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!
