***TRIGGER WARNING***
This post will talk about mental illness, OCD and compulsive behaviour, and how it all affects our mental health. Please only read on if you feel strong enough. Alternatively, for help and support please visit the mental health and suicide prevention support lines page on this website.
***TRIGGER WARNING***
Obsessive compulsive disorder is described on the National Institute of Mental Health website as…
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a long-lasting disorder in which a person experiences uncontrollable and recurring thoughts (obsessions), engages in repetitive behaviors (compulsions), or both. People with OCD have time-consuming symptoms that can cause significant distress or interfere with daily life.
I’ve never been diagnosed with OCD and I think that’s correct. However, I do have traits that could be considered obsessive and compulsive. I realise those on the OCD spectrum have compulsions that take up their headspace and mental health day by day, hour by hour, and minute by minute, and that in some cases it can be incredibly distressing. I’m lucky – mine don’t control me and my world nearly as deeply, but when a compulsion does hit me, it can be overwhelming, disconcerting and hard to ignore.
Christmas is an opportunity to show some clearer examples of how the obsessive behaviour from someone experiencing mental instability can interrupt the festive fun.
Christmas Day alone is an incredibly stressful event for me. There’s a timetable written in my mind that I want to keep to by the minute, but like any other day of the year things happen that are unavoidable and they will inevitably trash any plans that I’ve made. For that reason I have to factor in a bit of leeway, some time that allows for changes to happen but that doesn’t stop the itching in my head getting harder to scratch. For example, if we get to 3 o’clock and I haven’t managed to dish up the dinner, I know that there’s a knock on effect for the rest of the day. For our kid that means for the rest of the Christmas break because tiredness will knock into boxing day and then grumpiness will knock into the 27th – that’s no fun for anyone, including us. Worse still, if we wait too long the food will be ruined and my previous two days of chopping, peeling, basting, and prepping would’ve been a waste. Who wants to eat a Christmas lunch that’s turned to warm mush?
So as I say, my rigid schedule has to be made a bit looser, and that’s something that I’m okay with accepting (up to a point).
But there are other things I just cannot stop being compulsive about. Let’s talk about matching colour schemes. It’s taken me 42 years to realise that when I organise Christmas I have to have things coordinated. It’s not even a compulsion that I consider – in my head there are no other options. The tree will match the ornaments, will match the cushions, will match the wrapping paper, will match the ribbon, will match the wreath, will match the tinsel…the list goes on.
This year I have adored putting together a candy cane Lane theme in my home. It’s not an easy thing to do on a budget, but I start early and with a few pennies saved I was able to buy cheaper wrapping, cheaper ornaments, and items that I could upscale myself. This all started in October, that’s how much planning is needed if you want a colour scheme and price tag that are both up to standard. But like I say, my Christmas coordination values aren’t something I’ve really looked at before. It was only when my partner approached me and said…
“I’ve found some extra wrapping paper in the loft. It must be from last year. I’ll bring it down. We might as well use it“…
I was horrified.
“No, no, no, don’t bring that crap down here. We don’t want last years wrapping paper “
“Jesus babe, that’s so wasteful we might as well use it: it’s just sitting in the loft “
… At this point in the conversation I realised I was being unreasonable, but I wasn’t able to budge on my position…
“ Babe, they won’t match the tree. We’ll give them to someone else to use so it won’t go to waste but we’re not using it ourselves. It’s blue and pink and our tree is going to be red and white. It just won’t work “…
I know, I know: It sounds like I’m being extra about all this. In my defence, in my head on Christmas morning, our tree, twinkling lights, ornaments and the gifts left by Santa will look beautiful in photos that I can show my daughter in five years, 10 years, 20 years time, and that she can then show to her children later on. In a way I think that’s what this all boils down to: I want the pictures and the memories to look delightful. When I talked in a previous post about creating new Christmas traditions, this is exactly the sort of moment I was thinking about. I was hoping that I’d make memories for my daughter that she’d be proud to show off for the rest of her life. Part of that (in my mind) is making sure everything coordinates.
When I look back at my Christmases past, nothing around the house, or under the tree, matched at all. My mum used wrapping paper from the cheapest place she could find and it was every colour, every pattern, every thickness, and every style you could think of. When I woke up on Christmas morning, I thought a different elf had worked on every gift – why would so many presents look so different?
Despite the mismatching decorations, gifts and ornaments, I remember those Christmases positively. My mums lack of design innovation didn’t affect the quality of my Christmas at all, and it doesn’t affect how I recall them to my daughter. So I have to ask where on earth has my matching obsession come from? In my 20s my tree was made up of everything I found randomly in pound shops, garden centres, markets and charity stores. It was a tree I was proud of but it was a tree that had no cohesion. It’s only since I’ve had a child that I’ve allowed myself to be obsessive about Christmas, that I’ve allowed the compulsion to make everything as perfect as possible to take over, and that’s purely about her memories. All this despite knowing from past experience that Christmas can be perfect without being “perfect “.
And then there’s me. I spend 364 days of the year looking like a rundown, pained, exhausted, chunky woman, who can’t glam herself up on a daily basis (or even a monthly basis) the way she likes to. Christmas day has to be the exception to that rule and I will plan my outfit, my make up, my hair, my nails, even my slippers to the nth degree because it matters. It matters to me that for one single day of the year, no matter how hard I work, how much it hurts or how exhausted I feel, that I look in the mirror and think “okay. I look okay “. I asked myself where that obsession came from and actually, although it makes me feel better, in part it’s also for someone else – my partner. On the 364 days that I look like shit, he’s the one running around after me, helping me get about, making me cups of coffee, and making sure I take my medication. He does all of that while working a full-time job. For one day of the year he deserves to have a partner that matches what he met 10 years ago. Yes, a decade has passed and with that decade came the appearance of many lines on my face, much cellulite on my thighs, and stretch marks in every place that only he sees, so I’m not the person he met back then. I’m not in my early 30s nor an up-and-coming content creator with aspirations to run a marathon in sub three hours (because when we met, I was running 10 km in 44 minutes!).
The fact is, like most couples who’ve been together for a long distance, we’ve both changed. I don’t care how different he is (but to be honest I’m pretty lucky) but I do care about him feeling lucky every now and then too. And let me be clear, he’d never say he’s unhappy with what he’s got, and he tells me most days how beautiful he thinks I am. The problem is how I feel about how I look. I don’t think I can accept a compliment on the 364 days that I feel rough, but after obsessively considering my look for Christmas, if I get it right then I might just be able to accept a kind word or two. And, even better, we might get a family photo that I can finally feel proud to put on the wall.
My final Christmas obsession has been with me for a long time. It’s about remembering, it’s about memories of those no longer with us and it’s about recalling those memories at a particular time on Christmas Day.
From the day she lost her own mother, my mum would toast to absent friends. At the time I didn’t understand why she found it so emotional, but I always joined in and I always understood the significance. Since she’s passed the importance of acknowledging absent friends is a part of the day that I refuse to miss, and my obsession about the need to remember her (and so many others) now stretches beyond Christmas Day and into the weeks and months before Christmas. Every year I make a posey of flowers that my partner takes to our local crematorium. Every year we release balloons in memory of our first daughter. Every year I write poetry and stories in my private journal as if they’re letters to the people that I miss.
In the past, I noticed many people felt that my need to “communicate “with people that have long gone was, maybe, “abnormal “. I get that it’s morbid, I get that most people want to celebrate at Christmas, to focus on fun and be “merry”. Gor me, grief has become as much a part of Christmas as brussel sprouts and Christmas pudding.
Don’t worry – the depressive talk ends here.
So, as always, sat on the toilet earlier today, I wondered how I solve my compulsion to obsess about these things and make life a bit less rigid and dull for my family. And this is where I find a kinship with those who do have OCD , even though I know some of my obsessions would be better left behind, I struggle to stop them.
I’m not sure what I think will happen if I fail, but in my head this is a “ failure is not an option“ situation.
Instead of fixing what I can’t fix right now, I’ve decided to inject fun around the rigidity. So this year I’ve adopted the random idea of the pickle present. Many of you will know of the German/American Christmas tradition – you hide a pickle ornament somewhere on the tree, make it difficult to find, and then surprise your guests by telling them the person who finds it gets an extra gift. Sounds expensive doesn’t it? In reality I’m going to reuse a gift out of our daughter’s stocking and turn the finding of the pickle into the start of a Christmas day treasure hunt. My only expense was a £3 pickle ornament(thank you Amazon), but it’s a £3 tradition that will go on for many years. My biggest concern (and biggest struggle) is going to be finding treasure hunt clue locations within our home that change each year. I’m even going to use some of the crap wrapping paper from the loft to wrap the pickle prize. It’s a small task but it will add fun to the afternoon boredom that we all feel when the grown-ups are falling asleep with full bellies.
It doesn’t stop there. I started looking for gaps in my decoration, so my perfect designs could remain, but my daughter still felt like she’s involved in making the house look different. Of course she decorated the tree with me, but the decorations were all made by and chosen by me and, like most kids, she found the whole thing very exciting. However, hearing me say “spread them out!” repeatedly probably got tiring. My cheap solution for this (and another solution that can be reused year after year) is Window decals. The glass around our home is decorative real estate that I don’t touch, so why not fill it with something that my daughter finds thrilling? Once again, Amazon came good, and on Black Friday, we chose a pack of eight sheets of reusable window, stickers for less than £3. Rudolph is now on her window and she chose stickers for every other window around the house – it’s the first thing she shows people when they come round.
Finally, I wondered how I reduce my fixation on how I look. I reckon if I could solve that problem for every self-consciois human on the planet, I’d win the Nobel peace prize. It’s incredibly hard to be happy with whats staring back at you in the mirror. Christmas day Glam remains as rigid as ever. Despite the fatigue it causes, I love feeling proud when I stagger out of the bedroom with my walking stick in a floaty dress, with eye make-up that’s on point. But for the days around Christmas Day. I have promised my family that I will spend my time in slouchy, comfy, cosy, loungewear and pyjamas, the same as everyone else. Thankfully I already own plenty of them.
I feel very lucky that somehow, I’ve managed to avoid the most difficult traits of OCD. As I mentioned earlier I know for some people triggers and traits can be life limiting. It’s a serious diagnosis that I’d never downplay. Every now and then I get a window into the life of someone with extreme OCD and thank my lucky stars that I can find workarounds and ways of managing my own compulsions.
For more information on OCD or for helping and advice on any mental health issue. You can find more information on my mental health and suicide prevention support lines page on this website.
Thanks for visiting and have a Merry Christmas.
Creative Steph 