update

Now I have given my two weeks notice, so it doesn't have to be a secret. I'm changing jobs. Not fields, I'll still be an early childcare teacher. Well, maybe I'll get to be less of a lead teacher, but that is okay with me right now. And working in a classroom WITH another teacher sounds GREAT (even though it can double the number of kids in the class). So that was my big anxiety creator for my last blog post; I was going to give my two weeks notice when I went to work and I was worrying about accepting the job the evening before.

At my current job, the worse depression came back, not as strong as it has ever gotten, but stronger. I hate depression. But Saturday came and I felt better. Amazing what the weekend can do. Good thing I'm changing jobs. I hope it helps (but it could make things worse; I'll have to "take that risk" like my counselor keeps talking about).

I'm doing pretty good at not washing my hands this week! Not so good at writing down every handwashing, which was the actual assignment. :) And I've never kept track at work. Maybe that's avoidance, maybe it's recognizing that a toddler teacher can justify washing his/her hands pretty much any moment of the work day. Really, I don't wash my hands as much as I "should" (early childcare guidelines) but sometimes I throw in an OCD handwash (marked by greater germ worry). On the positive, I've eaten with "dirty" hands a number of times this week! So funny that I get to celebrate that fact. It is a little bothersome when I'm with someone who doesn't have OCD but does care about clean hands and germ caution. But usually it's just myself that I slightly annoy.

And don't be too impressed and for sure don't feel bad, because handwashing is not nearly my biggest OCD issue. It's one of my little issues that is easier to fight.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My merry-go-round

I've been keeping a mood log since sometime last May, or maybe June. I've done it on the OpenOffice software similar to Excel. This means I can do cool stuff like make charts and graphs to see how my mood has swooped around over the last year. This last week, I found that you can also put in a trend line over your chart. This was neat, but disturbing. I used it over charts made from week averages for the last 10 or 11 months. I learned that: My depression at its best (each day, then averaged per week) is getting better. My depression at its worst (each day, then averaged per week) is getting worse. My anxiety is getting worse. My sleep time is increasing. My exercise time is decreasing. Or, in short, my worst is getting worse. So then I wonder if I'm using the same standards to judge my mood as I was using in May last year. After all, the mood ratings are subjective, done each day, or occasionally every few days. But what if anxiety that I called a 5 in May would ...
Read more

OCD meddling in my education (again)

Image
What do you know, the insert picture function thingy is working today! Hence my photo not taking over more of the blog than it should. Today, if OCD were little g gods, I would have offended the gods. Actually, I did it last night. Thank you so much, professor, for giving OCD the opportunity to knock me to my knees. I'll have you know, however, that I am making some small show of resistance. Which I will explain. This is what I did. I did the communication screen with a little kid as per the instructions. Then, looking over it at home, I thought I missed something, so proceeded to correct something to say how the child actually pronounced it, not how I forgot and left it. And then the monster pounced. Because, being an hour or so removed from the situation, I no longer knew for absolute certain how the child said that word anymore. But I had just struck through the assumed mispronounced sound. So do I go all the way a...
Read more

Sunday

Well, played guitar in church today. I only dreamt about it two nights since Wednesday when I agreed to play. And neither dream was a total disaster... Anxiety, how much you do for me. Glad that's over until I start working up to playing next Sunday, too. Two Sundays in a row. Probably good for dealing with the anxiety monster. The pastor preached on Psalm 4 today, the second half of the (very short) chapter. It included dealing with upsetting emotions. He was good about saying that having the emotions themselves wasn't the problem, but then we have to deal with it. By stopping. A good old "be still" type verse is stuck in there, along with that vague "meditate" word (but not in my version; mine used other words for about the same meaning). The pastor's paraphrase of the meditating part was to address yourself, telling yourself to "be still" etc. Anyhow, by the end of the sermon and the chapter, he was hoping that people around us would see t...
Read more