I cleaned the bathroom. Well, really just part of it; I skipped some in the interest of saving time for the moment and being lazy for the moment. But as I cleaned, my brain had this rhythm going on. "I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die." Interspersed with the counselor recommended, "Maybe yes, maybe no." This, she said, at least gave two possibilities instead of just the one extreme and unlikely fear. How exactly I progressed from fear of contaminating others to my death I'm not sure. I was going to get a fatal disease, pass it on, and then die. Despite the probability of that occuring being relatively close to 0. Maybe even zero, but then again, I can't be too sure about that.

Other than that, I've taken up a great interest in Sudoku. And I'm pretty good at word searches. I skip the cross-word puzzles. Having a good vocabulary does not equal cross-word puzzling skill.

Comments

  1. Fellow OCD SuffererAugust 28, 2010 at 3:35 AM

    Good for you! I have yet to conquer my fear of cleaning bathrooms. I also use the "maybe yes, maybe no" approach sometimes. If I am afraid of a certain outcome, I say to myself, "Maybe that will happen. Maybe it won't. Either way, I'll deal with the consequences when/if they occur."

    I don't think it's unusual for fears to morph from one thing to another or to expand. My original fears were related to chemicals. Now my fears mostly revolve around just feeling dirty and being a bad person for not cleaning other things or myself "correctly." OCD will latch on to whatever it can to survive. That's why I think it's so important to learn strategies to confront OCD and not just one particular fear - OCD can evolve with time, but once I've learned to recognize and fight the disorder, I am that much better equipped to fight any other form it might take!

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