Humor Raisins

Just another tasty ingredient in Hermit Cookies.

Value Added to Life

How do you find value in your life? Values are priorities that tell you how to spend your time, right here, right now. What creates the greatest value for your life isn't always obvious. I had to think on how I would answer that question...

"I would like to ask...Has your OCPDer experience brought any new value to your life, increased your faith, strengthened your character or resolve, given an opportunity for personal development, increased your compassion, helped others, had some spiritual significance, that you would not have gotten without an OCPDer in your life? We hear about the negatives. Any positives?

• Detachment. A lovely out of body experience. I'm the Watcher.
• Long suffering. No, not suffering long, but the patient endurance of wrong or provocation, combined with a refusal to give up hope for improvement in a disturbed relationship.
• Deep abiding patience. Breathe, just breathe.
• Laughter. One of my very favorite forms of humor is black/dark/gallows humor. It makes light of solemn subject matters. When he is ranting, I am amused amidst the tragedy. I make plans . . . and God laughs.
• Self mastery.
• Becoming kind.
• Joy. Knowing now—It's not me. lol

Sometimes there are two roads to travel, choose the one that provides more value than the other.

"The person attempting to travel two roads at once will get nowhere.—Xun Zi

Reflections

I got wrote up today at work for absences. So they make me sick with perfumes and other scented products then write me up when I have to go home and recover. Niiii-cccccce. I went to HR and picked up an application for FMLA. It's a job condom. Protection from being screwed.

Reflections

I don't want to live in a third world country. My future is a small Texas town dying on the edge of nowhere. 

Mirror, Mirror

The husband is moving us back to his small (2,400 pop.) hometown. His father has recently had a triple bypass and can no longer live on his own. He is 81. I just got off the phone with my husband with my insides all jiggly. 

Seems Dad is giving Son the OCPDer treatment. My husband is complaining of the Jekyll and Hyde treatment he is receiving. The dismissal of any and all advice. The ignoring of the doctor's treatment plan. The insistence that Dad says he is feeling 'just fine' while he weaves unsteadily and gasps for breath, denying the need for the oxygen that accompanied him home. The name calling and bursts of anger when Dad faces the limitations to his new life and shifts blame to my husband. 

Irony is one of my very favorite sources of humor. The pot calling the kettle black. It runs in families and soon I will have two of them to handle. A taste for irony has kept more hearts from breaking than a sense of humor, for it takes irony to appreciate the joke which is on oneself.

Can I Get An O - C - P - D?

My husband has it. 'It' being Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder or OCPD.

People with...OCPD...tend to be high achievers and feel a sense of urgency about their actions. They may become very upset if other people interfere with their rigid routines. They may not be able to express their anger directly. Instead, people with OCPD experience feelings that they consider more appropriate, like anxiety or frustration.

A person with this personality disorder has symptoms of perfectionism that usually begin in early adulthood. This perfectionism may interfere with the person's ability to complete tasks, because their standards are so rigid.

People with this disorder may emotionally withdraw when they are not able to control a situation. This can interfere with their ability to solve problems and form close relationships.

Some of the other signs of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder include:

• Excess devotion to work
• Inability to throw things away, even when the objects have no value
• Lack of flexibility
• Lack of generosity
• Not wanting to allow other people to do things
• Not willing to show affection
• Preoccupation with details, rules, and lists

Yup. BTDTHTTS. At least now 'It' has a name. There is no cure. It's a personality. I have joined a very helpful online chat group of spouses and SO of OCPDers.