OCD Reflections

I'm tired and a little down this evening as I relax after a full day of intensive treatment and then work.  I want to go to bed but I also want to get my exposure work done.  I'm dreading doing the dishes in a way that I haven't normally lately - it probably has something to do with the fact that I have been putting them off several days and have started doing some new exposures that make me feel a bit dirty to be doing them.  Other than that I need to shower - 10 minutes is the current goal.  I took a 12 minute shower the other day and a 13 minute shower this morning.  Those are the obstacles (or opportunities, I suppose) that await me before going to bed.  Last night I put off showering for so long that I ended up not sleeping in my bed and not taking my meds (which make me sleep much better than I would otherwise).  And the night before that I only got about 5 hours of sleep, so I'm a bit run-down and tired.  Mostly I just feel like there's an ...

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...

Right now, life is so different.  New home, new rally to fight against OCD, new job.  It's that last one that has me tired and anxious today.  Today was my first day at a new job.  Granted, I'm still just doing training, but even so, it's not so much the job as the small unrelated challenges that come with it - things that I know others take for granted - that place strain on me.  I feel like there should be some sort of support network out there for people who have overcome or are overcoming severe OCD.  A support group for those who are re-entering "normal" life and bravely facing the exposures that come with it.  A place where those who are "in recovery" can guide and mentor those who are getting back on their feet.  In general, I wish there was more available in terms of rehabilitation, guidance and support for the challenges that OCD sufferers are likely to face as they re-integrate themselves into society.  I certainly feel like I cou...

I have a home!!  Okay, well, a NEW home.  It's not like I was homeless or anything before, but I was starting to wonder if I was going to end up that way... My lease is up at the end of the month, and while I had the option to stay through June, I really didn't want to since all of my roommates will be moved out by then.  So over the last month or so I have been madly scouring the area I want to move to for an affordable place to live.  And it was difficult, to say the least.  I was looking for a studio/single just for myself, but living alone, especially in my city, is not cheap!  But it didn't seem like I had much of a choice. Then a friend of mine suggested that I look online for someone who was trying to find a roommate.  My therapist suggested the same.  I hadn't even really considered it.  I mean, I thought, "I don't want to bother someone else with my rituals, and I don't know if I can handle the pressure of having to keep them und...

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...

It's been an interesting week.  I've been pretty busy and haven't had so much time to devote to blogging (or to think about blogging) as I usually do.  I start to feel "off" if I don't write as much - like I have something I want to say and am afraid I will forget if I don't write it down soon enough.  This is probably OCD in and of itself, but it's hard to know where the boundary lies between something you want to do and something you just feel you need to do because of OCD.  Writing probably falls a little bit into both categories. Anyways, one of the things I have been doing a lot since arriving at my parents' house is sorting through old papers - souvenirs, old school report cards, notes and cards from friends, etc. - that I had been stashing away for about a decade before I left for college.  Now every time I go home, there is a certain amount of de-hoarding to do.  This particular trip I happen to be tackling all the papers and documents I...

Sometimes we are so focused on battling OCD on one front that we hardly notice when it sweeps in from another angle, offering deceptively sweet new reasons to engage in compulsive behavior... Oh no!  What if I no longer have OCD???   Now those, I think, are officially the words of a crazy person.  Of course, this theme is far from new for me, but it's finding fun new ways to try to integrate itself into my recovery. Earlier this evening, as I did some of my exposure homework, I noticed something:  Windex doesn't seem to cause me as much discomfort as it did in the not-so-distant past.  I feel like the appropriate response would be:  "Woo hoo!  Hooray!  I must be getting better!  I can do this without it bothering me so much!  Things are getting easier!  Take that OCD!" Hah.  Wouldn't that be nice.  It's more like: "Wait, hold on.  Does this not bother me so much?  I don't think it does.  Oh no!  ...

I'm about a week and a half into my intensive therapy program and I am feeling tired .  There are things I would like to write about but I've been kind of exhausted as of late and also haven't had that much time to just sit, reflect, and write.  However, hopefully I will have time for all that again soon...in between all the home visits, therapy sessions, and exposure homework.  It's going well, but I think that constantly feeling "off" and slightly anxious exhausts me more easily than I expected or am used to.  Just as I start to adjust and get comfortable, it's always time for my next session, time to climb the next stretch up the hierarchy of the many challenges ahead of me. I'm still here.  Just spending more time than ever battling my OCD.  I'll keep chugging along and hope to have more time and energy to write here and comment on others' blogs soon!

UGH. UGH. UGH.  I hate how OCD can lead me to rage almost instantaneously sometimes.  Of course that rage is misdirected.  I should be getting mad at the OCD, but instead I get mad at the person who unknowingly got between me and my compulsive avoidance.  When I take out the trash, I avoid touching door handles.  Before getting the trash ready to go, I go downstairs and unlock and open the door so that I won't have to touch the door handle with my contaminated trash hands when I actually carry the garbage out of our house.  I did this as usual after doing my regimen of exposures that I have started attempting daily as part of my new intensive CBT program.  So downstairs I went, passing the girlfriend of one of my housemate's along the way.  As I passed her I thought, "She better not have closed the door!  I opened it for a very specific and deliberate reason..." And of course, like most normal people would probably do when they see an ope...

Whew!!  Clearly I am not used to having daily commitments because I feel super busy keeping up with my daily therapy appointments.  OCD is used to having all the time it wants, just about anytime it wants, and that's beginning to change.  Sorry OCD, don't have as much flexibility in scheduling to allow my entire life to revolve around your whims... I've been meaning to recap days #2, 3, and now #4, so here goes: Day #2:  The Protective Shield of Novelty Begins to Wear Off My second day of intense CBT treatment began with me waking up in a state of confusion, which I wrote about here .  The novelty and exhilaration of breaking all the rules had worn off considerably and I was left to face the reality of the consequences of my actions.   But I survived despite the fact that I felt really "off" and like I needed to somehow undo all the exposures that had taken place the day before.  I didn't do any "undoing" and I went on to get up and go about m...

This morning, I woke up not knowing how to proceed.  I was overwhelmed by the feeling of being "off," of not knowing exactly how I had violated all my rules and how to compulsively solve them.  Normally my solution to this problem is to mentally and physically wipe the slate clean by taking a shower and washing whatever I am wearing.  In my mind, showering washes away whatever OCD transgressions I committed so that I don't have to sit there in vain, trying to remember each an every one.  I can let go if I can just shower, and condemn whatever I am wearing to the dirty laundry.  It's my mental restart button, and it seems to reset my life and my ability to discern what is clean v. dirty. Once I am myself "clean" it is easier to think clearly and start fresh.  I feel like the world has been returned to its "right" state at that point.  I feel like "myself" once I have performed these compulsions and I feel "clean enough" to go...

 Intense.  That describes some of my feelings right now as well as... my new treatment program . After a really bad week which surmounted in several long showers, far too much hand-washing, and a lot of frustration, I told my therapist that I felt like I couldn't keep going like this.  Something had to change.  I needed more help.  And what did he do?  He told me that if I wanted more help there were basically three options:  I could go to a residential treatment facility, I could enroll in an intensive outpatient program, or I could try something new - an intensive treatment regimen put together by him, his boss, and another therapist at my treatment center.  And I went with option number three.  It means several home visits every week and treatment in some form 6 days a week. In short, it sounds AMAZING. I am thrilled to have this opportunity.  Though it will initially take a toll on my wallet, it is worth it to have my life ba...

This has been a rough weekend.  As much as I usually like to keep the day to day ups and downs of my progress to myself, it's been a rough couple of days filled with tough situations and some bad decisions. Earlier tonight I just laid down on the floor and cried.  I didn't know what else to do.  I felt too dirty to lay anywhere else, so onto the floor I went, which sealed my fate - at that point I was "contaminated" in my mind, beyond all repair.  I would have to shower.  Again. But at that point I just didn't feel like I had the strength left in me to face showering.  To do anything.  Paralyzed in my "dirty" state I just laid there and cried as quietly as I could, hoping none of my housemates could hear.  I couldn't get up.  I couldn't sit anywhere else.  I couldn't touch anything.  The only place to go from there was to wash my hands and then shower.  And yet it just seemed too difficult.  Too dirty touch anything....

This guy's fooled many a fruit loop-bearing hiker or cheetoh-offering friend into thinking he's a chipmunk...but we know the truth tiny rodent...someone forgot their face stripes and WE know that he's just another squirrel like the rest of them.  Now get your paws off my shoe!!   And while you're at it, go wash your paws before eating anymore food begged off unwitting strangers!  What an audacious (and filthy) little fraud...I bet he didn't wash after using the restroom either ;). This morning I woke up after a particularly long night of sleep only to be greeted by my good old friend, more commonly known as the "fear of not really having OCD and somehow faking out the world as well as my self..."  Umm, yeah. The exposures for this sort of fear, as I have mentioned before, are the same as my usual exposures - do my homework successfully, because, if I can do my OCD homework successfully, then I must be a "fraud," right?  I mean, if I ca...