Attending family gathering for the first time in over a year

Avoidance has been my biggest problem for awhile now.  I have avoided our family gatherings for a long time due to contamination fears and not wanting to be triggered.  I remember going to Thanksgiving in 2013 at my parents house, which was just a small gathering consisting of my parents, sister, my family of three, my grandpa, my sister and my niece.  This was right at the time when I started developing my clothing contamination issues.  I had previously (and still do) have a problem with germs, and not wanting to catch germs/viruses from others.  This is why I have a really hard time being around my niece, because of her age and the fact that she is in daycare and almost always has some type of runny nose or cough.  I remember wearing an old pair of jeans and an old sweatshirt to that gathering, and coming home and tossing them both aside.  That was back in the day when anything that felt "contaminated" to me would just get tossed aside, to never wear again.  The pile would continue to grow and grow, and my closet would continue to dwindle.  I was stuck in that for a long time, and am just starting to come out of it.  I am happy to say that I am now washing and re-wearing many items that I wouldn't have been able to a year ago, or even a few months ago.  My closet is finally being replenished, and it's a good feeling to see that I am coming out of that (although I will admit I have still thrown some things out, but not nearly as much as before).  When I do throw something out now, it is because it still so high up on my hierarchy list of contamination (such as contaminated by my husband or dog).  I have made up an excuse for about every family gathering over the last year, and I made a promise to myself that I would get to two family Christmas celebrations this year (my side and my husbands side).  On Christmas Eve, we went to my aunt and uncles, which was a fairly large gathering.  I will be honest (because I've tended to not hold much back on this blog), that I did have to come up with a trick or two to help facilitate this, but I did it.  That is important, because for the first time in a year I forced myself to not avoid.  And I believe that a couple of compulsions at this point, to help deal with it, are a much better thing than avoidance.  Yes with time, hopefully I can stop the compulsions associated with it.  But for now, this is where I am at.  I knew the things that would bother me the most were:  all the people there and the potential that someone could have a cold/cough or virus, hugging other people, walking around on someone else's floor, sitting on someone else's furniture, and then feeling like my clothes, carseat, shoes, and socks were contaminated afterward.  I discovered a way to get around this was to wear an old pair of shoes, and I wore double socks.  That way these old shoes can be my "contaminated" shoes when I go to my husbands gathering (which will be sometime later this week).  I sat on one dining room chair the whole time, because I basically talked to my sister and grandma in that area the whole time we were there.  I tried to avoid the children there as much as I could, but one of my cousin's kids kept coming over to my daughter and trying to touch her feet under the table.  This really bothered me, but I tried not to obsess over it.  He was also coughing every now and then while he was under the table.  Another child had a runny nose and my aunt took him into the bathroom to wipe it.  They were only in their a split-second and I can't imagine she would have had enough time to wash her hands, so I avoided hugging her at the end of the night.  The thought that snot was on my clothes would have put me over the edge and rendered the clothing unwearable, and I didn't want that to happen.  My niece was not at the gathering, because she was spending some time with her dad out of town.  When we got home, I took my shoes off at the door and the first layer of socks.  That way I felt the under layer of socks was still "clean enough" that I could walk into my house, strip my clothes down, get them into the hamper, shower, and put on clean clothes and sit on my couch.  Floors seem really dirty to me, and I always wear slippers at my own house.  No walking around in socks for this girl.  So my socks got pitched, but I washed the clothes and they are ready to go for the next round.  I kind of labeled them my "contaminated outfit", which now will be the jeans/sweatshirt I will wear in the future if I need to go to someone else's house.  There.  Done.  Of course I tried to do this without drawing attention to myself, around my husband, but we got through it.  Basically, I just wanted to make myself "clean" before switching over to my "non-contaminated" environment in my house.  Then I went out the next day and washed my carseat off with soap and water, so I knew it would be clean before I got into it next.  To be honest, it really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  There were a few things that bothered me, but I think I can do this again.  I think I need to do this again.  And it was nice to see my relatives, although I admit a bit akward because I often wonder what they think about me and why I don't really come to stuff anymore.  It was good that my daughter got a chance to see our extended family too.  This was the easiest of the family gatherings though.  My husband's will be much harder, because his parents house is very contaminated to me.  This is probably because his dad is contaminated to me, because of all the farming stuff.  All of the furniture there will be dirty to me.  If his dad touches my clothing or my daughters clothing (and I am pretty much expecting this to happen), that will be it for those clothes.  I honestly feel like my clothes will go in the discard pile after this gathering.  This is one of the highest on my hierarchies.  I am trying not to think about it too much.  I really don't think I am ready for this one yet, but I don't have a choice.  I think I can handle being there and feeling contaminated, the question though is just what to do with my clothes when I get home?  I will pull the same double sock and contaminated shoe trick again.  I know there will be hugs involved.  My in-laws haven't seen my daughter or I for almost 7 months (and we live 5 minutes away from each other).  The one issue I also might have here is feeling like my clothes are so contaminated my by father-in-law, that I won't want to wear my seatbelt home, or I will contaminate it.  I am hoping no one is sick at this gathering.  Influenza and pertussis (whooping cough) are very prevalent in my town right now, and I am extra on-edge because of that.  Also its December, it's just bad cold season in general.  The plan is for us all to get together on New Years Day.  I hope that things go okay.  I was really pleased with how things went for my own family gathering, I just know that this one is going to be much more difficult. 

My mom really wants our family to come over and celebrate with them this weekend too, when my niece can be there.  I'm not sure how to deal with this one.  Avoidance is going to come into play again.  I talked to my sister just over a week ago and my niece had a terrible cough at that point.  I just know that if we go over there and my niece is sick, that will put me over the edge.  I won't be able to stay.  I really want to avoid this.  My mom is determined that all of us should get together, and keeps asking about dates that work.  I keep putting it off and making excuses for this one.  I do feel terrible, because my daughter and my niece are cousins of course.  They are the only cousins each other has, and I have seen my niece one time in over a year......I'm still thinking on this one, but I'll keep you posted when I update on the gathering coming up this week. 

To end this post, for those that celebrate....I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas!  Over 2000 years ago, a little baby was born in Bethlehem in a manger.  The Savior of the World.  Happy Birthday, Jesus!  With Jesus, we are never alone.  He walks with us every step in our lives, the happy and the difficult steps.  The moments where we just don't know how to keep going.  He is always there and He loves us more than we could ever imagine.  Hope you all had happy holidays, and will have a blessed New Year!

Let's keep moving forward in the fight against OCD in 2015!!!!