I got an ear infection. I wasn't going to go to the doctor, but my sister said she would if she were me, and I know she's not big on wasting money, so I went, and it was probably good. Now I have antibiotics and a flu shot. If I turn into a monkey because of the flu shot... okay, so that's not realistic. Actually I'm just tired (can blame the ear infection, medication, ocd, and/or depression in addition to the flu shot) and my arm is a tiny bit sore. Just a tiny bit, not like my last nasty immunization (which was not the flu shot: this was my first ever flu shot if my memory is correct).
I put up a Christmas tree yesterday evening. My room-mate new I was nervous about it, but I wasn't quite so perceptive at first. But towards the end, when my temper was short and my brain was shutting down, I knew I had offended my OCD. I do the shut-down thing sometimes; I just hadn't made such a connection between anxiety and shutting down. But when there's been "too much", my brain kind of shuts off and I try to keep a smiling mask on my face so nobody knows I could be crying or falling apart. I get quieter, too, saying less. There I am, Abigail the turtle, peering out of my shell. Yes, it's nice to meet you, too. No, please let me rest before you ask me where to put that Christmas ribbon because there is now an "evil" Christmas tree in my house and I helped put it up for the first time in my life. (My family didn't celebrate Christmas "traditionally".) When I caught on to OCD's offense with Christmas, I did go ahead and put the Christmas ribbon up. So there, OCD!
And I was fighting contamination issues in the kitchen, too. I even washed some of the dishes, but stopped before cleaning everything up, leaving the kitchen irritatingly still contaminated. Then I said something abrupt to my room-mate like, "I finished." And she asked, "what?" And I realized that what I wanted to say was, please wash your dishes now and clean the contaminated counter off!" So I did not say that and the kitchen is still contaminated. I'd like to call this an excellent exposure, and maybe it is, but at the same time, my response prevention isn't going so well. I'm preventing one response (decontaminate the kitchen) and continuing another (don't touch the contaminated counter, only touch the handle of the sink as necessary, don't touch the rest of the sink). I guess I could mess that up by touching the sink and then eating lunch, but then what if I got ecoli and it was "my fault" for doing such a stupid exposure? Worst would be touching the counter. You can SEE that there had been raw meat there. Or tomato sauce. But "better safe than sorry" (NOT).
I want to take a break from my anxiety. I think I'll go rent a couple movies, but that will set off my anxiety, too. Am I wasting money? If I get the one I want to see about someone with schizophrenia, will my ocd continue it's "you have schizophrenia" game? Wait, I thought my ocd thought I had bi-polar. Silly ocd, keep your story straight. Yes, so my plan is to offend my scrupulosity ocd by watching movies in my house that now has an "evil" Christmas tree (but I'm not doing it to offend the ocd; that's just a byproduct). The good news? Night is coming, and then I can sleep! So much for having no depression left. But wait, I didn't say I had no depression; I think what I told myself was that I had moderate instead of severe depression. And that is still true.
I put up a Christmas tree yesterday evening. My room-mate new I was nervous about it, but I wasn't quite so perceptive at first. But towards the end, when my temper was short and my brain was shutting down, I knew I had offended my OCD. I do the shut-down thing sometimes; I just hadn't made such a connection between anxiety and shutting down. But when there's been "too much", my brain kind of shuts off and I try to keep a smiling mask on my face so nobody knows I could be crying or falling apart. I get quieter, too, saying less. There I am, Abigail the turtle, peering out of my shell. Yes, it's nice to meet you, too. No, please let me rest before you ask me where to put that Christmas ribbon because there is now an "evil" Christmas tree in my house and I helped put it up for the first time in my life. (My family didn't celebrate Christmas "traditionally".) When I caught on to OCD's offense with Christmas, I did go ahead and put the Christmas ribbon up. So there, OCD!
And I was fighting contamination issues in the kitchen, too. I even washed some of the dishes, but stopped before cleaning everything up, leaving the kitchen irritatingly still contaminated. Then I said something abrupt to my room-mate like, "I finished." And she asked, "what?" And I realized that what I wanted to say was, please wash your dishes now and clean the contaminated counter off!" So I did not say that and the kitchen is still contaminated. I'd like to call this an excellent exposure, and maybe it is, but at the same time, my response prevention isn't going so well. I'm preventing one response (decontaminate the kitchen) and continuing another (don't touch the contaminated counter, only touch the handle of the sink as necessary, don't touch the rest of the sink). I guess I could mess that up by touching the sink and then eating lunch, but then what if I got ecoli and it was "my fault" for doing such a stupid exposure? Worst would be touching the counter. You can SEE that there had been raw meat there. Or tomato sauce. But "better safe than sorry" (NOT).
I want to take a break from my anxiety. I think I'll go rent a couple movies, but that will set off my anxiety, too. Am I wasting money? If I get the one I want to see about someone with schizophrenia, will my ocd continue it's "you have schizophrenia" game? Wait, I thought my ocd thought I had bi-polar. Silly ocd, keep your story straight. Yes, so my plan is to offend my scrupulosity ocd by watching movies in my house that now has an "evil" Christmas tree (but I'm not doing it to offend the ocd; that's just a byproduct). The good news? Night is coming, and then I can sleep! So much for having no depression left. But wait, I didn't say I had no depression; I think what I told myself was that I had moderate instead of severe depression. And that is still true.
I love when you said "Silly ocd, keep your story straight." That's so true in my life--the ocd morphs to fit whatever the situation is, to perpetuate itself. My ocd always wants a strict accounting of everything, so it's keeping tally of whether one exposure undoes another--I am learning to recognize as ocd as well, that in fact doing some exposures and response preventions "wrong" or "imperfect" is actually the only way humans can do them. Yay for putting up the tree!
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