I took a mental holiday.

I avoided all things ocd as much as i could- except taking my daily meds.  I didn't feel like blogging, or writing much in my journal.  I just wanted a vacation from ocd.  Not that ocd took a vacation from me.  I didn't want to THINK about it, try to figure it out or wonder why it wasn't working.  So i avoided this blog and everyone else's.  Sorry!

School has started and dd is back to her routine... except of course going to bed.  Still fights that one all the way   until she is finally in bed and we start reading.  Then she's happy again. 

Back to ocd.  I was doing ok in July; maybe because i spent a lot of it swimming at the beach (no ocd about that at all) with dd as she had swim lessons.

 And i went kayaking which was ok until one night when all the kayaks outside the boathouse were already taken and i was left with a dusty one on the floor right beside a garbage bag. So automatically we have a problem.  I don't like touching garbage bags because they have, you know, GARBAGE in them.  No, i didn't run away, but mentally tried to figure out what to do.  Also then as the canoe was dirty Mice was the next logical thot (for me).  Even tho the coach said, NO MICE in the boathouse,.So  every time i went after that day i still had to get thots of garbage and mice out of my mind.  So now a fun exercise  sport became an exercise in fighting ocd thots.. Naturally my desire to go decreased. And as it was often cloudy or actually rainy, i didnt go as much as i did in july.  Also we went camping for a week but that was cold and rainy too. 

 Our shower curtain was dirty and gungy so i finally decided to get rid of it.  Sounds easy?  ha!  not with ocd.  I wore 2 bags on my hands to pull the curtain down, then used one bag of those grocery bags to put it in.  i took it outside to the garbage bag. Try getting a bag into a garbage bag using only 1 hand. Then i had to put the garbage bag into the garbage can without getting the can contaminated by shower mold.   only that didn't work out so well.  i guess i didn't think it thru enuf or stuff just happened.  Fortunately it rained that night so in my mind all the moldy contamination on the outside of the garbage can got washed clean.  Of course that didn't make the garbage can clean enuf to touch without washing hands.  Just not extra dirty.  Because the garbage man touches it with his gloves, after touching other garbage.  So far he hasn't dumped the whole can in the truck ( i don't think) but i have to assume that one day he will.

I never had this problem with shower curtains/ bathroom mildew before this   ocd hit around the time of dd 's birth.  Once upon a time i could  put it in the washing machine.   Now that  seems way to gross to consider doing. 

Knowing i didn't used to be this paranoid gives me hope that one day i can go back to that state of mind.  It is just such a fight.  Continually. Even when i do the thing i still have a constant feeling of dread, that stays for a long time, til i forget why it was there in the first place.  Sometimes i get a feeling of relief and the dread goes away but often it just builds up in the back of my body and i just live with it there.  Draining my energy.

Maybe that is why i sleep for as long as i can in the morning.

 Do any of you have a hard time getting up, even if you haven't had a hard time falling asleep ( not due to insomnia, )?  I can sleep fo r10 hours and still get up tired and groggy.  I'm trying to work on getting up and staying up in the morning.  Or is that a whole different problem? 

Now i will go back to reading and responding to all your blogs. 
I hope you all had a great summer.  DD and i found some funny books to read together ( the Junie B. Jones series). She is five and i love reading to her.  And we had fun playing together in the water. Our 21 yr old came home from university for a few weeks.  Usually that would also be a time of stress for me as i'd have to make sure he washed his hands when he was 'supposed' to.  This year i have learned to NOT have to wash hands just because i came in the door from shopping etc.  So it's been more like the family's all together again, not 'here's another person to moniter'.  So that was good.