You are stronger than you think!

     Well, now it is mid-August, and the summer is officially almost over.  What I have been continuing to work on through the summer is my COVID fears, and getting back out into life again.  I am really proud of what I have accomplished this summer, especially with one of my dogs in her final stages of terminal cancer.  It would have been very easy to neglect my own mental health and recovery (and trust me, part of me wanted to), while I focused on her.  But I had to make both her and my own mental health priorities this summer.  I knew that if I did not take steps to fight back against my OCD, that it would become even harder to move to that better place, once my dog is gone.  And she deserves a happier mom, and I know she will want the best for me when she is gone.  She will want me to live better.  Her disease has taught me a lot about life, uncertainty and fear of the future.  I am really fighting back against my OCD for her at this point.  She has inspired me so much by what she has gone through this past year (amputation and chemotherapy), and it's forced me to realize that her future is not in my control.  Trust me...there have been times that my OCD has really played on this and forced me to engage in compulsions so that "she will be okay".  I have a post planned soon about pets and OCD (I've posted before many, many years ago on this subject, as I think it's an important topic to discuss.  And it will allow me to give some background on my dog and what we have been facing together this past year.  

    As I discussed in my last post, I had made a list of all the exposures I wanted to do this summer--most all of them involving getting back out into a world with COVID, and learning to navigate life in that world again.  There were some other exposures I did too (some clothing contamination and food issues), but for the purpose of this post, I will focus on the COVID stuff.  Keep in mind, and remember, that prior to June of this year I had never been in a public place without a mask.  Furthermore, even when masked--I was pretty much limiting my outings to doctor appointments and vet visits.  All of my grocery/Target shopping was done curbside.  I had not been into a grocery store since 3/17/20.  When I started my plan this summer, initially I was going to go into a store maybe 1-2 times/week for 10 minutes and slowly build up, so that by the end of the summer I was able to go into stores more regularly.  I had initially thought this would be a process that would take the whole summer, in very small baby steps.  For instance, maybe going to Target one week and buying one item.  Then going to Wal-Mart the next week and being in there for 5 minutes.  Etc.  In actuality, I ended up just diving right in, and within 1-2 weeks, I was going into stores multiple times a week, without a mask, without really any anxiety.  I think the anticipation of getting back out into the world was the hardest.  Once I got there, it really wasn't that bad.  As usual, with OCD, our minds imagine the worst.  So for the last 3 years I imagine some crazy looking society where everyone walks around sick and coughing.  But once I got back out there, it was just how it used to be before COVID.  Now I go into some sort of store almost daily (sometimes multiple stores daily), and have no issues (other than today I did go into a very crowded Wal-Mart on a Saturday afternoon and that did invoke some anxiety in me, but I stuck with it).  I also had a lot of outdoor exposures planned, which I was able to follow through on every single one, except for one thing...which happened to be out of my control.  We ended up running out of time this summer to go there, but it was a lower level exposure, so I have no doubt that I would have gone, and it would have been fine.  My biggest outdoor exposure was going to a very large world-renowned zoo that we live close by, and visiting the zoo in it's entirety (even going into the more crowded indoor exhibits).  Children are a huge trigger for me, and of course at zoos children run wild and are all over the place.  So, it was a little triggering at times, but not bad at all.  The only indoor exposure I did not get done this summer was getting back to a hair salon for a professional color/cut.  I did make that appointment today though for a month out, so I am proud of that (that was the soonest they could get me in).

    Whenever I am strong enough to fight back against certain aspects of my OCD, I learn that I am stronger than I think.  At the beginning of the summer, I did not anticipate I would get to where I am now.  And I am proud of myself for that.  It's not easy at all to fight back against your fears.  And whatever you are currently doing to fight back against your OCD, I am proud of you too.  Whether that's smaller baby steps, or bigger leaps.....please remember that every step you take is important.  Non OCD-sufferers to not understand how much strength this takes to overcome our fears.  I lived in avoidance mode for 3 years, and it would be fairly easy for me to continue on that way.  After all, I work from home.  And the current way of the world, has made it pretty easy to do most things curbside these days.  But I want more for myself.  I want to experience the freedom from OCD, and I so desperately want to live again with the freedom from those OCD chains.  I am so mentally exhausted living with this disorder, I have so many more issues than the COVID stuff.  But this is a big step for me, and takes me back potentially to where I was 3 years ago.  If I can fight against the COVID stuff (which is probably one of my biggest 2 OCD fears--clothing contamination being the other), than it serves as a reminder that I can fight back against the other stuff too.  I look forward to a life someday that is not ruled by this disorder someday.  None of us asked for this horrible, oftentimes debilitating disorder.  But now that we have it, it unfortunately is up to us to get rid of it.  No one else can do the work for us.  You are so much stronger than you realize.  Just having OCD means that you are a strong person.  Getting through every single day with OCD, takes a strong person.  There is so much work in fighting back against OCD, yes that is absolutely true.  But there is also so much work in living with OCD every day too, and catering to it's every demand.  It is pure mental exhaustion.  It is a prison really.  We deserve so much better than that.  

    One of the hardest realities I face, is that my husband really never acknowledges how hard I work against my OCD.  After everything I have done the last 2 1/2 months, to get back into life, there has not been one comment about how proud he is of me for doing that.  It is a very disheartening feeling, and very much ties in with the emotional contamination issues I have with him (also to be addressed in an upcoming post), but makes me all the more grateful for this OCD community, as no one else really could truly understand what we go through.

    I will have to keep fighting back against this constantly, because I know COVID isn't going anywhere.  We are already seeing an uptick of cases again, and I have a feeling we'll see a seasonal surge this fall/winter.  I may go back to masking temporarily if that is the case, but I definitely do not want to slip back into the avoidance pattern again.  There will be some difficulties coming up this winter as well, as the holidays come upon us.  I have not seen my in-laws at all for almost 4 years due to COVID, and I haven't been inside my parents home for the same amount of time (I have done lots of driveway visits with my own parents though).  I am feeling very anxious already thinking about the holiday invitations and how I will handle that.  Being in someone's home during cold/flu season, with COVID present in the community, and small children, all assembled in a small family room together.....that is definitely not something that I am ready for right now.  

    I am also really scared of where my mental health will go, when my beloved dog passes away.  The last time we said goodbye to a dog was in 2013 and it put me into a state of severe depression for 18 months straight.  It left me almost non-functional for that time, and that period in my life feels like such a blur looking back.  During this period, my OCD became extremely severe and almost debilitating, affecting me 24/7.  It took incredible amounts of work to get out of that and come to a better place.  It took about 2 years of continual hard work (spanning from 2015-2017) to get to a place where I felt pretty good again.  Then I did fairly well, and would consider my OCD to be just moderate until COVID hit in 2020.  Now that I've started the hard work again, I'm afraid of falling back.  Like I mentioned earlier in the post, I am bound and determined to keep moving forward the best I can, after my dog passes.  That is how I want to honor her.  Her cancer has taught me so much about life.  She has adapted to so much that was put on her, and now I need to be strong and do the same.  I need to take what she has taught me, and be strong enough to live it out.

Where I've been and where I'm going

  It's been a LONG time since I've posted.  These last few weeks have been a critical turning point for me with my COVID related contamination OCD issues.  We are now 3 weeks and 3 months+ since COVID first started, and my life has been a rollercoaster since that time.  It has just been in the last few weeks that I am finally ready to move forward, and get back into a life that will likely always have COVID hanging around in the background. 

    So, to recap the title of this post "Where I've been and where I'm going", I'd like to look back on how things were when this all started.  No doubt that COVID has forever traumatized me moving forward.  It made me feel unsafe and completely out of control, which of course the OCD really fed on and enjoyed.  It is so hard to look back and remember everything from the beginning.  All I know is over the past 3 years I have made progress, HUGE progress and that counts for something  For probably the first 18 months of COVID, I had barely any interaction with anyone outside of my home (and of course the people in my home were either working from home or remote schooling so there really wasn't any contact with anyone "unsafe" or suspicious for COVID).  I did all of my grocery shopping, Target orders curbside with a mask.  I even wore it in my car because I was afraid the employees might have breathed COVID into my car when they were loading it. I did not walk my dogs during this time, at all.  Only absolutely necessary appointments were attended (and there were only a handful of those), with a mask and a face shield.  I did not visit the dentist and missed a couple of cleanings during this time.  My parents dropped of birthday or Christmas gifts at the door and waved to me through the window.  I did not do any takeout or drive thru food orders, I only cooked.  Every.Single. Meal.  If I sat outside on my deck and heard someone coughing several backyards over, I would go inside immediately.  I let packages sit on my porch for at least 2 hours before I would go outside and take them indoors (because I felt the deliveryman might have breathed COVID onto the porch).  I would only go get the mail (we have a community mailbox on our street) if no one had been there for at least 10-15 minutes (again...the breathing thing).  I wouldn't even go to any public outdoor place (like a park), to walk.  I remember one night I was getting the mail late at night, and unbeknownst to me, a neighbor was approaching in the dark.  He was two feet away from me about 10-20 seconds and I came inside and had an absolute panic attack.  I showered, gargled with mouthwash multiple times, and scrubbed my face.  I was petrified he had COVID and I was going to get it.  I never wiped my groceries down, but I developed some really bad habits of feeling like every single thing that came into our house was contaminated with COVID.  Because of this, my handwashing routines got out of control and I would wash my  hands hundreds of times per day, between touching really anything in our house, for fear of spreading it somewhere else.  I could probably write a novel about all of the things I did the first 18 months.  I'm not even sure when things started to turn around, but at some points after that I made small changes that set a new trajectory and I began feeling slightly comfortable with things, little by little. 

    In the summer of 2022, I started eating out again.  I remember the first time I ordered pizza.  I was so worried it was contaminated, I brought it home (I ordered it curbside of course, even though I was probably the only one still doing it that way), and threw it in the oven to kill any germs.  I started slowly getting more and more drive thru food that summer and fall, and initially I would heat everything.  Then I decided I would just start eating it "as is" and not  heating it up.  We've been eating lots of drive thru food now for over a year, and none of us have gotten COVID.  It does really help the OCD when we stop avoiding things, or doing them compulsively.  And just handle it like a neurotypical mind would.  Now, I can eat drive thru consistently with really no issues....because it feels "normal" to me again.    

    I started walking my dogs again consistently last summer.  My daughter and I did some outdoor activities, we still wore masks while indoors.  I haven't work a mask in my car or for curbside since March 2022.  We have been going to all of our standard appointments....eye, dental, physical exams, other random appointments to address symptoms to come up.  We have not been neglecting our health anymore due to the COVID concern.  My handwashing issues are probably more pre-COVID levels now, so I still have them, but they are WAY better.  I don't panic at all when I'm walking through the neighborhood or see people outside.  If someone does cough, of course I get nervous (I always will), but I am able to move on with day without fretting about it for days.  My neighbor even came in our garage a few weeks to talk when he saw me there, and I didn't feel too nervous about that (something like that would have put me in an absolute panic even just one year ago).  I stopped letting packages sit on the porch and stopped worrying about when to go get the mail.  Sometimes when I Iook back, I can see that my mind allowed me to calm down about COVID a lot that summer, even though things still definitely weren't normal.

    I don't suppose things will ever truly be "normal" for me again.  After all, a lot of my OCD has always been triggered by respiratory illness (influenza specifically), so the threat of COVID was a thousand times worse and rendered me non functional.  I am ready to move forward.  I'm not sure exactly what that looks like, but I know I can not stay stuck like this forever.  Right now COVID is still out there, but it's not an emergency anymore.  I can see that people (for the most part) aren't dying from this illness.  I can see the rest of the world living normally, and I hate myself that I am unable to do that.  I hate that my OCD has kept me from living my life (not just with COVID, but with all the issues it gives me).

    Over the last month, I have been really been trying to do a set exposures plan to get back into life again.  I have not had a set exposure plan since prior to COVID.  I have been significantly depressed for multiple reasons, which has left me very unmotivated and hopeless in trying to deal with the OCD.  For those of you that deal with both depression and OCD, you know how vicious of a cycle it is.  I decided it's time to rip of the bandaid and start going into places without a mask, so over the last 2 weeks I've worked my way up from extremely briefly walking into a public place (going inside 2 public bathrooms quickly while on a long driving trip), moving up to 5-10 minutes each in a pet store and ice cream shop.  Then about 15 minutes in the same pet store and a department store the following week.  Yesterday I did my biggest indoor exposure and went inside a grocery store for about 30 minutes and shopped for several items.  It was honestly surreal.  It is truly the first time I have been inside of a grocery store since COVID started (3 years, 3 months and 6 days since my last grocery store trip).  I was surprised that I didn't feel too anxious after any of these exposures.  I have been doing a lot more outdoor activities too, even purposely at more busy times of the business.  I went to the zoo with my daughter (that was potentially very trigging because KIDS everywhere...which kids are germ magnets to me and I don't like being around them in general anymore, even before COVID).  I have went miniature golfing three times now (which I also did last summer, but I seemed more calm and at ease this summer I can tell).  I went to a lake where many people walk the trail around it, and successfully walked the entire 2.2 miles.  It is good to be around people, pass them by, and learn again that nothing bad happens.  In my mind for so long I've envisioned a world full of COVID where every single person walks around coughing and sick.  That might have been *semi* rational at the beginning of the pandemic, but obviously at this point now that is not the case.  The reason I decided it was time to move forward, is because I know I was stuck.  I know the only way out of this OCD/depression/isolation cycle is to start moving forward.  If I didn't start taking steps now, I did fear I would continue to live this way for the rest of my life.  And that is pretty bleak and hopeless too.  

    I'm planning to continue my indoor exposures, and hopefully do at least 4-5 of those per week.  Outdoor activities, I've got some bigger things planned too before summer is over.  Three of my big goals are to get to a giant zoo 1 hour away from us (which draws a ton of crowds), and to do a treetops adventure course outside (which I've done previously pre-COVID, but it is a little closer contact activity with others outside).  Thirdly, I'd like to go to a salon and get my  hair done without a mask (which will be a 2 hour process indoors).  Obviously I have not been into a salon yet, and let's see my hair really needs it.  Yikes.  I'm still not ready to go into others homes, or eat at a restaurant.  I also will continue to wear a mask when I go into a doctors office for the foreseeable future, but truth be told I've been pretty surprised at myself at what I've accomplished in the last few weeks, so maybe I'll get farther than I think.  

    Avoidance has been one of my major traps with OCD.  So many people don't think of it as compulsion, but it is.  In fact for a lot of us, avoidance is a strategy that we often use and  is one that can quickly shrink your world down.  Mine became very black and white...I don't want to get COVID, so I'll avoid people.  I'll wear a mask 100% of the time, I won't get close to people.  I'll avoid anything or anywhere that COVID could be.  I'll stop going here, I'll stop going there.  Pretty soon your world shrinks down to a tiny little safe corner, that you slowly have to work your way out of.  I didn't realize it, but over time I was very slowly working my way out of that corner.  Now it's time to break free again and live.  I want you all to know that if I can do this, you can too.  OCD takes so much away from us.  It is really unfair.  No wonder it is in the top 10 disabling conditions, according to the World Health Organization.  Living with what I would say severe OCD since 2008, and disabling OCD from 2013-2015, I spent the period of 2016-2018 really getting my life back from OCD and felt I was at a pretty good place up until COVID hit.  COVID put me back at square 1, and honestly took away 3 years of my life.  It is time to move forward.  It is time to fight back.  I know that not every day will be perfect, and I know I will have setbacks.  There will always be setbacks with OCD.  I plan to update more as I am actively doing ERP again....There are some other areas of my OCD in which I am really struggling right now too (more on those things later)....but to summarize--my emotional contamination and clothing contamination are still very problematic.  I am dealing with some other very stressful situations in life right now which are compounding the OCD terribly.  More on that to come, as those require a different post and specific attention!  I wish you all well, and I promise you that fighting back for your life is worth it.  If I can do it, so can you.    

Addendum:  This post has been in draft since 6/24 and just posting today.  Over the last 2 weeks since that time, I have continued to do so much better going out in public.  It has been one month now since I've been going maskless to stores, I go in places about 3-4 times a week for groceries/errands and have done really well.  Originally my plan was to go 1 place per week throughout the summer, but since I was doing so well I pushed myself further and just jumped right in.  Continuing to face things consistently really does make a difference.  New post in the making and coming soon!