OBSESSED

Obsessed returns for a second season on A&E Monday night with two compelling stories of people trapped in their own personal hell, caught in a riptide of action/reaction that they can't - or choose not to - deal with.

I've seen promos for this series but never made the effort to watch it. I have to say, it's not the subjects of this show that I find compelling but the people around them that catch my attention, the loved ones that stick around and deal with it - or hang out to complain constantly.

I love people that say, "That was my first clue something was wrong." You'll hear a husband say that in this hour when he noticed his wife might have an obsession with exercising before they were married and had kids - and it got progressively worse after that.

I think these compulsive people are, at the core, incredibly selfish individuals and this show only backs up my theory. A person who freaks out if someone who's consumed alcohol touches his things - that's infantile behavior. An inability to join your family for dinner, when they're just 10 feet away, because you can't get off the treadmill is conduct no parent would put up with in their pre-schooler ("Stop playing with your toys and come to dinner!"). Yet here are grown adults with spouses and kids that are unable to control themselves.

I think the thing that separates the majority of us from those unfortunates with obsessive disorders is that we aren't as self-indulgent. Believe me, I might be if I had the opportunity, perhaps you would as well, but it's just not an option.

I know hoarders, just like you see on TV. I deal with my own obsessive compulsive issues. But the fact that these behaviors are developed later in life and can be stopped is enough for me to have a zero tolerance for that type of thing in my life.

I have a friend who's (mostly) stay at home wife complained to me that her husband comes home and immediately starts cleaning the house. Even if she's just cleaned, it's not good enough for him and he'll spend a half an hour or more cleaning what's been missed. I asked her, "What are you complaining about? Your man goes out and makes a living and then comes home and cleans the house! It's a dream come true." I told him, when he complained that his wife doesn't clean well enough for him, "If you lived alone you'd be doing all the cleaning anyway. Think of it that way."

The individuals shown on this program have so much support, so much love, and so much to live for - it's astonishing that it takes strangers intervening to rectify the problem. Guess that why they call it a mental illness, logic doesn't play a role.

I'm prolly a jerk for even positing that it's selfishness driving these folks to the brink of madness but I find it difficult to empathize - even if I can relate. That makes me sound callous and shallow, doesn't it?

If you're alone and suffering from this illness my heart goes out, I simply can't imagine what you're going through and I apologize if you're offended by what you've read. That these individuals were being enabled by loved ones is astonishing to me.

I'm especially baffled why these types of TV programs are so popular now. Are we normalizing this type of behavior or is it cathartic? This episode kind of leaves you hanging, or purposely omits the outcome, I don't know which - we learn that one of the individuals gets better but what about the other?

Then again, if a family of your own making isn't enough to spur you on, what is?

Obsessed returns for a second season on A&E Monday, June 28th at 10/9c.

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Obsessed

Reviewed by Billy Ingram, as seen on VH1, Trio and Bravo. Author - TVparty: Television's Untold Tales

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