My mother has OCD, worse after death in the family
Hi, I wanted to reach out to anyone with OCD and see how to best approach this situation. My mother has OCD, displaying it through extreme cleanliness, checking locks constantly, a strict routine, and appearing stressed about a seemingly endless checklist.
I always thank her for the hard work she does, compliment her on how nice the house looks, and reassure her when she expresses anxieties about bad things happening. I also try to help out by doing chores, but she always ends up redoing them and criticizing me for doing it wrong. After doing some research, I realize this is probably actually the wrong thing to do because it reinforces the behavior.
Recently, we got into an argument because I was putting up the Christmas decorations after she had been stressing about needing to. I tried to make light of how it's supposed to be a fun thing and get her into it, but it conflicted with her routine. Again, she criticized me the entire time and I eventually blew up. I expressed how she's very negative and complains about how she has too much to do, but won't let us help her out because she has impossible standards of perfection. We're a very loud, emotional, close family so we just had it out. But eventually we had a good conversation about how she was actually probably more upset about the holidays in general as this will be the first Christmas without my aunt (her sister). That, coupled with several other tragedies and hardships, has made this a tough year for us all. My mom admitted that she has a problem and needs to work on it. I gently suggested seeking professional help and she agreed it might work, but I didn't want to be pushy.
She was on medication quite a few years ago, but not anymore. Especially in light of all that's happened, I think she'd benefit from some cognitive techniques, if anything. I'm glad it ended in a good place, but I've heard her make promises to work on herself way too many times before. It's difficult not to feel a little depressed about the sisyphean nature of these conversations. I just want her to be happy. I mean I think she is overall, I just don't know how to help her when it comes to this. Thanks for any advice.
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