What Is Oppositional Defiant Disorder in Adults?

I do not communicate with my mother who I feel may have oppositional defiant disorder, because she is always picking a fight with me. Oppositional defiant disorder makes somebody want to fight with people they perceive as trying to have authority. All I do is assert my boundaries and realize she does not have ADD, get their panties in a bunch, with me for setting boundaries, like "don't fight with me," and they somehow do anyway, regardless of how much peacemaking I do to soothe the savage beast that is coming after me.

People with ODD often lose their temper, which happens enough times to make the people around them wonder what is up. Some people do this with everybody in their lives, while others manage not to do this at work. I try to set rules with these people, and they defy them while deliberately trying to annoy me at the same time. It is why I'm relieved that COVID means my family can't come back necessarily-if they do, they risk looking like jerks if they do bring the germ to me. Besides they would have to endure a fourteen-day quarantine with me in the house. Traveling as a schizoaffective is exhausting because you get tired easily. Traveling as a psychic with schizoaffective and OCD has tired me out in the past, traveling with both parents who have untreated mental health issues, is exhausting on a good day.

I read that ODD makes people angry and resentful. It's like I'm raising my parents instead of them raising me or relating to your adult child. How my parents have stayed together all this time defies logic, but they act as each other's narcissistic supply. I also realize that I didn't display ODD as a child until I was 12, when family drama heated up as I was deciding and exploring in what ways was I different from my mom and dad. My mother acts like she is angry with me all the time. It is insanely difficult for me to be around her at this time. People with ODD have a hard time being told what to do, and with narcissism mixed in, I really am dealing with people who are stuck with the emotional maturity of a three-year old.

I'm fed up with them drinking and not taking medication. I'm fed up with being the bad guy for taking medication, being in control, and told I take too much medication by family sounding boards. No, dears, buspar is an antianxiety med that prevents my panic attacks. People with ODD go to great lengths to win an argument, doing things to deliberately annoy people. ODD people also get into fights a lot, having an intensive trigger that sets them off easily. ODD folks argue at work a lot, acting in non-civil ways with coworkers or their boss, overreacting to an order sometimes. They eat smelly foods for lunch, and violate company policies a lot on purpose. They get physically aggressive, which often results in being fired. They also have meltdowns when they get constructive criticism. Example: Tell my mother she had typos and she would flip.

I've run out of ways to keep myself safe other than not going to visit my parents for any reason, period. My family is not into taking time outs when conflict will get worse, they keep going. It is something to see, the nonstop arguing. I think my parents struggled with their teens being a time to separate themselves from their family's identity for them. I'm the only authority figure mom has ever been able to rebel against.

I'm worried about their mental health since nobody is on medication, or in therapy, or dealing with their mental health issues at all. Actually, it could be said my entire family ignores me because I feel like they want to, I bring up mental health, and they just don't pay attention to my work save on Facebook where they might read my updates. People with ODD have frequent anger outbursts that I find rabidly difficult to deal with. In my homeowner's association rules, it says to move the car on the second Wednesday of every month only because that is the day there is street sweeping, some people don't do this. In college, I remember mom was shocked when an office wouldn't let her inside because she was wearing perfume since it was a scent free environment. I went inside to handle my business on my own as she spluttered.

They would rather deal with a fine for not moving their cars than actually moving their cars. For some reason my family can handle working, but I am starting to wonder if the opposite was true for the both of them, in which case, I have to wonder how I made it through high school with the two of them constantly in my face. ODD people are vicious. Being around them scares me because I'm on eggshells, and agitated. Those who are touchy are often angry, and I wonder now if one of my old roommates was ODD and bipolar. She went to work high off a marijuana brownie and thought her boss wouldn't notice.

She would consistently blame me for her misbehavior. Adults with ODD act vindictive at least twice in a two-month period. My parents never put themselves in a situation where their ODD impacts their social life, education, or their job. See, in my family they would rather knock back a few than take medication. They have untreated mental health problems that nobody listens to me about. So if my family ignores me, I'm going to have to take the same tactic and ignore them. They actually have active psychosis since they are not on any kind of medication. I need people to pray that my family gets treatment only because they aren't getting themselves help. There are active criteria that the DSM uses to define itself, mild symptoms are confined to one setting, moderate means symptoms are confined to two settings and severe means there are three major settings like, work, school, and home where people are acting out. I've spent years in therapy just trying not to be like my family.

I should have been in child-oriented therapy from the age of 4 on. But nobody thought children needed therapy. Family therapy helped my dad more than my mom. I should have also been on medication since the age of 1, but nobody thought children needed medication either.

Works Cited

https://www.additudemag.com/oppositional-defiant-disorder-in-adults/

https://www.additudemag.com/oppositional-defiant-disorder-in-adults/