Day 39. 91,158 words.
Today, basically what we did was clean my parents’ holiday mansion, pack the cars and drive back up to Perth. That was pretty much it.
My dad’s cleaning compulsion has gotten worse as he’s gotten older and with nobody but my mum to rein him in. The old beach house in Dunsborough used to require nothing more than a quick run-around with the vacuum cleaner to get the worst of the sand out of the carpets and the breadcrumbs off the kitchen linoleum. Now, the house (which is three times the size of the Dunsborough one) was practically disinfected. It was … a little disturbing to watch (and of course be required to help out with, and attempt in vain to mitigate a little).
Obsessive compulsives in my readership be warned: This shit doesn’t mellow with age. This shit gets more intense and uncontrollable.
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I’m not often driven to introspection or reflection, but the question does come up sometimes. The big question. So big, there’s just no containing it within the puny boundaries of a single set of punctuationary bookends.
Who are these mysterious and unsung heroes of obscurity and shadow? What is their origin story? Do they have a prequel trilogy? What are their secret identities? What are their public identities, for that matter? What are their powers? Their abilities? Their haunted pasts and troubled futures? Their modus operandi? Where do they live anyway, and when? What do they do for a living? Do they really have these fantastical adventures, or is it a dazzlingly intellectual and overwrought metaphor? Or is it perhaps a smug and post-modern sort of metaphor? Is it a plain stupid metaphor, hedged around with thick wads of plausible deniability, a soap bubble of illusory plot dependent upon readers who don’t dare question it for fear of looking foolish? A flight of fancy, having dozed off in front of the television during an episode of something suitably spaceship-oriented? Do they have a quest, a handler, a mission statement, a department-level development objective in five stages?
I am Hatboy.
https://hatboy.blog/2013/12/17/metalude-who-are-creepy-and-hatboy/
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That’s the nature of the beast. But there’s always cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and drugs. Meaning you can treat and manage it. Of course, the earlier you start, the better.
Sad to say. I mean, obviously if it was real disorder-level stuff I wouldn’t be making light of it – I think there’s still a solid space between being truly OCD and just being a neat freak or a germophobe. But yeah. Same genus, if not same animal.
Sure. OCD is an actual anxiety disorder, a proper pathology. And it’s not inherently about being a neat freak or a germophobe or any of the usual stereotypes (although those can be part of the pathology). But there are also levels of severity to OCD (and other anxiety disorders), so you could have it, but not be too bothered by it.
I guess I’m basically just agreeing with you here.
Yup. Which is exactly why I was careful not to say disorder in my original post. Pretty sure my dad’s just a neat freak, but everybody has underlying psychological issues. That’s what humans are, after all.
As Gandalf the Grey himself always said:
It’s definitely a sliding scale, cleanliness to one is obsessiveness to another. Just ask my wife. Why do we have to make the bed, neatly without wrinkles, every day? AND put the pillows back on it? We’re just going to take them off again later!
My former supervisor here at work vacuums her entire house before coming in to work. Every day. EVERY day, by her own admission.
Now that thar is a bit of a problem, IMO. But you know, some may disagree.