Not able to make rational conclusions

Prototypian · September 23, 2020, 08:51:55 PM

This happens all the time. Have you ever seen a newsletter or email or announcement from a PTA program or school function or sporting event that says something like: "the event is on Tuesday the 4th at 2 am". And you realize they don't mean 2 am and just make the mental adjustment. My spouse does a mega investigation, calling dozens of people, not believing any capacity that anyone could make an error. She will investigate for hours and be convinced that somehow the meeting or thjbf is at 2 am despite the fact that it's always at 2 pm every other event of the year. We have a cross country meet. It is on Saturday. It is Saturday the 26th. The website that the hosting cross country team made the obvious error and posted a 7 am start time on Saturday the 25th. We have spent all night confirming and determining whether or not they meant Friday or not. It won't quit. The coach has said it's on Saturday, it's always been on Saturday, it has times starting at 7 am and running a morning, I figure without any extra thought that they just transposed a day. The coach confirmed. I wish she could drop the fact that the hosting high school website has an incorrect date.

Thru the Rain · September 24, 2020, 05:42:41 PM

That sounds incredibly frustrating for both you and your wife! It sounds like maybe she has some OCD going on.

stormbrewing · September 24, 2020, 06:03:52 PM

Quote from: Jsinjin on September 23, 2020, 08:51:55 PM
We have a cross country meet. It is on Saturday. It is Saturday the 26th. The website that the hosting cross country team made the obvious error and posted a 7 am start time on Saturday the 25th. We have spent all night confirming and determining whether or not they meant Friday or not. It won't quit. The coach has said it's on Saturday, it's always been on Saturday, it has times starting at 7 am and running a morning, I figure without any extra thought that they just transposed a day.

stbxupdh would say something like "well if they can't get it right f#@k them I will turn up on Friday morning anyway because that's what they said" - the only person inconvenienced if he did that would be him of course. Would start sending group texts, calling people, and making as much noise about it as possible.

Meanwhile, never proof read any text or email that he sent out himself and even if full of errors would insist that 'people should know what he meant and if they don't then that's their problem'. The double standards are mind boggling.

BeautifulCrazy · September 24, 2020, 08:34:03 PM

Thru, that's OCPD, Not OCD.
Those of us with OCD have self -standards / rituals / compulsions. We don't impose them on others.

11JB68 · September 24, 2020, 08:41:36 PM

Beautiful crazy, thank you for that clear and concise explanation of a key difference between ocd and OCPD! My uocpdh had always used his "ocd" (and "aspbergers") as an excuse for his upd behavior. I read that explain a few years ago and it was such a revelation to me!

Prototypian · September 25, 2020, 07:16:28 AM

The behavior my spouse shows is definitely OCPD. She doesn't have the compulsive behaviors that are frustrating to her, in this case I believe she wants the moral and emotional understanding that the organizers of the event have potentially inconvenienced and possibly made a major mistake with fire consequences and it's up to her to show.the world that this should not be considered a trivial mistake.

If the herd (even the coaches and other teams) jumps to the conclusion that the race is on Saturday like normal but the organizers have set it up.on Friday then the potential consequences could be dire and "why can't the rest of the world see the potential calamity".

It's like that with most things with her but in this kind of case a logical person would.jsit say "it's a normal error" and assume the logical conclusion.

Another example like this is when we show up at a bit event like a pro baseball game with 20,000 people. Common sense says that the long line of cars in the lane by the curb inching along one mile before the parking lot must be the queue waiting to park. In her mind all of those people could be wrong so you must drive up to find out if that is the line to park then turn around and get in the line for real. Her assumption is that normal logical concepts on things like this could be wrong so you should never trust that instinct.

I'm often surprised that OCPD didn't get wiped out as a genetic disease when our ancestors saw waving grass on the savannah in areas with lions. Normal.oeople said "better get out" and OCPD said "what if it's just a freak breeze in that spot that looks like a lion"

Thru the Rain · September 25, 2020, 11:18:32 AM

Quote from: BeautifulCrazy on September 24, 2020, 08:34:03 PM
Thru, that's OCPD, Not OCD.
Those of us with OCD have self -standards / rituals / compulsions. We don't impose them on others.

Thanks for pointing this out. I'm a little unclear about the differences, but the aspect of not imposing OCD on others is a easy to see distinction. My own DH has mild OCD, usually triggered by anxiety. He doesn't impose his compulsions on me, but I do get the ricochet effect sometimes.

nanotech · September 27, 2020, 07:51:19 PM

Not able to make rational conclusions- seen it
in my PDfamily of origin.
UNPDBrother tells me that he is concerned that my car's not reliable enough to pick up our dad for lunch.
He based this conclusion on the fact that my adult son recently had some car problems.
This was my son's car, not mine.
Very strange conclusion.

Is it the black and white thinking?

My dad is also like that about obvious typos/ errors. There's no reading between the lines, or there is TOO MUCH reading between the lines.

I think with times/ dates it relates to a tendency toward perfectionism. My UNPD dad loves to call people out on a mistake. Then he will tell everyone he can about how he saw it, and reported it.