My OCD was so bad that I couldn't live with my sister ,and mother. If I had describe OCD ,I'd say it's mental torture on daily bases so do people it's funny to have OCD.
Why Do People Think Having OCD Is Funny - OCD Support
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Why Do People Think Having OCD Is Funny
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Ibbi
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It is mental torture, but that doesn't mean we can't laugh at ourselves! It does lead to some strange behaviour, and if we can find the humour in it, well then, laughter does us good!
But that doesn't mean that other people have a right to poke fun. That is cruel, when we are struggling with this horrible illness.
There are also some people with physical disabilities who think we have it easy. That is ignorant and unfair. Just as we don't know what pain they have to put up with, so they don't know what it's like for us.
I've been laughed at and abused in the street, and someone even filmed me on his mobile phone as I struggled. Having said that, many nice people have helped and sympathized! If ignorant people want to make fun of my pain, that reflects worse on them than on me. But it still isn't very nice.
I suppose it's even worse when it comes from your own family. Ask them if they would like you to laugh at their pain. But I think it helps us if we can laugh at it ourselves.
I think OCD is misunderstood by so many people. For years it was used for comic effect either on television, and even once in a play i saw. Until I met my husband that wad my only experience of OCD, so to many all they see is the counting, checking ovens and lights, knocking on doors etc. Nobody knows about WHY someone is doing is. People dont knkw the mental torture going on that leads to counting, checking ovens and lights etc.
There was a day a few years back when my husband was away with his work abroad. They were having a boat trips as part of their activities. On one of the seats was a large patch of red liquid, which my husband deemed to be blood and Ofcourse his OCD kicked in. He told one of the girls that he had a phobia of blood and was panicking because of his OCD. Her response, thinking it was funny, was to put her hands in the liquid and then put big red handprints on his t-shirt. I spent 2hrs on the phone trying to calm him down. She had no idea what she had done. So I told him to tell her when they met up for dinner. To tell her what her actions had done to him and to us. Which he did. She was devastated that she had caused so much damage through something she thought was funny, but also because she had no understanding of what OCD really meant. They both leant a huge lesson that day about talking about what it means. She, I hope, will now think before she does something again and him, that you have to tell people what it means. Stop people when they straighten a pencil on their desk and tell you its OCD, its not. It might be OPD or it might be nothing other than being anal, but it's not OCD.
More still needs to be done to educate people. My husband used to refuse to talk to anyone around him about it. He was ashamed. Now we deal with it head on and explain to people. I've talked openly at work about it to colleagues who haven't understood.
Things are slowly changing but it needs more of a voice to help people understand. Mental Ilness gets talked about now, but everyyhing gets bracketed under it, we need to start talking specifics.
It can have an effect.
A friend of mine, knowing about my husband complained to a small coffee shop recently who had a street sign defining OCD as Obsessive Coffee Disorder. She went in and asked them remove the sign, explained why and they did. They rubbed it out and changed it to something else. She told me, and described it as a small thing. But to me its massive. The owner of the shop will tell thay story to others and hundreds of people wont see the jokey OCD sign that was there making light of it.
Sallyskins is right though, if you can find a way to laugh at it yourself, or bits of it, you have a right to. We Will often joke about something silly my husbands done, it gives us both a bit of relief and it makes it just a little bit easier. Problems seem less bad when you can laugh at them yourself. Nobody has the right to mock you though.
You might be correct.
I agree. People need to understand that OCD isn't a joke and to play tricks on people as that woman did with your husband is not acceptable. I don't suppose they would do something cruel to a physically disabled person.
And I too get cross when people say things like 'I'm a little bit OCD' because they like to be neat and tidy.
I do laugh at myself, and haven't a problem in letting friends and family laugh with me. That's different to laughing at me.
In any case people with mental illness or physical disabilities can talk about it using terms they wouldn't let anyone else use, just as black people or gay people can use language about themselves they wouldn't accept from white or straight people. It's about having a little sensitivity. So if I call myself 'mad' and refer to my medication as 'mad pills' that's all right. That doesn't mean I'll accept it from others!
That’s crazy I once saw that same sign! Must be a trendy slogan, I feel for your husband, that would have made me pass out I think the handprint. I have people do similar things. I also had a waitress stack plates on top of food and the plate went on top of my food. When everyone was done eating and I hadn’t eaten she asked why and I explained but she couldn’t comprehend it. I don’t think people get it, if the pretend to sneeze on you, that you will drive home. Shower for a half hour and put on new clothes and then go on the internet to see what you can get. You are a great person for understanding!
My friends always joke with me by saying that they spit in something or in some other way. I can handle that but lately people just get angry at me for having it. I now have distanced myself from most people to make things easier and I am terribly lonely. I have yet to meet another clinically diagnosed OCD person in person and talked about having it and I live in NYC where there are millions of people. I was supposed to go to my first group this week but am sick. Yet I think people have very little ways to personalize our disorder and because we don’t bruise on the outside people just see an annoying neurotic person that ruins the party. And I believe that 80 percent of the people I know think I could control it if I wanted to. No one asked me what it’s like to suffer every day, not even my parents, and to be honest I don’t think most people care. Everyone has there own life to live it takes a rare person to have a genuine ongoing sympathy for people with OCD. I am so lucky to have a nice ex partner that still helps me once and a while and a cousin who helps me and talks to me outside of that I spend most days in an apartment in silence hoping to hear news from SS so I can finally get treatment. It’s not funny it’s a sad life. Not to be a downer.
It is tough, I don't know what I bring to the table with my husband, but I like to think I offer up just a place to feel safe and unjudged.
We are lucky to have some very good friends who I have talked to over the years, and my husband has also opened up with them over time too which means they're really good at understanding. But you're right, some people I think start off trying to care and then can't deal with it and back off, others just don't get it and probably never will.
We live in a world where words are over-used - OCD is one, depression is another. I often hear people say I'm depressed, actually they're a bit down or a bit sad, but it's a fleeting thing, it doesn't cripple them for days on end. The "I'm a bit OCD" from someone who's just a bit anal.
There are good people out there though who, although might not fully understand, they will do their best and they will support to the best of their abilities. I do my best, but I do also have to remind my husband from time to time that I'm not a therapist, and I don't want to be. I will however support him, hold him, listen to him on anything he needs.
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