express the OCD impulse that is more urgent or meaningful to them.

[Jsinjin]

This isn't OCD.   It's the personality disorder.   It's based on rules and order and a bizarre series of black and white conjecture.   OCD is more like you have to lock the doors the same way every time.   For the PD, the person truly beyond any rational doubt, believes their world view is the only way that things should be viewed.

My spouse believes in rules as absolutes and the only way to be civilized.   Her greatest fears sout like issues of control and I suppose technically that's part of it but when she breaks down into near panic attack it's in situations where there either aren't rules or when there is one set of rules that appear to be arbitrary.


I had been gifted tickets to a mega band as a corporate thing:  the ticket package included private dinner before, drinks, posters and shirts and a brief period of selfies and signatures on posters by Dave Matthews.   As well as parking and special line.   

As we drove up, the email and QR code details said "park in lot A VIP".   There was a clear half mile long line where everyone not in the VIP list had to go and she nearly got out of the car when I turned into the VIP spot then was actually hyperventilating when the security person scanned my QR, greeted me, opened the gate and showed us where to park right by the entrance.   Then walking up to the gates my email said "go to the right side to the VIP entrance".   I showed my spouse but she couldn't handle that there was a 100 person deep set of lines queued up 20 lanes across for security and ticket check in.   I had to help her absolutely petrified when we finally walked up to the VIP entrance and again they scanned our code and then walked us in to the big side covered area and gave us our drinks and seating and schedule.   She began sobbing that "this isn't fair to all those people". We weren't even checked with metal detectors and the check in took 20 seconds.

I learned later what she hated is that there was some sort of separate class of people who get special treatment and don't have to follow the rules and she doesn't want to be THAT person.

So her controls of the world are fairness and a bizarre sense of right and wrong.  I see it a lot.   I don't quite understand it but I have started understanding what motivates her.   

I've helped the coach for track at school pick up Gatorade jugs with my truck and we parked in a no parking zone next to the door with hazards on to unload.   She literally lost it with me screaming about how I could choose to just ignore the no parking zone and that "it doesn't matter when or for what reason, you can't just choose to park there out of convenience even for a second".

I think she is still actually angry about that one because she brings it up when we pass by the school almost every time.

Rules to her are not parts of recommendations or ways to think about structure.  They are absolute.

[square]

I'm aware of the differences.