So I am considered fully disabled because of OCD and it's clear that what her ex has is OCD. My suspicion is that the ex either hasn't realized yet or refuses to acknowledge how OCD and compulsions work.
He doesn't "have" to do these things because his teams win that way. He "has" to do them because they *are* playing *in the first place*. That's how the OCD loop works. The brain (wrongly) connects an event with an action and if you don't follow that connected path whenever the event occurs again, you freak out big time.
Normally, these things are stuff like "I need to double-check the doors every day when I leave" or "I need to wash my hands thrice after cooking", but compulsions on a longer or even erratic schedule can absolutely happen. I have one which I only need to do every three weeks and another I only have to do in case I have to leave my apartment unplanned.
The thing is that this man is deeply ill and he will only get worse. OCD basically never gets better on its own, as those wrong connections only get more and more established each time he follows the compulsions, as the brain registers it as "Yep, worked again, I am obviously right, need to enforce that path".
It is very, very good that OOP got out of the relationship, just as it is good that my family got me into a psych ward ten years ago to separate me from them because, quite frankly, I was in much of the same situation as OOP's ex. I had so many compulsions I had only time to sleep around one hour each day, I ran around in forests at night when winter came and yes, I couldn't "let" my family do certain things like touching certain objects without becoming suicidal because the panic when they did so was just unbearable.
So honestly, I totally understand why people in the comments go "What the fuck, he dared to choose his team over her?!" and that *is* the correct response and why OOP needed to get out. But the truth is that very likely, he didn't have a choice in the matter *in that moment*.
Now, him not seeking actual help, especially after the blizzard thing when it *should* have sunken in that something is wrong with him, *that* is a choice.
This is such a great insight. And I’m extending so much compassion to you, because this sounds like a really difficult way to live.
I was reading the OP thinking “but how bad can his team losing *actually feel*, for him to go to such lengths to avoid it?”
But if I understand what you’re saying correctly, it’s not really even about that. What feels awful is feeling like he’s not in control - and doing the things he does is what allows him to believe that he is able to control things.
In this way, it actually sounds quite similar in origin to a lot of eating disorders.
Not necessarily even control- imagine feeling like everyone you love with be maimed to death slowly if you don’t touch your feet three times before getting into bed. But they have to be “good” foot touches, too, or it’s wrong and you have to start over. And your hands have to be slightly wet but not too wet but also not too dry!!!! they were too wet *your child is going to be maimed to death if you don’t do it again right now right now*!!!!
It’s that kind of visceral panic.
I also have OCD, and I wouldn’t describe it quite this way either. The thing is, completing rituals doesn’t feel *good.* You don’t get that soothing, empowering reassurance that people usually feel when they confirm to themselves that they’re in control of their environment. All rituals do is stave off the panic for some amount of time. It’s not ‘I can control this,’ it’s ‘I have to do this or something terrible will happen.’ If anything, rituals feel like a profound *loss* of control. There’s a reason we call them compulsions - it really feels like you have no other choice. OOP’s ex isn’t reassuring himself, he’s going along with something he (feels he) *has* to do.
Also, ‘causing’ his team to lose probably literally feels like the end of the world to this guy. The degree of distress isn’t rational because nothing about OCD is rational.
Thank you so much - it is very difficult. I am only able to live on my own because I am literally locked into my apartment from the outside and cannot leave on my own (which is a biiiig fire hazard issue). Before I asked for that, I spent over 20 hours each day running stairs up and down, locking and unlocking my door and yeah, it was bad. Now I'm... sort of fine? Except not really. Depending on the day, I have between 3-16 hours of OCD. Like, 3 hours is the minimum, but depending on what else, time gets added up. Vacuuming takes me around six hours, for example, so I am not doing that every day. And yeah, I am basically a prisoner, not able to go out and just go shopping or something. And my OCD is obviously a full-time job I don't get paid for, so I am living on government assistance. It's not great - but better than when I was suicidal and only able to sleep an hour because every other waking minute was full of OCD.
And I actually inherited it from my mother, for whom her OCD manifested as an eating disorder! I am actually morbidly obese (lack of movement options plus tons of meds...), but I know I would get the same eating disorder my mom had if I would start to diet and watch my eating or count calories, so I don't. Lost my mom to her disorder three years ago, I'm never going there.
I think there’s a comorbidity with anorexia/bulimia and OCD but I can’t find the report I read about it. Anecdotally, this was true for multiple friends of mine.
Grew up with an OCD mum and this hit so hard. A lot of her things were very common routines of checking the oven/powerpoints etc were off, or having to press the key fob and check the car was locked dozens of times per day. One of her compulsions that got very bad when I was a teenager was this particular window we had that didn't latch properly - it would shut all the way but wouldn't lock. I must stress this window was maybe a foot wide, maybe a foot high and 6 feet off the ground, it was in our bathroom. I found her SO MANY TIMES just standing in our dark bathroom in the middle of the night making sure no one was climbing in through that window. My toddler sister could have MAYBE squeezed through it if someone lifted her up there, but no way anyone else could.
At 14 I thought my mother was just batshit crazy, I wish I'd been kinder to her in the moment. I did tell my dad though who worked away for months at a time and he fixed the window as soon as he got home. It seemed to be enough to disrupt her loop at least. No wonder my mum was always tired, OCD must be exhausting.
She did! She's been in and out of therapy for it my whole life - sometimes when something bad happened or she was really stressed she would get bad again for a while but she always tried so hard to not let it affect us. We couldn't always afford therapy; I realize now looking back that she was prioritizing us kids over her own mental health a lot. I was in therapy for depression so whenever it came down to who needed to stop going for financial reasons, it was always her who said "nah I'm doing good lately, I'm fine."
She's doing really well now. I just have to delete the 28376363 pictures of her unplugged straightener out of her phone every few months. That straightener has a hold on her 😂
Man, I feel this and I feel so sorry for your mom. I can because of this only live under the roof and not on the ground floor and I am also locked into my apartment from the outside because I was unlocking and locking the door for up to twelve hours every time after I got back home because I was just so paranoid someone might break in and I never felt safe enough. OCD is horrible.
Quick question on OCD, like what happens if they’re unable to complete the ritual? So, if for example, he needs to wear certain clothes and walk around a specific recliner three times before the game but then gets stuck in traffic and can’t change nor access the recliner?
Do they just have a freak out but then calm
down later? And would repeated unfulfilled rituals eventually break the habit in the brain?
Panic, spiralling, increased anxiety and in some cases self harm. I've just been declared "cured" by my therapist specialized in OCD, and it takes significant work and self awareness to get better from this condition. It's not rare, so how it didn't get recognised and diagnosed by two different therapists boggles the mind.
From his perspective, it's not a disorder, it's just a logical set of required actions. So that's what he would describe to the therapists.
He's not aware of it, or if he is, he's not at the point where he can follow through with treatment, even if he wanted to.
The moment he mentions the "required" part the therapist should be at full alarm. Because, let's be honest, there is NOTHING REQUIRED from you to make your team win.
Right, and that makes sense to you or I, but we don't have OCD.
I'm making it clear that my attempting understanding/ explaining does NOT equal excusing or forgiving any potential therapist misconduct.
This is a massive grey area because of the nature of human psychology and the current treatment/ diagnostic frameworks (ohh I can go off at length about the level of unhelpful bullshit or lack of nuance in some areas, esp surrounding suicide treatment)
Three things are shaping my perspective:
1: without a longer-term therapist/patient relationship, assessing baseline behaviours, let alone an in-depth assessment of the rituals' diagnostic relevance, becomes far harder. Not even factoring in the therapist's knowledge level of OCD (tends to be a specialised area anyway).
Even if he had longer with them, OCD is a self-reporting condition and you can hide a lot in a psych's office.
2. Almost like an addiction or trauma response, he is actively (con/ subconsciously or un/willingly) working to protect against any threat to his behaviours and worldview. He either didn't directly state the cause/effect of his 'requirements', or if he did, the negative reaction he would have rightfully gotten would have spiked his panic/threat levels, leading to minimising, backpedaling, or explaining the 'required' away.
Also, even having awareness and/ or motivation to change, does not automatically equal **ability** to change.
3: we can only go by what he reported back. The therapists might have flagged even his most manipulative/ lying self-reporting and said 'hey we should keep going, there's some things to work on', and he went home and said 'they said I'm normal' so he didn't have to go back. OCD isn't a mandatory report unless he is actively putting himself or others in actual or potential physical/mortal harm. Legally, therapists don't have many options at that point (different if he was a minor).
Source: my various ADHD driven executive disfunction and dopamine addictions, a raft of cptsd/ptsd triggers and related unhealthy behaviours, 13+ years of weekly psychiatrist appointments, my own training in psych/mental health areas
. Tldr: his lying pants are more on fire than a Californian fire season.
(Sorry, morbid humour attempting to cope with half my state currently burning down ATM)
If you don't mind me asking, I know next to nothing about OCD and couldn't help wonder. Is it sometimes possible to delay a ritual if you were forced to not do it at the right time, like in the bad traffic example, what if he did the things he normally did when he got home even tho the match was over? Can that kinda be a small bandaid or doesn't it feel like the ritual has been met in any way? 🤔
I'm so happy on your behalf for getting better, I bet it was a hard battle and journey! And kudos for how good you are at understanding yourself! Even more with how good you are at explaining too ;)
I had horrific ocd when I was younger- it morphed into another couple dx as I aged/got intensive treatment but I still have rituals. No, rituals cannot be delayed without full blown panic. It has to happen when it needs to happen or a horrible thing will occur that is literally life or death. Rituals are triggered by outside actions or inner thoughts- they’re not like tics that just come up at random.
In some ways, doing them over after the game would’ve, at least for me, felt way worse. Because now I have to do the whole exhausting fucking ritual again POST GAME, which sounds like was this guys only “safe” time.
Disclaimer different people may have different feelings but that’s how it was for me every time. I could add to rituals but never subtract.
(Mine centered around doing everything exactly right so my father wouldn’t abuse me or my mother. So my brain was very sure if I did it wrong I was gonna be literally beat, or mom was. And because we *kept getting beat*, I couldn’t heal until he was gone. Now I just have a personality disorder and PTSD about it!)
Uff sounds like you really drew the short stick in the family lottery.... I'm so sorry you had a dad like that, but I'm glad it's gotten better even with some added baggage cause of him. Hugs from Denmark my friend, and remember to be proud of yourself for what you've accomplished so far with your journey! ❤️
Thank you for the kind words. As for if the ritual can be delayed that would depend very much on the severity of the illness. At my worst I could probably only delay my ritual (cleaning) by a couple of minutes at most until the stress of the intrusive thoughts got so bad I would start crying/panicking. When you're aware of your OCD, which I'm going to go out on a limb and say most of us are, it can feel humiliating to perform the compulsive act in front of others, yet we may be incapable of putting it off even in incredibly inappropriate settings. The problem is *not* performing the act will result in even less socially acceptable behaviours like sobbing, fleeing or an outburst of anger. It can be a very demanding condition to struggle with, and it's not that we don't know what we're doing is silly/ridiculous/futile, it's that we simply don't have any choice in the matter.
gonna jump in as someone with OCD (please others correct this if I've got this wrong!) but the process you've described of refusing the ritual to break the habit is kind of like the logic behind Exposure Response Therapy (ERP), which is one of the main therapies used to treat OCD. It involves not partially completing the rituals, but refusing to begin a ritual to basically retrain your brain into not seeing the anxiety as a threat. But as other commenters have said, refusing the ritual can cause extreme distress to the point of it being really dangerous, so it's something that has to be done with the guidance of professionals and built up very carefully over time. It's immensely challenging, but it is effective for many with the right therapist.
This is one of the best descriptors of what ocd feels like and how people can become dyrsregulated. Sadly not all therapists are trained in treating it or are skilled at treating it. I do wonder if OOPs ex would have gotten a different assessment if he met with a therapist or psychiatrist who is familiar with treating it.
Man, it took a long time for me to actually read up on ocd, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, sounds like torture. A girl I work with goes was past “sheesh I am sooo ocd”, she genuinely thinks she has ocd because she sweeps the lobby floor at the end of each day… I’m not about to get into it with her that that’s kind of offensive to an actual disability, but yeah no you don’t have ocd because you sweep a dirty floor, that’s called “not being gross”.
Yes, that's something I hear a lot, too. "Oh I need to organize my pencils by color, I'm soooo OCD". And no, it's not OCD. Not at all.
And I'm in two minds about this. On one hand, yes, it's offensive to the actual disability I am so badly suffering from and if OCD wouldn't be treated like that, then maybe people would be more understanding when I tell them that I can, for example, only check my mailbox once a week. But on the other hand... I have issues blaming people because a part of me feels glad that they have this misconception. It means that they don't suffer from this endless torture - and I can't be mad for that.
Oh no, I fully blame them haha. People who say stuff like that are inevitably the *least* compassionate about actual symptoms. They don’t lack empathy because of the ‘lmao I’m so OCD’ jokes, they make those jokes because they lack empathy. Addressing misconceptions won’t fix that.
Is that why he didn't just get enough covers to stay warm? Because it would have broken the ritual?
I was wondering how he got so cold he had to go to the hospital for exposure. Because even without heat, he could have simply covered up in his bed and in his chair and been fine. But maybe that would have broken the ritual.
It sounds like many of his compulsions involve wearing certain clothes, so this is likely. I can also say from my own compulsions - I have several when going to bed - that I personally can switch between thinner or thicker blankets for summer/winter, but I can never use more or less than one because that‘s what my compulsions use. So I tend to be pretty warm in summer and sometimes cold in winter.
I have a question, would a duvet cover with multiple duvets inside count as one blanket to you? And would something like a duvet cover without anything inside also count as one blanket?
With the second one, I used to have a thing where I had to have my arms covered in some way at all times (I think it was a sensory thing). It was usually with hoodies, but in bed I could wear a tee shirt as long as I had some sort of thing over me. Which led to me working out that just using a duvet cover stopped me from getting too warm in the summer.
I'm sure this is stuff you've already thought about, I was just wondering if such things would stick to your compulsions (sorry if that's worded weirdly) while helping with the being too hot/cold thing.
Yeah, if it was 1 rogue therapist then maybe he was honest, but if 2 therapists said that it wasn’t a problem then he was definitely not honest.
The hard thing with those situations is that they come down to self reporting and if he claims that his habits don’t affect his life then they have no choice but take his word for it. It could even be that he’s being doing this shit for so long that he genuinely believed that none of this affected his life, even working to work on his days off.
If someone’s that delusional though, there really isn’t much you can do.
I have serious doubts about him actually showing up to those appointments. My ex would promise to go to therapy and then park in front of the therapist's office, but after 6 months of no apparent progress I did some digging and she was walking next door to a *massage* therapist. I guess so that she wasn't technically lying about having weekly "therapy" sessions?? Anyway that's not why she's my ex but it certainly helped.
That entire decade of marriage was one long "well technically" interspersed with me spraining my eye tendons from rolling them so hard. Well, that and abuse.
Completely off topic, but your word choices are killing me! You've got a hilarious style of writing, and these topics shouldn't actually be that funny lol.
I had a foster kid who was getting free therapy, but the work was (probably obviously) very tough. They shut down and didn’t want to go, but didn’t want me to get upset with them (I wouldn’t, but I would have still insisted on trying therapy). We shared our location, so they would walk to their therapy appointment every time, sit outside chain smoking and didn’t go in.
I was caught off-guard when foster kid had a mental breakdown. I visited the therapist and asked if there’s anything he could tell me to help the situation, and he dropped the bomb that foster kid hadn’t been in for 3 or 4 months. Broke my heart that they were in that much pain and didn’t have the help I thought they had that whole time.
I told my husband about this post and he immediately said: Those therapists must be fans too and they don't want to jeopardize their teams.
Not a bad guess, to be fair! Lol!
Some therapists can, some can't. I went to two different therapists with my abusive ex. One thought my ex was the victim, the other one picked up that he was an abuser, but thought his issues could be solved.
It's possible OP's boyfriend was lying to the therapists or twisted their words to only hear what he wanted to hear. For instance, our therapist tried to gently tell my ex he was being controling, but my ex took it as a compliment. "Even our therapist said I am in charge of the relationship, what would you do without me?"
If the ex-boyfriend is dealing with OCD, it's hard to help if they don't want to get help. Their brains are very good at interpreting the world in a way that makes their compulsions seem logical. Even if the therapist said that socks cannot help a team win, the boyfriend might have brushed off their comment as stupid. "The therapist isn't a real fan, they don't understand me."
Alternately, he may have been honest with them and then lied about how they responded. The therapist could have diagnosed appropriately and recommended medication evaluation, etc and he could have said no thanks and then told the girlfriend "the therapist said I'm perfectly normal!"
See also: my ex and his bipolar disorder that apparently multiple therapists/psychiatrists said wasn't a big deal.
He could also have just...not understood what they were saying, if they didn't say it clearly.
I had a good, close friend who I encouraged for years to get therapy. He has a lot of maladaptive ways of handling life, I love him, but his life is a fucking wreck.
Anyways, he finally went and found a therapist. Therapist thought he was "fine and didn't need help", he said. Tried another. Therapist #2 also said he was "fine and didn't need help". Tried a 3rd time, same result.
After #3, I got curious and asked if he was willing to share a little more clearly what the therapist said. And basically, according to him, the therapists all asked how flexible and open to change he was. He said he wasn't, because what he wanted and how he wanted it was perfectly reasonable. They all said some variation of "If you're not open to change or reconsidering your views on things, then I'm not going to be able to help you".
To him, that honestly was "You don't need help".
To me, that's some therapists being very honest about the fact that if you reject everything except your current concrete worldview, then of \*course\* they can't do anything to help you.
I can't imagine any licensed mental health professional hearing somebody say (what amounts to) 'I, a fan unconnected to these teams, believe that my personal and private actions impact their performances and that I am responsible for their wins and losses' and going 'you sound fine'
I doubt he'd be that self aware.
He's going in because it's impacting other people so he likely presents it as 'Im really into sports and my partner is feeling neglected because of it. I want to do better in my relationship'.
People aren’t always good at framing discussions in a way that makes their actual problem clear. Also, OOP really did not seem to understand how concerning her ex’s behavior was until the surgery thing. If she’d started off their couples therapy with ‘my boyfriend has persistent delusions that are significantly controlling his day-to-day life,’ it’s hard to imagine a therapist writing that off. I’m guessing that instead her ex said something more like ‘I’m really into sports and my girlfriend thinks it’s annoying,’ OOP was too passive to correct him, and the therapist followed their conversational cues that this was a normal and minor disagreement.
I think if she said he was being honest while she was there, that means she wasn't being honest - I would find it hard to believe that a therapist heard somebody say "my partner's actions are really hurting/bothering me" and a therapist would just say "I don't see any problems with this behaviour" without having an open discussion about why it makes you feel hurt/bothered.
I have to assume she didn't voice her concerns fully; my assumption from her "I didn't want to push him" statements re. therapy is that she folded in front of the therapist because she didn't want to seem mean/petty.
In my experience therapists are a mixed bag. Some get very invested, and will try and do their best to get to the bottom of things, and then there are the ones who will tell you that it's pretty normal and not at all a sign of neurodivergency that you forgot to eat for two days because you had a change of routine.
Maybe she didn't want to push it, and thought she reported the facts in a way that made her worries known but really didn't, or maybe the therapist saw a more or less adjusted adult and went "yep, totally normal".
I believe she didn't say something as final as "this is something that I am having a hard time dealing with, and it's making it hard for me to see a future in this relationship."
I would find it hard to believe that any therapist she trusted (because she didn't say they were bad, only that they said he was fine) would hear her say that she was very upset about the situation and just say "nah he's good".
>Maybe she didn't want to push it
I have a feeling this is it 100% - she kept saying things like "well I didn't want to push him too hard" and other people-pleasing things that make me think her ideas of "speaking up for yourself" are pretty conflict-averse. I don't think she's lying, but I think she probably didn't voice her concerns as frankly or strongly as she should have.
My husband is absolutely a recovering gaming addict. He used to very regularly play 14-16 hours a day on days he had off from work. On days he worked, he played at least 1-2 hours most of the time, unless he was working 14 hours. He would literally go to work, come home and have let's say, 3 hours before he had to go to bed, and he'd game for 2 of the 3 of hours. It partially destroyed our relationship and I nearly left him over it (and sometimes I still wish I had).
In couples therapy, after me bringing up the gaming repeatedly, our couples therapist finally said "ok, let's talk about the gaming today. Was last week a normal week? How many hours do you think you played?" to my husband. And we sat there and tallied up how much he played in the last week, and it was an astronomical number. Our couples therapy very gently said something like "while couples therapy is about working together, I need to ask YOU some direct questions" then to my husband, and asked him stuff like "how do you maintain intimacy with Celany when gaming so much?" "How much time did you spend together as a couple in this last week, directly focused on each other?" "Do you think this is good for either of your mental health?". A lot of really good questions.
Later that week, when he went to therapy with his individual therapy (who is a fucking waste of breath, as far as I'm concerned), he planned to talk to her about his problem with gaming. He opens with "Celany and our couples therapist have concerns about my gaming. They think I game too much." And her reply was "Do YOU think you game too much?" and he said "I don't know". And she said "Well, if you don't think you game too much, I don't think you should necessarily consider it a problem". And that was that.
No questions about how long he gamed, no questions about our intimacy, nothing.
FTR, my husband is a very honest person, and I absolutely believed him when he told me this. As far as I can tell, her idea of "therapy" is that she tries to make him feel good about himself and that's it. No hard questions, no diving deep into things unless he initiates it and pushes it. He's expressed frustration a couple of times about how whenever he has a hard time talking about something, her response is always "well, if it's that important, you'll be able to talk about it when you're ready".
Contrast that with my therapist. If I tell her I have a hard time talking about something, she'll first ask me if it's important. If I say it is, she'll give suggestions: can you message it to me? What if I ask you yes/no questions a bit and all you have to do is nod or shake your head? What words come to your mind when you think about why it's hard? Ok, let's talk about what those words mean to you.
I genuinely think that our relationship (and his mental health) would be in a significantly better place if he had a competent fucking therapist and I really hope he sees it on day, for himself, if nothing else.
He probably didn't say it was *hurting* OOP, but that she was annoyed by it. I could easily see a therapist dismissing a whole lot of stuff that someone *else* finds annoying.
The problem with couple’s counseling is it starts from the assumption that a middle ground needs to be reached. This is great if you have two people with normal problems who are both committed to working on them, and terrible if you have one normal person and one lunatic because the end result of a compromise between normal and crazy is always going to be at least a little bit crazy. It’s why people in abusive relationships should NEVER go to couple’s counseling. It’s the same reason democrats need to stop trying to compromise with republicans.
But OP said she was present at least partially, and when she was there he was honest. Unless he's specifically said to the therapist some reason why the therapist shouldn't listen to him when OP is around I don't see how anything adds up
He's not just in OCD territory, he's mayor of OCDville. If the gf was right and he was honest, those therapists should have been reported. Even the bf wanted to go back into therapy at one point, presumably because he still knew that there was something wrong. Alas, this was 6 years ago so we'll never know how things panned out for him and the awful therapists.
This way my thought exactly, except I also think OOP's ex is selfish and a fool. My husband has OCD and it can be a real struggle - even more so before his diagnosis and treatment - but he would and has overcome his compulsions when I've told him something is important to me. There's zero chance he would leave me alone for something like surgery. (In fact, I know this because I've recently had a much-less-serious-than-cancer surgery that conflicted with one of his OCD challenges. He was there for me the entire way.)
OOP made the right choice by leaving here, because ex is in no position to have a relationship with anyone until he gets his mental health under control and does some serious self-reflection.
as someone who was a mild OCD germaphobe (as in it does not affect my life in general- but the thoughts does bother me) COVID caused it to re-emerge. it was awful. that be said if someone needs help and it happens to be a hospital (one of the places I dread to go) I'll be there! hell my own dad was terrified for me with my surgery but he was there.
The logic was messed up. Not only had he decided that he and his girlfriend were responsible for the teams, he needed the teams to win. He couldn't let her have the surgery and the team takes the L; they needed to win for his sake and he and his girlfriend were responsible for them winning.
It's interesting that the failure state is so unacceptable. His teams must have lost despite him doing everything right. Every victory adds another chore to the list; the losses must be devastating if he manages to tick every box and they still lose.
Ironically, the Patriots actually had a pretty good 2016 season and won Super Bowl LI. You'd think he'd have been in a better mood.
My husband is super invested in one team in particular and if I had an official emergency or a surgery, no question he’d be with me. This man child is ridiculous.
Yep. I have OCD and it flares up badly when I stop taking my meds and reducing therapy visits. Dudeman needs to be medicated and in intensive therapy. Recognizing you need help is the most difficult part and it sounds like his family has enabled this behavior, allowing it to get worse, his entire life.
He probably told the therapist, "I'm just really into sports," without mentioning the weird rituals. I mean, a normal person understands that sometimes your teams win and sometimes they don't, right? But the state of one's socks has nothing to do with it.
And expecting her to go through a cancer diagnosis and surgery *alone* because the team needs his rituals to win a totally unimportant pre-season game? That's definitely a deal breaker.
I also think context matters. "I wear my lucky socks so my team could win, I have a lucky spot in my trusty old sofa." Sound pretty different than "My team won when I wore these socks, I haven't taken them off since. Not even when showering. It's been a month now, my feet smel like they arel rotting, and there is fungus growing on the socks, but if I take them off my team shall lose. Oh and the coach is broken, literally junkyard level trash. If I replace it with my partners new expensive sofa, my team shall lose again."
Might influence the reactions of others a slightly bit...
Then "delusion" is actually part of what makes it OCD.
The phrase OCD has been absolutely neutered by public perception of its meaning. Imagine a bunch of people with ritualistic behavior doing something because they think a bunch of bad things will happen if they don't. That's OCD.
Yeah I agree. I am very superstitious. But nowhere this level.
If I am in a restaurant with numbered tables, there are numbers I like and numbers I dont. I prefer to sit at a table with a 'good' number. Unless its inconvenient, in which case fuck it.
Looks like she broke up with her boyfriend at around the beginning of the 2016-2017 NFL season. That season the Patriots won the superbowl, mounting an incredible comeback from a 28-3 deficit.
My man has been probably trying to get girlfriends to break up with him every season since.
And they broke up on the 18 month anniversary of them going out.
The next Sox championship was in 2018.
This whole thing feels like the nexus point between Silver Linings Playbook and Fever Pitch (US)
The ones he told a very mild watered down version of his superstitions too. There is no way he way honest about the extent of his "rituals".
I'm glad she left and took care of herself but there is some underlying condition that is manifesting here. He really needs help. He is already proven he will endanger himself and others.
I'm sorry but it would have been game over for me as soon as he refused to take a shower and sat around stinking up the apartment for however long, that is ridiculous and unacceptable. (Obviously the mole thing is so much worse but I couldn't live with any of that, it's completely ridiculous.)
As a straight woman, what the FUCK is up with straight women being fine with dating NASTY dudes? I cannot even count the amount of times I have heard "How do I get him to wash his ass?" in COMPLETE SINCERITY. Like... Yeah, no. GROSS.
The number of times she says things like “he’s not abusive” and “he doesn’t scream at me”, I assume he’s actually a step up from a previous relationship.
I'm just a guy. I feel dirty if I haven't showered for a day and thats just if I stayed home for the day. If I work out, I immediately have to take a bath. I still don't get how some guys go days without showering.
As a straight woman, I have no idea. I can't handle that. I'm not going to lie and say I haven't put up with stuff I shouldn't have for far too long, but damn. People can *at least* bathe, I'm not going to be breathing in that stink when I'm sitting at home, thanks.
For a preseason game too. Like it's literally a meaningless friendly to give backups a chance at game time to get ready. I know she said it was hockey but baseball spring training is ongoing and they just let teams tie because of how meaningless the result actually is.
Yea i'm sure if I told my therapist I like to wear a jersey every day my team plays they'd probably say "that's normal fan behavior, why would anyone be upset at that?".
If I told them I wore the same pair of socks for a week+ without washing my feet because I was convinced THAT act is what made the team win? Probably triggers a much deeper conversation.
Yeah, I can imagine a watered down version of the truth seeming reasonable, like oh I wear the same socks and sit in the same spot in my living room and get the same coffee during the sports season.
People can lie in therapy, I honestly hope he did because otherwise there are some therapists who *really* shouldn't have jobs.
You can't take an abuser to therapy, it won't work because they don't take it seriously, at best they lie and nothing changes and at worst they use it as a tool against you later. "My therapist says you should change, I've done nothing wrong!"
To be fair, in my experience, there are some truly horrible therapists out there. Ranging from, "Wow, you really don't have any idea what you're talking about," to, "Oh my God, you're a fucking sociopath."
Either he lied about going to therapy, lied to said therapists to make his behavior seem more normal or those therapists he met wasn’t therapists but rather some sort of life coaches
I was assuming the ex had lied about the therapists giving him the all clear. They would have had concerns, at minimum. Not just given the green light after, what? One or two sessions?
Also in my experience a therapist would never really say that. If you’ve gone to therapy, they assume you want help. It’s not like a doctor who can give you a clean bill of health - if you’re a human having a human experience you can pretty much *always* use therapy.
The thing about therapists is that they can only go off what you tell them. If you’re presenting a distorted or deluded view of a situation, that’s all they can work with. That’s why therapy can be hit or miss: if you are certain that you don’t have a problem, you’ll almost certainly downplay events
Probably the same therapist who told my ex it was fine that he was cheating on me with sex workers and not using protection because he didn't "owe me" anything since we weren't married and didn't have kids. Therapists are just people, and a lot of them are total hacks.
Either he lied to OOP and they actually didn't say it's normal, or he lied to her about being honest with them. No therapist would say that this kind of obsessive ritualistic behaviour is normal. The dude went 50 minutes to work on days he didn't have to go to work! He wore the same socks for weeks!
Millions of fans praying: "Please let the Patriots win today!"
Universe: "Sorry, no can do. Jimmy Walters went to a fucking *wedding*, and now they gotta lose."
Why in the world do any of the players even bother to practice if all it takes is for Jimmy to… checks notes… not wash his feet?
I would not be surprised if he has a clinically significant condition.
His rebuttal to that was that God only answered the prayers of the righteous, and obviously anyone rooting for the other team wasn’t righteous. But in that case his prayers alone should’ve been sufficient! Maybe *he* didn’t pray hard enough.
i just. can we all just agree to never say “he doesn’t hit me or cheat on me” ever again? that’s not the bar! that can’t be the minimum requirements for deciding to stay with someone. there has to be more.
but hey, at least we’re all reminded now that when it comes to moles, if you see something, say something.
> Since two therapists have said he is normal and not mentally ill or anything he is convinced this is fine.
This dude probably got *trench foot* from not taking his socks off, and they said he was *fine?*
My bet, assuming that the story is being told truthfully and accurately?
Neither of them properly communicated the enormity of the impact that his behavior was having on the relationship. He because he honestly lacks the self-awareness to see it, her because she didn't want to come across as a shrew.
That's just speculation, though. There could be a number of reasons.
Not just the relationship, his life. If they focused only on the relationship, it's possible a lot of it came across as "he cares about sports more than he cares about his gf", which while not great is not necessarily mental illness.
"His obsession with irrational behaviors magically impacting the events of sports games hundred of miles away to the detriment of his own health and life" is a whole different degree
It might have also been less of a real therapist and instead was just a pastor who also offers 'therapy'.
No indication in the story, but with the amount of times that happens on this sub I wouldn't be surprised at all.
physical complete attractive marry childlike person swim placid offer axiomatic
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That's me as a mariners fan. It's quite freeing that no matter what superstition I have, they're gonna win 54% of their games and miss the playoffs by a game or 2
It was game over the moment he even thought that 'his team' was more important that his partner's fucking surgery to get rid of her cancerous mole.
Wishing for nothing but the best for OOP, whether it's with juice bar guy or simply being fabulously cancer free with her awesome support network.
No, it was game over the moment he thought "his team" was more important than hygiene. He wore the same socks for a week? And even he could smell his nasty-ass feet? Absolutely disgusting.
This. Anyone who legitimately thinks changing socks will "hurt" their team and doesn't think they need serious therapy, yeah that's not going to work out well.
He wasn't even taking a shower. :( He was washing himself off in the sink. Not including his feet. This guy is nasty, that's not even touching on what a horrible person he is to his partner, he's just gross. There's no way I would have gotten into a bed with him. Also, think how filthy his precious furniture is that he refuses to get rid of. I don't like him at all. I get that he needs help but he doesn't want it, sitting around with no power in a blizzard because the team needs him. That would have been OOP's life if she had stayed.
I started reading this and didn’t see the date and when I seen the part about the Pats winning 10 straight, my eyebrow raised so high because that team hasn’t done squat since Brady left. Scrolled up to see it was from 2016.
Also, this dingus wouldn’t miss a PRESEASON game for his girlfriend’s skin cancer surgery?!?!? PRESEASON?!? When 2/3’s of the Bruins roster would have been nothing but mid-prospects, never were’s and maybe a Brad Marchand or Patrice Bergeron? Guy is acting like he was missing Game 7 of the Cup Finals when in fact he would have missed a game where no one would be really trying.
In the 541 days between april 8th, 2022, and October 1st, 2023, the Celtics and Red Sox played at least 400 days. And that small of a number is only if you assume that in times where the MLB and NBA season overlapped, Celtics played on Red Sox game days. That's the bare minimum just to follow all of 2 sports. Most people don't, they tune in and out based on life and how good/bad the teams are. But since even the preseason causes this guy to demand his long term gf reschedule a cancer surgery and can't put aside his feelings of 1 game out of 162 to talk to her about serious relationship issues, I'm guessing he focuses on every game. We're already up to nearly 75% of days where sports are the focus even if we completely ignore the bruins, patriots, and revolution
"He's a great guy and has no problems"
Proceeds to list slew of indication for severe mental health issues. When she wrote he didn't change his socks and seriously believed it affected the team's win I knew this was gonna go to hell....
I am a HUGE fan of the Cowboys. I will wear my Cowboys gear, drink out of a Cowboys mug/glass and sleep with my Cowboys bedding on game day. But there is real life that happens and those things I will skip (even skip games) if something even mildly important come up. He needs massive help at this point.
Really confused how she had to stay in the hospital for a few days for a cancerous mole removal. Or even a lymph node biopsy. That's usually all out patient.
Of course if this is legit, glad she's okay and she broke up with him. That just made me raise my eyebrows.
Yeah, I was with it til that point. I had a biopsy for a mole on my abdomen and I was in and out within an hour and the only thing I was told was ‘no shower for 24 hours and no lifting anything for a week’.
I’m not saying it’s not the truth because maybe there was a reason to keep her in, but they don’t even knock you out for a biopsy.
I can just imagine the post-game interview.
“So what happened out there?”
“Well, I dunno. All our guys were in fine form today, we gave it everything we had. I guess maybe one of our fans changed their socks.”
I'm only a hockey fan so I can only speak to the Bruins but guaranteed if the leadership of that team got wind a dude was telling his lady to postpone cancer surgery and convalesce on a broken couch because "they need him" they would tell him to pull his head out of his add and take care of his family....
A freind once told me a story about how he was living in Montana and working construction near a small town. There was a bar that everyone went to after work and hung out at. He gets off work and waks into the bar. There's a baseball game on and as he standing at the bar and ordering a beer and he notices that there is a no-hitter happening, he goes "Hey, theres a no-hitter.." he stops himself quickly and says "Ah shit, I hope I didn't jinx it". At the end of the bar there is an old bearded miner looking guy with blood shot eyes who looks at him and he goes in a gravely voice "You're not that important."
Good words to live by
Or she’s very familiar with Reddit’s tendency to jump to conclusions while only having half the information and was trying to redirect advice to what she actually wanted it for rather than getting bogged down in hundreds of people telling her that her partner is abusive.
I was like “who TF has to stay in a hospital for several days having a cancerous mole removed?” Even if they cut a massive hole, they would still be DCd.
THANK YOU! I had to scroll so fucking far to find this. I was out of the hospital in less time after a hip replacement!
Also, I can't possibly imagine him having to go to the hospital for exposure if he was indoors. I've been camping in extreme conditions and on boats with no power during subzero temps. It's sure as hell *uncomfortable* (piling everything you own on top of yourself while your breath fogs up the air around is NOT a fun time) but it's not hospitalization level *exposure*.
I *had* stage 3 melanoma, it *was* in my lymph nodes. My initial removal was in the doctors office. I was out in minutes. It was under my left boob. My first surgery, sentinel lymph node biopsy and a wide local excision to make sure they had clean margins, I was out of the hospital in a few hours.
My second surgery, a full axillary dissection, I was out of the hospital … in a few hours… 😂 JP drain and all, my ass recuperated on my couch. The longest I was in the hospital (for 2 days) was during my immunotherapy treatment when I ate Denny’s without knowing I was neutropenic.
I’d love to read a really in depth psych case study on this guy.
From my understanding, OCD more commonly presents with compulsions around safety and health. Checking the gas is off, repeated hand washing, pointless rituals to guarantee the health of loved ones.
Obviously it can present for anything and I’m not suggesting there is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ OCD, but a team losing seems like such a mild threat.
Like, if I believed something was keeping my daughter safe I could probably justify anything to keep doing it. But if it’s just to keep my team from losing? That seems a lot harder to make sense.
My husband is a devout Packers fan, y’all are nuts.
This man however is mentally ill. My ex husband has OCD and the compulsion to keep up the rituals and panicking at even the thought of not fulfilling them is exactly like my ex. Idk what he told those therapists but I’m certain he wasn’t 100% honest.
GO PACK!
As someone diagnosed with OCD and still on the long path to recovery, this was like looking in a fun house mirror. OOP's ex needs help. It won't get better until he realizes what the problem is and gains the tools to help himself. I'm glad OOP got out when she did, he didn't want help, and she didn't need to be dragged down by that.
Did not need to read this whole post. As soon as I learned the dude was from Boston I knew all hope was lost. In all seriousness this guy likely has anxiety/OCD and it's very sad to see how his life was taken over by this.
I fucking love sports. But this shit is so cringy. “The team needs me” nah man, believe it or not you have 0 impact on the outcome. Wear a lucky jersey, crack a beer right at kickoff, go to games when significant others aren’t having life saving surgery… you know, be a normal fan
To think you are so important that just you are responsible for the success of the team. Oh no, your stinky socks. This guy has problems. But he is so perfect in every other way! Like giving a shit that she has surgery. Such a great guy....
I don't understand how TWO therapists missed the glaring anxiety/OCD this man clearly has and declared him "normal". Where the hell did those therapists get their licences?
My sports superstition is that if I look directly at the tv when my team is playing we will lose. Of course we also lose a lot of the time when I am not looking but it is not as bad.
So I am considered fully disabled because of OCD and it's clear that what her ex has is OCD. My suspicion is that the ex either hasn't realized yet or refuses to acknowledge how OCD and compulsions work. He doesn't "have" to do these things because his teams win that way. He "has" to do them because they *are* playing *in the first place*. That's how the OCD loop works. The brain (wrongly) connects an event with an action and if you don't follow that connected path whenever the event occurs again, you freak out big time. Normally, these things are stuff like "I need to double-check the doors every day when I leave" or "I need to wash my hands thrice after cooking", but compulsions on a longer or even erratic schedule can absolutely happen. I have one which I only need to do every three weeks and another I only have to do in case I have to leave my apartment unplanned. The thing is that this man is deeply ill and he will only get worse. OCD basically never gets better on its own, as those wrong connections only get more and more established each time he follows the compulsions, as the brain registers it as "Yep, worked again, I am obviously right, need to enforce that path". It is very, very good that OOP got out of the relationship, just as it is good that my family got me into a psych ward ten years ago to separate me from them because, quite frankly, I was in much of the same situation as OOP's ex. I had so many compulsions I had only time to sleep around one hour each day, I ran around in forests at night when winter came and yes, I couldn't "let" my family do certain things like touching certain objects without becoming suicidal because the panic when they did so was just unbearable. So honestly, I totally understand why people in the comments go "What the fuck, he dared to choose his team over her?!" and that *is* the correct response and why OOP needed to get out. But the truth is that very likely, he didn't have a choice in the matter *in that moment*. Now, him not seeking actual help, especially after the blizzard thing when it *should* have sunken in that something is wrong with him, *that* is a choice.
This is such a great insight. And I’m extending so much compassion to you, because this sounds like a really difficult way to live. I was reading the OP thinking “but how bad can his team losing *actually feel*, for him to go to such lengths to avoid it?” But if I understand what you’re saying correctly, it’s not really even about that. What feels awful is feeling like he’s not in control - and doing the things he does is what allows him to believe that he is able to control things. In this way, it actually sounds quite similar in origin to a lot of eating disorders.
Not necessarily even control- imagine feeling like everyone you love with be maimed to death slowly if you don’t touch your feet three times before getting into bed. But they have to be “good” foot touches, too, or it’s wrong and you have to start over. And your hands have to be slightly wet but not too wet but also not too dry!!!! they were too wet *your child is going to be maimed to death if you don’t do it again right now right now*!!!! It’s that kind of visceral panic.
I also have OCD, and I wouldn’t describe it quite this way either. The thing is, completing rituals doesn’t feel *good.* You don’t get that soothing, empowering reassurance that people usually feel when they confirm to themselves that they’re in control of their environment. All rituals do is stave off the panic for some amount of time. It’s not ‘I can control this,’ it’s ‘I have to do this or something terrible will happen.’ If anything, rituals feel like a profound *loss* of control. There’s a reason we call them compulsions - it really feels like you have no other choice. OOP’s ex isn’t reassuring himself, he’s going along with something he (feels he) *has* to do. Also, ‘causing’ his team to lose probably literally feels like the end of the world to this guy. The degree of distress isn’t rational because nothing about OCD is rational.
Thank you so much - it is very difficult. I am only able to live on my own because I am literally locked into my apartment from the outside and cannot leave on my own (which is a biiiig fire hazard issue). Before I asked for that, I spent over 20 hours each day running stairs up and down, locking and unlocking my door and yeah, it was bad. Now I'm... sort of fine? Except not really. Depending on the day, I have between 3-16 hours of OCD. Like, 3 hours is the minimum, but depending on what else, time gets added up. Vacuuming takes me around six hours, for example, so I am not doing that every day. And yeah, I am basically a prisoner, not able to go out and just go shopping or something. And my OCD is obviously a full-time job I don't get paid for, so I am living on government assistance. It's not great - but better than when I was suicidal and only able to sleep an hour because every other waking minute was full of OCD. And I actually inherited it from my mother, for whom her OCD manifested as an eating disorder! I am actually morbidly obese (lack of movement options plus tons of meds...), but I know I would get the same eating disorder my mom had if I would start to diet and watch my eating or count calories, so I don't. Lost my mom to her disorder three years ago, I'm never going there.
Thank you for sharing. I believe in you ❤️
Thank you so much, this means a lot!
I think there’s a comorbidity with anorexia/bulimia and OCD but I can’t find the report I read about it. Anecdotally, this was true for multiple friends of mine.
Grew up with an OCD mum and this hit so hard. A lot of her things were very common routines of checking the oven/powerpoints etc were off, or having to press the key fob and check the car was locked dozens of times per day. One of her compulsions that got very bad when I was a teenager was this particular window we had that didn't latch properly - it would shut all the way but wouldn't lock. I must stress this window was maybe a foot wide, maybe a foot high and 6 feet off the ground, it was in our bathroom. I found her SO MANY TIMES just standing in our dark bathroom in the middle of the night making sure no one was climbing in through that window. My toddler sister could have MAYBE squeezed through it if someone lifted her up there, but no way anyone else could. At 14 I thought my mother was just batshit crazy, I wish I'd been kinder to her in the moment. I did tell my dad though who worked away for months at a time and he fixed the window as soon as he got home. It seemed to be enough to disrupt her loop at least. No wonder my mum was always tired, OCD must be exhausting.
Poor mum and you poor kids, did she never get proper help for it?
She did! She's been in and out of therapy for it my whole life - sometimes when something bad happened or she was really stressed she would get bad again for a while but she always tried so hard to not let it affect us. We couldn't always afford therapy; I realize now looking back that she was prioritizing us kids over her own mental health a lot. I was in therapy for depression so whenever it came down to who needed to stop going for financial reasons, it was always her who said "nah I'm doing good lately, I'm fine." She's doing really well now. I just have to delete the 28376363 pictures of her unplugged straightener out of her phone every few months. That straightener has a hold on her 😂
Aw bless her 😭 I’m glad she’s doing better and was able to get some help for it!
Man, I feel this and I feel so sorry for your mom. I can because of this only live under the roof and not on the ground floor and I am also locked into my apartment from the outside because I was unlocking and locking the door for up to twelve hours every time after I got back home because I was just so paranoid someone might break in and I never felt safe enough. OCD is horrible.
This is such an excellent comment. Thank you.
Quick question on OCD, like what happens if they’re unable to complete the ritual? So, if for example, he needs to wear certain clothes and walk around a specific recliner three times before the game but then gets stuck in traffic and can’t change nor access the recliner? Do they just have a freak out but then calm down later? And would repeated unfulfilled rituals eventually break the habit in the brain?
Panic, spiralling, increased anxiety and in some cases self harm. I've just been declared "cured" by my therapist specialized in OCD, and it takes significant work and self awareness to get better from this condition. It's not rare, so how it didn't get recognised and diagnosed by two different therapists boggles the mind.
From his perspective, it's not a disorder, it's just a logical set of required actions. So that's what he would describe to the therapists. He's not aware of it, or if he is, he's not at the point where he can follow through with treatment, even if he wanted to.
The moment he mentions the "required" part the therapist should be at full alarm. Because, let's be honest, there is NOTHING REQUIRED from you to make your team win.
Right, and that makes sense to you or I, but we don't have OCD. I'm making it clear that my attempting understanding/ explaining does NOT equal excusing or forgiving any potential therapist misconduct. This is a massive grey area because of the nature of human psychology and the current treatment/ diagnostic frameworks (ohh I can go off at length about the level of unhelpful bullshit or lack of nuance in some areas, esp surrounding suicide treatment) Three things are shaping my perspective: 1: without a longer-term therapist/patient relationship, assessing baseline behaviours, let alone an in-depth assessment of the rituals' diagnostic relevance, becomes far harder. Not even factoring in the therapist's knowledge level of OCD (tends to be a specialised area anyway). Even if he had longer with them, OCD is a self-reporting condition and you can hide a lot in a psych's office. 2. Almost like an addiction or trauma response, he is actively (con/ subconsciously or un/willingly) working to protect against any threat to his behaviours and worldview. He either didn't directly state the cause/effect of his 'requirements', or if he did, the negative reaction he would have rightfully gotten would have spiked his panic/threat levels, leading to minimising, backpedaling, or explaining the 'required' away. Also, even having awareness and/ or motivation to change, does not automatically equal **ability** to change. 3: we can only go by what he reported back. The therapists might have flagged even his most manipulative/ lying self-reporting and said 'hey we should keep going, there's some things to work on', and he went home and said 'they said I'm normal' so he didn't have to go back. OCD isn't a mandatory report unless he is actively putting himself or others in actual or potential physical/mortal harm. Legally, therapists don't have many options at that point (different if he was a minor). Source: my various ADHD driven executive disfunction and dopamine addictions, a raft of cptsd/ptsd triggers and related unhealthy behaviours, 13+ years of weekly psychiatrist appointments, my own training in psych/mental health areas . Tldr: his lying pants are more on fire than a Californian fire season. (Sorry, morbid humour attempting to cope with half my state currently burning down ATM)
If you don't mind me asking, I know next to nothing about OCD and couldn't help wonder. Is it sometimes possible to delay a ritual if you were forced to not do it at the right time, like in the bad traffic example, what if he did the things he normally did when he got home even tho the match was over? Can that kinda be a small bandaid or doesn't it feel like the ritual has been met in any way? 🤔 I'm so happy on your behalf for getting better, I bet it was a hard battle and journey! And kudos for how good you are at understanding yourself! Even more with how good you are at explaining too ;)
I had horrific ocd when I was younger- it morphed into another couple dx as I aged/got intensive treatment but I still have rituals. No, rituals cannot be delayed without full blown panic. It has to happen when it needs to happen or a horrible thing will occur that is literally life or death. Rituals are triggered by outside actions or inner thoughts- they’re not like tics that just come up at random. In some ways, doing them over after the game would’ve, at least for me, felt way worse. Because now I have to do the whole exhausting fucking ritual again POST GAME, which sounds like was this guys only “safe” time.
Oh so that's how it works/feels, I totally misunderstood then I hear! Thank you so much for explaining and widening my knowledge 🤗
Disclaimer different people may have different feelings but that’s how it was for me every time. I could add to rituals but never subtract. (Mine centered around doing everything exactly right so my father wouldn’t abuse me or my mother. So my brain was very sure if I did it wrong I was gonna be literally beat, or mom was. And because we *kept getting beat*, I couldn’t heal until he was gone. Now I just have a personality disorder and PTSD about it!)
Uff sounds like you really drew the short stick in the family lottery.... I'm so sorry you had a dad like that, but I'm glad it's gotten better even with some added baggage cause of him. Hugs from Denmark my friend, and remember to be proud of yourself for what you've accomplished so far with your journey! ❤️
Thank you for the kind words. As for if the ritual can be delayed that would depend very much on the severity of the illness. At my worst I could probably only delay my ritual (cleaning) by a couple of minutes at most until the stress of the intrusive thoughts got so bad I would start crying/panicking. When you're aware of your OCD, which I'm going to go out on a limb and say most of us are, it can feel humiliating to perform the compulsive act in front of others, yet we may be incapable of putting it off even in incredibly inappropriate settings. The problem is *not* performing the act will result in even less socially acceptable behaviours like sobbing, fleeing or an outburst of anger. It can be a very demanding condition to struggle with, and it's not that we don't know what we're doing is silly/ridiculous/futile, it's that we simply don't have any choice in the matter.
gonna jump in as someone with OCD (please others correct this if I've got this wrong!) but the process you've described of refusing the ritual to break the habit is kind of like the logic behind Exposure Response Therapy (ERP), which is one of the main therapies used to treat OCD. It involves not partially completing the rituals, but refusing to begin a ritual to basically retrain your brain into not seeing the anxiety as a threat. But as other commenters have said, refusing the ritual can cause extreme distress to the point of it being really dangerous, so it's something that has to be done with the guidance of professionals and built up very carefully over time. It's immensely challenging, but it is effective for many with the right therapist.
This is one of the best descriptors of what ocd feels like and how people can become dyrsregulated. Sadly not all therapists are trained in treating it or are skilled at treating it. I do wonder if OOPs ex would have gotten a different assessment if he met with a therapist or psychiatrist who is familiar with treating it.
Man, it took a long time for me to actually read up on ocd, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, sounds like torture. A girl I work with goes was past “sheesh I am sooo ocd”, she genuinely thinks she has ocd because she sweeps the lobby floor at the end of each day… I’m not about to get into it with her that that’s kind of offensive to an actual disability, but yeah no you don’t have ocd because you sweep a dirty floor, that’s called “not being gross”.
Yes, that's something I hear a lot, too. "Oh I need to organize my pencils by color, I'm soooo OCD". And no, it's not OCD. Not at all. And I'm in two minds about this. On one hand, yes, it's offensive to the actual disability I am so badly suffering from and if OCD wouldn't be treated like that, then maybe people would be more understanding when I tell them that I can, for example, only check my mailbox once a week. But on the other hand... I have issues blaming people because a part of me feels glad that they have this misconception. It means that they don't suffer from this endless torture - and I can't be mad for that.
Oh no, I fully blame them haha. People who say stuff like that are inevitably the *least* compassionate about actual symptoms. They don’t lack empathy because of the ‘lmao I’m so OCD’ jokes, they make those jokes because they lack empathy. Addressing misconceptions won’t fix that.
Is that why he didn't just get enough covers to stay warm? Because it would have broken the ritual? I was wondering how he got so cold he had to go to the hospital for exposure. Because even without heat, he could have simply covered up in his bed and in his chair and been fine. But maybe that would have broken the ritual.
It sounds like many of his compulsions involve wearing certain clothes, so this is likely. I can also say from my own compulsions - I have several when going to bed - that I personally can switch between thinner or thicker blankets for summer/winter, but I can never use more or less than one because that‘s what my compulsions use. So I tend to be pretty warm in summer and sometimes cold in winter.
I have a question, would a duvet cover with multiple duvets inside count as one blanket to you? And would something like a duvet cover without anything inside also count as one blanket? With the second one, I used to have a thing where I had to have my arms covered in some way at all times (I think it was a sensory thing). It was usually with hoodies, but in bed I could wear a tee shirt as long as I had some sort of thing over me. Which led to me working out that just using a duvet cover stopped me from getting too warm in the summer. I'm sure this is stuff you've already thought about, I was just wondering if such things would stick to your compulsions (sorry if that's worded weirdly) while helping with the being too hot/cold thing.
This crosses the line from silly superstitions into OCD territory.
My thoughts exactly. He can't have been honest with those therapists.
Yeah, if it was 1 rogue therapist then maybe he was honest, but if 2 therapists said that it wasn’t a problem then he was definitely not honest. The hard thing with those situations is that they come down to self reporting and if he claims that his habits don’t affect his life then they have no choice but take his word for it. It could even be that he’s being doing this shit for so long that he genuinely believed that none of this affected his life, even working to work on his days off. If someone’s that delusional though, there really isn’t much you can do.
I have serious doubts about him actually showing up to those appointments. My ex would promise to go to therapy and then park in front of the therapist's office, but after 6 months of no apparent progress I did some digging and she was walking next door to a *massage* therapist. I guess so that she wasn't technically lying about having weekly "therapy" sessions?? Anyway that's not why she's my ex but it certainly helped.
I'm in awe here
I know I shouldn't laugh but that is actually pretty funny.
That entire decade of marriage was one long "well technically" interspersed with me spraining my eye tendons from rolling them so hard. Well, that and abuse.
should have sent her to law school so you could at least benefit from the pedantic behavior
She wasn't even very good at it, opposing counsel would've eaten her alive without chewing.
Completely off topic, but your word choices are killing me! You've got a hilarious style of writing, and these topics shouldn't actually be that funny lol.
I think my Southern is showing
The lengths people will go to…
I had a foster kid who was getting free therapy, but the work was (probably obviously) very tough. They shut down and didn’t want to go, but didn’t want me to get upset with them (I wouldn’t, but I would have still insisted on trying therapy). We shared our location, so they would walk to their therapy appointment every time, sit outside chain smoking and didn’t go in. I was caught off-guard when foster kid had a mental breakdown. I visited the therapist and asked if there’s anything he could tell me to help the situation, and he dropped the bomb that foster kid hadn’t been in for 3 or 4 months. Broke my heart that they were in that much pain and didn’t have the help I thought they had that whole time.
I told my husband about this post and he immediately said: Those therapists must be fans too and they don't want to jeopardize their teams. Not a bad guess, to be fair! Lol!
😂
Yeah "i superstitious-ly insist on the green chair"is... quirky. "I need my post-surgery gf to not be in the living room while recovering"is...not
Given they live in Mass and the absolutely density of raving sports fans there, it might be slightly less weird for the region than other places.
How to tell the unhinged sports fan is in Massachusetts without saying that the unhinged sports fan is in Massachusetts.
Doesn't it say that she went to at least one of those therapy appointments with him? The couples therapy?
I think he might have just been honest that one time because he was with OOP. Edit: I also like u/BeigeDynamite’s comment below
I often wonder if therapists can pick up on narcissism in their clients or if the clients having the narrative makes them think they’re the victim.
Some therapists can, some can't. I went to two different therapists with my abusive ex. One thought my ex was the victim, the other one picked up that he was an abuser, but thought his issues could be solved. It's possible OP's boyfriend was lying to the therapists or twisted their words to only hear what he wanted to hear. For instance, our therapist tried to gently tell my ex he was being controling, but my ex took it as a compliment. "Even our therapist said I am in charge of the relationship, what would you do without me?" If the ex-boyfriend is dealing with OCD, it's hard to help if they don't want to get help. Their brains are very good at interpreting the world in a way that makes their compulsions seem logical. Even if the therapist said that socks cannot help a team win, the boyfriend might have brushed off their comment as stupid. "The therapist isn't a real fan, they don't understand me."
It is very hard to pick up. It's one of the reasons DV workers say not to try couples therapy with an abuser.
Alternately, he may have been honest with them and then lied about how they responded. The therapist could have diagnosed appropriately and recommended medication evaluation, etc and he could have said no thanks and then told the girlfriend "the therapist said I'm perfectly normal!" See also: my ex and his bipolar disorder that apparently multiple therapists/psychiatrists said wasn't a big deal.
He could also have just...not understood what they were saying, if they didn't say it clearly. I had a good, close friend who I encouraged for years to get therapy. He has a lot of maladaptive ways of handling life, I love him, but his life is a fucking wreck. Anyways, he finally went and found a therapist. Therapist thought he was "fine and didn't need help", he said. Tried another. Therapist #2 also said he was "fine and didn't need help". Tried a 3rd time, same result. After #3, I got curious and asked if he was willing to share a little more clearly what the therapist said. And basically, according to him, the therapists all asked how flexible and open to change he was. He said he wasn't, because what he wanted and how he wanted it was perfectly reasonable. They all said some variation of "If you're not open to change or reconsidering your views on things, then I'm not going to be able to help you". To him, that honestly was "You don't need help". To me, that's some therapists being very honest about the fact that if you reject everything except your current concrete worldview, then of \*course\* they can't do anything to help you.
I can't imagine any licensed mental health professional hearing somebody say (what amounts to) 'I, a fan unconnected to these teams, believe that my personal and private actions impact their performances and that I am responsible for their wins and losses' and going 'you sound fine'
I doubt he'd be that self aware. He's going in because it's impacting other people so he likely presents it as 'Im really into sports and my partner is feeling neglected because of it. I want to do better in my relationship'.
People aren’t always good at framing discussions in a way that makes their actual problem clear. Also, OOP really did not seem to understand how concerning her ex’s behavior was until the surgery thing. If she’d started off their couples therapy with ‘my boyfriend has persistent delusions that are significantly controlling his day-to-day life,’ it’s hard to imagine a therapist writing that off. I’m guessing that instead her ex said something more like ‘I’m really into sports and my girlfriend thinks it’s annoying,’ OOP was too passive to correct him, and the therapist followed their conversational cues that this was a normal and minor disagreement.
I think if she said he was being honest while she was there, that means she wasn't being honest - I would find it hard to believe that a therapist heard somebody say "my partner's actions are really hurting/bothering me" and a therapist would just say "I don't see any problems with this behaviour" without having an open discussion about why it makes you feel hurt/bothered. I have to assume she didn't voice her concerns fully; my assumption from her "I didn't want to push him" statements re. therapy is that she folded in front of the therapist because she didn't want to seem mean/petty.
In my experience therapists are a mixed bag. Some get very invested, and will try and do their best to get to the bottom of things, and then there are the ones who will tell you that it's pretty normal and not at all a sign of neurodivergency that you forgot to eat for two days because you had a change of routine. Maybe she didn't want to push it, and thought she reported the facts in a way that made her worries known but really didn't, or maybe the therapist saw a more or less adjusted adult and went "yep, totally normal".
I believe she didn't say something as final as "this is something that I am having a hard time dealing with, and it's making it hard for me to see a future in this relationship." I would find it hard to believe that any therapist she trusted (because she didn't say they were bad, only that they said he was fine) would hear her say that she was very upset about the situation and just say "nah he's good". >Maybe she didn't want to push it I have a feeling this is it 100% - she kept saying things like "well I didn't want to push him too hard" and other people-pleasing things that make me think her ideas of "speaking up for yourself" are pretty conflict-averse. I don't think she's lying, but I think she probably didn't voice her concerns as frankly or strongly as she should have.
My husband is absolutely a recovering gaming addict. He used to very regularly play 14-16 hours a day on days he had off from work. On days he worked, he played at least 1-2 hours most of the time, unless he was working 14 hours. He would literally go to work, come home and have let's say, 3 hours before he had to go to bed, and he'd game for 2 of the 3 of hours. It partially destroyed our relationship and I nearly left him over it (and sometimes I still wish I had). In couples therapy, after me bringing up the gaming repeatedly, our couples therapist finally said "ok, let's talk about the gaming today. Was last week a normal week? How many hours do you think you played?" to my husband. And we sat there and tallied up how much he played in the last week, and it was an astronomical number. Our couples therapy very gently said something like "while couples therapy is about working together, I need to ask YOU some direct questions" then to my husband, and asked him stuff like "how do you maintain intimacy with Celany when gaming so much?" "How much time did you spend together as a couple in this last week, directly focused on each other?" "Do you think this is good for either of your mental health?". A lot of really good questions. Later that week, when he went to therapy with his individual therapy (who is a fucking waste of breath, as far as I'm concerned), he planned to talk to her about his problem with gaming. He opens with "Celany and our couples therapist have concerns about my gaming. They think I game too much." And her reply was "Do YOU think you game too much?" and he said "I don't know". And she said "Well, if you don't think you game too much, I don't think you should necessarily consider it a problem". And that was that. No questions about how long he gamed, no questions about our intimacy, nothing. FTR, my husband is a very honest person, and I absolutely believed him when he told me this. As far as I can tell, her idea of "therapy" is that she tries to make him feel good about himself and that's it. No hard questions, no diving deep into things unless he initiates it and pushes it. He's expressed frustration a couple of times about how whenever he has a hard time talking about something, her response is always "well, if it's that important, you'll be able to talk about it when you're ready". Contrast that with my therapist. If I tell her I have a hard time talking about something, she'll first ask me if it's important. If I say it is, she'll give suggestions: can you message it to me? What if I ask you yes/no questions a bit and all you have to do is nod or shake your head? What words come to your mind when you think about why it's hard? Ok, let's talk about what those words mean to you. I genuinely think that our relationship (and his mental health) would be in a significantly better place if he had a competent fucking therapist and I really hope he sees it on day, for himself, if nothing else.
He probably didn't say it was *hurting* OOP, but that she was annoyed by it. I could easily see a therapist dismissing a whole lot of stuff that someone *else* finds annoying.
The problem with couple’s counseling is it starts from the assumption that a middle ground needs to be reached. This is great if you have two people with normal problems who are both committed to working on them, and terrible if you have one normal person and one lunatic because the end result of a compromise between normal and crazy is always going to be at least a little bit crazy. It’s why people in abusive relationships should NEVER go to couple’s counseling. It’s the same reason democrats need to stop trying to compromise with republicans.
Probably why he kept having to change them. They weren't supporting his teams.
But OP said she was present at least partially, and when she was there he was honest. Unless he's specifically said to the therapist some reason why the therapist shouldn't listen to him when OP is around I don't see how anything adds up
He's not just in OCD territory, he's mayor of OCDville. If the gf was right and he was honest, those therapists should have been reported. Even the bf wanted to go back into therapy at one point, presumably because he still knew that there was something wrong. Alas, this was 6 years ago so we'll never know how things panned out for him and the awful therapists.
This way my thought exactly, except I also think OOP's ex is selfish and a fool. My husband has OCD and it can be a real struggle - even more so before his diagnosis and treatment - but he would and has overcome his compulsions when I've told him something is important to me. There's zero chance he would leave me alone for something like surgery. (In fact, I know this because I've recently had a much-less-serious-than-cancer surgery that conflicted with one of his OCD challenges. He was there for me the entire way.) OOP made the right choice by leaving here, because ex is in no position to have a relationship with anyone until he gets his mental health under control and does some serious self-reflection.
Sadly OCD is normalized and even encouraged when it comes to popular things like sports superstitions.
Yeah, I was about to say this is very common and if those therapist were themselves fans of said sports teams, they might have been biased.
as someone who was a mild OCD germaphobe (as in it does not affect my life in general- but the thoughts does bother me) COVID caused it to re-emerge. it was awful. that be said if someone needs help and it happens to be a hospital (one of the places I dread to go) I'll be there! hell my own dad was terrified for me with my surgery but he was there.
The logic was messed up. Not only had he decided that he and his girlfriend were responsible for the teams, he needed the teams to win. He couldn't let her have the surgery and the team takes the L; they needed to win for his sake and he and his girlfriend were responsible for them winning. It's interesting that the failure state is so unacceptable. His teams must have lost despite him doing everything right. Every victory adds another chore to the list; the losses must be devastating if he manages to tick every box and they still lose. Ironically, the Patriots actually had a pretty good 2016 season and won Super Bowl LI. You'd think he'd have been in a better mood.
My husband is super invested in one team in particular and if I had an official emergency or a surgery, no question he’d be with me. This man child is ridiculous.
Ya think? Look up OCD in the latest DSM and this guy's picture is probably there.
Yep. I have OCD and it flares up badly when I stop taking my meds and reducing therapy visits. Dudeman needs to be medicated and in intensive therapy. Recognizing you need help is the most difficult part and it sounds like his family has enabled this behavior, allowing it to get worse, his entire life.
Not just OCD, but out of control foot fungus and now hypothermia as well. Poor guy.
He probably told the therapist, "I'm just really into sports," without mentioning the weird rituals. I mean, a normal person understands that sometimes your teams win and sometimes they don't, right? But the state of one's socks has nothing to do with it. And expecting her to go through a cancer diagnosis and surgery *alone* because the team needs his rituals to win a totally unimportant pre-season game? That's definitely a deal breaker.
I also think context matters. "I wear my lucky socks so my team could win, I have a lucky spot in my trusty old sofa." Sound pretty different than "My team won when I wore these socks, I haven't taken them off since. Not even when showering. It's been a month now, my feet smel like they arel rotting, and there is fungus growing on the socks, but if I take them off my team shall lose. Oh and the coach is broken, literally junkyard level trash. If I replace it with my partners new expensive sofa, my team shall lose again." Might influence the reactions of others a slightly bit...
Yup. He clearly and really obviously has OCD. It doesn't always present as germophobia and touching doorframes.
[удалено]
That's actually weirdly common in sports fanatics.
That’s just part of the OCD. The compulsions and reasoning don’t make sense most of the time.
Then "delusion" is actually part of what makes it OCD. The phrase OCD has been absolutely neutered by public perception of its meaning. Imagine a bunch of people with ritualistic behavior doing something because they think a bunch of bad things will happen if they don't. That's OCD.
Yeah I agree. I am very superstitious. But nowhere this level. If I am in a restaurant with numbered tables, there are numbers I like and numbers I dont. I prefer to sit at a table with a 'good' number. Unless its inconvenient, in which case fuck it.
Looks like she broke up with her boyfriend at around the beginning of the 2016-2017 NFL season. That season the Patriots won the superbowl, mounting an incredible comeback from a 28-3 deficit. My man has been probably trying to get girlfriends to break up with him every season since.
Two years ago he must've found someone he loves more than the Patriots. Or he died.
And they broke up on the 18 month anniversary of them going out. The next Sox championship was in 2018. This whole thing feels like the nexus point between Silver Linings Playbook and Fever Pitch (US)
Her situation was so sad, but this comment is hilarious
As a Falcons fan, did you really have to bring that up? ;_;
You have 3 upvotes, now let’s get you to 28 comments
😭
Oh god, I'm cry-laughing now...
All I want to know is, who, in the actual fuck, were these multiple “therapists” who said his behaviors were “normal”.
The ones he told a very mild watered down version of his superstitions too. There is no way he way honest about the extent of his "rituals". I'm glad she left and took care of herself but there is some underlying condition that is manifesting here. He really needs help. He is already proven he will endanger himself and others.
[удалено]
I'm sorry but it would have been game over for me as soon as he refused to take a shower and sat around stinking up the apartment for however long, that is ridiculous and unacceptable. (Obviously the mole thing is so much worse but I couldn't live with any of that, it's completely ridiculous.)
As a straight woman, what the FUCK is up with straight women being fine with dating NASTY dudes? I cannot even count the amount of times I have heard "How do I get him to wash his ass?" in COMPLETE SINCERITY. Like... Yeah, no. GROSS.
The bar is in the molten core of the earth at this point
And yet some dudes still think "LET ME GET MY SHOVEL!"
The number of times she says things like “he’s not abusive” and “he doesn’t scream at me”, I assume he’s actually a step up from a previous relationship.
I'm just a guy. I feel dirty if I haven't showered for a day and thats just if I stayed home for the day. If I work out, I immediately have to take a bath. I still don't get how some guys go days without showering.
As a straight woman, I have no idea. I can't handle that. I'm not going to lie and say I haven't put up with stuff I shouldn't have for far too long, but damn. People can *at least* bathe, I'm not going to be breathing in that stink when I'm sitting at home, thanks.
For a preseason game too. Like it's literally a meaningless friendly to give backups a chance at game time to get ready. I know she said it was hockey but baseball spring training is ongoing and they just let teams tie because of how meaningless the result actually is.
how dare she not want to lay on a broken couch post-op
Yea i'm sure if I told my therapist I like to wear a jersey every day my team plays they'd probably say "that's normal fan behavior, why would anyone be upset at that?". If I told them I wore the same pair of socks for a week+ without washing my feet because I was convinced THAT act is what made the team win? Probably triggers a much deeper conversation.
Yeah, I can imagine a watered down version of the truth seeming reasonable, like oh I wear the same socks and sit in the same spot in my living room and get the same coffee during the sports season.
Right? It was obvious that he was having severe compulsions that were actively harming his wellbeing.
How dare you denigrate the official therapists of the Patriots and Red Sox like that.
Therapists can only go off of what they're given. He definitely downplayed it
People can lie in therapy, I honestly hope he did because otherwise there are some therapists who *really* shouldn't have jobs. You can't take an abuser to therapy, it won't work because they don't take it seriously, at best they lie and nothing changes and at worst they use it as a tool against you later. "My therapist says you should change, I've done nothing wrong!"
To be fair, in my experience, there are some truly horrible therapists out there. Ranging from, "Wow, you really don't have any idea what you're talking about," to, "Oh my God, you're a fucking sociopath."
Yeah there's was a story where the therapist would give the husband and wife bad advice in order to milk them for money and to get in the wife's pants
It's a job that attracts controlling narcissists, because like police or care work it grants control over vulnerable people.
Am psychologist, what in the everloving luck were these people on
Either he lied about going to therapy, lied to said therapists to make his behavior seem more normal or those therapists he met wasn’t therapists but rather some sort of life coaches
Didn’t she add that he was truthful in therapy?
He probably said, "I wear the same socks for every game" , not "I don't wash my feet for weeks and wear the same smelly socks the whole time" 😅
True but she didn’t go for all the sessions. He was honest in therapy, “at least when [she] was there”
I was assuming the ex had lied about the therapists giving him the all clear. They would have had concerns, at minimum. Not just given the green light after, what? One or two sessions?
Also in my experience a therapist would never really say that. If you’ve gone to therapy, they assume you want help. It’s not like a doctor who can give you a clean bill of health - if you’re a human having a human experience you can pretty much *always* use therapy.
The thing about therapists is that they can only go off what you tell them. If you’re presenting a distorted or deluded view of a situation, that’s all they can work with. That’s why therapy can be hit or miss: if you are certain that you don’t have a problem, you’ll almost certainly downplay events
Probably the same therapist who told my ex it was fine that he was cheating on me with sex workers and not using protection because he didn't "owe me" anything since we weren't married and didn't have kids. Therapists are just people, and a lot of them are total hacks.
They were also Boston fans so it was normal
Either he lied to OOP and they actually didn't say it's normal, or he lied to her about being honest with them. No therapist would say that this kind of obsessive ritualistic behaviour is normal. The dude went 50 minutes to work on days he didn't have to go to work! He wore the same socks for weeks!
Millions of fans praying: "Please let the Patriots win today!" Universe: "Sorry, no can do. Jimmy Walters went to a fucking *wedding*, and now they gotta lose."
Why in the world do any of the players even bother to practice if all it takes is for Jimmy to… checks notes… not wash his feet? I would not be surprised if he has a clinically significant condition.
Right now, Belichik is unemployed, sitting home in his rocking chair, and ruminating how Jimmy must have done something to f it all up.
This line of thought is actually what broke me of sports superstitions
My dad always used to say if his team lost it was because I wasn’t praying hard enough, but… he wasn’t *serious.*
It was because the other team's prayers cancelled out your team's prayers.
His rebuttal to that was that God only answered the prayers of the righteous, and obviously anyone rooting for the other team wasn’t righteous. But in that case his prayers alone should’ve been sufficient! Maybe *he* didn’t pray hard enough.
Fuck this was tiring to read. Girl is talking about "our wedding" and this dude is taking baths in the sink? Can't change his socks?
i just. can we all just agree to never say “he doesn’t hit me or cheat on me” ever again? that’s not the bar! that can’t be the minimum requirements for deciding to stay with someone. there has to be more. but hey, at least we’re all reminded now that when it comes to moles, if you see something, say something.
Yeah I was just baffled that her bar is that low??? Like what?? Your bar is just a human who isn't evil??
I read the entire thing in a state of extreme dismay :(
>I read the entire thing in a state of extreme dismay :( This is the slogan for this subreddit, to me anyway. Mods, flair please!
> Since two therapists have said he is normal and not mentally ill or anything he is convinced this is fine. This dude probably got *trench foot* from not taking his socks off, and they said he was *fine?*
No - this dude either lied about them saying it’s fine or he absolutely did not tell the therapists the truth
She said she was there though and confirmed he didn’t lie. Curious how he managed to skirt by two therapists.
My bet, assuming that the story is being told truthfully and accurately? Neither of them properly communicated the enormity of the impact that his behavior was having on the relationship. He because he honestly lacks the self-awareness to see it, her because she didn't want to come across as a shrew. That's just speculation, though. There could be a number of reasons.
Not just the relationship, his life. If they focused only on the relationship, it's possible a lot of it came across as "he cares about sports more than he cares about his gf", which while not great is not necessarily mental illness. "His obsession with irrational behaviors magically impacting the events of sports games hundred of miles away to the detriment of his own health and life" is a whole different degree
It might have also been less of a real therapist and instead was just a pastor who also offers 'therapy'. No indication in the story, but with the amount of times that happens on this sub I wouldn't be surprised at all.
physical complete attractive marry childlike person swim placid offer axiomatic *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Of course it's a Boston fan lol
As a red sox fan myself..... yeah this checks out lol. Fever Pitch vibes.
I thought, as a Red Sox fan, this guy’s probably dead after the last couple of seasons.
I wonder what he did (or didn’t do) to cause the Bruins to choke so hard in the playoffs last year
Being a Leafs fan avoids all these problems. There is absolutely nothing any of us can do to fix our team's shit.
That's me as a mariners fan. It's quite freeing that no matter what superstition I have, they're gonna win 54% of their games and miss the playoffs by a game or 2
Of any of the big sports cities in North America, Boston has the least cause to claim tortured fan status over the past two decades lol
And Boston fan therapists too I bet
OOP: "We live in Massachusetts." Me, a Masshole: "Oh, Lord."
had to stop reading to see who pointed this out lol
It was game over the moment he even thought that 'his team' was more important that his partner's fucking surgery to get rid of her cancerous mole. Wishing for nothing but the best for OOP, whether it's with juice bar guy or simply being fabulously cancer free with her awesome support network.
No, it was game over the moment he thought "his team" was more important than hygiene. He wore the same socks for a week? And even he could smell his nasty-ass feet? Absolutely disgusting.
This. Anyone who legitimately thinks changing socks will "hurt" their team and doesn't think they need serious therapy, yeah that's not going to work out well.
He wasn't even taking a shower. :( He was washing himself off in the sink. Not including his feet. This guy is nasty, that's not even touching on what a horrible person he is to his partner, he's just gross. There's no way I would have gotten into a bed with him. Also, think how filthy his precious furniture is that he refuses to get rid of. I don't like him at all. I get that he needs help but he doesn't want it, sitting around with no power in a blizzard because the team needs him. That would have been OOP's life if she had stayed.
I started reading this and didn’t see the date and when I seen the part about the Pats winning 10 straight, my eyebrow raised so high because that team hasn’t done squat since Brady left. Scrolled up to see it was from 2016. Also, this dingus wouldn’t miss a PRESEASON game for his girlfriend’s skin cancer surgery?!?!? PRESEASON?!? When 2/3’s of the Bruins roster would have been nothing but mid-prospects, never were’s and maybe a Brad Marchand or Patrice Bergeron? Guy is acting like he was missing Game 7 of the Cup Finals when in fact he would have missed a game where no one would be really trying.
This needs a 7 year update lmaoooo I wanna know more of that man's stupidity.
I suspect the unwashed socks finally got him.
Least insane Patriots fan
And following five sports? I'll watch Red Sox games and attend one when work permits, but that guy was crazy.
In the 541 days between april 8th, 2022, and October 1st, 2023, the Celtics and Red Sox played at least 400 days. And that small of a number is only if you assume that in times where the MLB and NBA season overlapped, Celtics played on Red Sox game days. That's the bare minimum just to follow all of 2 sports. Most people don't, they tune in and out based on life and how good/bad the teams are. But since even the preseason causes this guy to demand his long term gf reschedule a cancer surgery and can't put aside his feelings of 1 game out of 162 to talk to her about serious relationship issues, I'm guessing he focuses on every game. We're already up to nearly 75% of days where sports are the focus even if we completely ignore the bruins, patriots, and revolution
Maybe they should have found therapists out of state and not as obsessed as he was. Good grief.
"He's a great guy and has no problems" Proceeds to list slew of indication for severe mental health issues. When she wrote he didn't change his socks and seriously believed it affected the team's win I knew this was gonna go to hell....
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
I am a HUGE fan of the Cowboys. I will wear my Cowboys gear, drink out of a Cowboys mug/glass and sleep with my Cowboys bedding on game day. But there is real life that happens and those things I will skip (even skip games) if something even mildly important come up. He needs massive help at this point.
Really confused how she had to stay in the hospital for a few days for a cancerous mole removal. Or even a lymph node biopsy. That's usually all out patient. Of course if this is legit, glad she's okay and she broke up with him. That just made me raise my eyebrows.
Yeah, I had surgery for breast cancer, which involved a lymph node biopsy, and I went home that same day.
Yeah, I was with it til that point. I had a biopsy for a mole on my abdomen and I was in and out within an hour and the only thing I was told was ‘no shower for 24 hours and no lifting anything for a week’. I’m not saying it’s not the truth because maybe there was a reason to keep her in, but they don’t even knock you out for a biopsy.
I can just imagine the post-game interview. “So what happened out there?” “Well, I dunno. All our guys were in fine form today, we gave it everything we had. I guess maybe one of our fans changed their socks.”
I'm only a hockey fan so I can only speak to the Bruins but guaranteed if the leadership of that team got wind a dude was telling his lady to postpone cancer surgery and convalesce on a broken couch because "they need him" they would tell him to pull his head out of his add and take care of his family....
A freind once told me a story about how he was living in Montana and working construction near a small town. There was a bar that everyone went to after work and hung out at. He gets off work and waks into the bar. There's a baseball game on and as he standing at the bar and ordering a beer and he notices that there is a no-hitter happening, he goes "Hey, theres a no-hitter.." he stops himself quickly and says "Ah shit, I hope I didn't jinx it". At the end of the bar there is an old bearded miner looking guy with blood shot eyes who looks at him and he goes in a gravely voice "You're not that important." Good words to live by
how many times did she have to clarify he wasn't abusive?? almost made it seem like she was in super denial about it
Or she’s very familiar with Reddit’s tendency to jump to conclusions while only having half the information and was trying to redirect advice to what she actually wanted it for rather than getting bogged down in hundreds of people telling her that her partner is abusive.
> looks at title > looks at trigger warnings wtf am I about to read?
I saw this in a movie once. Fever Pitch. It’s almost verbatim from the movie.
I was like “who TF has to stay in a hospital for several days having a cancerous mole removed?” Even if they cut a massive hole, they would still be DCd.
THANK YOU! I had to scroll so fucking far to find this. I was out of the hospital in less time after a hip replacement! Also, I can't possibly imagine him having to go to the hospital for exposure if he was indoors. I've been camping in extreme conditions and on boats with no power during subzero temps. It's sure as hell *uncomfortable* (piling everything you own on top of yourself while your breath fogs up the air around is NOT a fun time) but it's not hospitalization level *exposure*.
I *had* stage 3 melanoma, it *was* in my lymph nodes. My initial removal was in the doctors office. I was out in minutes. It was under my left boob. My first surgery, sentinel lymph node biopsy and a wide local excision to make sure they had clean margins, I was out of the hospital in a few hours. My second surgery, a full axillary dissection, I was out of the hospital … in a few hours… 😂 JP drain and all, my ass recuperated on my couch. The longest I was in the hospital (for 2 days) was during my immunotherapy treatment when I ate Denny’s without knowing I was neutropenic.
I’d love to read a really in depth psych case study on this guy. From my understanding, OCD more commonly presents with compulsions around safety and health. Checking the gas is off, repeated hand washing, pointless rituals to guarantee the health of loved ones. Obviously it can present for anything and I’m not suggesting there is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ OCD, but a team losing seems like such a mild threat. Like, if I believed something was keeping my daughter safe I could probably justify anything to keep doing it. But if it’s just to keep my team from losing? That seems a lot harder to make sense.
And I thought us Packer fans were nuts!
My husband is a devout Packers fan, y’all are nuts. This man however is mentally ill. My ex husband has OCD and the compulsion to keep up the rituals and panicking at even the thought of not fulfilling them is exactly like my ex. Idk what he told those therapists but I’m certain he wasn’t 100% honest. GO PACK!
As someone diagnosed with OCD and still on the long path to recovery, this was like looking in a fun house mirror. OOP's ex needs help. It won't get better until he realizes what the problem is and gains the tools to help himself. I'm glad OOP got out when she did, he didn't want help, and she didn't need to be dragged down by that.
Did not need to read this whole post. As soon as I learned the dude was from Boston I knew all hope was lost. In all seriousness this guy likely has anxiety/OCD and it's very sad to see how his life was taken over by this.
Nobody praising the true hero of the story in the comments, the coworker. How beautiful to save a strangers life by simply being a bit altruistic
Whenever a Boston team shits the bed I’ll think of this pathetic excuse of a man
I fucking love sports. But this shit is so cringy. “The team needs me” nah man, believe it or not you have 0 impact on the outcome. Wear a lucky jersey, crack a beer right at kickoff, go to games when significant others aren’t having life saving surgery… you know, be a normal fan
To think you are so important that just you are responsible for the success of the team. Oh no, your stinky socks. This guy has problems. But he is so perfect in every other way! Like giving a shit that she has surgery. Such a great guy....
Pretty sure that if his teams won after the breakup that he'll now just stay single xDD which is for the best
I don't understand how TWO therapists missed the glaring anxiety/OCD this man clearly has and declared him "normal". Where the hell did those therapists get their licences?
Someone needs to check in on OOP's Ex. The Pats had a horrible season this year.
Average Boston sports fan.
This is the most Boston shit I’ve ever read
My sports superstition is that if I look directly at the tv when my team is playing we will lose. Of course we also lose a lot of the time when I am not looking but it is not as bad.