@Bee... Yep, seems like very few people have a "happy medium" when it comes to "stuff". I know some that are like you describe your mom or worse. Then there is the opposite end of the scale folks like the ones who make it on TV. But really, it seems like everybody has some "OCD" area in their life. And it seems to most people that the other person's "OCD area" is far worse than their own. I believe that the people who are so judgmental about the others have some real deep seated "issues" their self. There is a famous televangelist who I have heard mention many times how his mother enforced a clean house. You could tell that no doubt he was OCD about "cleaning" and having everything just so-so and he got it from her. Even in his sermons I would hear him talk bad about people who didn't have a neat house or as some would put it, were horders. He was even on TV one day telling about going in this one woman's house and how AWFUL it was. I really lost most of the respect I had for that man when I heard him talking about that woman. I'm sure there was a real good chance she was listening to that sermon and heard how bad he was talking about her and I can only imagine how it made her feel. So her whole experience with him went from her spirital need to how disgusted he was with her and how two-faced he was in dealing with her. I imagine if she is still living she is another person who has left the church. I'm sure I would have his anyway. This man "has it so together" that his wife of at least 50 something years divorced him "because she couldn't stand it anymore". After hearing how he talked in many of his sermons I am sure that he was a tyrant to live with about how she kept their house. I'm sure she was expected to tow the line to his standards or caught hell when she didn't... and this is a supposedly good Christian man and WONDERFUL preacher according to many. And yes he is a great bible teacher but I can't hardly stand to listen to him anymore because of what he has said about this and about people who don't live up to his standards. If you notice, people with the "constant cleaning" OCD are VERY judgmental towards the people toward the other end
of the scale, like they are so much more superior than those "nasty people". I have seen that sooo many times. ...I'm convinced we're all crazy!!! LOL
Yes!!! Most definitely! There are extremes on both ends and my folks were those that criticized their children and others to death about their houses and yards and Mom still has that left over in her since Dad's in a facility, but since I've been living with her she has toned it down quite a bit.
For my parents, both coming from large families that lived in poverty, it was the only thing they could own...pride of house and self. Dad had 9 children and when we went out in public we were to be as neat as a pin, have impeccable manners, etc. The house had to be very clean and I remember Mom locking us out of the house in the summer, putting a pitcher of water and cups out there so we had drinks, and not letting us in again until Dad came home to see the clean house she had been working on all day. Dad's family growing up wasn't the cleanest, so he had a deep aversion to any appearance of his large family living in filth.
Mom's family didn't live dirty but Dad sort of molded her into this clean freakedness and she had lived under that rule and conditioning for nigh on 60 yrs. She was naturally a neat and clean person but Dad took it to whole new levels....he would gag and stop eating, go to the bathroom and throw up if he found one of her hairs in the food, he wouldn't eat anything that us girls had cooked..only Mom's cooking was considered clean enough, etc. He lived in constant criticism of others, particularly if they "had an animal in the house" and would make my boys stop and strip at the door if they had been out playing with the cat or dog, so they could put those clothes directly into the washing machine.
The irony about OCD people and their need to control their environment is that they can't seem to control themselves, so their environment and those around them are the next best thing and they will spend a lifetime of futility trying to do that, alienating people and friends, and finally end up old and alone....usually in a nursing home where the standards of "clean" are a great deal less than they normally would tolerate. To see former OCD people shuffling around in a nursing home with food on their shirts and their hair all a mess is both sad and ironic at the same time....suddenly all that doesn't matter so much anymore and they are reduced to comfort...eating, sleeping, eliminating on a schedule, etc.
The poor folks like that miss out on so many good things and people in their lives because of this type of OCD that it's a great sadness. Mom has toned it down greatly and is able to enjoy herself and other people more now that Dad is not in the picture, but every once in awhile that ghost of Dad's opinions pops out of her mouth as she drives past a dirty dwelling or sees disheveled people in the store.
I think we all carry a little baggage from how we were raised, the prevalent culture where we lived in our formative years and then who we married and how we had to mix with all of
their baggage.
For me, it's a little of all those things and so I live comfortable but not too cluttered, clean but not spotless all the time, and have a more easy going relaxed feeling and attitude about temporary messes, children messes, and other people's messes. It's not something I stress over to any extreme...stress is too much work and so I can note in passing if something is pleasing to the eye and restful to the soul and go from there, but obsession is not in my nature. Having a too cluttered or dirty place stresses me too, so I know when to clean and declutter to restore that relaxed feeling...I don't like big extremes and love life somewhere in the middle~ on cruise.
Dad couldn't stand me....
Sounds like you guys have a system that works for you. That is good.
I really don't like "dirty" either but clutter I know all too well. Actually I am somewhat of a germ freak. I'm not totally OCD about germs but some things are just gross to me. But, I sat and watched a friend on the clean end of the OCD scale one day and was amazed. She saw a loose hair, her own hair, laying on her shoulder - picked it off with a "disgusted shudder", got up and took it to the trash can then went and washed her hands. Ohhh my goodness, I will say no more about that one.
I am going to commit to some serious DE-CLUTTERING! Commit or be committed! LOL
That's my mother (without the shudder and hand washing)!!!
I shed more hair than most people have on their heads, on a daily basis, so she's always tsking when she sweeps up the bushels of hair or trying to pick it off me so it won't fall to the floor, etc. She's gotten more relaxed about that since I've come to stay, but there for awhile she was on a mission to sweep up and contain hair...that old Dad training popping up.
I think she is enjoying life so much more now that she can relax her standards a little and still maintain cleanliness and order in her home to her comfort level. As she ages, she is losing that driving need for all that, which I find to be lovely....she can finally relax and enjoy life a little. She wishes now she had not spent so much time cleaning when we were little and more time playing games with us and just enjoying her children.
