You Down With OCD

I grew up in the ’70’s and the ’80’s and back then there weren’t may psychiatric labels for certain disorders. Take this whole Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, back then it was just hyperactive-disruptive-can’t-sit still in class-doesn’t listen to anyone-disorder. My brother was the classic ADD child. Smart, not challenged and did not listen, but this story is not about my brother. This is more Freudian, this is about my mother and me growing up to have a little OCD, yeah you know me (sorry, I could not help myself).

Our family had a cleaning lady come in once a week. I could never understand why. Our house was impeccably clean. Our clothes were washed, our beds were made, there were no dished to be cleaned. So why on earth did we have a cleaning woman, two of them actually. They would come in and clean the bathrooms, dust and sweep. I have to assume this was the easiest money they ever made. My mother did most of the cleaning, and she would clean before the cleaning woman arrived. Why? I always asked why are you cleaning before Ana gets here, and her response “I don’t want them to think the house is dirty”. That was the first time I knew there was something wrong. That is so far from logical. Now before we had company over as a kid I remember my mom cleaning for days before they came. Now I understand that logic. I do that, my wife does that, everybody does that. But to clean before the cleaning lady gets there, that’s just plain nuts.

Growing up with someone who had strange behaviors wasn’t easy. But we didn’t know any better, that was just the way my mom was. The magnets on the refrigerator had to be in the exact same place, the sink had to be free of any debris, plates and silverware included. We had a dishwasher so I guess it made sense not to have anything in the sink, but if we did leave anything in the sink and I do mean anything she would be pissed. This behavior manifested, it wasn’t instantaneous. My mother has always been a neat freak and from what I remember, everything had its place. To me this was normal. It’s not like I was going house to house and opening drawers, looking in closets and inspecting the sinks. But later on in life this is exactly what I did.

I was fascinated by other peoples houses. To see how other people lived, the clutter, the mess, things out of place and by the other parents who also had a touch of the craziness. It was comforting to know that we were not the only ones living under the scrutiny of someone who had to have things a certain way. I walked into friends homes and looked around, keeping a watchful eye for anything that may be askew. I would think to myself, how do people live like this? Laundry on the floor, dishes in the sink, half empty glasses on the table. My mother would have had an aneurism if she saw this. And by chance if my mother did go to someone’s house that wasn’t up to her standard she would make those snide remarks that most people make when they see something that does not agree with their philosophy. “How can they live like that?” “That place is a sty.” “what the hell are these people thinking.” were just a sample of the barrage of complaints. Looking back I could now see where I got some of my attitude and isms. Thanks mom.

I became aware of my mom’s behavior when my father was first hospitalized for having a nervous breakdown. That’s how they described it back then, as if the phrase you’re getting on my last nerve thing truly existed and pushed someone over the psychological edge. With my father not around due to circumstances beyond our control, my mothers behavior started to intensify. There was no announcement, no bells and whistles and no alarm to notify the residents of our house that things were about to get crazy. If we left a spoon in the sink, we’d heard about it. If we didn’t put away a pair of socks, we’d hear about it. It’s not like we could complain to anyone. We couldn’t go visit my father while being treated for a nervous breakdown and tell him that mom is driving us crazy, you need to get better so we don’t have to deal with this nut bag. That would not go over well. So we just had to take it. If anything was remotely out of place, she would snap. This was her way of dealing with things, but I had no idea at the time. I really thought she belonged in the psych ward with my dad. She was driving my brother and myself bananas. My parents behavior was confusing and scary. It seemed that nothing was right in our world. Everything was not in its place. Little did we know our lives would never be the same.

My father came home and we tried to be as normal as possible. Whatever normal is. We were told not to get dad upset, he needs to relax. We really didn’t bring up the episode, it was something that went unspoken. Well that lasted for months, and then things got strange. My father would not get out of bed, apparently he was not taking his pills, so my mother started getting mean. She was mean to everyone, she later called it “dealing”, I call it negative reinforcement. Nothing was right to her, everything was wrong, everything.

This went on for the next few years. My father would be in and out of the hospital, my mother would be “dealing” with it. There were some days that you just didn’t know what was going to set her off. I was volatile, she was volatile, the house was ready to explode. Eventually it did. My mother and I would have a battle of epic proportions. There would be her screaming, me yelling, her being demeaning and me punching doors. Funny thing is I have no idea how it started that day, no one does. It was just a build up that had to end that way. To this day it was the most exhausting fight I have ever been in. As time when on our family was dismantled an I was OK with that.

OCD is a serious psychological issue that I can’t seem to wrap my head around. Mild cases, which most of us have are not life controlling, we live with them everyday without going nuts. Years went by and I started to realize that I have a bit of my parents isms, specifically my mothers. Even with trying to rebel against the isims, they still appear every now and than and I’m OK with that.

So it’s yet another thing we can thank our parents for. Geez mom thanks for making me want all the towels to be folded and color coordinated. Thanks dad for giving me the ability to coordinate my shoes. Thanks mom for making me go slightly nuts when there is a spoon in the sink. Thanks dad for making me alphabetize the pantry. Thanks mom for making me keep all my socks on the right side of the drawer. And the list goes on. So next time you’re doing something a little OCD, just remember where it came from try not to obsess over it.

Mommy Dearest

When my parents would fight, and that was quite often, my mother would threaten my father that she was going to take the kids and never come back. So instead of leaving for good, she would take me (and sometimes my brother) to the movies. This happened often, and it was a way for me to see movies, lots of movies, late at night. Like an 11:30 showing of Mask or a midnight showing of The Right Stuff. But the one that sticks out the most is Mommie Dearest. If you have never seen this movies please run out and get it. If you think you’re a bad parent, watch this movie. Chances are you’re not, but that’s your shit to deal with if you are.

That night my parents had a huge blowout over what I don’t remember, but they always fought about something that made no sense to me as a child. It was 1981, I was almost 11 years old and have become used to leaving late at night and watching a movie to help my mother get her point across to my father. We were going to see Mommie Dearest, if I remember correctly it was a 10pm-ish movie time. Mind you I had no idea who Joan Crawford was, and was told she was an actress from the past. With popcorn and soda in hand, we enter the near empty theater.

While watching this movie I learn that Joan Crawford was a great actress, she adopted a daughter (I’m adopted!) and then proceeded to be an uber bitch to everyone around her (quite like my mother, in my 11 year old mind). It was the first movie I saw in the theater that used the work “fuck”. Now mind you I have heard that word my whole life, I even used it when I was about 5 or 6 and subsiquently ate a bar of Ivory soap, but to hear the f word coming from a movie, that was just awesome! Joan was just shitty to everyone around her. Her daughter in particular. Beating her with wire hangers, making her scrub the bathroom floor and an onslaught of other abuses children should not have to go through. Little did I know that I was going through one of them just by sitting there watching a movie. But that’s a whole other story.

I’m getting very tired, struggling to stay up and watch the ending, because all movies have happy endings when you’re 11. Well it really depends on what you consider a happy ending at this point, the daughter is all sorts of fucked up later on in life. Drugs, sex, getting kicked out of school and anything else she could do to make her mother’s life miserable. So, the end of the movie finally gets here and she is now giving a speech for her mother, who ended up in a pretty shitty situation herself, alone, almost broke and all used up. Which at the time made me feel happy, sick that an 11 year old should feel happy about someone else’s misery, but in my opinion she deserved everything she got. Think I had some unresolved issues?

The movies ends, I’m exhausted full of buttered popcorn and soda and as we are leaving my mom turns to me and says “see I’m not that bad”. I responded, “no you’re not”.