Change Clothes

[Cin]

Over the past 7years i have developed this kind of anxiety about what to wear.(And the funny thing is all my clothes are the same colour) I can change my clothes over about 6 to 8 times before i realise iam late for something, have an axeity attack before settle with something.
Iam really hoping to myself that it is nothing more than a self conscious habit that i have taught myself. Do you think it be anything more than this?

 

[ThatLady]

Hmm. Are you, perhaps, anxious over what you're dressing for, instead of over the dressing itself? In other words, does this happen only when you have to leave the house, or only when there's some function to attend? I'm wondering if you're using the clothes-changing routine in an effort to avoid going to do whatever you're dressing for. Or, could what you're dressing for be causing enough stress to cause the surfacing of the OCD-type symptoms?

 

[Cin]

It happens for anywhere i go now thinking about it..............for example today is sunday where hardly no one is around outside, yet i still did the whole thing for taking a five mintue walk to the shops and back.Even if it is something i want to do, i still have to change over many times before i work myself up and just go.

 

[^^Phoenix^^]

How do you feel if you are unable to preform this 'ritual" (not that I am trying to label it, or anything)? Have you been in a situation recently where you had to just leave the house and if so, how did you react?

 

[Cin]

If i do HAVE to leave the house for some reason, iam very edgy for that day, iam more self concscious and if someone even looks at me i take it personally; but dont say anything.Im just more on edge i guess.

 

[ThatLady]

I'm sorta wondering if this dressing and undressing is an unconscious ploy to put off the inevitable...leaving the house. It really sounds to me more like agoraphobia than OCD, with the dressing thing being used to delay having to face the world. Does that ring any bells, hon?

 

[Cin]

I have thoguht about that also, but then i think, even if its somewhere i really want to go i still do it, and they way things are at home, i thought i woulc be more in a rush to get out of the house..then again..maybe it is unconscious?

 

[ThatLady]

If this compulsion doesn't strike until you have to leave the house, then it sure looks like it serves to delay your leaving the house. Otherwise, you'd go through the same constant changing ritual whether you were leaving the house, or not. Or, at least, that's how it seems to me.

As I understand it, agoraphobia doesn't require that the thing you're leaving the house for be something you don't want to do, nor does it involve aspects of being at home that might make the non-agoraphobic person really WANT to leave the house. It's more about not wanting to go out in public at all, no matter what wonderful things are out there, or how difficult the home situation may be.

I'd think this is really something you'd want to approach, in depth, with your therapist.