I’m blogging for Mental Health Week today. I, of course, totally forgot so this is last minute (should have done it ahead of time as I had originally planned! grr) But nevertheless, I am blogging now for Mental Health Week.

My husband has OCD – along with depression and anxiety disorder…but I’m going to talk about the OCD.

His main thing with the OCD is hand washing. But he also has issues with his clothes being clean and a whole bunch of bathroom issues that I will spare you from. (you can thank me later)

Actually, I don’t even think hand washing is the main thing. I guess cleanliness, but only to a certain degree…like our house can be a complete pit, yet he doesn’t care or doesn’t do anything about it. Which I find kind of strange, but I guess I’m not supposed to understand it, it makes sense to him, right?

I can admit that I don’t understand my husband’s OCD at all.

But I love him and have to live with him and it’s a part OF him, so I deal as best as I can. I try to be supportive and patient and understand but some of it is just odd and frustrating and wears me out.

I see him running through some of his rituals and I want to shake him and just yell…snap out of it!!

You see, he wasn’t ALWAYS like this…or at least not as bad as he is – and mind you, he’s not that bad. I’ve seen the show Obsessed, yeah…he’s not that bad.

His OCD developed over time.

The past few years have been hard. He was diagnosed with APS and Lupus and a mess of other auto-immune lovelies, and then depression set in because he went from working and going out with friends, having fun…etc to sick sick sick and losing job after job till finally getting on disability. And with the depression came out the OCD.

So while I can understand that he’s gone through a lot of changes, I don’t always understand…which is hard at times.

The easiest way for me to deal with it, is for me to just deal with it…ya know? I know he has OCD, I know a lot of his issues and I try to make things easier for him if I can…I buy him hand sanitizer (they have wipes now, did you know that?) and make sure we have hand soap and let him pick out the scent he likes, and I try to make sure we always have rubber gloves in the house for him to use when necessary (he uses them for a lot of things!!!) and I try not to bring attention to it in public or when we’re with our families or friends.

And then sometimes, I think it’s all totally ridiculous and wish he’d get help for it, or work through it or something! – this doesn’t happen as often as it used to.

I guess it’s with anything, ya know? You deal with it.

My husband has OCD. He’s a hand washing, clothes washing, rubber glove wearing fool, but I love him and I even love his OCD. It’s part of him but not WHO he is. I hope he knows that. And sometimes it’s those little quirky things that he does that makes me love him more. At least his clothes are always clean, he bathes regularly and his hands are always clean…those are positives, right? lol

Plus…I have my little issues as well, and he overlooks them…so I do my best to overlook or deal with his.