Somewhat of a rocky road, but making myself get out there more again!

     Well, there are only a few weeks left of summer before school starts again.  At the beginning of the summer I came up with a list of possible exposures and different things I wanted to do this summer that I had been avoiding for the last 3 years.  This week was somewhat of a rocky road for me with a couple of things so I just wanted to talk about those a little further.
     We went to church together as a family for the first time in a couple of years.  I don't so much have a problem going to church, except when my husband comes with.  His presence and the fact he is sitting next to me, possibly brushing up against me kind of ups the ante a little bit.  That, along with the fact that if I find myself "trapped" in a situation and can not get out of it, because I can't feel free to move seats, etc. when he has come with.  Unfortunately I found myself in one of these situations on our first trip back.  A dad with two boys sat one row in front of us and so I was about 5 feet away from one of these children.  The boy started coughing frequently, mostly with his mouth wide open and immediately I wanted to move.  I stayed there simply because I felt stuck.  Had my husband not been there, I would have definitely moved seats. But for some reason, I stick it out in most situations when my  husband is there.  Part of it is because I feel embarassed about needing to move, the other part is because I don't want to endure his annoyed reaction and eye rolling if we moved seats.  But I stayed.  This is probably good for me in the end because it forces me to sit there with the anxiety.  I don't like being around people coughing around me, it makes me extremely uncomfortable.  If someone is next to me that is at least covering their mouth, it is more tolerable.  But....if they are not covering, it is extremely bothersome to me.  I wish there was a way for my husband to understand that there are a lot of things that I am working on, and so sometimes he's just going to have to realize that I can't face everything at once.  But that requires communication, and unfortunately isn't something he wants to do still.
     Because having my husband with us on outings adds more stress to the situation, I find myself doing most exposures when it is just my daughter and I.  I mentioned last post that we went to a paint your own pottery store.  These things are always fun and we enjoy them, but they also tend to be crowded with lots of children...another trigger.  I find myself being able to go to places like this, but I still want to sit in the seat furthest away from the action.  I am still very mindful and completley paying 100% attention to whatever is going on around us...to make sure no one is walking too close to us, brushing up against us.  I am especially mindful of children during this times who are just running around like crazy in many of these places.  I hate that the OCD takes me away from the moment.  It takes away my ability to just enjoy spending time with my daughter.  I am always still thinking that we are going to get contaminated.
     We also went to a movie this past week.  Now, I have not been to a movie theater for 3 years.  Three summers ago was the last sense of normalcy I had with day to day activities and being out in public, because over a period of months shortly following that summer, things were going to start getting a lot worse with my OCD.   Then after our dog died in the fall of 2013, things really came to a head.  I became very depressed and unable to fight off any of the OCD. That is where I spent about 12 months of the worst of my OCD, feeling like there was no way out.  Although I have made progress over about the last 18 months, I made the promise that this summer will be a summer I push myself a little bit more.  And I have.  But I'm still not where I wanted to be.  But I'm better.  Getting to a movie was something I wanted to do.  As it came closer to the date I had designated for this, I found myself coming up with excuses though...oh we can wait another couple of weeks, blah blah blah.  In the end, I realize if my OCD is telling me not to do something, then it means I probably should not listen to it and I should push myself and quit avoiding.  So we did go to the movie.  Now I planned this out carefully, as most people with OCD do try to plan things out so as to avoid any issues that might come up, sometimes even having a few plans in the mix to jump to in case a problem arises.  We went to a morning movie, because I figured it would be less busy.  I was hoping maybe a couple small groups of people sitting closer up front, and we could sit in the back.  But when we got there there was about 8-10 groups of other people and everyone was sitting in the back few rows of fairly large theater.  We found a couple of seats in the back on the end that no one was close by, it was in our own section on the far end.  See, there I am again trying to sit the furthest away I can from everybody.  I wonder if I'll always be like that?  I did something bad here again too.  I did something I hadn't planned on, and I am mad at myself. But I've always kept things real on this blog,  and today is no exception.  Sometimes its hard to really push yourself and I compulsed big time.  I wanted to cover up that seat, I did not want that contamination from that seat on our clothes, so I took big plastic (unused of course) new trash bags and slipped them over the seat back as a seat cover and sat on the second bag. I did this for my daughter and my chairs.  I was hoping I didn't have to resort to that, but I did.  But here is the next step.  I plan to get to another movie in the next couple of months and this time I will try not to put the seat cover on.  I don't know why a movie theater seat seems so contaminated to me.  Why a step above restaurants?  It's almost up there with doctors offices.  I think it might be partly because the theater is dark and you can't see what is on the seat.  Also, so many people go through the theater everyday.  A lot of children in movie theaters that are messy and spill.  What if some kid wet his pants on the seat?  What if headlice is crawling on the seats?  (Normally that would have never crossed my mind, but my daughter had headlice earlier in this month.  I never blogged about it because we got through it surprisingly well, but I have no idea where she came into contact with anything like that.  And it was gross).  I know these are obsessive thoughts, but that is the truth of what this disorder is about.  My mind can't get past that.  But at least we went to the movie, when I wanted to avoid so badly.   Next time I will do better and not cover my seat.
     On a positive note, we went to the zoo today.  A huge zoo.  We live 60 miles away from the #1 ranked zoo in the world and we typically made the trip yearly each summer when my daughter was younger.  We have not gone for a few years, and today was the day.  When we got there I felt like I had made a huge mistake.  There was people everywhere, it was a crowded mess.  I don't know why I thought that the middle of the week would make a difference, because it was just a swarming crowd everywhere we went.  This immediately raises my anxiety...children everywhere, running around, pushing in between people to see the animals.  But we got through it, I am pretty sure that no one bumped into us, but that was with a lot of careful standing around and waiting for crowds to pass and very strategic moving around the place.  It is one of those situations again where I feel so angry that the OCD robs that ability to just relax.  But I suppose that comes with time, the more you recover from this disorder.  Or is that something you never get back?
      I do want to end this note with a situation that I am worried about that is coming up.  I'm not sure how to deal with it.  My husband wants to get me a different car and there are going to be so many challenges that come along with this.  I am really afraid about getting a new car.  First of all my husband has plans to come into  my car and "Armor-all" everything and detail it, which is the first problem.  Once that is done to the car, I don't see how I will be able to even get in it and sit in the car.  Knowing he has sat in my seat and put chemicals/cleaner all over into the seats and everything.  The next challenge comes with the new car.  It has been easy up to this point because my daughter has sat in the back seat.  Now that she is 13 (and technically okay to ride in the front seat at her age) I want to let her do that.   I won't let her do that in my current car because I feel the passenger seat is completely contaminated as my husband sits there.  He rarely rides in the car, and I am afraid if he gets in there it will contaminate the new seat forever.  Then when my daughter gets her learners permit and starts driving, I will not want to sit in the passenger seat when she drives.  I will not want her to sit in the passenger seat anyway as soon as he sits in that seat even one time.  I've gone back and forth in my mind many times, how am I going to deal with this?  Can I wash the carseat off and still feel okay sitting in it once he sits in the car?  I honestly don't think so at this point in time.  Do we go places in his car?  I don't think that is the answer either, his car feels really contaminated to me.  I fear that once I am in his car, I may resort back to some of my old methods and throwing those clothes away, and I can not let myself get to that point again.  Do I let him sit in the passenger seat and then whenever my daughter has to sit there, do I put a seat cover down for her and somehow wrap the seat belt with some type of barrier so her clothes don't come in contact with it?  This seems like a lot of work and the potential for things to get a lot worse here, that is why I am so concerned.  My husband only rides in my car maybe once/month tops.  It seems like a lot to jump through and a lot of cleaning rituals and possible issues to drive myself further into.  I honestly wish that I could just make him sit in the back seat everytime we go somewhere.  I sit in the drivers seat, my daughter sits in the passenger and he sits in the back.  We all have our own seats.  I know that is bad for the OCD, but that is truly where I'm at right now.  I've been working on so many other things (that I wish he could understand) and him contaminating my car is at the tip top of my hierarchy.   How do I explain this to my husband?  How do you explain to someone that you don't want them contaminating your new car?  I am really struggling with this one right now.  And for that reason, I am very much putting off the conversation about getting a new car.  I would love any advice that anyone might have.  Even if you have issues with your own car being contaminated by others, how do you deal with it?