(Mike sighs)
It's unimaginable living with somebody with extreme OCD.
Everything is tortured.
I gotta verify it one more time.
And taunted.
That wasn't good enough.
So, now I gotta go through the whole thing again.
By his OCD thoughts.
All I need you to do is go with me.
No.
Out to the car.
No.
And check one more time and make sure it's empty.
No, it's absolutely ridiculous.
You helped me throw away the products.
So, all those things that you threw away in the box,
the product, they're all empty?
Yes.
It takes no prisoners.
It is never satisfied.
Comes down to, I don't trust myself.
But you don't trust me either.
Everything in his life is about rituals,
orders, routines, counting, checking, validations.
In order for him to do the most mundane tasks
that we all take for granted,
he has to ask and receive permission from his brain.
It has increasingly got worse over the last five years.
He's been unable to hold a job.
He stays in the same clothes of weeks at a time.
He can't shower, he can't trim his nails,
he can't shave his beard, he can't brush his teeth.
He doesn't smell good, he doesn't look good.
He has no self-confidence.
He completely relies on me to get him through.
He can't do simple things like opening
a refrigerator to get himself something to eat,
opening the pantry to get a snack.
He tries not to eat
so he doesn't have to go to the restroom.
He'll get stuck in a restroom for up to eight hours.
I can't even move onto the bathroom, I'm stuck.
I can't throw anything away
until he gives me permission to throw it away.
It has become a life completely ruled
by paranoia and fearful thoughts.
I don't even know what I'm doing.
I get stuck in between rooms.
I am prisoner of this disease as well.
I stopped even considering us really married
or a couple probably six years ago.
I had to give Mike an ultimatum
that he has another week to find another place to live
because I need to be able to walk away
and live with myself regardless of what happens.
It's taken the man that I love, the man that I married.
It's taken finances, it's taken my future.
It's taken us having kids.
It's ruined everything in our lives.
(intense music)
This is very painful for you.
Extremely painful, embarrassing.
Why is it embarrassing for you?
This is something for 16 years
I have tried to help him hide and protect.
It was just easier to keep it a secret
and try to get through it,
and think that I could help him,
and he would get better,
and we could have a normal life together,
and we just can't lie anymore.
You say that you want my help
because if something doesn't happen here,
he's going to be homeless because you're at
the point where you can't take it anymore,
or you're going to crack.
I'm going to crack.
You knew before you married him that he was--
Yes, he got diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder
after a few marriage counseling visits,
and then they recommended he go to a psychiatrist.
He got diagnosed with something,
he got prescribed a medicine.
And I thought we were on the road to recovery.
So, you didn't go into it buying into what you have now.
No.
If you knew then what you know now,
would you have married him? Never.
How long has it been since you've been intimate, years?
Probably years.
I mean, we look at the pictures here.
Those are his feet. Those are his feet.
He walks in your house with those feet,
and he doesn't cut his nails, doesn't wash his hair,
doesn't take a shower.
And you say he doesn't do the normal hygiene things
'cause he doesn't have time.
It's too overwhelming to him at this point.
He can't keep up with it.
When he was working--
He has no job, he has no responsibility.
But he has no time to take a shower.
Oh, he's very busy doing compulsions
and rituals all day and night.
'Cause it may take him eight hours
to go from one room to another.
It may.