- Date posted
- 4y
- Date posted
- 4y
You're in the best place to work on this... welcome to the Just-Right fam! Here's your swag bag 🛍 💭📐📊⚖️🌌 I'll have to come back to commiserate, because I was a bakery mgr for years, did a culinary degree, the whole shebang. So I 1000% see how you got where you are - it's a legit occupational hazard, and definitely not just you.
- Date posted
- 4y
(Also, this is my public accountability post to not engage in reassurance, because I just got knocked flat with the urge to really go there... extremely rare for me so I clearly have unfinished business around this myself 🥯)
- Date posted
- 4y
Sorry in advance for long posts here... I worked on improving my nearly identical situation for a long time, and a lot of quirks weirdly specific to food&bev aren't OCD but can readily evolve into it over time if circumstances are right. This also means it can be really hard for other people to relate to, and a challenge to improve when your environment can be triggering by default.
- Date posted
- 4y
Hmm. I'll go with the "occupational hazard" part I mentioned first, because triggers and external validation are both baked into the job (hurr hurr) in a way that is much more difficult to avoid than in other kinds of work. I say this because it can make sticking with positive changes more difficult and frustrating at first, but you'll also have more opportunities to practice so over time it will even out. Triggers: you already covered that part. Copious physical objects to manage, time/date routines, and being forced to navigate social situations around them too. External reinforcements: Uhhh sanitation/food safety protocols? People can't really survive in F&B with contamination OCD, so the issue here is we're explicitly taught precision as a best practice (even in just the throwaway crash course for food safety permits, let alone more serious training). Cold holding, hot holding, rotating stored items properly, good lord all the labeling rules, and of course imperative to heat XYZ to at least 160 (if you're Canadian, sorry I don't know what your magic number is). And having it drilled into you that the consequences of not following these are major things like people getting sick or even landing in the hospital, black marks from the health department, or even the business being temporarily shuttered (so, livelihood of everyone working there)... this is a big reason most not-so-serious people wash out of production work, and the rest of us left standing are often a little more... touchy about Enforcing. Efficiency: speed matters because "you're not getting paid to stand here". Burning/overproofing things because you had to spend time hunting for equipment = wasted product, time, $$. Economy of movement is important for speed too, but even more for health/ergonomic reasons, since you're on your feet doing repetitive strenuous movement all day. Oh, and don't forget to lift with your knees, not your back - you don't have time to call out sick because you hurt something, and who would cover your shifts anyway? I could go on, but all this is to say that people who settle into production jobs have continuous external validation for walking right up to the line of being obsessive in all kinds of different areas. In places with several full-time people in the back, it's pretty common for each person to have their "thing" that they care about more than everyone else, so it... distributes the load of protocols/routines that could easily become compulsive responses. If you're the only/primary person in the back (or everyone else is already burned out), you have to care about and Enforce all this shit more than almost everyone else in the store... so unfortunately, becoming an asshole is also an occupational hazard. Not an excuse, mind you, but you can see how it can be a slippery slope when you're on your own (or feel like it).
- Date posted
- 4y
@JoyousEffort (jfc I should just write an ebook haha)
- Date posted
- 4y
@JoyousEffort Not really related but joke's on me, I guess... I just realized that the mantra drilled into us at my first job is pretty fertile OCD soil. "You got time to lean, you got time to clean 🤨" sigh 😅
- Date posted
- 4y
I couldn’t appreciate all this more. It feels incredible to know I’m not alone. And even more incredible that you relate almost so identically to me with this issue.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 23w
Hi, I’m new to the app as of today. I’m 20 years old, and wanted to get some stuff off my chest about the types of OCD I’ve been experiencing over the years. I’m not entirely sure how or when my OCD was brought up, but I’ve been a perfectionist for as long as I can remember. Anywhere and everywhere I go, if I see things placed in an order/angle that my brain doesn’t approve of, next thing I know I’m “fixing” it to be in the placement I feel looks better. I’m not aware of why I feel the need to do that, but until an object is in the “right” placement, I won’t take my eyes off of it. My eye will even twitch. Another form of OCD I have is in relationships. I spend each day overthinking and over-analyzing every one of the relationships that are important to me. Friends, family, significant other. Another one is what’s considered “Pure OCD” . When I get an intrusive thought of something devilish, whether it’s randomly seeing my great aunt naked bc my grandma considers her “fat” even though she’s not, or it’s seeing something demonic and traumatizing, I immediately tell myself, “I don’t wanna see/think about that” over and over and over until the thought is gone. Or I’ll try to replace one mental image with another. One other form of OCD I face every day, is religion. I got baptized for the first time in my life earlier this year in January. I had finally started to repent for my sins, and now I’m constantly feeling afraid that I’m letting God down due to my depression/lack of motivation and vaping/smoking. I also fear excessively that He’ll banish me from His kingdom, or just turn a cold shoulder. I know that what I’ve just typed up is probably all over the place. That is my brain unfortunately. How do you go from being a mentally disorderly and seemingly erratic young woman, to a more well-established, successful woman? I’m all ears!
- Date posted
- 23w
First off - I’m sorry, I post here a lot. My thoughts are going to be scattered because I have the adhd/ocd/executive dysfunction wombo combo. Im so embarrassed I am THIS neurodivergent. I swear my brain couldn’t pick one struggle and settle with it. I’m not making these diagnoses quirky personality traits by any means, in fact, in this post im venting about how exhausting and embarassed I am living with a brain like this on the daily. I need to hear someone’s advice please. I love hearing everyone’s advice on posts because it’s so useful, and brings me back down to reality. Everyone on here gives advice so tastefully in a way where it doesn’t feed into the self reassurance compulsion, but it’s also been thorough and constructive enough where it’s reminded me to ground myself in a healthy way. I love seeing others helping others, it soothes me. This community has been so kind, and I’m so happy I found it. I wish I could ask more, but I have so many questions I think it’d drive everyone here crazy lol. I am doing erp therapy now, and it’s been teaching me so many amazing techniques. I’ve been making progress. However, I sometimes have my moments of vunerablity. I’ve been experiencing this especially now more than ever because I am going through a breakup. He did it through text after nearly 9 months together. I’d do anything for him and love him through anything, and he broke my heart when I least expected it. I’d make his bed for him multiple times, but I haven’t done that for myself in years. I’d sit with him for hours to watch and do anything he likes, but he’d never do the same and I’d never do the same for me. I’m also at fault because I was too scared to speak up so I let a lot of disrespect slide. Why did my ocd do that? Why does ocd make me people please even when I don’t want to? Why does OCD make me care so much about things that will never effect me (like wanting validation from a random person on the street and hoping they’ll think I’m pretty enough to look at), but then when it comes to my future or positive wellbeing (like focusing on college/doing well in classes/personal hygiene/health), forces me to not care/neglect myself and those needs? I don’t understand it. Ocd makes me think everything’s a setup or a trap. I can never believe that I am fine right where I want to be. Why am I so hard on myself? Why do I even think this much? I care and feel so deeply but it becomes unhealthy so fast because ocd makes me fixate and I stay there for a while. For some reason I let this breakup define my self worth. I let it topple into the ocd fear that I will never make it in life - that I won’t be successful, I’ll never get the career I want, the love I want, or the life I want. My OCD’s version of “logic” isn’t even logical. Yes, I understand how the breakup means feelings of low self worth which will then topple into feeling bad about other things. But why has my brain been wired to think this way? Why does it seem so easy for everyone else to function normally with life but not me? Honestly this is the first time in my life where I’m dedicated to focusing on myself and learning more about myself instead of others in my life and it’s a very odd and bizarre feeling. I’m excited of course, but I’m also scared. My ocd makes me ruminate like “what if I will never make the most of this life I’ve been given”, “what if I truly have no worth and the most I will ever be in other people’s lives is a background character”, “why do I care if I’m a background character or not? I should feel guilty and ignorant for assuming everyone will automatically like me”, “are people lying to me when they call me pretty, smart or kind?”, “I need to look and sound perfect in both pictures, videos and in real life. I will never be satisfied for accepting who I am now”, and a bunch of other annoying questions. But sometimes it’s like I just can’t take the reality for what it is but at the same time, but I also acknowledge that I know this is ocd talking. This is so, so difficult. Do I make any sense with what I’m saying? Can anyone help?
- Date posted
- 19w
I've been having a really tough time lately with a recent workplace interaction that occurrd today, and my mind just keeps replaying the events over and over. It feels like an endless loop, and I'm finding it incredibly hard to let go. I'm trying to figure out if this intense replaying is more about my OCD, or if it's a typical reaction to a stressful situation that's being amplified by my OCD tendencies. The specific details of the incident involve a colleague engaging in a racially insensitive discussion that I tried to disengage from. Despite my attempts to steer the conversation away and remove myself, the situation escalated with direct confrontation and accusations. This led to significant emotional distress for me. Later in the day, the same colleague misunderstood another conversation, making baseless accusations and publicly confronting me in a very aggressive way. I kept quiet throughout, just a bit of muttering. The emotional toll of these interactions has been immense. Now, my mind is stuck. I can't seem to stop dwelling on every word, every gesture, and every imagined alternative outcome. Hoping I'm not viewed as the "angry black woman" which is such an affair narrative why can't I state grievances of racism, without this narrative. * how do you manage the relentless replaying of stressful workplace interactions? What are your go-to coping mechanisms when your mind gets "stuck" on these loops? * Have you found any specific strategies helpful for navigating interpersonal conflicts at work when your OCD makes it difficult to process and move past them? * When you're feeling emotionally vulnerable due to work stress, what helps you prevent these situations from turning into prolonged rumination cycles? Any advice or shared experiences would be incredibly helpful. I'll be so grateful for any assistance. I just feel like I'm not good at life.
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