His Friends Were Understanding About His Girlfriend’s OCD, Until Some Of Her Behavior Started Causing Problems For The Group
Magnific
It’s really sweet when someone makes accommodations for someone’s mental health. But what happens when their mental health condition starts affecting your mental health?
In this case, a woman was dealing with her friend’s girlfriend, who has OCD, and started treating her like she’s a health hazard. In public.
The girlfriend started warning other people to stay away from her, so she announced that if she was going to be there, she wouldn’t go anymore.
Her friend and the girlfriend were very upset by this remark.
Read the full story below.
AITA for telling my friend he can come to our outings but his girlfriend with OCD can’t?
So, I’ll try to be brief: I (20f) have a group of friends I’ve known since school, we don’t see each other often anymore because adulting is chaotic, but we try to get together every two months or so.
There’s about six people on this group, including Mark (22M), who recently got a girlfriend who I’ll call Sarah (21f).
Sarah has bad OCD and has loads of rules to what she can and can’t tolerate, which originally wasn’t a problem.
Some of us are also neurodivergent/have conditions that required adaptations, so we adapted our outings whenever she wanted to come, since she was polite and nice.
But things escalated quickly.
Everything was fine for a few months, until one of our other friends casually asked about my dermatitis and if it was better. I have contact dermatitis.
It is not contagious in any way, shape or form, but it flares up often), Sarah heard it, and deemed me a ‘contaminated person’.
Ever since then, she’s been treating me like I have the plague, she won’t touch anything I have touched, won’t sit near me, and will make a disgusted face any time I’m around, which at first I took, she has a condition, I don’t care what she does.
She was okay with it until…
But she started doing it to other people, like warning people not to sit near me, and once at a restaurant told a waiter to be careful not to touch me when he handed me my glass or he would contaminate himself and everyone he served.
At this point, me and everyone in the group are incredibly bothered by it, and one of our other friends even told her and Mark that she can do what she wants, but it’s ****** to keep saying that to people.
Here’s where I may be the *******:
We were planning our next get together and I told the group that if Sarah was coming I wouldn’t go, I don’t deserve to be treated like a monster for something entirely out of my control and harmless to others and be shamed by it.
Of course Sarah’s boyfriend wasn’t pleased.
Since the group was already bothered, we all decided that Mark was welcome, but we didn’t want Sarah around until she dealt with that fear.
He wasn’t online at the time so I texted him in private, explained that Sarah was making everyone uncomfortable, and we’d prefer she didn’t come until she could work through at least not telling everyone not to touch me.
I also said we understand if he didn’t want to come without her, she’s his girlfriend after all and he has to support her.
Well a few hours later he blew up, called me an ableist *******, said Sarah had seen the messages and hadn’t stopped crying then blocked us all when he saw the group agreed.
AITA?
They’re all handling things terribly.
What did Reddit think?
A reader shares their thoughts.
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Maybe it does, but she shouldn’t think everyone has to tolerate it.
Exactly.
Another reader chimes in.
Someone shares their experience.
It’s not easy having OCD, of course. But being humiliated publicly because of a skin condition is also not easy.
As someone who has had OCD since I can remember, I agree with what one commenter said. Enabling it can make it more intense.
Setting boundaries gently could have helped if all involved communicated better.
They all need to start talking like adults ASAP or just allow themselves to grow apart.
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