What do you think? OCD??!


Question: I recently met a woman who clearly wants to be friends. She's 45-ish, married, with 2 kids, a girl, 11, and a boy,15, lives in a v nice middle-class to wealthy suburb. She drives a late-model Golf, & her husband has a small collection of vintage cars.

When I visited her place I got a shock: There was rubbish, clothing, toys, DVDs, and all sort of junk scattered from the entrance hall, all over the entire house. The kitchen was indescribably messy. The only way to walk around was to step over and around piles of junk. There was nowhere to sit as every chair was piled high with junk, or in extremely poor repair.

She & her husband acted as if everything were normal.

I immediately thought she/they must have obsessive/compulsive disorder, as I've seen cases like this on TV, where people can't let go of any of their junk, end up keeping all of it & being overwhelmed by it

It freaked me out. How can I gently but firmly make clear I can't be friends?


Answers: I recently met a woman who clearly wants to be friends. She's 45-ish, married, with 2 kids, a girl, 11, and a boy,15, lives in a v nice middle-class to wealthy suburb. She drives a late-model Golf, & her husband has a small collection of vintage cars.

When I visited her place I got a shock: There was rubbish, clothing, toys, DVDs, and all sort of junk scattered from the entrance hall, all over the entire house. The kitchen was indescribably messy. The only way to walk around was to step over and around piles of junk. There was nowhere to sit as every chair was piled high with junk, or in extremely poor repair.

She & her husband acted as if everything were normal.

I immediately thought she/they must have obsessive/compulsive disorder, as I've seen cases like this on TV, where people can't let go of any of their junk, end up keeping all of it & being overwhelmed by it

It freaked me out. How can I gently but firmly make clear I can't be friends?

Oh I get it...I own a cleaning service Zuc...this is either depression, hoarding (from ocd, child hood trauma etc) there is no gentle way to tell her and you do not have to ...stop calling her and when she calls "say I am sorry I cannot talk" and do not let your kids go over there and play (this is a health/sanitation issue" talking to them is like trying to talk to a drunk....

they need professional help

I cleaned a condo for a woman who had this issue and a team of us emptied the house and sanitized it ...it was beautiful at the end and the owner came back and (physically) got into the dumpster to get her "stuff" that was all junk out and put it 'BACK IN THE CONDO'

i did leave her a message once saying please stop calling me...but it didn't help....."I think she wanted to hoard me"

I walked away and then never returned her calls and she finally stopped calling

This is very serious...I have seen this many times

If your kids want to be friends with her kids only allow her kids to your house and your kids prohibited from thier house

i have done this many times with my kids and thier friends, firearms, dangerous dogs, no supervision, sheer wackiness...are other reasons i did this with my kids...the friendships never stuck, they had nothing really in common

FRIENDS DON'T FIX EACH OTHER...SHRINKS DO THAT JOB

Just because she is a junk collector doesn't mean you still can't be friends! Invite them over to your place if you feel uncomfortable at theirs. I don't think this is worth throwing away a possibly good friendship.

Thats a tough one. I am not one to just ignore a person until they get the point, so maybe you can ease her into it a different way.

Slowly start to digress with your visits. If she calls tell her your busy and eventually she should slow down on calling you. If you were to flat out tell her you don't want to hang with her because of her lack of cleanliness it could get ugly.

Say that she is not your sort of person, she obviously is happy with her life so just tell her that she is lovely but maybe if you did meet up, do so in a coffee shop. Leave her home life out of it, you liked her before you found that out, maybe she is perfectly normal outside her home. How do you know that her husband is the one with OCD
good luck =]

I would say hoarding is very different to OCD, imo. That makes in no less concerning.
My knowledge of OCD is that it tend to lead to extreme tidiness, every thing or selected things must be in exactly the correct spot, facing the correct direction or have been cleaned in a ritual manner.

OCD is also exhibited by behavior such as checking things over and over, for example that lights or power points are turned on or off, or by cleaning things over and over, or unpacking and repacking cupboards etc. I sure there are other examples, this is just my limited knowledge.

No matter, don't judge potential friendship based on your perceptions of the way they keep house. Get to know them, see what you learn. You may like them and they you and if there is a problem you may be able to help or at least learn how to support whom ever might have the issue.

Be safe, be sage

Edit. Sorry I missed the point of your question. It was all about agreeing that you should ditch them and feel good about it, that they are somehow disgusting and not worth time and effort. I don't judge you for it, more than half the globe will agree with you. Fact is I couldn't lift half of my little finger to help an alcoholic, it is just beyond me, I might want them to get help but I could not be that help for a second. So you see I am no great role model. But over all I don't agree that shrinks are the solution to helping members of our community, I still idealize that the community should be helping one another. Some will still need shrinks and meds, but others may not. If you don't want to have anything to do with them, then don't, just be polite and wish them well. Try a little understanding about the trauma they might be suffering. For the person mentioned in another answer, who went back to the dumpster to retrieve their gear, I can only feel sadness that people should live in such a state. I hope that person finds the help they need.

it may be ocd.. or it just may be that they don't like to clean..

they do have children.. and kids tend to be messy.. maybe they just don't have much time to clean up or simply just don't feel like it..

i'm not sure why you can't be friends with her just because of her house.. if you like her as a person it shouldn't matter if she's messy or even ocd.. it's not like you have to live in her house or anything..

It seems a bit ironic that they should keep so much useless chair-hogging stuff. They seem to have enough money to replace junk. Maybe there were in the process of cleaning? Well if they seem off to you you should pretty much say that ur busy most of the time. Make short remarks when they talk also. It will get them off ur case for a while and eventually they'll lose interest.

I don't think you should judge her just based on how her home looks. Try to get to know her, I don't see any reason why you can't be friends with her just because her house is messy.

Hmmmm, difficult. I wonder if it's possible for you to have a more 'casual' friendship for some time before making a final decision.

It would be a pity to lose a potential friend on the basis of one home visit, especially as you cannot be 100 per cent sure of the background to the things that concerned you.

Also, you might need to ask yourself why the mess in HER house concerned you so much? Essentially, it is her concern and her business.

If you find it off-putting, you might like to restrict your meetings to the occasional coffee or lunch somewhere neutral ~ that way you can enjoy a few laughs and assess her as someone you may or may not want in your life, without confronting the issues of her domestic situation.

Of course, if you feel she wants you to 'save' her, you will need to re-think and maybe back out fast!

Best wishes with this ... a tricky situation.

Cheers :-)

Things answer is a good one ... and I just wanted to add in response to others using the word MESSY ..

there's messy ... and then what you described ... a former EX-relative lived as you described .. although you left out dirty dishes on the sink growing mould....

go back to your initial first response when you met her ... did you like her or was there SOMETHING you weren't sure of ...

if you liked her .. take Things advice ..

BUT if you really don't want to develop a friendship with her .. either tell her outright ( i'm really not good at that ...cos I don't want to hurt people's feelings ) ... or just not be available until she gets the hint.

Maybe their house-keeper was on holiday ?? (LOL)

Nah I know what you mean... I'm a clutter bug .. but it isn't an OH&S issue to enter my house.. ( most times :D )

how can you say that because she collect rubbish and her house is a mess does not mean that you cant be friends.
i think that is a horrible thinng to do just stop being friend with sometihing because they are messy.

think heard before you make a dicision like that.
because i think that is a harsh thing to do...

are you in a friendship with her or the house.

stick with her...

there is always a way to help people like this.. its just a matter of how to go about starting to... look up a few phycs that specialize in this disorder and ask them how you can help this couple out...
try this web site
phychcentral.com/disorders or
type in obsessive-compulsive disorder treatments into Google then look for the above web site... hope this helps
cheers
Jo

it is not ocd it is hoarder's syndrome. ocd is doing repetitive motions and rituals and certain number of times. hoarder's syndrome is extreme packrat-ness.

treatment for hoarder's syndrome is very hard and is very hard for the person to give stuff up. so they live like this all their lives.

I was going to suggest inviting them over with their kids some time to your house and letting them see your house all "tidy", "organized" and clean. Perhaps that will motivate them. If they ask for help, then, offer to help, but go slow

I just read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_...

My aunt was a packrat. Staying at her house was awful!

I don't see any danger in letting your sons be friends, but if you're going to be freaked out by it, then you can't be friends. Would it be different if you two only saw each other outside of their house? If no, you'll just have to tell her the mess bothers you. But you could always claim to be compulsively tidy when you do so, in order to make it seem more your fault. Just an option--it certainly isn't your fault.





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