The ADD & The OCD

Seth and I have been watching a lot of Modern Family. This show has definitely climbed the ranks to be my favorite TV comedy. If you aren't watching it - shame on you! Ok, not shame on you, it took me a year of people talking about it to get into it. Really though it's wonderful. I belly laugh every episode. It also has a lot of heart. It's not too rare to find myself choked up over an episode. It's a great show. Watch it. I beg you.

As we have watched this Seth and I have realized how much like Claire and Phil we are. I'm sure everyone that watches this show can relate to the characters and probably feel the same way. I think the reason we relate so well to them is that Phil has ADD (attention deficit disorder) and Claire has OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) paired with neurotic tendencies. This is Seth and I. I love Phil and I find that Claire drives me crazy on the show. I suppose that is how it should be though right? We tend to hate what we see in ourselves?

I am very OCD - a topic which I have blogged about before:

http://mylifeasayoukstetter.blogspot.com/2009/11/ocd-me.html

Seth has ADD. Some days I will come home when he has had a day off of work and I will find the house a complete mess. I will see several projects that have been started and not finished. The TV will be on, his laptop will be open and he will be frazzled. This is how I expect to find him most days. Other days he hyper-focuses on stuff and works like a mad man to get a project completed. He leaves me long rambling voice messages. Often I know he is distracted by something while he is leaving me a message (a car the passes him, something on TV, a piece of paper). In his regular speech he has a hard time completing a sentence or thinking of a word (even a basic word like vacuum). This is all very frustrating for him. And me. Sometimes.

We have found ourselves laughing hysterically as Phil and Claire navigate their ways through their marriage with these two competing disorders. And yet it works.

The same could be said for us.

While I find myself ready to KILL Seth because of his "piles" around the house, or the way he absolutely forgets about plans we have, or the way that he gets distracted from project to project, in the end I find him very endearing.

While I know Seth hates that I can't go to bed without my pillows being in the exact spot, or my face washed/teeth brushed. He hates that I refuse to go to bed with dirty dishes. He thinks it is odd that I have to separate my candy by colors and eat them in twos. He hates that I can't relax until things are picked up. After all of this, he somehow still loves me.

Seth teaches me to relax. He teaches me to not worry about cleaning or organizing but just to take it easy with him. He has taught me that it is ok to not have everything perfect. And honestly, living with Seth perfection isn't really a possibility.

In the same regard I help Seth stay focused. I help him make to-do lists. I help him follow-through with a project. Most days I help him finish his sentences.

We just balance each other out. While we want to kill each other many days, we work.

Last night we had a terrible fight. The stress of the baby, a house being under construction, money issues, fears about how drastically our lives are going to change, etc. just added up and boiled over. We worked through it but it was a rough couple of hours. We decided that what we needed was to watch Modern Family - and to laugh.

So we sat down - and once again the show proved very real to us.

There is scene in the episode we watched last night in which Phil and Claire discuss their son Luke. Claire is afraid that Luke is ADD like Phil and they take him to a child psychologist.

The psychologist claims that Luke is just fine. But Claire, being the neurotic mother that she is expresses her worry to Phil. She says, "How will Luke survive?" to which Phil replies "Somewhere there is a 12-year-old little girl who is busy labeling her toys and obsessively organizing her bedroom."

At this line I started to cry. And I glanced over at Seth - who was also a bit choked up. Which made me cry even harder.

I was that 12-year-old girl. Oddly obsessive and really neurotic. I am sure that Seth's parents worried how Seth and his ADD would ever survive.

Yet somehow we find people that compliment us.

And I love that.