Posted by kimbersaur on June 28, 2010, at 4:17:47
I'd like some input from people who understand mental illness.
I have really bad contamination OCD. To me the ultimate source of contamination is vomit. I spend every waking moment obsessing about the possibility that perhaps the person who sat in the chair before me recently vomited, etc. When someone I know vomits they are pretty much banished from my life (I know it sounds bad and I feel awful about it). This phobia of vomit has kind of spread to a phobia of places of public transportation, places where sick people spend time, and especially places where drinking takes place.
Anyway, I got engaged about a year ago. The wedding is in August. Knowing how hard it would be and how bad my OCD was getting I started Pristiq and have had massive improvement, but not nearly as much as I hoped. When we got engaged the topic of a bachelor party came up. I know and my fiancee knows that if someone threw up at my fiancees bachelor party the week before my wedding, my wedding would be basically ruined for me because all my guests including my boyfriend - who lives in my house - would be contaminated. It is bad enough knowing that many of my guests will be flying here for the wedding and therefore in an airport which is a "high risk" area because people get airsick.
I don't want to be a controlling girlfriend but I told my fiancee that I couldn't handle him and his friends going on some some epic binge drinking extravaganza, even though they see it as some sort of "rite of passage" ritual. We fought, discussed it on end, and finally agreed that he would fly out to where his friends live months before the wedding and have the party there in another state at a different point in time than the wedding (an idea that still terrified me but didn't directly threaten the wedding).
Now, it is 40 days before the wedding and he tells me that one of his best friends can't do the party until 4 days before the wedding and therefore they will have to do it here in town less than a week before the wedding, and they are going to be going from bar to bar drinking (bars are another "high risk" area and drunk people absolutely terrify me). And now he refuses to even discuss it with me.
I don't know what to do. Normally we have excellent communication. We pretty much never have significant disagreements. Am I in the wrong for putting up a fight against him having a bachelor party with drinking? I really don't want to ruin things for him and his friends, I really don't want to be selfish, but I feel like this wedding is my day too. I will only get married once and if the whole thing is ruined because I'm having a mental breakdown over contamination then all of that money and planning and excitement will be a waste. But at the same time, I feel like I don't have the right to deny my fiancee the party, and I can tell he feels strongly about the matter, and I feel guilty all the time about how much my OCD inconveniences him on a daily basis. I don't want his friends to hate me and I don't want my OCD to dictate his life, but just the thought of their plans gets my anxiety and obsessing going.
Any advice?
poster:kimbersaur
thread:952481
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100628/msgs/952481.html