To be Cured or Not to be Cured, that is MY question.

This week i made a decision to up my meds again. I also started reading lots of books, websites about ocd because i wanted to figure out where i had gotten the seemingly impossible goal of being 'cured' of ocd, that i was going for.

 To me, cured means done with, able to live relatively normal life, no meds, only a few random ocd thots going thru my head every few months like other people may have.  That i could change my brain to meet and conquer this challenge.  And lots of books talk about  'curing' the person with ocd.  But maybe their idea of cured is different from mine.  I suppose if I  am taking a dose of medicine that makes most of my ocd thots disappear and do cbt/erp to get rid of the remaining ones that is 'cured', just not the way i defined it. I never thot i'd be totally free of ocd thots (who is) but free enuf that i'd easily notice one and be able to target it fairly quickly and dispose of it in a few hours not a few years.

So i have a pile of books from the library and some on interlibrary loan that i will be reading to see what their 'cured' means.  I don't want to be aiming for an impossible goal, but neither do i want to sell myself short- esp. on the meds thing.  I have been on meds of one kind or another for ocd now for around 5 years and so i don't even know if they are affecting me adversely anymore. I was too scared to drop the final pill to see what would happen.  Would the ocd have come back to the way it was 5 yrs ago?  It takes time to get the pills out  of the body, and if the ocd is back it takes another 6 wks or so of re-admitting the pills and i was just too scared to take the final step.  Oh well.  I guess i'm not as much of a guinea pig as i thot i was.

...Come Such a Long Long Way, Still Got A Long Way To Go....

Two days ago i was rather depressed at the fact that i have ocd in my life.  Then yesterday we went on a day-long round trip visiting the dentist, my father-in-law,the ice-cream place, my brother and then back home.  I noticed that for the most part i was ocd-free.  I still thot about it- asking dh if he washed his hands after hitching and unhitching the utility trailer we returned to my brother, making sure noone bumped into the garbage can on the walkway to a sub shop, how to get around a person who looked like he came into the eatery right after he finished fixing the engine on his truck without touching him or the place he touched the door handle and of course without looking like i'm avoiding him like the plague :). 

But all those things were small items.  A pain in the butt, but not enuf to stop going outside my house ( once upon a time, 4 years ago i was ALMOST at the point of staying put inside because EVERYTHING was dirty, potentially making me and my house and clothes dirty, or worse yet I would contaminate everyone/ everything else because i was so contaminated just by living.) 

So it's not everywhere that i have a problem.  It's mostly inside.  The shower, the taps,  the laundry, taking too long to shower or wash my hands.  Then add the possible mice and mold and garbage.  Those 3 are the trouble -makers.  If only i could eliminate them from the world.

I have gotten better; not as good as i'd like.  But i can still live live and enjoy it at least half the time.  Just have to work on the other half... and i have both the time and a counselor who will kick my butt in the right direction.  So as they say in Lewis' The Last Battle:  Onward and Upward!  And that means work, painful work on my part. 

It might not be perfect, but it's MY life.  And it's ok.

NB.  The title came from a line in a song: One More Mountain To Climb by Neil Sedaka

My Pet Peeve

My husband hangs his bath towel on the back of the bathroom door.  A few days ago while I was doing some cleaning in the bathroom I (might have) accidently touched my husband’ s bath towel with my cleaning paper towel. If I didn’t actually touch it I came close enuf that it felt dirty to me anyways.  Now normally what is touched by a cleaning towel gets cleaner, right?  Well that’s not what happens if I didn’t MEAN to touch it.  Then for some reason it gets dirtier.  So the bath towel now has 'dirt' on it. From where?  The back of the door might have been touched by the dirty mildewy shower curtain that I finally got rid of (that’s a whole other event) and so if the cleaning  paper towel touched the bath towel, mildewy dirt got transferred TO the towel.  And/ or MAYBE the back of the cleaning towel where I touched it with my hand happened to get on the bath towel.  It’s hard to know for sure, because it’s all Invisible dirt. 

 I meant to tell my husband to put that towel in the dirty laundry before he took his next shower.  He broke routine and had one that evening when I was NOT thinking about the mess I created that morning.  So after his shower he (naturally) dried himself off using that towel, because he can’t read my mind.  I ask him if the above scenario makes him feel dirty after drying off with that towel and he says no.  So we discuss it a bit.  Then I decide he is right and he is not contaminated  so it’s ok to touch him.  Then I touch the night light to go to sleep.  The next day I am re-concerned about the whole thing, so don’t want to touch the light.  I had changed the sheets but didn't clean the light off.  I could clean the light but that would be giving in to the ocd.

  I decided not to clean the light but for the next few days wouldn’t touch it.  So no reading in bed at night L.  Finally, last night I decided to go for it.  I touched it, and nothing happened- except the light turned on.  No bad feelings or emotions ( I guess I already flooded my mind with that over the past few days thinking about touching it , so they were all gone) but – and here’s the  pet peeve- NO GREAT FEELING OF EUPHORIA EITHER.  After all that mental thought and finally action, I expected some internal choir or clapping or SOMETHING that said whoohoo!!!!!!! Fantastic job!!!!!!  Nope, nothing.  I touched my book and pencil.  Nothing.  Well, a bit of insecurity about dirtying up my Harry Potter book, but that went away quickly.  All I got was the chance to read my book.  Where’s the thrill of doing something hard??  I wasn’t expecting to actually HEAR cheers, although that would have been great too.  But no flood of endorphins or feel-great hormones.  That’s not fair.  There was no guarantee I’d be ok with touching the light.  So it was a risk.  As risky as jumping off a bridge with a bungee cord. 

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.

Bribery and OCD

As we moved from our old city up here i threw out a lot of stuff that i 'believed' had ocd in them somewhere.  This included my wedding dress and lots of stuff from the garage i didn't want to clean so they would be good enuf to go into the truck.  We got rid of lots of stuff that way...some of which we probably should have kept.  Well, that's how bad it was 3 yrs ago. 

While i was cleaning out the basement, i packed a bin of art/ craft supplies- scissors, glitter bottles etc.  I put this box into the cold room because it was clean- or so i thot.  I'm not sure if the lid was placed properly on the bin or whether i'd left it partially open.  Everything seemed ok until we started packing up the cold room supplies.  Behind the metal racks mold was growing on the walls (again- i'd already cleaned the basement of mold 2ce in the 5 yrs we lived in the house. We even had a dehumidifier going so i thot the problem was solved.)

Well, i freaked- internally.  And this art bin seemed to be the physical thing that i focused on.  Was this bin closed?  Did mold spores get in?  Should i throw out the box?  I didn't want to, so i washed the outside of the bin down and put it in another room.  Well, unfortunately this bin seemed to house all those emotions i felt.   It got packed into some closet and never emptied out. 

DD (5 yrs old)  was taking swimming lessons this summer and became scared that she would drown or something.  I couldn't talk her out of it.  It reminded me of how i can't talk myself out of my OCD.  One day a while she had told me i could get rid of my ocd by just believing i could do something.  I told her it was not quite that simple.  It was to her.

 So i thot of how much dd would LOVE to have the stuff in this art box (she's a budding artist).  I told her that ocd is as hard to get rid of as her swimming fear.  She looked at me with understanding.  (Yeah, she gets it a bit)  So i told her that if she went to lessons on Monday and did what her instructor told her to do, i would open this art bin for her.  She did her part on Monday.  I was so proud of her for conquering her fears! 

But now that meant i had to do my part of the bargin.  I'd already realized that there were no ocd mold spores in the bin (if there had been, they'd be killed by now :) and to make sure i was right i asked dh for a final confirmation.  So i opened the bin and washed my hands while dh took out the stuff and we  gave most of it to dd.

When i told this to my counsellor she asked if i touched the stuff too, without handwashing and i had to admit that was not happening.  I even gasped as the first thing dd did was to cart some of these supplies to my living room.  UG.  So this week i DID touch them and get rid of that fear...except the bin is still sitting upstairs in the corner alone and forsaken. 

The rest of  the week hasn't been so great.  I'm giving in to ocd stuff all over.  Not new stuff, just the same old stuff i can't get rid of. 

Our Muggle World of OCD and Garbage.

I've been on a bit of a vacation / hiatus lately.  My daughter has swimming lessons in the local lake and so we've been there a lot.  We play together and while she has her lesson, I exercise.  Also I've been learning how to kayak.  I've gained a lot of weight the past 4 or 5 years.  Probably due to the OCD.  What else can you do when your life has been hyjacked by a weird illness? Plus with my husband's new job, we moved 5 hours north.  We knew no one here and have no relatives anywhere close.  However now that he was out of school, there was more money.  So I felt it was just fine to have donuts regularily, rather than once every few weeks.  Ditto for chips.  Chocolate became a food group while pregnant and this 'craving' didn't leave.  I indulged in it all.  Also I  could eat more at a sitting before I felt full.  I  finally checked the web for clomipramine side effects and lo and behold, weight gain was on the list.  So between the pills and my new inablility to say 'no' to junk food, my weight skyrocketed.  So am now trying to lose it.  But that's not what i want to talk about today. 

A week or so after my last post we went on a mini vacation up north.  Just before we left i started feeling anxious.  Not sure why, but it was enuf to make me take 2 clomipramine pills the night before  hoping it would cut back some of the anxiety.  I made a deliberate decision to only take enuf meds with me for 1 pill a night rather than increasing the dose  because I wanted to see how I 'd do in a strange new environment.   ( i used to take 4 pills a night, but have been cutting back since March or so. I'm down to 1 pill a night so increasing the dose would not be a problem.  It's been my choice to reduce the meds.)

The trip seemed full of OCD.  I freaked when I saw some black stuff on the chrome in the bathroom. My mind jumped to MOLD.  YUK.   I also couldn't touch the shower stalls or would have to rewash.  Ditto for touching any sink counter. (That's a problem i also have at home.)  At the train station on the return trip home a lady dumped over the garbage can with her backpack and then picked it up.  (Naturally.  Only because I was there!!!) She didn't go to wash her hands.  She then got into the same car as we did. Ahead of us.  AAARG.  Why not?

Besides making my trip very anxious, with tons of emotions running thru my head what did i do?

 I had a bath and even had the water go over the blackened chrome.  I tried to ignore it.  I touched things after my bath.  They then became 'contaminated' Even tho the next day my husband TOLD me that the black stuff in the tub was just the worn off chrome, i still couldn't let go of the fear it was mold.  So much for trying to ignore my ocd brain.  At the train station I wouldn't go out the same door as the lady did (luckily there were 2) but then she went into 'our' compartment.  I didn't touch the railing she touched to get onto the train, but i touched the door to the compartment because by this time i was able to tell myself that it was only the CAN she touched.  So it was probably ok.  I didn't wash my hands and didn't feel dirty at all thru the whole train ride.  YEAH!

I hate having to live my life backwards.  A few days after an  OCD event, when the emotions have calmed down I can look back and say "I had a good time."

But there were some things I learned from that trip:  I don't add new ocd problems and i don't re-add ocd  issues once i've conquered them.  I only had problems with the same stuff i have problems with here at home. It's the mold, the sink/ shower ritual i've created, mice and the garbage. 

Since i've been working on the garbage problem I've had lots of 'opportunities' to practice and notice my weaknesses.  OK, so i can now drop something in a can without having to wash my hands. (Hey that's a big one, earlier on this OCD journey I couldn't stand to be closer than 2 or so feet from the top of a can of open garbage so the 'splash' into the can wouldn't come back up at me.  Throwing things at an angle into a can was also a practice of mine so i'd be more than the requisite 2 feet away from the opening.) But can i stand a garbage can being dumped over and then touched?  Apparently i can.  Check.     

   Don't ask me to actually push open a lid with my hands without washing afterwards.

Monday night I went to the rowing club to kayak.  The kayaks that were up on a cart were all taken, so the instructor said to take a blue one, sitting on the ground with a garbage bag at it's bow.  I didn't like the idea ( I'd already been to the washroom to wash off the key i'd dropped on the floor in case there were mice in the building.) but was too shy/ stunned/ embarassed to say no, i want one without garbage.  I DID ask if there were mice in the dusty kayak, and he said no (It didn't look used much to me. So what does that lead to in my head, but to mice in the kayak.).

 My husband took the front end by the garbage bag and hauled it to the lake.  I did go out in it.  On my return i asked the coach what was in the garbage bag that she shoved the kayak beside- in case it was just a bag of storage.  She said it was wrap used that weekend when they took the kayaks to a competition or something.  Unfortunately that still didn't calm my ocd brain down.

 And then i found out that my husband HAD NOT washed his hands after touching the bow of the kayak NEAR the black bag.  He had driven home. So now the car was contaminated as well as the door to the garage and anything else he touched before he decided to wash his hands.  That meant that when he went to work the next day, after touching the steering wheel, the office would be contaminated too.  I was in a dither all Tuesday and asked him to re-ask another coach what was in the bag.  He came home from that evening from boating and affermed it WAS a garbage bag.  Don't they have a designated garbage corner?  That's odd.

 And i don't see my counsellor for 2 weeks soI get to figure this all out for myself.  Now it still could be the kayak wrap, as i'm sure that's a one-time use of the plastic.

 How can i go out and do things?  Is this a NORMAL way to treat garbage?  Can i get over this at all? Would more pills help?

  I tried really hard today to not think of the line of contamination- to just tell the ocd to 'SHUT UP'.  It's not in the prescribed CBT tool kit, but seems to work for me when I run out of better ideas.  It just takes longer, and more continuous monitering of my head to make sure I don't run away with my ocd thots again. 

 Why can't we live in a wizarding world where with a flick of the wand all garbage would be wisked away??????

I get knocked down, but I get up again.. Repeat.

I was having a nice quiet fairly ocd free day (ok i was sitting around reading and doing stuff on my computer which means that i wasn't doing anything that could give me  OCD trouble.)  However, i started feeling guilty and anyway the dishes needed to get done.  No problem there, but there was lots of cardboard from empty boxes just laying on the counter.  So i decide that since there were so many i should do the right thing and- ug- recycle them.  I put them in a bag and took them outdoors.  I threw the bag at the recycle bin but unfortunately i missed.

 Now my problems start.  I cant leave the mess in my front yard (can i?) til it's garbage day, so i bite the bullet and pick the bag up with 1 hand (so i can touch the door and faucet with the other one) and throw it in the recycle box.  Well, now my hand is dirty anyway, so i might as well get the garbage can from the end of the driveway where it's been sitting since last garbage day. (Dh isn't home to put it away.)  I''ve done this before so it's not too freaky.  I pick it up out of the ditch, put the lid on and carry it back up the driveway.  Just as i'm about done i feel something touch my leg. It's obviously the can. I calm myself down, saying it wasn't so bad, just take off the long shorts and socks and wash that leg.  That kept me calm until i decided i should take my shirt off too 'in case' it was somehow contaminated in the process.  So i pulled my shirt off with my 2 dirty hands. UG. Now i want to wash my hair too just in case.  Anyway washing my legs doesn't go so well so i end up having a shower.  While i'm IN the shower i start calming down and deciding that MAYBE, just maybe the can wasn't that dirty ON THE OUTSIDE anyway and i didn' t need to do any of this.   Too late to change my mind mid-shower, but it is something for me to think about for the next time it happens.

I think i'm done with ocd, but the way it seems to work for me is that once ocd has a grasp on me, it goes for the jugular.  I was tidying up the living room, picking up all of my daughter's drawings to thro out ( she's very artistic even at 5 so we have LOTS of her papers around. We even bot some insulation boarding to put up in th e famly room so she can post her creations. but we can't save everything).

I think about where i can put the pile where dd cant find it to retrieve all her stuff. I check the garbage can (cause NO WAY am i trying the recycle bin again today) and surprise, there's plenty of room.  I stuff it all in and then ocd goes to work:  "Even tho I'm working on NOT washing up after putting stuff in the garbage,  THIS doesn't count, right? Maybe i got some garbage on my hand while placing it all in the can" (Usu. i just pitch stuff in). Instead I got a cloth to wipe the counter and wet it so now the my hands AND the cloth are dirty (  even tho i put dish soap on the cloth ). I wipe the counter, all the while listening to OCD saying: "now the counter is dirty.  There's no way you're gonna prep food on that right?, This is just a preliminary cleaning, right? "

Here's to hoping that writing it all out  and rereading it continually while editing will give me enuf distance to not clean the counter again, not because i forgot (yeaah, like i'd forget about it anyway) but because i trust that it was an ok thing to do.

On an imaginative thot record i get as far as: 'i have ocd cootie germs on my hand and on the counter AND i'm going to do nothing about it.  No enlightening thots just : yuk, but i'll survive.' 

I guess on the good side i actually got some stuff cleaned up.  A couple of years ago i would have just left all the mess for Bruce to clean up when he got home. I would just have felt useless.  Clean but useless.

The Attack of the Killer Garbage Can.

Over the past week I've been getting rid of one more compulsion. It's been around for almost the whole 5 yrs since i started 'handwashing' brand of ocd. It was so benign for me that i never worried about it. It was one of those things that allowed me to function in my daily life while i battled the 'big ones'.

When i saw my counsellor a week ago she asked if i wanted to get rid of the small compulsions or did i want to just live with them. Earlier in my therapy i was quite happy to say i'll live with them. Now i don't want to. But as soon as i said that to her i knew i was in trouble! See, SHE doesn't have to do anything if i want to get rid of my ocd compulsions. Saying YES means I have to do more yucky work. Because the only way to get rid of the compulsion is to DO IT over and over until it doesnt bug me anymore. UG.

I chose the one that i can 'logically' see isn't really dirty. And that one is to put garbage in a garbage can with a lid without washing my hands after. We have a pop-up can with a lid that goes down very slowly. Bought when i had ocd as a ocd-ok garbage can. Except my ocd was so bad that i was still scared of the garbage. I mean: what if the 'air' being compressed when the lid goes down shoots garbage-contaminated molecules in the air that then touch my hand that put the garbage in the can. I had already worked thru being able to drop something in an open can closer and closer (but still far enuf away to feel ok to me) That sort of happened naturally. But closed garbage cans still bugged me.

So i either piled the garbage on the kitchen counter for my husband to take care of as he cleaned the kitchen up or i washed my hands each time i put something in the can. Oh yes, and made sure that everyone else who deposited garbage also washed up afterwards. So the pluses in getting rid of this problem was less handwashing for me, less garbage lying around the kitchen counters and less bugging of the rest of my family. So i decided to go for it.

One foot on the garbage pedal, one hand over the can and the rest of me leaning as FAR away from the can as possible. Open the can, drop the item and jump away from the can like it was going to explode. Whew. It was done. Not quite like it was supposed to be, i suppose but a good start. No handwashing afterward. So far so good. Did it this way for awhile. Slowly got a little closer to the can and didn't jump away so spastically afterwards. Then the can was getting full. Back to the drop and jump. Don't want to get too near to the garbage. Now the can is nearly full and i refuse to put anything bigger than a small flat object in it. Garbage day is tomorrow. So then i get to start again.

Not perfect this week, but a good start. I have 2 more weeks before i have to tell my progress to my counsellor. So i'll have to work on the 'full-can' garbage. I guess i could push the garbage down and then wash my hands but i didn't feel like it this week. It was just easier to leave the garbage on the counter again or dump it in the bathroom garbage which doesn't have a lid and i just have to pitch it in.

When i asked my husband if he noticed anything this week (like no big piles of garbage on the counters, he said no. I guess out of sight out of mind. Oh well. Maybe next week.

I see people opening garbage lids and dumping stuff in at public places and go EW. I can't remember if i did that years ago myself before this brand of ocd hit me. I might have. I did use one of Mcdonalds pull handles to throw garbage in without washing up afterwards.

Other pluses this week: i am finally able to touch kd's backpack for school and the stuff in it without having to wash up afterwards. I would throw her papers onto the living room floor, pretend i hadn't touched them at all , wash up and then look at them. At the same time i wasn't making my daughter wash her hands after bringing it home. She was rebelling against the handwashing, so i backed off. Unfortunately, now that i have no problem touching the bag i won't be needin g to worry about it as school is done in a week!

Also let both daughter and husband touch the 2 doors that i think are 'yucky': the back screen door and the garage door without getting them to wash up. I just sat with the yuckies until they went away- not too long- thinking about how then I"LL be able to use the doors too!...maybe

Now if i could just get myself to exercise! (not an ocd thing just an avoidance thing :)

2 steps forward, 1 step back.

I went out clothes shopping and to the library.  For both those places i needed my wallet.  I didn't touch it until i was at the cash register and i needed tp pay.  I pulled it out of my pocket as if everything was normal ( don't want to make the cashier think i'm weird), paid and left the store.  Ditto for getting my library card out later on.  And i wasn't even that anxious.  I was a tad UPSET that i wasn't anxious.  Anxiety/guilt is so much a part of my life i feel weird when i don't have it.  Also that little voice starts going:  maybe you don't REALLY hace ocd.  Maybe you're making it  all up.  My rational mind says that's crazy and anyway that's my GOAL to not have anxiety when faced with a spike.  So i am glad i got off so easy.  i think it's the analytical part of me that wants to know WHY i felt ok.  That part must be in cahoots with Ocd and until it switches loyalties again i will just have to NOT listen to that either.
(Great, now i have 2 buggers living in my head:  Ocd and Analyzer!  A few more of those and i can  have parties in there. snort:)

It's frustrating that i can't handle variations in routines very well.  For example Bruce (husband)  decided to BACK the van into the garage.  No big deal, right.  Wrong.  My mind starts going: now KD (daughter) has to get out and walk all the way around the car to the door.  Will she touch anything on the way?  She LIKES to touch things as she's moving.  Will she bump into the garbage can beside the door?  It took me half the winter just to get comfortable with using the garage for parking the car and being ok with thinking the garage is clean enuf for that.  Now it changed.  and my anxiety radar was not pleased.  Bruce stooped doing that, but i guess he should be still doing it so i get used to it and don't care anymore.

What a pain in the butt ocd is. 

Also i am down to  1 pill a night.  i used to take 4 clomipramine a night ut in the past few months have been tapering off.  hopefully i won't be so tired and blah. Or is it the constant figuring out of how to do the minutia of the day that makes me tired?

Next Ocd challenge: if clothes in the clean laundry smell musty because i guess they weren't dried long enuf, then sat overnight in the dryer, are they moldy? or is it just a smell problem?  Should i be concerned?  Is the whole basket-load now contaminated?  For years and years i never had this problem because i always hung my clothes to dry.  That's what i mean by a new routine.  Now i have to answer questions that weren't an issue before i got this germ/contaminating part of ocd.  And bruce jusr thinks i'm weird.  or maybe i can just smell too much.  that has been a problem since KD'S pregnancy 6 yrs ago.  it will hopefully go away over the next few years.  cant even wear perfume!

Saying Good bye To A Roommate

Normally I like spiders. They're small, don't leave poop on the ground and eat bugs- of which we have lots in our house by the woods. So usually they get left alone to help us in our battle against the Northern Ontario bugs. But tonight we found a huge spider hanging on our curtains. In fact, Bruce thot i had put a fake one there to scare him. I just laughed, then got a small container and lid and told Bruce to get a camera. I captured the bug guy and took him outside to the edge of the trees far enuf away from the house that hopefully he can't find his way back. I know, not about ocd, but too good to pass up posting :)

Thought Records Explained & Example

I've been trying to figure out why i cant post a comment on anyone else's blog, even tho i have a google account.  I even have it set to always stay signed in.  I can comment on Wyvern's peak blog and she can comment on mine.  So strange.  I'm guessing i'm doing/ not doing something simple that once i figure out will seem so simple i'll wonder how i missed it.

As for ocd. The wallet someone found at the canoe club or just outside it is safely sitting in my coat pocket.  I feel like i will contaminate my world if i touch it without washing afterwards.  i know i can solve the problem quickly by getting a cloth and some vinegar and wiping it clean.  But i don't want to do that.  So for now it is in limbo.  Unless i'm stopped by a police officer who probably doesn't want to hear about how i cant' touch my wallet to get my liscence out and if he will just reach into my coat pocket....  Yeah, like that will go over well.

So i will try something that worked last time i had a mouse/ocd problem.  Mice are the BIG issue for me.  I  can create a mouse story out of just about anything if the 'what-if's get going.  And then what used to be no problem becomes one.  I was listening on a website - i think on cult recognition- and the psychologist altho talking about cults mentioned something very interesting.  That he not only tries to get his patients to think of the issue to acclimatize their brain to it, but he also has them think about how great it will be to be able to DO what you cant do now.  For example i think of touching the wallet.  I get bad feelings.  Then i also think about how great it will be to go canoeing all summer ( i can't afford to buy the canoe and all the stuff that goes with it, so canoe club is my only option, or renting from someone else who could have the same issues anyway)  So i will think about canoeing on the lake and watching the wildlife- birds, fish etc. and the peacefulness of canoeing.  Last time it took me 2 weeks of thinking before i actually DID the thing (touch the mailbox).  the next time i did it for something else, i started the thinking process but then decided that since i was going to TOUCH the thing anyway at the end, i could avoid lots of suffering thru all my thots first and get it over with.  And i actually did it!  We will see how long it takes before i touch the wallet this time ( wallet and canoeing have the same issues.  i guess i could imagine taking my wallet out and shopping with it, but i'm thinking the canoe thots will be more positivly powerful for me.  Or maybe i'll do both.  Will report on it as soon as i touch the wallet!

Sometimes the thot record works for me.  Mouse issues are extremelly difficult, so even tho i have solved the problem intellectually, emotionally it's still there. hence part two.

Thot records:  A Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) tool looks like this:

From Mind over Mood by Dennis Greenberger & C. Padesky   c1995:

Write the situation down.
Describe your mood with percent intensity
What are your automatic thots?- what am i afraid of, what's the worst that can happen etc.
Evidence supporting the thot
Evidence against the thot
Alternative or balanced thots
How is my mood now:

So for me: situation: see above.  Mood: anxious, worried,  90%,
 auto thots:  there are mice in the building, i will contaminate all my stuff if i touch the canoes or use them,  i'm ok ocd -wise, why create a potential problem?  if i ask if they have a mouse problem they will lie and say no even if they do,  i will have a big mess to clean up if i'm right.
evidence for:  the building is unocuupied a lot, so mice might be able to get in., the canoes are stored in an outside area, so even bigger mice opportunities.,
evidence against:  the boats are stored upside down, any mice droppings will fall out, mice will eat the equipment so they'd have to solve the problem or all their equipment will be ruined (Counsellor helped me see this point),  at least the problem isnt RATS :) so ignore it,  
alternative balance thots:  not all mice carry disease, or germs.  country mice are probably healthy mice. 
Mood now:  30%

It is spelled out in more detail in the workbook: Mind Over Mood.

Hi! I'm Karin and i have various ocd-forms invading my brain.

Until i started googling 'bloggers with ocd', i only found forums where it seemed that people were bemoaning the fact that they have ocd (i could sympathise with that no problem) but it didn't look like anyone had any HOPE that they could live a completely or fairly completely ocd-free life.  So, i thot i'd blog to share my journey.  That's when i found ocd bloggers and also that they are generally a positive group of people. That was a pleasant surprise. I wish i had thot of looking for other bloggers much earlier when i was looking for a support system of sorts, or at least a 'there's hope out there' from real people not just therapists.  Better late than never, tho. eh. 

One other thing i noticed while reading the blogs was that i'm not the only one who thinks of ocd as it's own entity wreaking havoc in my brain.  I just thot it was MY funny way of not embracing and making ocd part of my permanent identity.  Now i'm glad to see that it's NOT just me doing that. :)

 This past weekend we looked into joining a canoe club for fun and some exercise.  It all seemed like fun until i was back in the car.  Then the what-ifs started:  what if there are mice in the building ( it's in a park...)
what if i pay my fee and then can't get in the canoe or life jacket because i think it's dirty (because it's used by lots of others).  Maybe  i should just  not bother with it this year. There's always NEXT year.  And so when i was discussing this little mouse problem with my counsellor today she said i should do a 'thot record' like i did before.  So i did one verbally: the canoes are upside down, so mouse droppings would just fall out, it LOOKED like there was nothing like that in the building.  Then H. suggested:  i'd see the holes in the life jackets etc. And then they'd be unusable."  So i piped in with: ' and then they'd HAVE to get rid of the mice or everything would be ruined and unusable. And that would not work.  So it HAS to be mouse free.:)"  She also said it would be a good idea to get out into the public doing something.  So do i ' feel the fear and do it anyway' or wimp out? 

Well, now, since i put it that way, what else can i say but yes.....The course doesn't start til july, so i have a lot of time to ruminate..or not.  We'll see how it goes.