So it's been almost 10 days since my last post, and the COVID pandemic continues to grow. This is a scary time. I last left my house 7 days ago to get groceries, and have been worried how I was going to keep a food supply going at my house. Most of the pick up options at the grocery store were full until I fortunately figured out their system, one must put in order in before about 6am to secure a lot. So...now I did secure a slot and will be able to do a pick up order this week, which was a huge relief. I felt like I hit the jackpot when I was able to make that reservation!
This virus has been causing anxiety amongst many of the general public, but for those of us with OCD it does present many additional challenges, and much extra stress. For one, with the groceries, I I do not like the thought of people handling my stuff. For me it came down to 2 options: either have more people involved in the touching of my groceries (during a very germy scary time) but not to have go into the store and be directly around people OR go in the store, touch/collect my own groceries, but forced to be in contact with many people at once that do not social distance and potentially be breathing in the virus at the store (as I've heard it can live in the air for 3 hours!!). So, I decided I can be extra diligent about handwashing (and probably incorporating things into my routine that I normally don't do such as extra handwashing after handling food in my pantry), thus exposing my airborne risk of the disease. Because those of us with OCD are already great at handwashing.
I am still finding things that people post on social media very interesting. It feels like the world is quickly becoming more concerned about contamination. To many non-OCD folks, everything in the world is contaminated now. I've seen people suggesting that others wear gloves when they pump gas, to change their shoes when they come in the house (someone said they were keeping their shoes in a plastic bin in the garage and changing into flip flops to walk into the house). Some people were discussing stripping out of their clothes when they got home from being outside and immediately washing their clothes in the hottest water possible. People are starting to notice when other people contaminate things--paying attention to food workers wearing gloves and what they are touching with the gloves on and becoming worried about that. Things that we see every day with our OCD, but that most people haven't paid attention to until now. I've read articles suggesting that people decontaminate their groceries when they get home (wiping down all non-porous containers with disinfectant wipes). I have never wiped my groceries down with disinfectant wipes throughout my OCD, and I do not plan to start now. I have even become worried what if the grocery stores are starting to do this? Part of my contamination OCD is chemicals, and I don't want to substitute germs for chemicals. Most of myself feels this can not possibly be deemed safe through the FDA, but people are going to extreme measures to ensure their stuff is "safe". Sounds like us in everyday life right? It is not an easy time to have OCD right now. There are some decisions we have to make that are not in line with our routine way of doing things.
The other scary part of all of this is that many of the items that we rely on in every day life with OCD (hand sanitizer, paper products, soap, disposable items) are almost impossible to find. I would imagine the supply will balance out after a period of time, but thinking about not having access to these things is almost unthinkable with OCD. I go through soap like water in my house. I have a decent supply of soap in my house, but most of it is not anti-bacterial. I know that antibacterial soap is not any better than regular old soap, but let's face it--for those of us with OCD, antibacterial just feels better...cleaner. Even though I don't think I'll run out of soap before they can get it back in stock, I've already found myself trying to ration it because I really don't think I could function without soap. I have also been rationing other things such as paper products (I go through lots of tissues and paper towels for various things) as well as gloves--because I'm literally terrified of running out of them. In a way, it's forced me to decide do I REALLY need to use soap or a glove right now?
My husband, surprisingly, is becoming very germ-conscious throughout this pandemic as well. He wanted to go out on a beer run the other day and thought about going first thing in the morning before the store got too busy. He told me his plan was to go to the store, use hand sanitizer in the car, wash his hands right when he got home and take a shower. He asked me if I thought this would help reduce his changes of getting the virus. He ended up not going to the store, as he was able to find a liquor store in our city that is doing car side pickups. He went to get his supply last night and the employee came out to his truck with gloves on, wiped off his 3 beer cases with disinfectant wipes, put them in his truck, and wiped his door handle. The employee actually did this. Now, my husband had coincidentally put some disinfect wipes in his truck before going, as his plan was to wipe the cases down, but the employee beat him to it. My husband also was out at our farm the other night selling some hay to a stranger. He told the stranger that he wasn't getting closer than 20 feet away from him, and made the stranger put the cash down far away from him, so he had no close interaction. When the man left, my husband took a glove from the farm shop, picked up the cash, took the glove off his hand inside out (keeping the cash contained there), and put it somewhere inside where he planned on letting it sit for 7-10 days until the virus would be killed if it were potentially on there.
As I said in my previous post, it is weird to see the world behaving as if the world is contaminated. To those of us with OCD, the world is contaminated every day. Seeing everything happening in the world to maintain social distance, is an ideal world for those of us with OCD, if we could just take the actual virus out of the equation. To order your take out and have them deliver it to your car, so you didn't have to be around people. To order your clothes from the retail store, and again have them bring it out to you. To have no contact deliveries, where you don't have to be around anyone. To take your pet to the vet, and they will come get your pet and bring them back out to your car (again avoiding people). My grocery store is supposedly setting up plastic windows/barriers around the cashiers. Social distancing and good hygiene is what we dream of everyday in the general public. But not the virus. That is the scary part. I am planning to update weekly on this situation, as this is kind of my personal focus right now in life. This is my new normal. Staying home, hoping I get fortunate enough to get the grocery pick up time weekly, checking Amazon daily for soap/paper towels (even though I know I'm not going to find any for awhile), seeing the endless videos/news conferences/articles on COVID. Working my 9 hour nursing shifts doing triage, speaking to patients about COVID. Socially quarantining myself with my family. Scared to go outside in my front yard because we have so many neighbors that don't understand the concept of social distancing. Scared to take a walk, because I don't want random strangers coming up talking to me/petting my dogs. Worrying about our country and the world. Worrying about the food and supply chain. Worried I will have to go to the store to get food. Worrying if this pandemic is going to make my OCD worse, or possibly force me to learn to live a life without the soap and paper products I rely on. Being stuck inside the house (but knowing at the same time that is the only way to really stay safe, so I'll gladly do it), things are getting very, very tense with my husband. It is a challenge for me even when he works at home an occasional day, so 2 weeks of him working at home with no end in sight is becoming extremely taxing on me. We do not do well at all when we are together 24/7. I am used to being here alone during the day, which makes cooking/laundry/cleaning much easier to do when I don't have an audience. Now he is around all the time, and this has been very difficult. Worrying about being cooped up all summer too, when ordinarily that is the one time of the year where I do better mentally and can be out and do social things and have fun. None of us know how long this pandemic is going to last. I will keep posting regularly. Hope you all are doing well, and staying safe.
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