patooyee
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Sep 27, 2008
- Messages
- 5,692
My Dad is certified OCD. Literally, clinically diagnosed. He works hard to fight it and does well in most aspects of his life but as he ages he is loosing his ability to discern sometimes. Nothing is he worse than trucks and towing though. The problem is that he is no longer able to deal with some of his old habits alone. He now needs my help installing and removing the hitch in the bed of his truck, which I don't mind doing on occasion when necessary, but in reality he feels the need to do way too often. He barely ever uses his camper, but he will move it around, finding things that need repairing constantly, to and from the camp ground. He'll bring it there, go through the day-long process of leveling and plumbing it and then bring the truck to me at which point I am expected to remove the heavy hitch and reinstall his camper top. Then a few days later he will decide that something on the camper needs to be fixed, upgraded, repaired, or something and that it has to be moved from the camp ground to the repair shop. It is then my responsibility to remove the camper top, re-install the hitch, he'll go de-plumb it, bring it to the shop, leave it there, and bring the truck back to me to remove the hitch, reinstall the camper top. A few days later the process repeats to bring the camper back to the camp ground and it never ends. His OCD mandates that if he is not towing the camper the hitch must be out of the bed and the camper top on. He can not just drop the camper off at the shop and let the hitch stay in the bed for a week knowing that he'll have to tow the camper back to the camp ground. During the few days at the shop the hitch can not be in the bed of the truck and the camper top must be installed or he has a mental breakdown. He does not use the bed of the truck for any purpose other than the hitch except maybe keeping a few things back there that I will admit do need to stay dry. (Hence the camper top.) Not only is this a huge inconvenience for me, but the whole family agrees that by continually helping him I am enabling his mental disorder and making it worse. The entire family agrees that part of his disorder is actually getting people to participate in it, that without people around willing to be enablers he wouldn't actually engage in the behavior.
I am trying to convince him to convert to gooseneck and just put a roll-up tonneau cover on the bed so that the 400 lbs 5th wheel hitch doesn't constantly need to go in and out and so that the stuff he keeps in the bed stays dry without having to constantly move the camper top around. But he has this huge, state of the art 5th wheel hitch that is like $3000 in the bed with multiple moving parts. It swivels as he turns and then when he backs up levers backwards to keep the camper further away from the cab. The hitch literally has bearings in it. The camper itself has a matching component that is also like $3000 and makes it so that it can not be pulled by a conventional 5th wheel hitch. Only his truck can pull his camper as a result. I don't completely understand how it works, never towed a 5th wheel. But I do know that crazy hitches like this didn't always exist and that I have thoroughly enjoyed towing every gooseneck trailer I have ever pulled. He believes that he must have his $6000 hitch setup, that his 27-foot camper is so massive that it is absolutely required when I know that 27-feet really isn't that big in the grand world of 5th wheel towing.
I'm asking if anyone here with experience towing 5th wheel trailers agrees or disagrees with his assessment / need for the crazy hitch. Would a gooseneck be almost as good? I have no experience to say one way or the other. If he could just have a flip-over gooseneck in the bed of his truck with a roll-up bed cover he could obsess over this **** as much as he wanted without bothering me. In reality I don't believe he would though as getting me (and others) to participate in his disorder is part of the addiction to him.
I love my dad and enjoy spending time with him. I hate telling him no when he needs my help. We have rarely lived close to each other and weren't very close growing up. I believe that he subconsciously takes advantage of my desire to spend time with him now that he is retired and living near me to enable his OCD. But I agree with my family that my helping him in this instance is like giving an alcoholic a ride to the liqueur store. I may be helping him with his need for a ride, but I am enabling his habit and making him worse off in the long-run.
I am trying to convince him to convert to gooseneck and just put a roll-up tonneau cover on the bed so that the 400 lbs 5th wheel hitch doesn't constantly need to go in and out and so that the stuff he keeps in the bed stays dry without having to constantly move the camper top around. But he has this huge, state of the art 5th wheel hitch that is like $3000 in the bed with multiple moving parts. It swivels as he turns and then when he backs up levers backwards to keep the camper further away from the cab. The hitch literally has bearings in it. The camper itself has a matching component that is also like $3000 and makes it so that it can not be pulled by a conventional 5th wheel hitch. Only his truck can pull his camper as a result. I don't completely understand how it works, never towed a 5th wheel. But I do know that crazy hitches like this didn't always exist and that I have thoroughly enjoyed towing every gooseneck trailer I have ever pulled. He believes that he must have his $6000 hitch setup, that his 27-foot camper is so massive that it is absolutely required when I know that 27-feet really isn't that big in the grand world of 5th wheel towing.
I'm asking if anyone here with experience towing 5th wheel trailers agrees or disagrees with his assessment / need for the crazy hitch. Would a gooseneck be almost as good? I have no experience to say one way or the other. If he could just have a flip-over gooseneck in the bed of his truck with a roll-up bed cover he could obsess over this **** as much as he wanted without bothering me. In reality I don't believe he would though as getting me (and others) to participate in his disorder is part of the addiction to him.
I love my dad and enjoy spending time with him. I hate telling him no when he needs my help. We have rarely lived close to each other and weren't very close growing up. I believe that he subconsciously takes advantage of my desire to spend time with him now that he is retired and living near me to enable his OCD. But I agree with my family that my helping him in this instance is like giving an alcoholic a ride to the liqueur store. I may be helping him with his need for a ride, but I am enabling his habit and making him worse off in the long-run.