Confessions of a Cleanaholic

Never leave your bedroom till your bed is made. Why is that crease in the blanket there… it wasn’t there this morning – someone’s been in my room. What else did they touch!?

Don’t press the lift buttons using your fingers – use your house keys. Don’t use your bare fingers to punch in the numbers in the ATM, use the tip of your fingernail and quickly disinfect it with hand sanitizer after.

Always arrange your clothes from light to dark, same goes for everything else – there MUST always be some form of order in your arrangements.

 Source

Disciplined? Maybe.

Obsessive-compulsive? Perhaps.

Tiring and cumbersome? Very much so. 

But I guess my case can be considered quite mild, if you bothered to trawl through the Internet and read on about even more flabbergasting obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) behaviour.

Nonetheless, I still get mocked by those around me – calling me a freak, obsessive, germophobe, leceh, ma fan - anything bad that’s related to having that need to have everything in order so that you don’t go into a panic attack and start hyperventilating. But really, is it that bad?

If I had to put a positive spin to my obsessive-compulsive behaviour, it’ll be – I tend to obsess about perfection and feeling perfect. I have found that I give up easily when I am trying something new. I think it is because when you first try something it obviously is going to be far from perfect, so I tend to associate trying with failing. The one thing that my OCD has taught me is to have grace for myself. Allow myself to not feel OK but to not let it consume me.  It has helped me stick to certain self-disciplines.

Source

On the flipside, there’s a completely opposite trait of those with OCD – often shown through a symptom called “hoarding”. I’m sure many of us witnessed the magnificent sight of flying cockroaches during the cleaning out of a particular 3-room unit in Eunos Crescent. The wife was said to be a compulsive hoarder, who, according to the husband, brought home 2-3 bags of stuff every day, which became much worse about five years ago. Now, you do the Maths. 2-3 bags each day, for 5 years. 

That’s about 5,000 bags of stuff in one 3-room unit. Things got so bad that these roaches started “moving” into the home of their next door neighbour.  So when some kind souls heard of the plight of this couple – they did what anyone else wouldn’t think of doing. They stepped forward to help. They offered to clear out the unit so that these couple can live in a clean, liveable home.

The sad thing is this is not necessarily “news” to us anymore. Over the years, we’ve heard of several other similar scenarios happening throughout our sunny little island. Perhaps, they hoard because they are sentimental – or feel that they may find some use for the things that they keep. Perhaps, they’ve wanted that one particular item for the longest time and found it discarded among someone’s thrown out junk. 

Source

So, what can we, as normal everyday superheroes, do?

1) Approach them and get to know them better. Only when there’s that trust established, could we even think of suggesting to them that they may need help!

2) Do it the good, old ground-up way – offer to volunteer your assistance in clearing out the unit. More often than not, they do not know where or how to start.

3) If things are getting out of hand, ask the authorities for help. A new task force was set up in late 2014 led by the Ministry of National Development and involved the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Social and Family Development, the police, the Housing Board, Singapore Civil Defence Force, National Environment Agency (NEA) and People’s Association. Also involved is the Institute of Mental Health, because hoarding can be a symptom of obsessive compulsive disorder or dementia. For compulsive cases, the HDB will work with social workers, grassroots leaders and the SCDF to provide counselling and help. [Source]

We all have our issues – big or small. But regardless, knowing that we have someone to turn to or an outlet to seek help from, we can get through it one small step at a time.

OK, I need to go sharpen and re-arrange all my (already sharpened and neatly stacked) 2B pencils now. Taa~

Source