we had family lunch at my brother jareds house after church today and laughed and laughed and laughed like we always do - we are the most mental family and talk about the weirdest things. today's topic was about how ocd runs in our family... i will not deny for one minute that i have it - bad! i have all my dvds in alphabetical order, my perfumes in height order, clothes must be ironed before being put away, dishes stacked neatly in the cupboard, dishes washed before i can go to bed...
i cracked up so bad when i saw the picture attached to this post cause i totally get it. alphabetical order is a go-to for me. ocd has always been a bit of a joke to our family - jared, aaron and i are all exactly the same. it seems to have passed isaac by, but as any of you will know if you know him - he is so laid back that he's almost horizontal. in fact my ocd was so bad when we were kids that he used to pay me to clean his room, which i was totally okay with - it's not like i had to clean mine first.
i've had it as long as i can remember, to the point of lining up my coloured pencils and markers in primary school in colour order - to memorising all the fruit and vegetable codes as a teenager whilst working at the local supermarket, to lining up the clothes in my wardrobe in colour order now. sigh.
i must admit there are times it has been helpful in my life though, when working as a funeral arranger for example - when you are obsessive, you rarely make a mistake, but saying that - when you do, you beat yourself up and spend who knows how long stressing about it. at least i am not crazy with it and don't need professional help. things just have to be done my way. i think the worst thing is with photos - i like to take them so they are how i want them, which must be why i am so rarely in them!
the best part of this conversation was watching my niece nod along furiously to our ocd confessions - as clearly ocd apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and the next generation is coming along nicely.
