Happy Holidays Howard Hughes

Family
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I am now divorced and have been for over 12 years. My now ex husband, father of my 2 children was finally to a pdoc and diagnosed with OCD and the personality disorder OCPD both. I’ve come to learn that the associated delusions fall under psychosis or Sz . This has torn my 2 girls and I apart because even though they are in their 20s now, they can’t recognize the odd behavior and delusions like I can. Some of his common delusions are

Fear of germs, with hand washing until the skin comes off

Chronic masturbation, 10 hours a week of porn usage, always catching and inspecting semen in his hand

Compulsive cleaning and ordering items, everything was washed multiple times and placed into drawers and closets in a specific order, I was not to tough anything

Cannot use a public restroom, if you do, you must shower immediately

Hoarding and spending, collecting items, useless sometimes in complete sets, like ordering every book on woodworking he could find, by the set, even though all the sets contained duplicate information

Total control freak, would have to know my location and activities every second

I can go on and on about the pain this has caused me. I read mothers laments here on just the Sz, and I wanted to let everyone know I can relate to all the care a mentally ill person requires. I am happier now, but I feel like I’ve lost my 2 adult daughters to his manipulative madness, and I try not to be too sad over it.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to cope better, I’m all ears.

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All you can really do is try to forgive and try to forget. Maybe you can talk to your daughters and explain to them what it was like for you and the pain that you felt and feel because of everything that you went through. Tell them how difficult everything was for you trying to be a loving wife and mother througout all of the madness and how alone you felt. I think that they can empathize with you if you talk to them and be honest with them. Later you can do things together and try to bond with each other more as they accept you and the situation of their father’s condition and what he’s really like.

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DBT has helped me immensely. I can’t say enough good about the tools it has given me to cope with my emotions and process my feelings. One of the lessons it teaches is “radical acceptance” sounds simple enough but surprisingly much of our population has a hard time dealing with the true reality a present moment in time without looking backward or forward. I never realized it until I applied it to myself. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): Definition, Techniques, and Efficacy