After Christmas was over I decided it was time for me to go
looking for some help again. This time I
went to the health unit but they didn’t do home visits in this city. I was given the addresses of 2 mental health
places, so I went and filled out applications at both places. One place called me back and I got an
appointment with a counsellor again. Her
name was Suzanne. The first session we
met I told her that I’d heard about this program where you touch things/ do
things you are afraid to do one at a time until you are cured. But I didn’t want her to do that to me. That sounded too scary. She agreed to not do that, that her focus was
CBT. Learning better thought
patterns. OK by me!
As the days got warmer again the neighbour kids came out to
play, along with their shed toys: wagons, cars etc. And they wanted Katrina to play with
them. So one day I went out and played
with them as I wasn’t going to let Katrina (at 3) go out alone.
Everything was fine (I hadn’t come up with the mouse story yet) until I
went inside and watched them put their toys away in the shed. Then I freaked out in my head. Now I AND Katrina were covered with mouse
germs. I changed her clothes and my
clothes and didn’t want to play with the neighbour kids again. But they kept coming over wanting to play so
I had to keep making up excuses for why we couldn’t come out.. And I had to keep cleaning the doorbell! One day one of the boys put away our garbage
can before he went to school and so now I was REALLY afraid of the school
gym. I even went over to his house with
a paper towel full of vinegar to wipe their door handle on the outside!!!
Fortunately for me they weren’t home at the time.
During that time I was feeling very anxious. My ‘safe’ spot was on the couch with my
laptop computer. That’s where I spent
most of my free time. I was also playing
with Katrina- using shapes to make pictures on a magnet board, reading stories
etc. She didn’t nap much except on the
couch beside me, if I was lucky. So on
days she was home I had no break to look forward to. While I didn’t believe in suicide, there were
many days I just wanted to die. It was
so hard and tiring trying to be a good parent while having ocd. I was
continually making Katrina wash her hands for some little infraction or worse
yet, changing her clothes.
We had bedroom clothes (pj’s) and downstairs clothes. We had a tv in our bedroom. When KD woke up she could come into our room,
sit in the cushy chair and watch tv. But
if she wanted to go downstairs I would have to get up and get her dressed.
No lounging around in pj’s because that would bring the
bedroom ‘germs’ downstairs and/ or bring the downstairs- daytime germs- into
the bedroom.
I remember times where I would finally be done the laundry
and had my shower and it would have taken so much time and energy that I was
crying. See, after I washed up and
brushed my teeth I could finally relax in bed and go to sleep. So I continually touched the sink or faucet
with my hands or arms and had to keep rewashing them. If I dropped the soap in the shower, I’d have
to wash the soap off. If I touched the
shower curtain or shower wall I’d have to rewash that body part. For some reason the more I tried NOT to touch
walls, sinks and the bathtub side, the more I’d end up doing it. Leaning against the wall or doorpost was also
a no-no. So was using the stair
rail. All these things were potentially
contaminating and I just couldn’t risk touching them without needing to wash
afterwards. Neither could my
toddler. She had to learn to go
downstairs without holding on to the rail.
Not that safe but she managed.
Then we moved to another house. Again, I had to pack. Some things I had managed to keep clean (the
book shelf) and I could just pack the books.
Other things like the toys, dishes etc. all had to be washed and then
packed. The house sold quickly and we
had 2 weeks between our new house closing and the time we had to be out of the
old house. Packing and cleaning with
Katrina and my ocd took a long time. So
long, that on the day we were supposed to be out I was still packing up and
cleaning.
The new house needed a paint job so Tom and Bruce were there
painting while I was packing and watching Katrina. One day I went over there to clean the kitchen. The house looked so tidy when we’d done our
walk-thrus that I was just expecting to do some cursory wiping. Then I noticed the mouse droppings! They had hidden them and the killing product
behind dish washing liquid and in drawers.
I was so shocked and full of anxiety at that unexpected turn of events
(they had cats!! And don’t people clean out mice droppings in their utensil
drawers???) I took the drawers, put them
into garbage bags and threw them out the front door onto the lawn. The kitchen is a galley one and the other
half didn’t have mice droppings in it but now it was too late. I needed a new
kitchen. The painting was going well,
tho. A few days before we had to be out of the semi, Bruce scheduled the carpet
cleaners. I had worked all night
cleaning up the house of paint supplies and mouse stuff that kept finding its
way onto the kitchen floor from the walls.
I even threw out the mat that was at the front of the house. There were 2 piles of garbage- 1 in the
basement and one on the front lawn. The
carpet cleaners decided they needed stuff to wrap around the wall so their hose
wouldn’t mark it up. The guys went to
our garbage pile and pulled out 2 rugs and used them. I almost lost it. I had spent all that time trying to get the
house ocd, mouse and dirt free and these guys had undone my work in a few
minutes. Later, after I calmed down, I
agreed that Bruce should clean up what the men touched as he would only do the
necessary things and I would go overboard and have to re-clean everything. So he wasted a couple of hours re-cleaning
that could have been spent packing.
We left behind lots of our kitchen stuff because we had to be out of the house and we weren't done moving. Thanks, OCD. The new owners of the house were not happy with us as they had to wait outside for an hour or more before we gave up and just let them have the rest of our stuff. Maybe they would have been nicer had we told them I had ocd, but instead we just became part of a 'Nasty Move' story for the family to tell for years.
Late one night after the dumpster arrived at the new house, Bruce and Tom went
outside and got rid of all the garbage on the front lawn, then took off their clothes, threw them into
the dumpster also and came back into the house.
Ocd was now everybody’s problem.
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