An eventful week, some triggers, some triumphs!

     I've had a pretty eventful week, but some good things have come out of it too.  At the end of last week, I started off with a pretty bad OCD day, and I don't have those too often anymore thankfully. So it was a fork in the road, but I got through it.  If you've followed my blog before you probably remember my indoor plumbing issues.  We've had some issues in our house with 2 out of the 3 of our toilets, but thankfully never the one that I consistently use.  That day, I was working out in my living room and I heard my bathroom toilet flush by itself in the bathroom, which created quite a situation for me.  The toilet seat had been up, and after I heard it flush I went in there to find some urine splats all over the toilet seat.   I'm not sure what happened exactly, but something must have been backed up and it flushed by itself (very powerfully) as the whole bathroom smelled like sewage for awhile.  The urine splatters all over the seat made me question where it else it had went--shower?  shower curtain?  all of my soap and toiletries lined up on the counter?  My OCD convinced me that everything in the bathroom was contaminated--after all this is sewage we are talking about-- and I had to throw everything away in the bathroom.  And I mean everything pretty much.  I emptied the shower and my countertop of my products (including my hair dryer).  I cleaned the entire bathroom and scrubbed it down and then replaced everything at the store later that day.  I was feeling very stressed and on edge already because of that, then later that day husband put his hand on the back of my seat cushion on the couch when our dog went back there with something she wasn't supposed to have. This is an invasion of my safe space and I felt very panicked.  I felt stuck in that situation again.  I had to clean it off multiple times before I even felt remotely that it was safe to lean back against.  This resulted in a huge argument between us, namely him not understanding my OCD again.  These are the times when I debate what is the best way to handle these situations?  Do I say "please don't touch my couch" when I see he is coming over and possibly going to touch it, so as to hopefully avoid the problem?  Or do I just let the problem play out and not say anything, and then go clean it up when he is not around.  I don't the latter is the solution, because it forces me to hide the OCD which in turn just kind of makes it worse.  Hiding it makes me feel ashamed and obviously like I can't talk about the situation.  But if I forewarn him to not touch the couch, it just triggers his anger. So it seems there is no way to win in these situations.  I feel like communication is the key, otherwise it just keeps going in circles and the more we don't talk about it, the more I will hide it and the worse it will get.  But he will not communicate about it, so what am I to do?  I'm feeling very much frustrated toward my husband in general still, and his general attitude toward my OCD.  So last weekend was tough to get through too.  Every time these things happen, he just shuts down completely, gives me the silent treatment for a few days and it is very frustrating.  Anymore I just try to keep my distance too.  The problem there seems worse a lot of times.
     After the weekend, last Monday was my father in laws retirement celebration.  We went out to dinner that night with his whole family, including some aunts/uncles/cousins.  There was about 17 people there total.  Of course there was hugs (which I don't like, I'm not sure I ever will), but I was able to hug people and pretend it didn't bother me (it still does, but not quite as much which I guess is good).  I was able to eat the food there with my hands (I won't use the restaurant silverware still, so I need to order finger foods).  I also ate French fries at the restaurant, which was a food exposure.  Normally I will not eat anything fried at a restaurant.  It goes back to my food allergy problems several years ago, being concerned that if I eat fried foods, that they may have been cooked with certain types of fish and I worry I will have an anaphylactic allergic reaction.  I ate the fries (even though there was a good chance they had been fried with some fish, as my  husband ordered fish tacos), and it was okay.  I did not have a reaction.
     On Tuesday I had a hair appointment with a different stylist than I typically go to. This makes me nervous in some ways.  After my daughter had headlice earlier this summer I started having some worries and thoughts about hair salons and if I could potentially get lice there.  She also, I believe, is a smoker because I could smell the smoke on her clothes and that bothered me that she could have chemicals from the cigarette in her fingernails working with my hair.  Of course the chemicals from the highlights are an exposure too.  Then she kept drinking from her straw and putting her fingertips on the tip of the straw ,kind of playing with the straw, pulling it in and out of the cup and all I could think about in that moment was her spit on her fingers and that eventually being in my hair.  Yes, the thought was in my mind, but I tried not to dwell on it.  And it actually didn't bother me really at all after I had put it out of my mind. 
     On Wednesday my daughter had an animal encounter at the Childrens zoo in our city.  I wasn't quite sure what this was going to entail beforehand, so I was a little nervous as I did wear my regular clothes to this event.  I did know that there wouldn't be any handling or holding of the animal from what the zoo had told me beforehand.  It was a behind the scenes experience, so we actually got to back where the zookeeper goes, on the opposite side of the display.   There were tons of trees and tall grasses, as we had to make our way through a pretty wooded area. Tons of large ants, one was actually crawling on my phone at one point.  Then the zookeeper handed my daughter 2 large bowls of apple chunks and asked her if she wanted to feed the red pandas through the fence.  Actually, she said we both could feed them.  I would have liked to try it as an exposure, but I declined and opted to take pictures of my daughter instead.  In hindsight I wished I would have fed them, but I'm not sure how I would have dealt with them eating from my  hand and then feeling like our phones weren't contaminated afterward.  So, I just let have the experience.  We did end up going back to meet another older red panda that was "retired" and not currently on display.  We actually went partway into her cage, then took a tour of their kitchen area in the back.  After the tour/meeting we did find a bathroom so she could wash her hands.  But that is normal, right?  When we went in to the bathroom a little boy and his grandma were going in right before us.  The little boy used the toilet and then just ran straight out of the bathroom.  His grandma went in after him and flushed the toilet for him then walked right out too without washing her hands.  I don't know why, but seeing this really bothered me for quite some time afterward.  They weren't touching me or anything, but its just that the OCD mind still absorbs these things and can't filter them out.  I start questioning other people's hygiene habits and episodes like these are why I don't want other people touching me.  I don't know where their hands have been.  Watching this situation play out made me think of a toilet exposure and how touching my own toilet at home and not washing my hands and carrying on with my business for the day would be super anxiety provoking, and this woman did this probably without even worrying about it and she would likely not think about it the entire rest of the day,  maybe even stopping to eat or something afterward (as it was getting very close to lunchtime).  Most of the population as non OCD sufferers wouldn't even give thought to these types of things, but we with OCD focus on them. 
    For the end of the week, we had a family wedding to attend out of town.  The day started off challenging due to an incident I had at the gas station that morning as I was filling my car up for the long drive we would be taking.  As I was filling up my tank, the pump shut off by  itself--way before the tank was actually full.  So I started it up again and got back in my car.  Then the pump somehow didn't realize when the tank did get full, as I started to hear a weird spraying nose and looked over at the nozzle, and gas was literally spraying out everywhere from all sides of the nozzle, making a huge puddle of gasoline all over the parking lot.  I went into panic mode, because I have huge issues with gasoline.  In fact I had an incident a few years ago when my OCD was starting to get pretty bad where gasoline became a huge trigger for me and in turn caused all kinds of issues with me using my hands, showering, eating.  Things that I have been working really hard to get out of these last couple of years.  The only way to shut this thing off was to go unhinge the nozzle from my tank.  Of course as soon as I get close to it, the OCD fears that gasoline has sprayed on me, my clothing, mjy shoes everywhere.  I don't know if I did, but that is what was going through my mind.  My car reeked of gasoline, because it had sprayed all over the side of it.  This happened about 2 hours before we were set to leave.  If this had happened in the past it would have been enough to throw the entire day off, meaning we didn't make it to the wedding.  But, I came home, cleaned up my carseat (because of course if it had possibly gotten on my clothes, then that was possibly transferred to my carseat now), took a shower (even though I normally only shower at night), threw my outfit into the washing machine (I would have thrown it away in the psat), but I did pitch my shoes.  The whole situation definitely threw me off, but I knew that I needed to attend this weekend, so I just kept putting one foot in front of the other and did what I needed to do, so that I could decontaminate everything and it wouldn't upset the wedding plans.   This wedding was a huge improvement from the last wedding we attended, meaning my OCD is getting somewhat better.  Flashback:  to 2 years ago when I was in the deepest throes of my OCD.  I remember that year going to the wedding, and purposely driving separately from my husband, so that my daughter and I could immediately come home from the ceremony.   I couldn't have even fathomed at that point letting myself sit contaminated after people's hugs.  After that event we went immediately home, I cleaned our car seats up, and showered right away.  I had no motivation at all to go to the reception.  I just felt downright dirty and disgusting the moment someone touched or hugged us, and I just wanted to get out of those clothes as soon as possible and scrub the contamination away from everything.  Fast forward to last night.  This wedding was a 4 hour round trip.  In my mind, I am worried about sitting in public seating and being hugged by all kinds of people.  Those things I've done better with over the past several months, so this wasn't as tricky as I thought it would be.  I knew I would still wash my car seat off, because I'm not to the point yet where I have been able to cut that out.  It's not a painstaking process, just one I wish I wouldn't have to do anymore.  I logically understand it is not necessary, but my OCD convinces me otherwise still.  I did fairly well at the wedding, we even sat in the third row from the front (and I always, always sit in the back whenever I go anywhere).  I think partly it didn't bother me as much because its summertime and we are not into cold/flu season yet.   Also this wasn't a huge crowd, although there was probably 300 people there.  The ceremony itself went fine and then we headed over to the reception.  A few hugs were shared here, but that is okay.  Now, the issue I have with the reception is the eating.  I do not eat at social gatherings, I do not do buffet style meals, I do not use silverware at restaurants (or gatherings such as this).  If it has not been washed by myself, I don't trust it to be clean.  I had no idea what to expect with this reception.  I was hoping they would have a sit down meal where each plate was served individually.  I know that was a stretch, but that would have been best case scenario.  I brought my own silverware, planned out beforehand) and promised myself that if they brought each plate out (and it was not buffet style), that I would use my own silverware, discretely swap it out and eat the food.  Well....it ended up being buffet style.  As soon as I saw that, I felt discouraged and started feeling self-conscious right away because I didn't want to field the usual questions I get such as "Why are you not eating?",  and it just feels plain awkward and I feel so ashamed of myself during these times.  My daughter was telling me she was hungry and I was very hungry as well.  I kept looking around me looking at everyone eating, and everyone seemed healthy and normal, and I thought about all of these people that were looking forward to their meal and not anxious about like I was.  I also worried about people's reactions if we didn't eat.  I also was worried about all of the hands on the serving utensils and what if someone coughed or sneezed into the food?  What if children were walking by it and did something to it?  All of these thoughts were swarming in my head, and suddenly I just grabbed the plate (before I could change my mind) and I said to my daughter--we are going to go ahead and eat.  This was something I had absolutely not planned on at all.  But I ate buffet style--and I filled my plate well.  I still swapped out my silverware (and no one knew the difference) and I did it.  I am actually really proud of myself for this.  Sometimes I push myself, other times are more difficult though.  The rest of the evening was fairly uneventful except for a situation that occurred right before we left.  I had not seen the groom's mother (my husband's aunt) the entire course of the day yet.  When I used the restroom before the ride home, I was standing in line for the next open stall.  Who should come out, but her?  She had just used the toilet and was exiting the stall, hadn't even stopped to wash her hands yet.  I was walking toward the stall, she was walking out.  She walked directly to me and wrapped me in a huge bear hug, and I felt mortified right on the spot. I felt so contaminated and I still had to drive 2 hours home before I could do anything.  There was pee on my clothes.  That's all I could think about. I had no choice but to sit with that anxiety, to get in my car like that, wearing my seatbelt and feeling grossed out by everything.  I found this hard to get out of my head the whole way home.  I wasn't incapacitated or anything by it, but my brain just had a hard time letting that go.  I am always worried to hug people, thinking through all the "what ifs". What if they went to the bathroom before they hugged me?  What if they did this or that?  So it really raises my anxiety when I know that she has just used the bathroom and not had a chance to wash her hands.  When I came out of the stall,  she was washing her hands, so I don't know if she just felt awkward and felt she needed to hug me or if she thought she would be rude to wait to wash her hands first or if non-OCD suffers even think about these things.  It was a very eventful day, all in all.  After the way that my day started out (with the gasoline incident) and feeling like I wasn't even going to go to the wedding, ending with being able to go after all and eat at the buffet and withstand toilet contamination.  I call the day a success.  You win some OCD battles, you lose some.  I will keep trucking along.  Hope everyone is doing well.