exposures and (in different paragraphs) moderate depression

Today's exposure - flip a coin to make a decision. My counselor suggested it for when I get "stuck" on a decision, but that would be a terrifying time to try it. (There is something scarey about letting a penny decide your future; hence, I almost ALWAYS avoid it.) But I thought it had some merrit as an ocd exposure, even if I didn't want to use it in decision making when fighting anxious concerns about choosing the wrong thing and ruining my life. So I used it on something where I approved of both choices - going to the bookstore first or going straight to the library. It was tails, so to the library I went. I was a little disappointed, but I got over it pretty quick.

That's my specific, intentional exposure. The other exposures just sort of come, based on other decisions. Biggest upcoming exposure - give someone a ride. It's scarey enough to just drive myself somewhere without someone in the car with me. And no, I didn't choose this to be an exposure, I'm doing it for other reasons. It's an exposure that found me.

Grasping the bathroom doorhandle would be a combination. I did have to open the door, but I could have used just one finger (as usual), thereby limmiting germ contact. But instead I grabbed the handle, kind of angrily. So there! and then there were germs on my hand. My left hand. And they might still be there or they might have fallen off. They might have fallen onto the keyboard. Another person might "catch" some of them. Or we could go with my sister's "germs die" theory, which may have some scientific support. Or we could move on to excersizing, since I'm supposed to do that today. I have my ear phones this time, so I can watch tv while I do it. Sounds like fun.

This time, at my counselor's, I showed her my list of scores on a depression questionaire thing over the last 11 weeks that I've been on the exact same medications and dosages. That is one way to communicate that my moderate depression is being irritatingly consistant, with some slight fluctuations. I am glad to be "only" moderately depressed instead of severely depressed. For that, I am still thankful. But I sure hope I don't stay moderately depressed for too much longer.

And I've pretty much decided to try to get a second psychiatrist oppinion.

Comments

  1. expwomanJanuary 17, 2011 at 6:19 PM

    I found coin flipping really scary at first but it helped so much with my indecision. I like your first step of using it to pick between two "approved of" choices. http://exposingocd.blogspot.com/2010/01/ocd-toolbox-flipping-coin.html

    ReplyDelete

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