OCD Reflections

I haven't written a particularly introspective or well thought-out post in a while.  And I'm afraid this one isn't going to be any different.  Maybe it's the whole almost working full time thing.  Maybe it's the half-way normal life I'm living and trying to balance with my OCD.  I know there are OCD impediments that I just don't even really notice anymore. For instance, tonight I realized I don't have anything to wear to work tomorrow.  I can't fathom doing laundry now or even determining whether I am "clean enough" to do laundry.  I can't (aka won't) pick a skirt (that I just wore once before condemning) out the dirty laundry - too contaminated.  So what am I going to do?  Take the least offensive route - find a dress that I haven't unpacked in over a year and wear that, even though I'm not sure if it was "clean" before I packed it or if it's "okay" to wear since it's been in a box for so long,...

And so, the countdown begins...to next year's conference that is!  I had an amazing time at the 2011 IOCDF Annual Conference - heard a lot of inspiring stories and  learned even more about this disorder that I have personally found so debilitating yet so fascinating at the same time. I'm definitely in a post-trip funk right now.  I think the normal lows that can come when an anticipated vacation is finally over are exacerbated by the fact that, for a few days at least, I felt like I could be my complete, honest self.  No hiding my OCD.  No hiding my past.  No working around the truth of how and why I have gotten to where I currently am.  My life is about much more than just OCD, but for a couple days I didn't have to keep this part of my life a secret.  So it's a bit tough coming back into the "real" world, where you aren't surrounded by other OCD sufferers who know too well the toll this disorder can take and who aren't surprised or weirded ou...

This week I have something to look forward to as I plan and prepare for my short trip to San Diego for the International OCD Foundation's Annual Conference !  Woot!  I'm pretty excited, I have to say. :) In case you don't know what this is, let me give some quick background:  every year the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) , a fantastic resource for learning about OCD and finding treatment, hosts a 2 and a half day conference with TONS of presentations and panels, all of which address aspects of OCD and related spectrum disorders and their treatment.  Basically, it's my chance to totally geek out for an entire weekend while immersing myself in OCD education.  What makes the conference even better is that, for a couple days, I feel like I can let my guard down a bit because I am surrounded by people who understand OCD and have first-hand experience with this disorder, either as sufferers themselves, as friends and family members of sufferers, or as treatmen...

A fierce wave of apathy and a new level of busyness in my life have led me away from blogging recently.  This lessening of interest creates additional anxiety on top of everything else:  why am I not so interested in writing anymore?  Am I losing my fascination with OCD?  Am I losing my identity as someone who has suffered and continues to suffer from OCD?  Is finding out that I have OCD no longer an intriguing life revelation and now just one thing more thing to deal with?  I hope not.  Of course, that's exactly why I start obsessing about it. As I mentioned in a previous post, so much has changed in my life recently.  I have a new apartment and a new roommate.  I also have a new job.  However, with the initial training period for that job now complete, I have drastically fewer hours, and the limited number of hours and my somewhat unpredictable schedule have me feeling less useful than I'd like to feel.  Lack of purpose breeds a...

So, I haven't written in a while.  I started a few posts and then either fell asleep or gave up, lacking the energy and drive to continue.  Lately the urge to "perfectly" capture the chaos in my head and my feelings about it has been strong.  Strong enough to drive me away from writing.  But I'm going to try to finish a post for once, whether or not it is the most perfectly accurate depiction of the inner workings of my mind. Lately I have been feverishly applying to jobs, sending out resumes left and right, and scouring the internet for more possibilities.  I've been going through a similar process in trying to find a new place to live.  My lease is up at the end of May (though I may be able to stay for June, as well), so the question of where I will live (and where I can afford to live) has been weighing heavily on my mind.  Meanwhile, I have drastically less work because my job is somewhat seasonal, and the combination of trying to find a new plac...

I need this.  And by that I mean - time taken for myself.  Time taken doing something soothing and familiar like writing here.  Something to bring me back to a place and state of mind I know.  Life has been so busy lately that writing hasn't been on my mind.  Or, if it has been, I just haven't had the energy and will to do it. This past week I FINALLY began a new part-time job that I have been waiting to start for months now.  For reasons related to OCD, I had to wait a long time from the time I was hired and trained to actually begin working. (Apparently my excessive washing over the last year and a half has wreaked havoc on my fingerprints, making them pretty much impossible read digitally.  Digital fingerprinting was required for my job, and since mine were dreadfully unclear it took FOREVER to jump through all the necessary hoops for approval.  I had been interviewed, hired, trained, and had all the necessary paperwork in line, but for month...

Earlier this week I tried to write a few posts but never ended up finishing them.  I'm not sure if I was just feeling daunted by a growing need to feel "right" in order to write, or if I have just been busier lately and have had less time to think too much (which translates into less time to write too much). But things are beginning to seem different these days, so I thought I'd reflect on that a bit here.  I feel like as I gradually come out of the OCD haze that I've been living in for a year and attempt to re-enter the "real" world, there is a certain amount of pain that comes with it.  There's the pain of trying to figure it all out again.  There's the pain of real life concerns rediscovered, pains that have laid dormant for quite some time as the angry wrath of OCD made caring about such things impossible.  I was too spent on just getting by, on just navigating the requirements of everyday life.  Just managing to shower, eat, and take care ...

A lot has happened for me this week - a lot of change and growing momentum pushing me forward into recovery.  And of course there is a fair share of anxiety to go along with this process, and that anxiety doesn't arise solely from cutting back on the rituals that brought me comfort, either.  There is also secondary anxiety created by the time that suddenly seems to be laid out in front of me - time that was previously occupied by compulsions is slowly be re-released for other potential uses.   I am not used to feeling like I have excess time.  Even without a real job, OCD can be a full-time occupation.  Fighting OCD (or giving in to its demands) has literally been my all-day everyday job for many months now.  Just the necessities of daily life took up my time for almost a year.  If I had free time, there was always something else I could be doing, there was always another load of laundry, trash to take out, general cleaning to do.  Just keepin...

So one of the things my therapist has asked me to do between now and my next session is to write down the things that I have lost due to OCD, the things that I am currently missing out on, and things that I could lose in the future if I continue to feed, through my compulsive behavior, this feeling that I NEED my OCD.  Although I have always felt this way to a certain extent, I suppose this feeling that "I need the disorder to be me" has become one of the core reasons I now continue to engage in some compulsions, in addition to my original contamination fears and my version of moral scrupulosity with cleanliness.  My therapist warned me that this a dangerous path to go down - the idea of just resigning myself to OCD's demands because it is "my cross to bear" is a slippery slope that can easily lead to unnecessary loss.  With that in mind I thought I would begin contemplating the things that I have lost, continue to lose, or could lose in the future if I simply...

I can feel my motivation to get things done flagging, but for once, not in terms of my exposures. That part, I am happy to say, is going quite well! I am doing things that I stubbornly resisted doing for so long, and sometimes I do them without second thought. However, the real challenge is then resisting the urge to go back through my actions, step by step, touch by touch, to trace the mental history of all that I have come into contact with and the order in which I touched things. When I do this sort of mental retracing, it is because I have an urge to know whether I have "cross-contaminated" things or violated my rules about what can be touched and when, even if I plan on doing nothing about it if I have. It is just comforting to know, I guess, what things might be "dirty" by my standards, just in case I really feel that something needs to be done. I feel somewhat careless and untethered when I don't do this, but those feelings are quite tolerable compa...