Dear OCD,
You have been part of my life now for 9 years. I have such mixed feelings about you. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely can't stand you. You slowly crept into my life and were just a minor nuisance when you first appeared. Through the years, you have completely entangled yourself into every aspect of my life, and really taken so much away from me. You hover over me, over everything I do. Constantly telling me what I have to do. I don't even remember life without you anymore. I hate you. Every day you take another piece of my life and I can literally feel the energy being sucked out of me everyday. You are relentless and you don't give up. You have taken time and experiences away from me that I will never get back. You have me left me socially isolated and depressed. You have turned me into someone that I don't even know anymore. Someone who is scared to touch anything for fear of being contaminated. Someone who spends her time and energy making sure there is perfect cleanliness of most things around her. The truth is, I was doing just fine until you reared your ugly head. I look back through pictures before you came along and I looked happy and relaxed. I used to go eat at restaurants, go to movies, hang out with friends, touch/hug people, work and be in public, go to the lake, go swimming, take walks, go shopping, go to the park, touch whatever I wanted without really giving it a second thought. To move freely about and feel comfortable in my own skin. I used to go to the zoo, take vacations and visit family and friends. Nowadays you force me to sit in my house most of the time, because it's the only place that feels "safe" to me. I spend my time maintaining my clean zones and making sure that all of my clothing is perfectly clean. I don't have time to do the things I want to do anymore, because I am constantly under your control. "Go clean this, go clean that"--I'm sick of it!! The constant what-if's. The second guessing myself. I heard someone say once that OCD is the worst betrayal of oneself, and it is true. I hate what you have done to me. I can't even trust if what I'm looking at is true anymore. I am an intelligent person and perfectly capable of living my life without you. So why, then, do I listen to you? In some strange way, you make me feel safer. The rituals make me feel safe and comfortable, even though I hate doing them. And it feels comforting to feel safe, so I keep listening to you. But the more I listen to you, the worse I get. I hate how you've impacted my family too, that is one of the hardest parts. I don't EVER want you to lay your hands on my daughter! It already makes me sick inside what she endures because of what you've done to me. You also keep me from having relationships with people around me. And I wish they could understand that it's not me that wants it to be like this, it is YOU controlling me. It is not my personality or me trying to be difficult. It is you that controls me! You are like a death grip, a vice around me. I feel like you are quicksand and I'm constantly sinking. Like I'm in a deep ocean, out in the middle, and struggling to keep my head above water. Like I'm slowly drowning and suffocating. And I hate what you do to everyone else that deals with you too! I have met so many great people that deal with YOU and I hate you for what you have done to their lives and families too. You are a friend to no one, but yet for some reason those of us that have you in our lives can't get away from you. You have a way of taking away the things that are most important in our lives....relationships with the people around us. The ability to just feel comfortable and relaxed will never happen when you are lingering around. I don't want to listen to you anymore. I am sick and tired of you controlling my life and of you telling me what I must do all of the time. I want my life back, and as long as you are part of it--that will never happen. If I keep listening to you, I am afraid that I will eventually get to the point where I can't leave my house at all. I will do whatever it takes to get rid of you once and for all. I will post this letter around my house and in my car as a constant reminder of what all you have taken away from me. I do not want to give into your demands anymore. I do not want my daughter to develop OCD. I want to be able to go out and do fun things with my daughter again. I want to have a relationship with my husband. I want to spend time with my family, parents, sister and relatives. I want to take vacations again. I want to just go out for a night on the town with my family and hang out. I want to go out on dates with my husband. To walk my dog like normal. To go shopping or do whatever it is that I want to do out in public. To be actively involved in church. I want to come home and be relaxed and not worry about "decontaminating myself" everytime I leave the house. These are all things that you've slowly taken away from me. And there are plenty more too! But wow--to feel free and comfortable again. What does that even feel like? It's been so long I can't even remember. But guess what, OCD? I AM going to find out. You WILL be removed from my life, maybe never completely....but I will do whatever it takes to get rid of you enough to the point where I can get my life back. I've already fought some battles against you. I had given up the fight for a long time and you caused me to become even more depressed and spiral further downward. I have been in a dark place for about a year now because of you....again, time I will never get back. I lost the battle with you for a long time. But in the last few weeks, I've discovered that I can beat you. I can allow myself to not give into your demands. I can outsmart you. I AM smarter than you are. I may have a long road ahead of me, but I am on a start and that gives me hope that I can win the war against you. So just go away and leave me and my family alone. And take all your nasty clones with you that are ruining the lives of everyone else affected by you. I can speak on behalf of every one of them...we are all sick of you!!!
Monday, June 16, 2014
Friday, June 13, 2014
OCD and Hyperawareness
A few days ago I had a REALLY bad OCD day. Most of my days are pretty consumed with OCD, but sometimes I have really hard days which almost push me to a breaking point. The good news is that it ended with a successful exposure, something I didn't think I would be able to do. I will get to that at the end of this post. This is a good opportunity, with many examples, to discuss hyperawareness with OCD. OCD brains are like sponges. They soak up and remember everything. It also makes you very hyperaware of everything going on around you. Problems and situations presented can lead to engaging in compulsions/rituals and even cause you to avoid that situation in the future because it's now "burned in your brain". OCD causes me to notice everything around me and have lots of thoughts about what COULD have happened or the possibility of something happening. For instance some random thoughts I might have: The person 2 rows ahead of me is coughing at church. Did that person brush up against my sweatshirt or not when I was standing in line? The guy behind me in line just cleared his throat hard and didn't cover his mouth. Did my T-shirt touch the shopping cart handle when I put that grocery item in my cart? The kid swimming 3 feet next to me in the pool is spitting water out of his mouth as he's playing and that spit is going into the pool. Is that construction worker really going to eat with paint plastered all over his hand? My husband just let the dog lick his hand (a full out lick several times) and then just resumes going back to what he was doing on his phone/tablet without washing his hands. When someone is standing close to me at the store, I take note of their clothes--are there stains? Do they look clean? The cashier at the grocery store just itched their nose while bagging my groceries. The clerk at the department store just licked their finger in order to open up a plastic shopping bag to put my newly purchased clothes into. I could go on and on all day, these are just a few examples to give you the point. Eating is particularly hard for me too, because I've seen too many things at various fast food places and restaurants and I don't want to go back to those places. It also accounts for a lot of why I don't eat at family gatherings. I've seen people do things and I just can't take the thoughts/anxiety that follow those and I don't want to be exposed to other people's germs. I've seen my mother in law lick her fingers as she's serving cake. I've seen my mom set spoons on the bare counter that she is using to stir things on the stovetop. I've seen my sister pick up topping off a casserole on the table one time with her fingers before everyone ate. One of my cousin's kids grabbed a cracker off the counter at a gathering and gummed it in his mouth, and put it back on the table and someone else ended up eating eat. My aunt stirred some corn in the microwave at a holiday gathering, then tested the temperature of the food with the spoon, then used it to re-stir the corn later (after she had eaten of it!) Now let's stop and be honest here. Many of these things are VERY unsanitary. Probably no one is going to get hurt or sick because of it, but the OCD mind can not let these thoughts go. I notice that I do better eating at places where I can't see what is going on the kitchen. Once I've actually seen something disturbing, then I tend to avoid that place in the future. Thus why I was down to 3 take out places for awhile...the only places I felt comfortable eating. As I've mentioned in previous posts I am trying to expand the places I will eat again and become more comfortable in doing so. I've had a particularly hard time with a sandwich shop in the past. They assemble your sandwich in front of you, and they do wear gloves. But why, can I ask, do people automatically think that gloves on their hands makes for a magical germ barrier, and they can still do anything with gloves on their hands? The point of gloves when food handling is to keep the food sanitary, and is a step above and beyond normal handwashing (which should take place anyway). But I'll get off my soapbox now....This is where my exposure comes into play. I had already had an especially difficult day with clothing contamination (my #1 issue right now) and I was just mentally exhausted. I decided that for an exposure to end the day I would go get sandwiches and try to eat at that place again. I've had a hard time eating here in the past because I've seen the workers do things that I feel are "unclean" when their gloves are on, and then they continue to make my sandwich (for example wiping down the meatcutter with a washcloth/solution, then immediately starting to make my sandwich when I walk through the door with those same gloves). It is gross, right? Right? But again....most people with OCD wouldn't even think about this or even notice it. Probably the food worker doesn't even think it through. I do think about though and I can't get it out of my mind. If I can catch them doing something "unclean" before I have to pay, then that is good--I can simply make up an excuse (don't we all get so good at making excuses with our OCD to sound normal?) that I left my cash out in my car and leave. BUT....many times I've had to end up paying and throw out the food when I get home because I feel it is contaminated. This time I walked in the door and there was already a fairly large line which was good because it gave me a chance to "scope out" what was going on before it was my turn, time to leave if I needed to, even though I desperately wanted to follow through on this. I only had to stand there for about 10 seconds before I saw a problem. The kid making the sandwiches kept brushing his gloved hands on his shorts (which who knows if they were clean?) between customers...as he was going from one sandwich to the next. Then the paper that the sandwich sits on as it's being assembled kept brushing against his T-shirt. And I knew at that moment that I did not want whatever was on his shorts or T-shirt in my food, so I left. Bummer. I knew I needed to get something else to eat so I decided to revisit a hamburger drive thru that I used to avoid. I went there a couple of weeks ago as an exposure just to prove to myself that it was okay to eat there, and I managed successfully at that time, so I thought...hey, I can do this again, right? This hamburger joint caused me the same issues as the sandwich shop in the past...the whole glove issue. I stopped eating there awhile back because I saw through the drive-thru window that someone with gloves was pressing something down into the garbage can (probably to make it fit)--and then my mind started worrying if he was going to go right back to making food after he put his hand in the trash? I don't remember that far back, but I'm fairly sure I probably threw my food away after I paid and haven't been back there until 2 weeks ago. Anyway, when I did go 2 weeks ago (for a small exposure) I allowed myself a 5 second look through the drive thru window, just to make sure nothing totally gross was going on. Nothing appeared to be, so I paid for the food, came home, and ate it. And everything went well. So I thought this would be no big issue this time. I remember sitting in the drive-thru and they were taking awhile to get my food. I kept telling myself not to look into the window, that would only make my anxiety worse, but of course the longer I waited....I just had to look. So I did look in, and I saw 2 things right off the bat that bothered me. Both involved gloved employees. One was standing at the fountain pop dispenser at the drive-thru window, filling up his own personal cup with pop. The other was using a broom and dustpan and sweeping the kitchen floor. Both were wearing gloves, so of course I immediately fretted that these people were making my food with really dirty gloves. Of course once I started looking, I couldn't stop. I tried to watch them to see if they would go back to the kitchen. The guy sweeping continued to do so the whole time, so I know he wasn't making our food. The guy getting his pop was gone for just a moment but then I saw someone hand him the burgers and he put them in a sack. So I know he touched the packaged burgers, but I don't think he actually made them. The thing is though, I wasn't 100% sure and that bothered me. I was so ticked off at that point because I'd already paid....I told myself there was no way I was going to be able to eat those. Then I thought about all the food, dishes, clothing, shoes, etc...that I have been throwing out recently and I was so mad at myself and so mad at the OCD. I decided I would go home and my daughter and I would eat the cheeseburgers after all. The best way I've found for me personally to do an exposure is just to get it done as quickly as possible, that way there is no turning back. I remember opening the cheeseburger and just eating it as fast as I could...and then there, it was done. I remember my anxiety going up to about a 9, and it took about an hour for it to get down to a 3, but since then it has not bothered me at all. I still don't like what I saw, but I'm not fixated on it anymore. And I should probably go back there sometime soon to eat a cheeseburger again, just to reinforce the point. So at the end of the day it was a pretty successful exposure for me. It sounds so ridiculously stupid that eating a cheeseburger would cause me so much stress, but this was pretty huge for me. The point being that I didn't allow myself to give into the OCD at this time. And usually I do give in to what the OCD tells me. It was amazing to me that I went from "no chance am I going to eat that" (giving into the OCD) to eating it and being okay with it today (a big gain in my book). I'm hoping that as I continue to do more exposures, I will become less "hyperaware" of what is going around me, and maybe just take on a more normal awareness level. For those of you that are way beyond where I am in treatment (which is still self-treatment at this point), did you find that the level of hyperawareness you experience goes down? Do you find that the things that once bothered you immensely, you don't even give a second thought to anymore? Does anyone have any good exposure ideas for how to continue with my eating/restaurant contamination issues? Thanks for reading! Hope you all are doing good and keep on fighting the fight against this nasty OCD!
Monday, June 9, 2014
To tell or not to tell....that is the question!
I have really been struggling a lot with whether or not to tell certain people about my OCD. Currently my only family that knows are my husband and daughter. I have not told my parents, sister, other relatives or friends about this. My husbands family also does not know (at least that is what he tells me). I suppose a lot of it is because I'm ashamed of the behavior. Also I just don't feel like a lot of people understand OCD, and I worry in some ways it might make it worse to "let the cat out of the bag". Of course living with my husband made it necessary to tell him. It got to the point where it was pretty obvious something was wrong and I told him I had OCD about 2 1/2 years ago. I did not have OCD when we got married in 2001, but it started developing about 2 years after we got married and has slowly gotten worse through the years. A lot of the initial behaviors were things where no one would ever know and I kept it to myself for a LONG time. I would classify myself as mild-moderate at the time I told him which was December 2011. At the present time, I would now classify myself as severe, almost borderline extreme. Also a lot of my obsessions currently revolve around feeling like my husband is contaminated, so it has been very difficult for our marriage and obviously very difficult to hide. Ironically our marriage troubles and stress is kind of what triggered my OCD, so it feels like a vicious cycle. Anyway...I'm rambling. I tend to do that in my posts, don't I? Even though my husband knows I have OCD, he does not know a lot about my particular symptoms. It's become something I've been very good at hiding through the years, but it's becoming increasingly harder to do that. He made the comment about a week ago that things seem worse....and I thought to myself...."if only you knew how bad they really are". He is not someone that I feel emotionally comfortable with right now, so it's very hard to talk about my OCD with him. I continue to hide most behaviors from him, although some are very obvious--namely when I'm avoiding him or acting like I'm scared to death of him. Avoidance has become one of my biggest compulsions when dealing with the contamination issues, and I've started avoiding my family (parents, sister and relatives). I don't want to go to social gatherings because I can't deal with people touching me and I'm not going to eat there and I don't want to hug anyone....so I just stay home. Then my family things I'm being rude or just don't want to come, which has probably created a lot of hard feelings and resentment. We've had several get-togethers lately with my family and I've avoided all of them, even things like my grandma's 85th birthday party and Easter, simply because I couldn't stand the thought of hugging my relatives or sitting down on their couches. That is so sad, but so true. My daughter turned 11 a couple of weeks ago and for the first time ever, I did not plan a birthday party with our families over. Too many people to keep track of. I didn't want people using the bathroom that I use or sitting on our couches or touching things around the house, because I wouldn't be able to see what was going on. My parents ended up bringing over her birthday gift last week, and I suggested they bring their dog over to meet our puppy...just so I had an excuse that we would all be outside. I didn't want people in here again or sitting on our furniture. Then my dad came over and gave my daughter a big hug and I felt mortified, and put all her clothes aside, and I later threw them away. We went to a wedding this weekend and I felt horribly contaminated after that. My father in law (who concerns me at about the same level as my husband because they both have the same hobbies of farming and machine restoration) touched my clothes and my daughters dress just trying to say hello and be friendly, and I had to hug a few people there. I wouldn't even wear my seatbelt home from the wedding because I didn't want to contaminate it with my now contaminated clothes. I didn't go to the reception because I just needed to get home and "decontaminate myself" as quickly as possible. This meant removing all clothes worn there, and I know I won't wear them again. I threw my dress and my daughters dress aside and will get rid of those. I went outside and cleaned off my seat in the car twice with soapy water to remove any contamination from the clothes after hugging people and sitting in the pew at church....I feel so horrible saying that, but this is true, and this is where I'm at. Everything just feels contaminated to me when I am out in public. I had several appointments for my daughter and I last week and I bought special inexpensive outfits for us that we would wear to those appointments and then I knew I wouldn't wear them again afterward. We visited the dentist for the first time in a year (that is a whole other blog post to write about soon and why I have avoided that for so long). They always wipe down the chair with chemical wipes between patients. I knew this ahead of time, and so this was the main purpose for buying different clothes. I didn't want chemicals on my clothes and I knew I wouldn't want to wear them again. So we went to the dentist in those clothes and I bought special little pads (like someone who has incontinence might put down on their bed) to put down on the seat, so that the now contaminated clothes wouldn't ruin the seats in my car. The day after that I had my own doctors appointment with a family doctor (to check my hypothyroidism). I of course can't stand the thought of sitting in waiting rooms and doctors office chairs, so I wore the contaminated clothing there again so I didn't have to ruin my regular clothes. Same issue again when my daughter went to the orthodonist later that week. I had her wear the same pants she wore to the dentist. Now that week is past us and all of those clothes are being disposed of. Thank goodness that week is over....that was very stressful for me. Once we were in the "diirty clothes" for the day, we remained in those until we showered at night. We never sat on the "safe couch" in the living room in order to not contaminate that. Once we showered and put on clean clothes, then we were clean and we could sit on our normal couch. I also hate how I draw my daughter into these compulsions too. Just a little background information for ya--I also like to keep this stuff for my own documentation purposes. So anyway.....back to my original question in the title of this post...."to tell or not to tell, that is the question!" Sometimes I wonder how things would be if I chose to tell people. If I tell my parents I have OCD, then it may make more sense. There is an explanation for why I can not eat at peoples gatherings and why I don't come to stuff. What concerns me is that since my mom and her family (her mom and sisters) are very close, I'm not sure if she would be able to keep this from her family if I asked her to do that. I definitely am not ready for my grandparents and extended family to know about this, maybe not ever. I think I haven't eaten as so many family gatherings by now, that it doesn't even phase my family anymore....they probably think its odd, but don't push it anymore, and frankly just don't expect my family to show up for meals at family gatherings. One of the main reasons I continue to avoid is because I don't want to hug people and I don't want to sit on their couches or kitchen chairs, because I question the cleanliness of their clothes and their furniture and my mind just keeps ruminating about everything that could have happened (ex. my relatives have dogs...who knows if they've peed on the couches. I saw my aunt clean up dog pee on one of her couches once. Darn OCD makes you remember everything!!!!) I could probably go to a function, but I know I would end up throwing clothes away, and I HATE DOING THAT!!!!!! I really do. My niece's birthday is in August and she will be 4. My sister has a knack for taking her around to everyone after she opens her gifts and telling her to give people kisses and hugs. I don't want a kiss and hug. I feel so horribly awful saying that, but I don't. I want to celebrate my nieces's birthday. I want to see my family. I do NOT want a hug and kiss from my niece, and so that is probably what will keep me from going to the celebration. I feel like a horrible aunt saying that. Feels good to have this outlet on my blog where I can get it out though. That is another instance where I feel like maybe if my family knew that I had OCD and didn't want to be touched by people, that I could still take part in celebrations, but at least my parents and sister would know that I don't want to be touched....so my sister could just not bring her niece over to me or "force" her to give me a hug afterward. That still doesn't solve the problem of my grandparents and aunts or cousins hugging me. I just don't want to be touched!!!! Also if my in-laws were aware of my OCD, then maybe they would realize I don't need a hug or a pat on the arm to say hello either. Am I sounding totally rude yet or what??!!!??? The bottom line is I just don't know if I want people to know yet. But when I don't tell them, I know I come off as being extremely rude or avoidant and I don't want to create further tension with my family or my husbands family for that matter. People just don't get the whole OCD thing. They really have no idea where our thought processes are capable of going, and how it mentally tortures us through even the most mundane of activities. Most people would have no idea where our brains can go on simple thought and how we can be taken from Point A to Point B and all of the possible things that could happen in between. How we give into what the OCD tells us, in order to be free of the thought. My husband doesn't even get this yet and he has known about it for 2 1/2 years, so how are my parents and sister going to understand, when they don't even live with me and can't see my "OCD in action" everyday. I'm just curious for all of you out there.....who all knows in your life, and how did you make the decision to tell them? Are you glad that you told people or do you regret it? Do most people try to understand or do they now treat you differently? That is what I am struggling with right now. Do I keep it a secret or do I tell?
Sunday, June 8, 2014
The Chair Fiasco.....and some updates!
So I've continued trucking along with my food/eating issues. I have continued to work on the same things and started to move forward in others. I have now eaten pizza 3 times from the pizza place I banned long ago, and can honestly say I have no anxiety eating the pizza, even thinking they may have been baked on rusty pans. I have continued to purchase bakery items almost daily and eat them, without any anxiety either (rusty pan concern here too!). In fact, I've probably been eating too much of them, ha! :) I went through a drive thru about a week ago that I haven't been to for awhile and successfully ate a cheeseburger there. I have gone back to the Hy-Vee grocery store a few times, that I stopped going to about a year ago. Have purchased and eaten food from there each time. I plan to make a big trip there tomorrow to buy several days worth of groceries. Wow, it is so nice only traveling 5 minutes to a grocery store, instead of driving a long ways away to get to a different Hy-Vee. I am planning starting this week to try some other new restaurants (take out of course, I can't bear the thought of eating AT a restaurant and using their silverware right now). The ultimate goal for my OCD in the food hierarchy would be to be able to eat out a restaurant without concerns, and I hope I can get there someday. I've been pleased with the progress I've made so far. It may not sound like much, but every little step helps. On another note, I had posted last week about an unexpected laundry exposure I needed to do. It turns out that actually went quite well, and I have been able to wash most loads of laundry only one time through, without really having any anxiety wearing them afterward. The loads I have had trouble with are towels and underwear, BUT for normal clothes....pants, T-shirts, I've been able to do them one load through the washer and they are done. Talk about a time saver! It makes me feel awful thinking about all the time I wasted back when I was running them three times through, even twice up to last week. I wasn't sure I would ever be able to do this and thought that basically my days were going to revolve around doing laundry. I imagine I saved about 5 hours of time this week alone, just on this one ritual. If you refer back to my last post, there is obviously a ton of work ahead of me in this area, but for me to start here when I wasn't ready is huge. Even if I don't get cracking on my laundry issues for awhile in full, at least I know I have gotten a start.
Now.....the clothing and husband contamination seems to get worse every day for me. This is what scares me. I feel that I may be able to slowly self treat some areas of my OCD, but the clothing contamination and feeling like my husband is contaminated are very extreme. I am going to call this episode the "chair fiasco", trying to be humorous but it's really not. I haven't sat in my seat at the kitchen table for almost 4 weeks now. It all started on Mothers Day. My puppy peed on the kitchen floor right next to the kitchen table. My husband cleaned it up and during the process he put his hand on my daughters chair seat. Well all I could imagine after that were his hands which had been touching pee soaked paper towels. The chair was now contaminated with dog pee. I meant to clean it up right away, but I didn't want my husband to see the decontamination process that I would put it through. One day turned into another and pretty soon it had been almost 4 weeks since my daughter and I sat there. We ate our meals on the couch or standing up at the kitchen counter. A couple of times during the past month I have noticed my husband touch my seat back with his hand when he is standing there looking outside. I asked him to please not do that because then I don't want to sit there or I have to wash it off. I have continued to explain this is why I'm not sitting here. His hand is contaminated to me ( for reasons I have previously explained in posts and he also has his hands in the dogs mouth frequently pulling stuff out that she tries to eat). I had off work last week and took the time to reall clean up my house, as I've been fousing on OCD cleaning and other parts of the huse were really needing some attention. I decided on Friday that I would tackle the kitchen chairs since I got the rest of my stuff done throughut the week. I wiped and cleared the kitchen table, and wiped down my cair and my daughters chair. They are wooden chairs wih a fake leather seat. It took me about an hour total to clean both chairs and I used a combination of wet wipes, rubbing alcohol and paper towels and Dawn dish soap and water. I was really excited to have a place to sit down again. I told my husband the day before that I would be cleaning this and if I saw his hand on my chair again I wasn't going to be able to sit there and if that happened, then I told him not to keep asking me why I wasn't sitting at the table again. On Friday he got home from work a couple of hours after I had cleaned them. He hadn't been home for more than 5 minutes and I saw him walk over to the window...and this is when he typically grabs my chair. In hindsight I should have said something. I should have reminded him, but I said nothing. I suppose part of me was hoping he would remember. Then he placed his hand just like he normally would. The first thing I said was" oh. my. gosh" in a very irritated way. As soon as I spoke the words, I think he connected it and his hand quickly pulled off the chair. I explained that I had just spent an hour cleaning the chairs and he insisted that he never touched it. I asked my daughter later if she had seen it, and she said yes he did touch it. So all that work for nothing. Then he asks me something like " what difference does it make if I touch your chair anyway? You are really not going to sit there because I touched your chair?.......I don't really answer him, because I've tried explaining things over and over to him in the past. I don't want him to touch my stuff. If I sit in the chair, then everytime I will worry that my clothes are brushing up against the part he touched. That has the potential to turn into a lot of " contaminated clothes" which would get even more expensive. How do you all handle these kind of things in your households? I understand that my husband doesn't think like me. I understand that I am the one that has OCD. My husband knows that this stuff bothers me though. Where is the fine line between families not engaging in your OCD compulsions, and just trying to keep peace in the house? These kind of situations come up all the time in our marriage, and the end result is always being angry with each other. We also had a family wedding last night and I can't stand people touching me, so I am mentally exhausted today from that. Next post will be about my decontamination processes from the wedding and some doctors appointments last week. It has been a stressful week, but I am reminding myself of the few positive steps I did make in this fight, or sometimes what I feel is a raging war, against OCD.
Now.....the clothing and husband contamination seems to get worse every day for me. This is what scares me. I feel that I may be able to slowly self treat some areas of my OCD, but the clothing contamination and feeling like my husband is contaminated are very extreme. I am going to call this episode the "chair fiasco", trying to be humorous but it's really not. I haven't sat in my seat at the kitchen table for almost 4 weeks now. It all started on Mothers Day. My puppy peed on the kitchen floor right next to the kitchen table. My husband cleaned it up and during the process he put his hand on my daughters chair seat. Well all I could imagine after that were his hands which had been touching pee soaked paper towels. The chair was now contaminated with dog pee. I meant to clean it up right away, but I didn't want my husband to see the decontamination process that I would put it through. One day turned into another and pretty soon it had been almost 4 weeks since my daughter and I sat there. We ate our meals on the couch or standing up at the kitchen counter. A couple of times during the past month I have noticed my husband touch my seat back with his hand when he is standing there looking outside. I asked him to please not do that because then I don't want to sit there or I have to wash it off. I have continued to explain this is why I'm not sitting here. His hand is contaminated to me ( for reasons I have previously explained in posts and he also has his hands in the dogs mouth frequently pulling stuff out that she tries to eat). I had off work last week and took the time to reall clean up my house, as I've been fousing on OCD cleaning and other parts of the huse were really needing some attention. I decided on Friday that I would tackle the kitchen chairs since I got the rest of my stuff done throughut the week. I wiped and cleared the kitchen table, and wiped down my cair and my daughters chair. They are wooden chairs wih a fake leather seat. It took me about an hour total to clean both chairs and I used a combination of wet wipes, rubbing alcohol and paper towels and Dawn dish soap and water. I was really excited to have a place to sit down again. I told my husband the day before that I would be cleaning this and if I saw his hand on my chair again I wasn't going to be able to sit there and if that happened, then I told him not to keep asking me why I wasn't sitting at the table again. On Friday he got home from work a couple of hours after I had cleaned them. He hadn't been home for more than 5 minutes and I saw him walk over to the window...and this is when he typically grabs my chair. In hindsight I should have said something. I should have reminded him, but I said nothing. I suppose part of me was hoping he would remember. Then he placed his hand just like he normally would. The first thing I said was" oh. my. gosh" in a very irritated way. As soon as I spoke the words, I think he connected it and his hand quickly pulled off the chair. I explained that I had just spent an hour cleaning the chairs and he insisted that he never touched it. I asked my daughter later if she had seen it, and she said yes he did touch it. So all that work for nothing. Then he asks me something like " what difference does it make if I touch your chair anyway? You are really not going to sit there because I touched your chair?.......I don't really answer him, because I've tried explaining things over and over to him in the past. I don't want him to touch my stuff. If I sit in the chair, then everytime I will worry that my clothes are brushing up against the part he touched. That has the potential to turn into a lot of " contaminated clothes" which would get even more expensive. How do you all handle these kind of things in your households? I understand that my husband doesn't think like me. I understand that I am the one that has OCD. My husband knows that this stuff bothers me though. Where is the fine line between families not engaging in your OCD compulsions, and just trying to keep peace in the house? These kind of situations come up all the time in our marriage, and the end result is always being angry with each other. We also had a family wedding last night and I can't stand people touching me, so I am mentally exhausted today from that. Next post will be about my decontamination processes from the wedding and some doctors appointments last week. It has been a stressful week, but I am reminding myself of the few positive steps I did make in this fight, or sometimes what I feel is a raging war, against OCD.
Friday, May 30, 2014
An Unplanned Laundry Exposure.....and ALOT of background information!
Sorry in advance for this VERY long post. I feel I need to give background information on this issue, and it will also help me as I develop my laundry hierarchy, which I am not ready to tackle yet AT ALL. Unforunately some circumstances have come up this week, that may make it necessary for an unplanned exposure, in need to actually have clean laundry. A little background information first, and then I'll talk about the unplanned exposures that I am going to have to do over the next few days.
As I've mentioned many times in previous posts, laundry/clothing is one of my absolute biggest issues. I tend to separate this into two categories. First of all is the clothing contamination, which I will discuss further in a separate post (and have addressed a lot already though in this blog). Second is the actual process of washing my clothes. There are so many rituals I go through to make sure my laundry is done right.
1. Separating out everything into separate loads--socks, my T-shirts, my daughters T-shirts, sleep pants, my "outside stuff", my daughters "outside stuff", towels, my underwear, my daughters underwear, etc. I do use the washing machine for my daughter and my clothing.
2. I hand wash all of my husbands clothing (because his clothes are dirty and I consider him and his clothes contaminated and I don't want them in the washer)
3. I wash most loads twice. New clothes 3-4 times.
4. I have to make sure that all of the soap gets rinsed off out the clothes, so do extra multiple rinse cycles (sometimes the rinsing alone adds on 40-50 minutes per load).
5. A lot of loads get a special sanitary setting on my washer, which adds time to the cycle.
6. Toilets cannot flush when the laundry is going.
7. I run an empty cycle between most loads.
8. I wash out the dryer door before I start laundry in the morning (in case my husband opened the door or touched it....which he doesn't even use the washer anyway, but my OCD tells me to wash it anyway).
9. I have to turn off the water supply to the toilets downstairs and in the master bathroom (because they run by themselves when the washer goes into a spin/drain cycle and I am horribly obsessed that toilet water is backing up into the washer. BIGGEST LAUNDRY WORRY!!!
10. I will not use the dryer for my daughter and my clothes. I line dry everything of ours for about 11 months now. I will use the dryer for my husbands clothes.
So, I can't do my laundry when my husband is home, because he doesn't know about a lot of this. Loads take me a LONG time to do, and I constantly check the washing machine to make sure that there is soap tumbling around in the clothes That they are actually getting clean. I worry that if I only wash them once, that all of the "germs" on the clothes are really just tumbling around with each other and nothing is really getting clean. So somehow washing them twice makes me feel better. The weird thing is up until a year ago when my laundry OCD started, I washed lots of things together and only once. I would wash regular clothes and socks (gross!) together. I would wash underwear, towels and sheets all in the same load. So why did I start having a problem with this? I don't know! It started with one thing and has morphed. Laundry and clothes are a huge, time-consuming issue for me right now. If I could start cutting down on this, I would probably be amazed with how much "free time" I had again . To be honest, this is what consumes most of my day right now. I usually have a plan on what needs to get washed. If my husband comes home during a load, then that load is "ruined" right on the spot. Because I don't want him to know I turn the toilets off, I go into the bathroom and turn the toilet on before he comes in the front door. Then I feel that toilet water could possibly have gotten on my laundry, and I throw it out. I also feel that him washing his hands at the kitchen sink could somehow get through the pipes and the dirty water down the drain could get into the laundry. I know this is irrational, but it is one of my biggest obsessions. I work from downstairs at my home, so I am constantly going upstairs to see if he is home. Sometimes my heart starts beating so fast with anxiety that you would honestly think that a burglar has broken into my house....all of this because my husband MIGHT be home and I have to figure out how to take care of everything if that happens. Getting the water shut off fast enough, thinking about buying new clothes to replace the ones that I think are ruined, knowing that my anxiety will shoot through the roof if I have to do this again!!! I know rationally that most people only wash their clothes one time through the washer. I mean, really...isn't the whole point of a washer to clean the clothes and they are clean? I can not accept this though. The OCD tells me they are not clean after one wash. So onto my unplanned exposure......
I had about 4-5 loads of laundry I needed to get done over the course of 3 days. My husband unexpectedly took off from work 2 days this week and that completely threw me off. I knew I couldn't get any laundry done if he was home and I was running out of things...only a few pairs of socks, and underwear and a couple of pairs of sleep pants left. My options were A) to rewear things for a couple of days or B) to wash things through only one cycle and try to get as much stuff done as possible if he were to leave the house for awhile. I don't really want to wear my underwear or socks more than one day. Sleep pants I could manage for 2 nights in a row (and I actually did that last night) in attempt to make our sleep pant supply last twice as long if I needed to, until I was able to do laundry again. I DO NOT feel comfortable tackling any of the laundry issues right now. I have been working on my food related stuff and some perfectionism issues and have actually done pretty well (I'll update on those this weekend). Since I used to wash laundry just one cycle per load (without any problem up to a year ago), I feel that I am going to have to do this. And to be honest unless I want to spend most of my time doing laundry for the rest of my life, this is something I will eventually need to tackle.
So.....my husband just left the house and said he would be back in a couple of hours. I just put the socks in the washer and know that I only have time to wash them one cycle. Usually I do a quickwash cycle and a sanitary cycle for socks. Today I will do the sanitary wash, but no quickwash. The extra quickwash is what gives me the added comfort of feeling they are clean. My anxiety right now is about 7-8. The OCD tells me they might not be clean enough. The rational side of me says...they are being washed in a sanitary setting. All germs will be killed. Most people do a cycle only once. I used to do my laundry normally. I will forever have laundry OCD if I don't start working on this. I am not ready to start this, but maybe this a push to get me working on this. To reclaim time and life back. It will be one thing to just wash them once, but the next step will come in a couple of days--when I run out of my other socks and have to start wearing these. I will have to wear them, and the thought of that makes me anxious. But I have to do this. Maybe these unforeseen circumstances that forced me to do my laundry quick, will be what pushes me to keep fighting off this part of my OCD. I will update in a couple of days how this all went....and will also have some positive gains in OCD to post about as well. Hopefully this laundry exposure will be counted as a gain too.
As I've mentioned many times in previous posts, laundry/clothing is one of my absolute biggest issues. I tend to separate this into two categories. First of all is the clothing contamination, which I will discuss further in a separate post (and have addressed a lot already though in this blog). Second is the actual process of washing my clothes. There are so many rituals I go through to make sure my laundry is done right.
1. Separating out everything into separate loads--socks, my T-shirts, my daughters T-shirts, sleep pants, my "outside stuff", my daughters "outside stuff", towels, my underwear, my daughters underwear, etc. I do use the washing machine for my daughter and my clothing.
2. I hand wash all of my husbands clothing (because his clothes are dirty and I consider him and his clothes contaminated and I don't want them in the washer)
3. I wash most loads twice. New clothes 3-4 times.
4. I have to make sure that all of the soap gets rinsed off out the clothes, so do extra multiple rinse cycles (sometimes the rinsing alone adds on 40-50 minutes per load).
5. A lot of loads get a special sanitary setting on my washer, which adds time to the cycle.
6. Toilets cannot flush when the laundry is going.
7. I run an empty cycle between most loads.
8. I wash out the dryer door before I start laundry in the morning (in case my husband opened the door or touched it....which he doesn't even use the washer anyway, but my OCD tells me to wash it anyway).
9. I have to turn off the water supply to the toilets downstairs and in the master bathroom (because they run by themselves when the washer goes into a spin/drain cycle and I am horribly obsessed that toilet water is backing up into the washer. BIGGEST LAUNDRY WORRY!!!
10. I will not use the dryer for my daughter and my clothes. I line dry everything of ours for about 11 months now. I will use the dryer for my husbands clothes.
So, I can't do my laundry when my husband is home, because he doesn't know about a lot of this. Loads take me a LONG time to do, and I constantly check the washing machine to make sure that there is soap tumbling around in the clothes That they are actually getting clean. I worry that if I only wash them once, that all of the "germs" on the clothes are really just tumbling around with each other and nothing is really getting clean. So somehow washing them twice makes me feel better. The weird thing is up until a year ago when my laundry OCD started, I washed lots of things together and only once. I would wash regular clothes and socks (gross!) together. I would wash underwear, towels and sheets all in the same load. So why did I start having a problem with this? I don't know! It started with one thing and has morphed. Laundry and clothes are a huge, time-consuming issue for me right now. If I could start cutting down on this, I would probably be amazed with how much "free time" I had again . To be honest, this is what consumes most of my day right now. I usually have a plan on what needs to get washed. If my husband comes home during a load, then that load is "ruined" right on the spot. Because I don't want him to know I turn the toilets off, I go into the bathroom and turn the toilet on before he comes in the front door. Then I feel that toilet water could possibly have gotten on my laundry, and I throw it out. I also feel that him washing his hands at the kitchen sink could somehow get through the pipes and the dirty water down the drain could get into the laundry. I know this is irrational, but it is one of my biggest obsessions. I work from downstairs at my home, so I am constantly going upstairs to see if he is home. Sometimes my heart starts beating so fast with anxiety that you would honestly think that a burglar has broken into my house....all of this because my husband MIGHT be home and I have to figure out how to take care of everything if that happens. Getting the water shut off fast enough, thinking about buying new clothes to replace the ones that I think are ruined, knowing that my anxiety will shoot through the roof if I have to do this again!!! I know rationally that most people only wash their clothes one time through the washer. I mean, really...isn't the whole point of a washer to clean the clothes and they are clean? I can not accept this though. The OCD tells me they are not clean after one wash. So onto my unplanned exposure......
I had about 4-5 loads of laundry I needed to get done over the course of 3 days. My husband unexpectedly took off from work 2 days this week and that completely threw me off. I knew I couldn't get any laundry done if he was home and I was running out of things...only a few pairs of socks, and underwear and a couple of pairs of sleep pants left. My options were A) to rewear things for a couple of days or B) to wash things through only one cycle and try to get as much stuff done as possible if he were to leave the house for awhile. I don't really want to wear my underwear or socks more than one day. Sleep pants I could manage for 2 nights in a row (and I actually did that last night) in attempt to make our sleep pant supply last twice as long if I needed to, until I was able to do laundry again. I DO NOT feel comfortable tackling any of the laundry issues right now. I have been working on my food related stuff and some perfectionism issues and have actually done pretty well (I'll update on those this weekend). Since I used to wash laundry just one cycle per load (without any problem up to a year ago), I feel that I am going to have to do this. And to be honest unless I want to spend most of my time doing laundry for the rest of my life, this is something I will eventually need to tackle.
So.....my husband just left the house and said he would be back in a couple of hours. I just put the socks in the washer and know that I only have time to wash them one cycle. Usually I do a quickwash cycle and a sanitary cycle for socks. Today I will do the sanitary wash, but no quickwash. The extra quickwash is what gives me the added comfort of feeling they are clean. My anxiety right now is about 7-8. The OCD tells me they might not be clean enough. The rational side of me says...they are being washed in a sanitary setting. All germs will be killed. Most people do a cycle only once. I used to do my laundry normally. I will forever have laundry OCD if I don't start working on this. I am not ready to start this, but maybe this a push to get me working on this. To reclaim time and life back. It will be one thing to just wash them once, but the next step will come in a couple of days--when I run out of my other socks and have to start wearing these. I will have to wear them, and the thought of that makes me anxious. But I have to do this. Maybe these unforeseen circumstances that forced me to do my laundry quick, will be what pushes me to keep fighting off this part of my OCD. I will update in a couple of days how this all went....and will also have some positive gains in OCD to post about as well. Hopefully this laundry exposure will be counted as a gain too.
Monday, May 26, 2014
Eating contamination/My Food Related Hierarchy
Regardless of whether or not I choose to get treatment professionally, I know that at this very moment I need to very much start working on self-treatment at a bare minimum. I have decided to come up with a list of hierarchies for all of my subtypes of OCD. As I make the lists and start going through some of the lower exposures, I will document my progress on this blog. Contamination OCD is by far the worst for me. Contamination comes in many different forms....clothes, laundry, going out in public, pets, my husband, food, etc. Laundry/clothes/husband is probably not what I will tackle first (because it is the worst of everything). My plan is to make a hierarchy for every problem first...sometimes it helps me to take a step back and look at this and realize how bad things really are with my OCD right now. I probably won't remember everything at this time, but this will be a good starting point. I am going to include what bothers me, and a SUDS (Subjective Units of Distress) score for each thing...in other words on a rating of 0 (no anxiety) to 100 (the most extreme anxiety), where does my anxiety fall for each item if I were to do it?? I am planning on starting to work on food/eating contamination first. I have about 3 places right now where I feel safe getting take out from, 2 of those places are drive thrus. I won't eat at restaurants and I would typically feel very uncomfortable veering outside of my 3 safe places. I have seen things happen at other restaurants or drive thrus that make me uncomfortable, and then I just won't go back. I would not want to use restaurant silverware or cups. I do have a hard time with the plates too. I used to just get finger food in the rare instance we would go out to eat with extended family, but then after the "gasoline contamination" (see post from last summer) I am not able to use my hands to eat.....and since I can't use the silverware, that pretty much puts eating out, out of the quesion. If we go to family gatherings, I won't eat, so I just avoid those anymore. I stopped eating bakery items from the grocery store several months ago bcause I saw their baking pans looked rusted. I stopped buying deli lunchmeat at the grocery store awhile backbecause I would see things like the worker wiping down the meatcutter with a cloth/cleaning solution and then use those same gloves to get my meat. I stopped going to one grocery store close by my house about a year ago because there was a man I saw in a black trenchcat and sunglasses and he was was walking around the store watching people. This happened right after the Boston marathon bombing and I was scared that this person might be doing something harmful to all the food in store, so I hadn't been back there since. I tend to take my grocery items from a few back on the shelf. I won't take first box of cereal, for instance, because I think what if someone had it in their cart and didn't want it and put it back. It just feels safer if farther back. I won't buy the item if there are none behind the first row. I am very aware of espe cially bags of food. If I have a large bag of M&M's, I will push on it to make sure there is air in the bag, if that makes sense. To make sure there isn't a hole or leak in the bag somewhere. If I buy a box of waffles and notice there is a hole or tear in the bag inside I won't eat them, I'll throw them out. There are a lot more examples, but hopefully this gives some background on the food OCD. So with that, here is my partial food hierarchy. There are a lot of other little things, but I feel this gives a pretty good idea of where I'm at and where I need to start.
Using restaurant silverware 100
Eating out a restaurant that I normally don't go to 80
Eating out at restaurant/drive thru by myself (no one else is eating with me) 90
Eating at a social gathering 100
Drinking a fountain pop through a drive thru 100
Eating foods from the bakery 90
Taking the first item off the grocery shelf (instead of getting one a few back) 100
Not "Checking" bags of food to make sure there isn't holes in them 100
Making food at home and touching food with my hands (instead of gloves) 100
Wearing gloves when I handwash pots/pans 100
Using a baking pan without lining with foil 100
Going back to HyVee grocery store (store I stopped going to) and purchasing and eating food from there 90
Eating at a buffet 100
Eating meat from deli counter 90
Eating with my hands 100
Wow, I have a lot of 100's in this category. Since this post has been in progress, I have tackled a few things. I ate a pizza from a restaurant that I go to for other things, but stopped eating pizza there when I saw their dirty looking/possibly rusted pizza pans. We ordered pizza on Thursday night (as it was the last day of 5th grade for my daughter!), and I ate it for dinner and lunch the next day. I bought several things from the bakery..croissants and donut holes and cinnamon rolls, and ate them. I went to my off limits grocery store for the first time in a year.....bought more bakery items (and ate those too). Small setback here though. I also tried to buy deli meat and the woman was eating with bare hands, then came and put on one glove to get my meat. I saw her touch the wrapper with her bare hand, and I couldn't go through with it anymore at that point. But...I did go to another store and bought deli meat over the weekend, and we ate that. So a small setback, but I was able to do a few things I haven't done in a long time. And I did all of this in just a few days. May not sound like much, but baby steps right? You have to start somewhere. So I do feel good about that. Granted, all of them were the 80's or 90's SUDS. Right now I am not sure how I will do the 100's. Most of them, I don't want to do. I think I will just have to look at the list and ask myself "if I were forced to do one of these things next, which would I do"? That is what is recommended in Jonathan Graysons book "Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder". Even after doing these smaller exposures, they really weren't that bad, once I just did them. I tried to remind myself that people eat from the bakery, eat at restaurants, and go to that particular grocery store everyday. And that once upon a time, so did I. And my OCD took that away from me, and now I am working to get it back.
On an unrelated note, I had a pretty bad contamination situation Saturday night. My daughter vomited in the middle of the night. She woke me up and didn't make it into the bathroom. She threw up on her bedroom carpet, in the hallway, and on her clothing and some of mine, and our slippers. The weird thing is cleaning up the vomit doesn't gross me out. Its just that wherever the vomit was, is now contaminated. My husband came and used a wet vac to clean the hallway. I didn't tell him about the vomit in her bedroom. I didn't want him in her bedroom.....as that is a "safe place" in my house. And to have him, who I feel is contaminated, in her room is a score of about 500!!!!! I went and cleaned it up myself, but now I am scared to walk on those spots. I have paper towels over the spots for now so we remember not to walk on them, but it still feels gross to me, like I won't feel comfortable walking around her room. I threw away all of our clothes, we both took a shower, and I drove to WalMart to buy us new slippers. This spanned from 2:45-6am. Then I realized she had vomited right next to the rack where I had our underwear drying. (Why do I line dry clothes? See previous posts!!). So I was worried some vomit may have spewed on the underwear, so I threw out all the underwear and hangers. Then I noticed a couple very small dots of vomit on her comforter and sheet, right at the very bottom where it almost touches the floor. Comforter tossed. Wasn't sure how we would sleep until I got new bedding and sheets, so we slept on the couch for the remainder of that night. Then I bought new sheets, but I couldn't wash them because my husband was home all day. I am unable to do laundry when he is home (because I turn off 2 toilets in the house in order to do my laundry and he doesn't know about this yet.....actually I think he might be starting to catch on though). So to compensate for this I took a scissors and cut off a piece of the sheet at the bottom. That way there was no vomit on the sheet and I felt we could sleep there. I still didn't like it, but there wasn't really any other choice. We could not sleep on the couch again. SO........I was able to make some gains in the food contamination department this weekend. I'm not sure if you could call everything that resulted from the vomiting a setback, as this is pretty par for the course for me. Throwing things out. Wasting things. I hate it. It feels so wasteful and I really do hate it. It is the ultimate problem I have right now. I guess I just need to feel happy with myself for starting to work on this, and realize that the clothing contamination issue will have to be dealt with, but right now it is my highest highest anxiety situation and I just can't go there.....
Using restaurant silverware 100
Eating out a restaurant that I normally don't go to 80
Eating out at restaurant/drive thru by myself (no one else is eating with me) 90
Eating at a social gathering 100
Drinking a fountain pop through a drive thru 100
Eating foods from the bakery 90
Taking the first item off the grocery shelf (instead of getting one a few back) 100
Not "Checking" bags of food to make sure there isn't holes in them 100
Making food at home and touching food with my hands (instead of gloves) 100
Wearing gloves when I handwash pots/pans 100
Using a baking pan without lining with foil 100
Going back to HyVee grocery store (store I stopped going to) and purchasing and eating food from there 90
Eating at a buffet 100
Eating meat from deli counter 90
Eating with my hands 100
Wow, I have a lot of 100's in this category. Since this post has been in progress, I have tackled a few things. I ate a pizza from a restaurant that I go to for other things, but stopped eating pizza there when I saw their dirty looking/possibly rusted pizza pans. We ordered pizza on Thursday night (as it was the last day of 5th grade for my daughter!), and I ate it for dinner and lunch the next day. I bought several things from the bakery..croissants and donut holes and cinnamon rolls, and ate them. I went to my off limits grocery store for the first time in a year.....bought more bakery items (and ate those too). Small setback here though. I also tried to buy deli meat and the woman was eating with bare hands, then came and put on one glove to get my meat. I saw her touch the wrapper with her bare hand, and I couldn't go through with it anymore at that point. But...I did go to another store and bought deli meat over the weekend, and we ate that. So a small setback, but I was able to do a few things I haven't done in a long time. And I did all of this in just a few days. May not sound like much, but baby steps right? You have to start somewhere. So I do feel good about that. Granted, all of them were the 80's or 90's SUDS. Right now I am not sure how I will do the 100's. Most of them, I don't want to do. I think I will just have to look at the list and ask myself "if I were forced to do one of these things next, which would I do"? That is what is recommended in Jonathan Graysons book "Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder". Even after doing these smaller exposures, they really weren't that bad, once I just did them. I tried to remind myself that people eat from the bakery, eat at restaurants, and go to that particular grocery store everyday. And that once upon a time, so did I. And my OCD took that away from me, and now I am working to get it back.
On an unrelated note, I had a pretty bad contamination situation Saturday night. My daughter vomited in the middle of the night. She woke me up and didn't make it into the bathroom. She threw up on her bedroom carpet, in the hallway, and on her clothing and some of mine, and our slippers. The weird thing is cleaning up the vomit doesn't gross me out. Its just that wherever the vomit was, is now contaminated. My husband came and used a wet vac to clean the hallway. I didn't tell him about the vomit in her bedroom. I didn't want him in her bedroom.....as that is a "safe place" in my house. And to have him, who I feel is contaminated, in her room is a score of about 500!!!!! I went and cleaned it up myself, but now I am scared to walk on those spots. I have paper towels over the spots for now so we remember not to walk on them, but it still feels gross to me, like I won't feel comfortable walking around her room. I threw away all of our clothes, we both took a shower, and I drove to WalMart to buy us new slippers. This spanned from 2:45-6am. Then I realized she had vomited right next to the rack where I had our underwear drying. (Why do I line dry clothes? See previous posts!!). So I was worried some vomit may have spewed on the underwear, so I threw out all the underwear and hangers. Then I noticed a couple very small dots of vomit on her comforter and sheet, right at the very bottom where it almost touches the floor. Comforter tossed. Wasn't sure how we would sleep until I got new bedding and sheets, so we slept on the couch for the remainder of that night. Then I bought new sheets, but I couldn't wash them because my husband was home all day. I am unable to do laundry when he is home (because I turn off 2 toilets in the house in order to do my laundry and he doesn't know about this yet.....actually I think he might be starting to catch on though). So to compensate for this I took a scissors and cut off a piece of the sheet at the bottom. That way there was no vomit on the sheet and I felt we could sleep there. I still didn't like it, but there wasn't really any other choice. We could not sleep on the couch again. SO........I was able to make some gains in the food contamination department this weekend. I'm not sure if you could call everything that resulted from the vomiting a setback, as this is pretty par for the course for me. Throwing things out. Wasting things. I hate it. It feels so wasteful and I really do hate it. It is the ultimate problem I have right now. I guess I just need to feel happy with myself for starting to work on this, and realize that the clothing contamination issue will have to be dealt with, but right now it is my highest highest anxiety situation and I just can't go there.....
Monday, May 19, 2014
Update on starting treatment
I wanted to provide a quick update on the possibility of starting treatment. I have located an anxiety treatment center in Kansas City, which is about 3 hours away from my house. I'm still unsure how realistic this all is with all of the commuting, but I firmly believe that if I want to get treated I need to go to a true anxiety treatment center, not just "talk therapy" through a psychologist here in my hometown. I talked with a very nice woman there who is one of the staff psychologists and has been assigned my case. She explained the procedure and policies to me. I have discussed it a little with my husband and he seems on board with the cost, as we realize that insurance is not likely to cover any of this and it will likely cost thousands of dollars. Again my husband does not realize the extent of my OCD, so it makes me very nervous to proceed with all of this. I'm unsure if I would want him involved in every aspect (at least not at first). There is a lot of obsessions and rituals that he knows nothing about at this point. Regardless, the possibility is out there and I have never gone to this extent to find a treatment center. This summer would be a really good time for me to start treatment since school is out. It would also likely require me to take a medical leave from work due to traveling and the frequency of appointments. There is a lot to consider when weighing the options of treatment. The following are just a few I can think of off hand:
Pros:
To be able to function more "normally" (even a reduction in symptoms is appealing)
Less family stress
Less chance of my child falling into OCD habits from watching me
Not wasting money on buying new clothes and throwing things away
To have some extent of FREEDOM from OCD
To be able to go out and enjoy doing things once again
To be able to be physically closer to my husband/family (through hugs)
To be able to go to social gatherings and not feel isolated
To know that I CAN beat this!!!
Cons:
The thought of treatment is frightening
I don't want to expose myself to the things that I am constantly trying to avoid
Sometimes it seems easier to just live with OCD, than go through what I need to do to get rid of it
Family life will suffer further
My daughter could fall into OCD habits
OCD is likely to continue to get worse without treatment
Very expensive continuing to throw things away
Travel time
Cost
I could get to the point where I become homebound
Sometimes I feel like I should just give it a try. The thing is I'm scared of the treatment! I don't want to have the OCD, but I don't want to do the treatment. Even the basic exposures I know they would start out with are terrifying to me....not to mention how that will progress the further into treatment I go. The thought of even doing something such as touching a doorknob in my house and then putting my hand on my clothes and sitting with that anxiety all day.....I can't even go there. For those of you that have gone through treatment, what do you think your biggest motivator was? If you are not being treated, what is holding you back?
The thing is I've been able to successfully self treat myself for my other subtypes of OCD. I can't say that I'm without symptoms in those areas, but I have learned to manage them to where I would consider them a "minor nuisance" in my day and not consuming large portions of my day. I am really working on my magical thinking/work perfectionism and have made a lot of progress in those areas. Most of my "checking" behaviors are manageable anymore, except for those that cross over with contamination. I still have a problem "checking" things where contamination is an issue. As for doorknobs, garage doors, stove knobs, refrigerator, etc....I don't really have a problem with those much anymore. The contamination though is the BIGGEST issue, and the one that just continues to morph and spiral more out of control every day. I am really spending a lot of my time anymore keeping my "safe zones" clean and safe, and I will write more about that in my next post....stay tuned!
Pros:
To be able to function more "normally" (even a reduction in symptoms is appealing)
Less family stress
Less chance of my child falling into OCD habits from watching me
Not wasting money on buying new clothes and throwing things away
To have some extent of FREEDOM from OCD
To be able to go out and enjoy doing things once again
To be able to be physically closer to my husband/family (through hugs)
To be able to go to social gatherings and not feel isolated
To know that I CAN beat this!!!
Cons:
The thought of treatment is frightening
I don't want to expose myself to the things that I am constantly trying to avoid
Sometimes it seems easier to just live with OCD, than go through what I need to do to get rid of it
Family life will suffer further
My daughter could fall into OCD habits
OCD is likely to continue to get worse without treatment
Very expensive continuing to throw things away
Travel time
Cost
I could get to the point where I become homebound
Sometimes I feel like I should just give it a try. The thing is I'm scared of the treatment! I don't want to have the OCD, but I don't want to do the treatment. Even the basic exposures I know they would start out with are terrifying to me....not to mention how that will progress the further into treatment I go. The thought of even doing something such as touching a doorknob in my house and then putting my hand on my clothes and sitting with that anxiety all day.....I can't even go there. For those of you that have gone through treatment, what do you think your biggest motivator was? If you are not being treated, what is holding you back?
The thing is I've been able to successfully self treat myself for my other subtypes of OCD. I can't say that I'm without symptoms in those areas, but I have learned to manage them to where I would consider them a "minor nuisance" in my day and not consuming large portions of my day. I am really working on my magical thinking/work perfectionism and have made a lot of progress in those areas. Most of my "checking" behaviors are manageable anymore, except for those that cross over with contamination. I still have a problem "checking" things where contamination is an issue. As for doorknobs, garage doors, stove knobs, refrigerator, etc....I don't really have a problem with those much anymore. The contamination though is the BIGGEST issue, and the one that just continues to morph and spiral more out of control every day. I am really spending a lot of my time anymore keeping my "safe zones" clean and safe, and I will write more about that in my next post....stay tuned!
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