The on-line journal of Christine, a sufferer of obsessive-compulsive disorder OCD.

If writing did not exist, what terrible depressions we should suffer from.
Sei Shnagon c. 966 – 1013
 

January 2005

Other Blogs of interest:

The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other.
Sir Francis Bacon

January 1st.
New year’s day finds me at 5.49 am frantically cleaning the sink and draining board. This morning I found a slug on the draining board. Most mornings there are slugs crawling about all over the floor, not pleasant but I can’t pick them up to put them outside. I am afraid I will accidentally harm them and during the early hours of the morning I don't feel justified getting my husband out of bed to help me with this so mostly they are left to wander about. However not on the sink or worktops; no way I can cope and carefully remove the slug, its only a tiny one so its easy to remove by sliding a small piece of paper underneath it and putting it carefully outside. This was than followed by washing and scouring the sink and draining board, followed by rinsing over and over in boiling water, filling and boiling kettle after kettle.

Now this morning there is an added dilemma for me that only exists on one day in the year but it is nonetheless a fearful dilemma and adds complications to my OCD contamination panic and this is the fear concerning a superstition involving the washing of cloths on New Year's day.

My mother seemed to have her own set of superstitious beliefs, which I suspect may actually have been a form of OCD for most of these superstitions no ones else  has ever heard about. One of these superstitions concerns the fear that if one washes cloths on New Year’s day you are washing someone away; in other words causing someone close by to die - not just a relative either but also a neighbour. My mother actually told my sister and I about this superstition and it has had quite a detrimental effect as you can read in my memoir. On New Year’s Day I do not wash any item of clothing, I take this further by not washing anything on New Year’s Eve or during the time when it is New Years day in other parts of the world. For someone with OCD this is enormously difficult and I have to make preparations in advance to avoid washing cloths. Now this becomes even more problematic as I feel uneasy if I have to use a dishcloth as I am than unable to rinse it out as this may be counted as washing.  So during this difficult couple of days, not wanting to stress myself further, whenever I use a dish cloth I throw it away or use paper towels. So this morning with the slugs this added a more unusual and fearful dimension to my contamination OCD. I am writing all this now waiting for two more kettles of water to boil to scold the sink draining board and everything else that may have been contaminated by the slug.

All of this came after getting up even earlier than usual after being yet again unable to sleep; I am afraid to sleep after waking anytime after 3 am as I would wake maybe only an half hour or so later feeling really ill with a worse headache than usual. So it’s better simply to get up. I felt guilty about being so depressed last night and for all the complaining I do about my situation, which seems less important thinking about the terrible tragedy in Asia after the tsunami. I cannot begin to imagine what these people are going through, their lives ruined forever. The loss of loved one’s, so many of whom are children, the loss of homes and security and things that we take so for granted such as food and water must be a nightmare of sorrow and misery. I could cry but tears make my headaches much worse.

I watched shoppers yesterday, New Years Eve, in the local supermarket. It was as though they were preparing for a siege simply because the following day the shop would be closed for new years day!  I thought about the people in Asia and remarked to my husband: "how would all these stupid people", sorry but that is the way it gets to me, "cope with a situation like the one in Asia"? All this panic shopping simply because the shop will be closed tomorrow.  It was the just the same at Christmas, the shop only closed for two days they were not going to starve to death. What sad sorry people. But hey I was there amongst them and for only two cartons of rice milk for a special meal for New Year. Yes I took one look at those crowds, made some loud comments expressing similar sentiments as those above but still ended up struggling and anxious (I feel very stressed in crowds of people) just to get those cartons of milk. I reconciled myself by putting it down of course to comfort eating because I am so ill and my pleasures are few. Notwithstanding this excuse I am not that different from the others embroiled in my own grasping, craving and desire for food, comfort and seemingly happiness whereever I can find it. However unlike perhaps most of the crowd I do feel guilty and ashamed. Yes maybe it is because of my OCD scrupulosity that I am so sensitive and feel so guilty but perhaps it is that other people simply do not think too driven by the pressures of life and social expectations to have time for such considerations, consequently nothing much in this miserable world changes.

However on the reverse side of the coin, restoring my faith in human goodness I noticed a headline in a newspaper, £100000 donated every hour for the earthquake victims. Perhaps people do think after all and like me they too are anxious and depressed and need a little comfort in their lives which sadly most of us think will be found in materialism, over eating and drinking and finding some excuse to do so in celebrations such as New Years Day.

Jan 2nd
This morning I am very depressed with the usual headaches, muscular aches and pains and other maladies; as my son remarked there is something new everyday.  When I woke this morning my stiffness and neck pain was just awful forcing me once again out of bed at 4.10. Yet another attack of irritable bowel syndrome IBS sends me up and down the stairs to the bathroom, a painful matter now due to joint pain and a very stiff knee, a new symptom just arrived yesterday to add to the already aching knee joints. And of course there are the contamination fears, feeling filthy and contaminated I have to spray bleach over the toilet; I feel uncomfortable about doing so as such chemicals are harmful to the environment. I feel these days guilty about activities that may be harmful to the environment. There is always a dilemma now with OCD, one obsession incongruous with another, one compulsion at variance with yet another. A doctor once remarked that she did not know how I managed with IBS having OCD. Well I guess I do not have much choice but at least she understood, many do not, in fact most people do not know what a miserable life we lead. I grow so weary of all this misery isn’t it bad enough that I have OCD.

I do feel however increasingly guilty about my constant complaining for you can believe me it is a constant stream of whineging. Last night we sat together to watch a film. I can’t recall the tile it was set in Ethiopia, it had shocking scenes of starving children and the dreadful suffering that occurs there day after day; overwhelming appalling suffering. Fighting back tears, I could not watch it. I think a lot about such things even more so now of course with this recent disaster in Asia, the suffering must be unimaginable, last night I cried. This morning I am on the verge of tears yet again I feel as though I want to cry and cry, my eyes clouding as I write but I must keep control of my emotions for now I am not even allowed to cry as in many instances even one tear will cause an existing headache to get worse or bring on a headache if one is not already present.

Sometimes I need to cry and release my pent up emotions: all the anger, frustrations, fears and loss over so many years. Yes loss of my life lived in the shadows of OCD. Instead now my emotions have in recent years come out as outbursts of anger, irritation and impatience with those I care about. However compared to the appalling suffering that continues day in and day out on a scale I cannot begin to imagine, my suffering seems insignificant.  During the last few days I feel ashamed, so ashamed but notwithstanding my shame still the depression lies over my heart like an insidious sickness unrelieved, unremitting and I can do nothing about it. The recent reminders of the appalling misery of others adds to my own suffering even though by comparison many would say, and I would  agree, that suffering such as mine appears insignificant. I honestly do not know how I can be anything other than depressed, how can anyone be happy or even mildly contented when all around you is appalling suffering on a scale unimaginable.

January 4th
This morning I just knew that I was in for a battle with my contamination OCD. In the last three or four weeks it has been getting worse and I can feel the need for washing my hands increasing alarmingly. All I could do this morning was wash and wash my hands, the fact that this was so was made obvious by my painful knee making it difficult to get up the stairs: having to go up and down the stairs to wash my hands is indeed made more noticeable by this unfortunate increase in my joint and muscle problems. Our hobbies room is upstairs so I have to climb those stairs countless times each day particularly when my OCD is much worse.

I had to colour my hair this morning, this of course added to my fears and I had to use several towels to do this and wash the sink over and over. This procedure has always been traumatic with fears that I will inadvertently poison someone. Not only people but animals, and if I am due for a trip into the country this will add to my anxiety should a molecule of hair dye fall from my hair and contaminate another creature, especially a smaller creature which I reason will be more likely to be poisoned by any residual hair dye. So I rinse and rinse and rinse some more.

I have noticed I am washing my cloths more, two loads yesterday. My son says fight it, try and control the urge to wash. Good advice but easier said than done, the urge, impulses, compulsions whatever you may wish to call them are so powerful, and I had forgotten how extremely severe such can be reaching psychotic proportions when ones insight and thus ones motivation to fight it barely exists. I am worried, I am so afraid.  My OCD is severe now but in my thirties it was extremely severe, I was on the brink of insanity with little insight into my behaviour. Incapacitated by fear I hardly moved from the end of the settee, which was covered with sheets to avoid contamination. I could not touch my husband and son. Going out was nightmare, glass in the street was my responsibility top pick up should someone be injured, even in a busy main road I was compelled to venture out to pick up glass. Should someone die in an accident as a result of glass bursting a tyre, it would be my fault. Shopping was an appalling chore of fear; not touching what others would buy, as I felt so contaminated. (Mind you I am still like this today to a good degree and will buy something I have picked up to examine such as fruit; even if it is no good I cannot put it back for someone else to buy). I recall coming home from the supermarket and having to wipe everything that I could wipe with a disinfected cloth. I do not want to digress to that degree of severity.

I am so depressed and hope I can get it back to more manageable levels. Even now I am greatly incapacitated by my OCD; I would not be able to function should it get much worse. At the present time I am too fearful to go out alone. I cannot cook alone or I would throw everything away thinking it is contaminated, or it has been tampered with or it’s gone past the sell by date even though clearly it has not.  Nonetheless even with my husband to help me cook, things do get thrown away. Such behaviour on my part stresses him out, as he is anxious about money having recently been made redundant.

Of course no one can really help me with the checking of writing and morbid rumination, all the time consuming, restrictive and so inhibiting. However I do get my son to check the final draught of an important letter for glaring grammatical errors or spelling but no one can check for something that I think I may have written that may cause harm, as often it is simply a matter of perspective. Whatever I write immediately after posting I regret it and wish I had I done differently going over and over in my mind what I have written or if its an e-mail checking again and again the copy of the sent message. We have an unsend option with our ISP This can be real torture at least with the post once its gone its gone, it is irretrievable. Often I have clicked the unsend button and re written an e-mail.

I was actually glad to get out of the house with my husband and son today despite the fact that going out is very anxiety provoking. Actually there is no peace outside or in, as all of those who suffer this way know only too well from their own experience. There is no peace to be found as OCD consumes your entire life in ways so insidious that it can make you think that you are behaving normally until you stand back and compare yourself with others. The fact that I cannot go out alone has become so entrenched that I rarely think about it; I have lived here for over two years and have so far never been into the city alone. Yet it has become such an integral part of my life that I have become used to it until something reminds me exactly how disabled I am by my illnesses. OCD takes your life, your mind, your whole being. You do not know who you are or what is your real personality. OCD is nothing but misery from the minute I open my eyes until I close them. But no! I have OCD dreams! 

January 5th.
Another anxious day with increasing contamination compulsions, the urge to really clean the house is overwhelming. I will of course have to do this before I get dressed other wise I will have to have another shower and change of cloths. Mornings seem the time when such compulsions are acute. Later in the day I seem better able to cope but oh the mornings. I am up at 4 or 5 but will not involve myself in obvious rituals except those necessary to function such as hand washing if I touch a door knob, turn the heating on for instance (if I touch the radiator dial I have to wash my hands as I fear contamination with legionaries disease).  I try to refrain from involving myself in any major destructive and misery inducing behaviour for at least two or three hours and instead work on this website or other projects on the computer. However even here obsessive tendencies creep in such as checking text and worrying over the content and it’s possible negative effects.

However I continue to put off some of the more time consuming and fearful things procrastinating well past the time when normal people would attend to such chores. For instance sorting the laundry and cleaning the bathroom, both of which are done before showering and getting dressed because of fears of becoming contaminated by just about everything you could imagine in the bathroom. Sorting the soiled laundry finds me washing my hands after touching the dirty clothing: taking it from the laundry basket in the bathroom to be washed means having to open all doors first so as not to contaminate the door knobs more than they are already.  Than washing again my hands followed by putting the laundry into the washing machine than washing my hands yet again whilst turning on all the lights by using my sleeve as I go from room to room. Than after loading the cloths I need to spray the washing machine with bleach, the part which has come into contact with the dirty cloths which if not cleaned will re-contaminate the cloths when they are removed later on.  If I don’t I will have to rewash. It can take two or three trips to get the washing loaded all the time having to wash my hands in-between. I can’t use a basket because it would become contaminated. Such behaviours are so demoralising and frustrating. I loath the necessity born from fear to perform these compulsions, I bitterly resent the waste of my precious time The mornings are dark now until well after eight and everyone else is in bed oblivious to my misery. My son refuses to rise before daylight, the dark mornings seemingly compound his own feelings of depression.

January 6th
Today the washing machine broke down, a total right off and it is ten days until we get delivery of a new one. How am I going to cope? With the sudden escalation of my contamination OCD it’s a nightmare, an unbelievable complication and one that leaves me feeling victimised by the entire universe: It’s as though by some fate I am destined to sink into the mire of severe and incapacitating OCD.

January 7th
The man who has become a thinking being feels a compulsion to give every will-to-live the reverence for life that he gives his own.
Dr Albert Sweitzer

Today after seeing the film Alexander I have come to the conclusion that others should perhaps fear death far more than they do. Anyone who truly fears death and the idea of dying and the possible cessation of their existence will not put themselves in the forefront of inviting it's premature arrival, neither will they endanger the lives of others, this of course is my experience. To my mind the insanity of fighting bloody wars, slaughtering our fellow human beings not to mention the horror of involving other creatures in our murderous and suicidal escapades seems not only utterly abhorrent but also totally insane. I personally believe that those who endanger their lives and disregard the right to live of others do not accept death as a reality and consequently have no fear for this event that seemingly happens to others but not to them. And because the fear of death is not real the thought of bringing this event prematurely to themselves or other beings seems not to bother to them.

I have spent most of my life haunted by the fear of death and the possibility that I will cease to exist. As incongruous as this may seem this concept of death co exists as part of my persona along side of very powerful spiritual yearnings and involvement in spirituality and the quest for some meaning to my existence.

I of course hope that non-existence after death is not a reality and I avidly pursue religions enlightenment and involvement in philosophical contemplation. Nevertheless the fear that one day I as a being, whatever that I is underneath the OCD, will cease to exist for all of eternity. I do not know whether this reasoning is simply a result of OCD fears and delusions in much the same way that I think that a harmful thought or touching a contaminated object my cause harm to myself or others: without my OCD would I have this concept of death? Who knows I don’t know which part of my personality really represents my beliefs, my worldview, my standards of hygiene and morality or whatever. Because of my OCD I do not really know who the real person is that exists with in this body and which part of my thoughts represent my real personality, if I have one, if indeed anyone has one. Perhaps we are who we are according to the way our individual brains are wired it you like. Yet who is it that looks out of these eyes, and views the brain objectively and sees it as a separate unit and one which in my case is not functioning. Is the real me, the I if you like, the part of me that is aware that my brain is not working as it should be. Is it the I, the self that knows these thoughts are not me, if they were would I not be able to control them. I cannot for they arise from malfunctioning neural circuitry  inside my brain which I see as separate. Who is it that gets anxious, fearful, upset and depressed because of thoughts that produce such feelings, thoughts that originate from the brain. Is there hope that this indefinable intangible awareness that exists survives death. If only I knew the answer to this question my fears would dissipate 

January 9th
I really feel as though I am at breaking point today. I am overwhelmed by depression and the encroachment of OCD which now interferes with the construction of my website. Spending hours ruminating over the quality of graphics I just can’t master  this most difficult part of web design and creation. None of them look right, odd that I never noticed this before but this is how OCD insidiously destroys every thing that you do, every thought that you think, and every idea that you have. Every endeavour that you undertake it attacks and turns what was once a pleasure into a nightmare, an absolute hell on earth, Yes some of my graphics are just awful yet having realised this I have set about to learn how to improve my graphics editing skills and I have made some improvements. Nonetheless it has set off my rumination and obsessing of over graphics to ridiculous levels.

Everything with which I get involved, OCD will eventually rear its ugly head. Trying to update a webpage to make it look better and to add new photos has had me in a state of doubt that’s reached incapacitating proportions and my brain is tired and my stress levels are through the roof. And it is only 6am! Yet I have decided that on that particular page enough is enough and I will publish. I cannot allow OCD to take this away from me and add it to the list of things I cannot do because the obsessions have made it impractical with all the checking, obsessing and outright lack of motivation due to the increase in depression as a result of the incursion of OCD into this new attempt to do something useful, something satisfying. Yes I once found it immensely satisfying but now it is a struggle and yes it has become anxiety provoking and this morning my heart was actually fluttering. Things were about to go wrong and mess up all my heard work. Of course such happens to everyone, particularly when it comes to working with computers, the only difference for me right now is that I am just not well enough to cope and the whole situation becomes a huge calamity taken out of all proportion.

Now I am not going to allow OCD to ruin this website by obsessing about design, graphics or whatever. Neither am I going to allow OCD to rule what I write. Yes it most certainly does intrude in this way and is inhibiting and all the checking makes it very time consuming. Occasionally I am overwhelmed by panic, which feels like the kind of panic bought on by episodes of existential terror. Yes it is that bad. Suddenly I am over whelmed by anxiety and doubt concerning what I have written: will people think I am crazy, even fellow sufferers, should I have revealed so much of my personal life, will something I have said cause harm. What will people think about all the advice: Who is this person I can hear them say, who obviously has very severe OCD and is by her own admittance going through a very bad patch right now giving out advice!  And there are just panics not easily defined or put into words thinking about what I have done.

January 10th
Still my anxiety haunts me that my condition is once again becoming worse, today I had to throw away the prepared meal even though both my husband and son were at home. In recent years it has been easier to cope when they’re at home particularly concerning my compulsion to throw away food which I fear is harmful. Today however the thoughts were just too powerful. I had prepared a stew and had all the veggies cooking when I noticed that the last onion to chop up and add had gone off; not just a bit of blue mold either but it really stank just awful, a smell that was really sickening.  I had never smelt anything quite so dreadful before. Thoughts crowded my mind that because all the other veggies had been in the same bag than someone would die if they ate the rest of the food which other than the fact that they had all been together in the same bag as the rotten veggies were nonetheless perfectly okay. Neither was this fear strictly speaking even remotely as rational as the concern about normal bacteria and food poisoning with does have its rationale within the realms of reality, albeit in an exaggerated sense. No indeed the fear was much less rational and less clearly defined involving an unnamed fear that some toxin of a deadly poisonous nature produced by the chemical reactions of this rotten onion would poison anyone who ate any of the veggies. I washed and washed those veggies but no I could not quell the "voices" from within forever insistent that someone would die; I could not bear to wait with the worry for over a couple of hours. I knew that if I did not throw them away now I would only do so later.

I had not had thoughts quite as powerful for a while which involved the fear that someone would die as a result of something that I had prepared and which defied attempts to mitigate by self-talk. This time the fears and the thoughts, which came in an alarming rapidity with in the space of seconds even fractions of a second, were just too real to allow me to take the risk and I throw the whole lot away sadly to the dismay of my husband who cannot bear the thought of waste of any kind.

January 15th
Today we went to see the Aviator, it was a much better film than I had imaged. Although of course no film can convey the awful fear and overwhelming anxiety that Howard Hughes along with other sufferers of OCD experience, but it came fairly close; although of course I am viewing from the perspective of a sufferer.  I wondered what a non-sufferer would make of it all and if they fully grasped what was happening to Hughes. As those of us who live our lives tormented by this dreadful malady know the symptoms go far beyond contamination obsessions even though this manifestation is the most common of the numerous types of OCD presentations. Naturally the film only showed glimpses, much as this Blog does or anything else written about or written by a person with OCD. Such snippets can leave only an inkling of what it's really like and how it consumes your entire being on a twenty four seven bases of conflict with anxiety provoking symptoms, yes even emerging in dreams. And of course in some scenes the time scale had to be speeded up. I may be wrong but the incident in the men’s room, which I am sure was one of many such incidents, where Hughes had to wait for someone to come in so that he could get out fearing to touch the door handle, lasted for an hour. Also the incident where he soaked his shirt I believe was more severe in that he actually washed it entirely. But of course it’s a film and its primary purpose I would imagine is entertainment not to mention profit and not meant as a public awareness promotion.  Nonetheless it was handled with sensitivity. I think that indirectly it may have helped bring about an increase in such awareness. And moreover the majority of the film did of course highlight Hughes amazing drive and success, positive aspects of our personalities that can be used towards useful ends if channelled correctly.

The film bought back memories of the sixties when there was an article in one of the tabloids and the advertising on the TV to promote the article included a dramatisation of Howard Hughes in the throes of very severe OCD. I recall saying to my mother that I couldn’t ever imagine being like that as in those days I was not the cleanest person and approached hygiene in manner that is unimaginable now. I long for those days of carefree abandon at least relatively speaking in comparison to my restricted incapacitating present existence. For you see I have never been truly happy there being some underlying anxiety but if some one had told me than I would one day be like Hughes I would have thought them crazy!.

I had felt rather uncomfortable during the film, which I attended with both my husband and my son. I have been married now for over thirty years and my full blown OCD started within only one year after we married, so my husband has had more than long enough to get used to it and you would think he would understand. But nonetheless I felt embarrassed, uncomfortable. I think this is due to the fact that no one understands and it does not matter how long they have lived with you or how much they know in theory, such as a mental health worker, they never really know what it’s really like. There can never be any real empathy. Although I guess most people know what fear and worry are, at least to a degree, however with OCD it goes beyond that in a way others really do not understand. OCD is a very lonely condition as even fellow sufferers find it difficult to completely empathize with another sufferer who presents with a different obsession.

At the end I felt more self-conscious than usual concerning my compulsion to check under the seat where I had sat to make sure my medication had not fallen out of my bag as I do each time I leave the cinema - the fear being that a child will eat them and die. Of course as at any other time no one appeared to notice anything unusual.  One learns to become very adept at hiding one’s behaviour to some extent and besides this kind of behaviour did not feature in the film. The same applies to the routine in the toilet, its amazing how people take no notice of tap washing if I do it in a certain covert way by soaping my hands and making out as though I am turning the tap on to increase the water flow while surreptitiously lathing the tap with soap and when no one’s paying attention I than quickly rinse with water. The only odd behaviour I feel that people tend to notice is the hands raised in the air surgeon style when leaving the cubical to get to the washbasins. It is now so habitual as I do this at home not wanting to touch and contaminate anything until I have washed my hands. So now when I am out I do this automatically. Most times no one appears to notice. There was a recent incident however in the ladies room in the Yorkshire dales when one of the two ladies who were also present remarked when I left: What a peculiar lady” I can only imagine that I had gone to the wash basin waving my hands in the air in the manner already described. I can’t think of anything else. (Incidentally I was very upset about this. I realise I was not meant to hear this remark and when they come outside I glared at them and they were indeed very sheepish avoiding my gaze. But it has made me wonder what struck them as peculiar, was it indeed my behaviour; if it was not this than what was it? What was it about my appearance that precipitated this unkind remark, was it that faraway look that is  common with a lot people who sufferer with a mental illness, a look hard to define but with which we are all familiar and which labels one a sufferer of a mental illnesses.)

Also I was expecting some good natured mickey taking from my son who can go over the top a bit with the teasing despite the fact that he himself is having problems with depression and anxiety. But no. Indeed quite the opposite no derogatory comment  at all relating to me was forth coming. In fact my son took the opportunity to express his concerns that he too may be becoming more anxious about contamination issues such as rituals in public toilets, for instance using tissues to lift the seat, to touch the handle to flush the toilet and to turn the blot on the door, followed with washing the taps and trying to manipulate the door with his foot to get out. All such behaviours are very similar to my own. I even lift the seat cover with tissues even at home and use tissues to touch the handle to flush the toilet. Very worrying indeed as I do not want his life destroyed by this merciless and unremitting illness.

January 16th.
Today found me on the floor in the bathroom scrubbing with the vynal flooring with bleach. In recent weeks my home feels dirty, it is as though all of a sudden I notice things that previously before my OCD took a turn for the worse I had not noticed. I continue to be concerned about the escalation of symptoms. They delivered my washing machine this morning. I don’t know how I would have coped if it had not been for my husband who during the seven days in which we had to wash by hand took it upon him self to do this task. The first time I did it it had resulted in the nightmare of hand washing described earlier in my journal. It was a stressful time the water had to be turned off for a short time but wow the anxiety so overwhelming. I got irritated with one of the delivery men who told us because of over-the-top legal reasons they could not install it and they had disconnected it leaving water all over the place and with us unable to reconnect the water. A misunderstanding that was soon cleared up but did I panic.

Earlier this week Hexham, a nearby town in Northumberland, had been without water for several days due to damage caused by last week's gales to a pipe line. Goodness knows how I would have coped and I thought about fellow contamination OCD sufferers: how did they make it through those few days? Perhaps when you have to, you do so simply because you have no choice much like the residents of Queensland concerning frequent thunderstorms mentioned in an earlier entry.  With OCD the problem is further compounded when if you learn to control one aspect another rears its ugly head rather like the heads of the Hydra in Greek mythology. Furthermore if one is forced into the situation where you cannot wash, your home can degenerate into a contaminated area quite dramatically and a situation may arise when it is now impossible it eradicate oneself from this situation by decontaminating:  After days of not washing all ones things are irredeemably contaminated and in such cases ones condition may escalate rapidly and irretrievably at least in the immediate future. So in my opinion such forced exposure could be very detrimental in the long term.

January 18th
I am now beginning to dread it when every time I arrive home the answering machine is beeping. I live in dread of the phone ringing nowadays and if at all possible leave it to ring until my husband answers it and I avoid making a telephone whenever possible. Its not the phone as such you understand rather it’s like all my other associations with people because of my social phobia but also because of my OCD: difficult and awkward. As with all conversations and indeed to some extent all communications whether in person, over the phone, by e-mail or letter, I ruminate about what I have said and what the other person has said:  did I inadvertently say something harmful, did I say something crazy, does the caller notice I have a problem with social phobia, can the caller or precipitant sense that I have problems with communicating, does he or she feel awkward during long gaps in conversation, and did he or she understand what I was trying to say? Unfortunately the last concern appears most often to be the most valid. Telephones are worse than talking to someone in person as the long gaps of silence are immediately noticeable and mostly the other person is impatient if such occurs. I feel harassed and pressured over the telephone, my brain cannot think quick enough with conversations in person let alone over the telephone and oftentimes it all comes out wrong making me feel foolish.

January 19th
If the phone rings any more today I am going to scream. I feel as though I want to curl up into a corner of the room with my hands over my ears and hope it will all go away. This of course I cannot do because of my OCD and my scrupulosity, heaven forbid I give in and let it all roll over me, the fear of harming by neglecting whoever is calling cancels out the telephone fears - well at least replacing one fear with another more powerful fear. It's one thing after another and my ability to cope with whoever is on the telephone or whatever it is the caller wants from me is diminishing. Sadly mostly people want something and anyone telephoning me with the sole purpose of enquiring about my wellbeing is extremely rare. 

Now when the phone rings my heart is in my mouth and my anxiety goes through the roof. I just can’t cope, as there seems to be always a problem. A lot has to do with my brother-in-law and I feel inadequate to make decisions on his behalf, in fact I am feeling as though I can do little to help anyone now. It seems as though any decision I make is wrong and more often than not I wished that I had done otherwise and indeed such feelings are even more profound if I have to make a decision on behalf of another person. I sit here now wrapped within a guilty reverie. A friend rang, one of only two, and I feel as though I may be stretching the truth using the word friend feeling lately that she is more of an acquaintance. But she rang without announcing who she was, wishing me a happy new year. Now like everyone despite the fact we are exdirectory we get phone calls from people trying to sell something or to conduct market research so I came over as very irritable when I asked who it was. I did of course apologise when I realised but now I worry to the point of feeling really depressed about this incident and imagine that now she is not as friendly as she once was and I feel the compulsion to apologise yet again. But oh I do so hate these phone calls and yes I sound irritated and maybe aggressive as the fear and anxiety it causes when the phone rings is making me ill and if by necessity I have to answer the telephone it is intolerable to answer it only to find one of these callers.  It feels like a violation, an intrusion into my privacy.

January 20th
The end is neigh well - if certainly feels like it. Its 4.12am and there is a gale blowing like you wouldn’t believe. We have never had winds like it until recent years, its like a scenario from one of those end of the world movies portraying an ecological disaster. In case anyone has not realised I live in the UK were winds like this usually only occur in March and early autumn and even than never at wind speed such as this. When I used to lived in the southeast during the mid eighties we had a freak hurricane, yes I say freak as such is not normally a feature of the British weather, at one hundred miles per hour. This wind today along with the winds we have had in recent years came close to feeling much as it did when we had the hurricane.

You know there are for me very few pleasures in life and for the most part I would not feel comfortable using the word enjoy as it simply is not true. This journal is how I really feel so if anyone is looking for something positive you will rarely find it included here in this section of my website - at least not at the present time. However I can say that certain things in my life bring some modicum of comfort and usually they are very insignificant respites from my misery, little areas of sanctuary from unhappiness worry and anxiety. One such pleasantry is my early morning cup of coffee made from good quality ground coffee, free trade or shade grown. What else can you expect with my sensitive conscience which is nevertheless a good thing to some extent if it were perhaps less extreme, but we must never forget that in some ways it is better to have a sensitive conscience than no conscience at all. However with OCD such sensitivity can go over the top at least the thinking processes behind it can and the motivation may not always be what it seems.

For the sufferer of OCD there are often feelings of anxiety and distorted thinking behind seemingly ethical actions.  Such anxieties may concern thoughts that something bad may happen to one’s self but mostly to another such as a friend or family member if one does the wrong thing or conversely if one takes no action when an action should be taken. For instance not giving money to charity or  not helping another even though we can barely help ourselves and when often rendering such help is detrimental to our own well being.  It is this type of thinking which distinguishes the motivation behind the OCDer's moral or ethical actions and makes it fundamentally different from such actions when carried out for normal reasons.

Nonetheless often the heart is in the right place and behind all the fearful thoughts and dire scenarios of terrible consequences the sufferer mostly wants to do the what is right.  However once he has been dragged through the mire of
obsessive-compulsive torments and doubts the sufferer is no longer certain that his motivations are borne of a genuine desire to do the right thing.  And yet again the sufferer becomes confused as to who he really is and the way the real person would behave and live his life if he did not have OCD. On many such occasions an identity crisis arises and again we wonder who we are and what we would be if we did not have OCD - at least this is my experience. In fact one can start to feel guilty when these fears arise feeling that one is only doing the right things because of the dreadful fears of the possible consequences presented by the mind if one does not. And sometimes there is the occasion when of course this is correct and such motivations are simply a result of torment by such fearful scenarios.

There is a crisis of conscience that arises when buying coffee: Do I buy shade grown, which is good for the environment, or fair trade which provides the farmer with a fair price for his produce? The extinction of over one hundred species of birds and deforestation is the result of clear cutting the forest to increase yields and planting hybrid sun tolerant coffee, sun growing hybrids need pesticides and fertilizers so this is not good for the environment. The fair trade coffee of course is beneficial to the farmer by allowing him to sell his coffee at a fair price. The ideal situation therefore would be an amalgamation of the two types of coffee, fair trade but also shade grown. At the present time as far as I am aware here in the UK there is not a combination of the two, at least on the packet for shade grown it does not state that it is fair trade and vice versa. Yes crazy to worry about such matters and most people would not but that is the nature of the beast, this terrible OCD monster that takes over rational thought, makes decisions impossible and tires the mind feeding it with exhausting thoughts for endless and pointless ruminations that go around and around with no conclusions forthcoming. In this case the dilemma is: Do I buy shade grown which is environmental friendly and supportive of endangered species or do I buy fair trade coffee which supports the farmer. Until a combination of the two appears on the shelves in the UK this problem will arise whenever I have to buy coffee.

Sometimes when I am shopping this can become a cause of anxiety and a guilt trip, it can take some minutes to make a decision. And I am sure you can guess how I feel once the decision has been reached: Guilty.  For unless I stand there indefinitely a decision is made and whatever I decide I always feel that my decision is the wrong one. As I have no doubt said  before it is not the act of doing the right thing that causes the problem, however it's the distorted irrational  thinking processes with the terrible scenarios of dire consequences that cause the problem. I would buy one or the other of these more ethical coffees even without the OCD complicating the issue. Although without the interference of OCD I would probably make a decision as to which one I would buy and adhere to it without all the exhausting analysis. Each week I go through this sometimes buying one type sometimes the other. This incident is minor compared to the countless thoughts of an OCD nature that pass through my exhausted mind each and everyday and even enter my dreams.

I digress, back to that early morning cup of coffee which when shared with my son is a little respite from the unhappiness and, notwithstanding the above difficulties, a break from the obsession driven compulsive behaviours.

January 25th
It’s been a while since I have felt up to writing much; I am really very depressed. This morning it feels as though it will never get light, I can’t bear much more of my miserable existence. You should see the view from my window, now so dreary and depressing and in the line of my vision I have to see the factory that makes that low frequency noise 24/ 7 and there is not a thing I can do to get them to stop, not a thing. And besides the grim building mars the view particularly today with the backdrop of a cloud leaden sky I feel as though I could scream and never stop. Why do we have to live in such awful environments, a line of evergreen trees along the side of  the road would mitigate the awfulness of this depressing building and the plain drabness of this village which I have now come to loath. I am riddled with guilt for moving here thinking we would have a better life, thinking people were more friendly and that there were plenty of places to go. My son’s life’s is destroyed by coming here he cannot get his business going, he cannot afford to book stalls at craft fairs to sell his art work and he has no money except his job seekers allowance which for anyone who does not know is only about £45, and on which the job centre expert him to start a business. We help him as best we can but its exhausting I am after all ill and there is little I can really do to help him.

I feel so lonely and abandoned by the health service Why is it that I cannot get any help for my mental health problems with the national health service. My condition is chronic but need it have been if I had had more support from the health service. It’s along story and one that is just too painful at this time to go into any detail.

Now everything is becoming difficult for me on the computer, I can barely think to do anything . My son’s website has virtually disappeared from all the search engines for which he applied. I noticed this on Sunday morning and all I could do was cry notwithstanding the knowledge that by doing so I could increase the severity of my headache and bring on a spate of both an increase in frequency and duration. I feel so doomed as it nothing ever will work out. He is trying, but he like me is simply too ill. He is waiting to see a psychologist but it could be months. I had to wait for a year and than after three assessment sessions the psychologist  told me he could not help me. He told me that because I had had treatment in the past and was afterwards unable to sustain the improvement he did not think that further treatment would be appropriate. In my opinion I could not sustain my improvement simply because like anyone with a chronic illness I need on gong treatment and such is not available within the NHS, if I am left to my own devices the OCD once again takes on a crippling hold. . It is not of course that I do not understand the fact that the health service does not have the resources for continued support, however, such understanding of the situation does not improve my lot. Despite my problems in the past and my inability to sustain any improvements it is in my opinion no reason to not offer me some further therapy, after all I did get some respite from my OCD for a time and surely that is better than nothing!

January 26^th
My social phobia is really coming into it’s own. It difficult enough trying to integrate into society with OCD, the strain of maintaining the façade of normality when I attempt social interaction is an enormous pressure in itself but the added problem with social phobia renders it increasingly more difficult. And after some time when people get to know me it is ever more difficult to keep up this pretence and the real me slips through. I can sense an increasing awareness amongst my associates that they are beginning to notice that there is something wrong. Now with the added burden of this increase in my social phobia a hard battle with my mind and my ability to live a normal life is waged on a new and progressively more difficult front - at least a new level of severity for I have always suffered the lonely consequences of social phobia.

Today was the start of another section in my computer website course and I was more than usually anxious as I made my way to the community centre, my throat having become constricted into its usual tight knot. You know I feel so anxious now and just writing about it here the feelings flood back. But I felt really so awful today and began to feel as though I would rather not go. I just dread walking into a room full of people. My husband steps back to allow me to enter first. I doubt he has such social inhibitions as I and perhaps this is some outdated but habitual consideration men used to give to women. But oh this really stresses me out and I try to push him through first. I have tried to tell him that I would rather he went through first but he appears not to remember. Everyone turns to look but there is no one I recognise the instructor has not turned up yet. I say Hi or hiya as is the usual greeting here in the northeast. But I find saying this difficult to the extreme and totally alien as it is just not me, with my social phobic reserve it sounds false and awkward.

I am accompanied of course by my husband because I have not been past the back yard on my own for at least a couple of years and than not further than across the road a little way and back. I have not been out of the village here on my own ever. And  where we used to live I had not been out alone for ten years away form the village although I could go into the village a few yards further along the road upon which we lived.  But here I can go no further than my gate without feeling the pangs of anxiety. My husband, a poor long suffering but tolerant man even if he really does not have much idea what I go through, is willing to come along and do a computer course although he has no interest in computers at all. Naturally I have told no one why he comes and they assume we are both interested although I think people think we are very clingy.

The same of course happens at Tai Chi. However my husband does enjoy Tai Chi so I do not feel so guilty. The situation here at first with my OCD and social phobia was not too much of a problem until recently. Now here also I am gradually finding it  difficult, my awkwardness is becoming more obvious and I can sense that people feel uncomfortable with me, aware of my inability to make conversation or be relaxed and join in with the usual social banter. I often stand there pretending to laugh along with jokes or situations that others find amusing and respond to with ease without the least thought or unnaturalness. I try so hard to appear normal straining for something to say and finding that when I finally spit it out it all comes out wrong and than mostly people completely ignore me. It hurts just so bad after summoning the courage and struggling to respond to be totally ignored as if I had never spoken. Of course this happens to everyone and if you listen to the conversations of others you will find that such is normal and mostly goes unnoticed. However for the social phobic such as myself it is like a knife to the heart, it may not kill my body but it kills any modicum of confidence that I have and makes further attempts at conversation more difficult in the future. OCD than adds a different dimension to social phobia and that is after having been rejected or ignored the OCD sets in and I will ruminate about the conversation. It is as though an audio tape automatically turns itself on, a loop tape playing over and over the awkward moment, moments that others would have barely recalled or even noticed let alone think about to such extremes later on.. Or even in some cases a "video tape" plays back and again and again an uncomfortable moment plays itself over and over  in my minds eye often showing that look sometimes people have of which I am now so familiar, the look that tells me that they know something is wrong, that awkward look when eye contact is uncomfortable for them simply because it is uncomfortable for me.

January 27^th
Today there is another computer lesson this time with the computer club. Again today it is evident that I am becoming much worse concerning my social anxiety and feel this profoundly as yet again I approach the centre with a thumping heart, a constricted throat and an attack of irritable bladder; a recent anxiety symptom resulting in urgent feelings to urinate even though moments earlier I have been to the toilet. This wretched problem, for it is indeed most miserable, is attenuated here as the toilets have no bolts on the doors. The disabled toilets, the only toilets available,  are large so if someone comes in…….. well there is simply no time to grab the door shut as is often the case in a small confined cubicle. Sometimes I feel as though there is no sensitivity in the world as no one complains and the problem with the bolts or rather the lack of them has been so now for weeks. My husband has to stand outside, this is embarrassing particularly if I need to go several times as this brings attention to this very personal and sensitive problem. The whole thing stresses me out quite noticeably and I am getting to the stage when yet again I feel as though I no longer wish to go.

Before we even get to the door there is a problem with my OCD. It had been a wet day and right in my path was a large worm. Now anyone who has read my book or my shorter autobiography entitled my story will know that due to my sensitivity concerning the right of all creatures to life and my over responsibly, at least by western standards, to all creatures, it is my duty to pick up this worm and move it to a place of safety. It is also an obligation borne of a superstitious fear that if I do not do the right thing something awful may happen to a family member, this is most certainly the OCD aspect of both my concern and the subsequent action. Nonetheless it does not mean that the action is wrong or that perhaps some of the other more rational considerations are neurotic. However it is again this thought, like the thought that motivated the purchase of ethical coffee mentioned earlier, that takes such into the realms of OCD. It is not of course that I would not make the right decision for the right reasons did I not have OCD however it is the motivating thoughts rather than the resulting deed that cause the problem and make one question why one behaves in a certain way.

Now my anxiety levels rise, has anyone seen me, will they think I am crazy? What of my hands? This means the first thing I do when I get in is to have to wash them and I will have to make an entrance holding my hands surgeon style and hope no one will notice. I will of course do my best to be as inconspicuous as possible and pretend that I have something on my hands something sticky perhaps that need rinsing off immediately. All this adds to the anxiety of the impending social interaction. Why am I so embarrassed by picking up a worm? I simply don't know, after all in other societies such as in Tibet for example this action would appear quite normal as in Tibet all sentient life is to be respected in this way and extreme measures are undertaken to preserve the lives of all creatures. And perhaps the anxiety concerning such actions arises from my embarrassed feelings in this regard as living in a western society where such consideration single one out as being weird The other problem is of course I now feel contaminated after picking up the worm and this than precipitates hand washing, which again may be considered normal to some but again its the thoughts behind the action and the excess and avoidance that is the problem such as the hand waving to prevent contamination of my cloths and other objects by my contaminated hands.

Again I dread the grand entrance for indeed this is how it feels to me as yet again my husband stands back and holds open the door despite the times I have tried to explain to him that I would rather he went through first, proving that old habits die hard.  However today he has to hold the door open if he did not I would be afraid that I would contaminate it with my hands after picking up the worm and as a consequence contaminate others causing them harm.

Today we are late the other members of the club having already arrived and all turn to look and mumbled greetings of hiya are exchanged. Thankfully the club is for older people, no offence to younger people but it is just that my social phobia is even worse with younger people, it has always been this way, even when I was young myself I always preferred the company of much older people. Nonetheless it is still an ordeal and I feel so awkward vaguely asking what is happening. The instructor has not yet arrived and the others are crowding round a computer of another lady member, who is getting help with reformatting her computer, only three of the club members including myself are women.  I know its silly but I think this lady does not like me although I recognise that it may all be in my mind, for many years ago when I was in the psychiatric hospital for my OCD I felt this way also about another patient. Whenever I saw her I felt this overwhelming feeling that for reasons of which I could not define she did not like me. To my shame it turned out that she thought that I did not like her, she had somehow picked up my hesitancy and had like myself made this erroneous assumption. After finding out about our mutual mistake we did manage to sort things out but we where never really friendly the damage already having been done. I do not want to make another mistake of this kind and now worry that this lady may think that I do not like her. Often people think that my shyness is standoffishness indicating that I do not like them. Also such shyness makes others feel awkward and uncomfortable and there have been times I have stopped attending similar social activities because I feel that I spoil it for everyone else.

The after noon was a real strain in one way or another. It was apparently John’s turn to make the tea and coffee. Now I cannot cope with having to be left alone to talk to others without my husband present so rather than be left standing alone feeling self conscious I went to help him even though this was a trail for me with my OCD.

Preparing even a drink for others is a nightmare of anxiety fearing as I do that I will accidentally contaminate someone; anxious that the cups and the cutlery are not clean, worried that the milk in the fridge is not fresh, after all I have no idea how old it is or when the carton was opened. The community centre is used by different groups of people everyday day, who knows when the carton was opened. Trying to surreptitiously warn people of the possibility that the milk may not be fresh I make a few loud comments along this vain and hope for the best thinking that such comments will absolve me from this dreaded heavy responsibility that we OCD sufferers bear or rather feel that we bear. Sounds easy I know like a ritual of some kind to mitigate my responsibility and yes maybe it is but nevertheless the concern it causes is significant despite my attempts to bring this possibility to the notice of the others.  I have taught myself to hide it well enough at least for now and have come up with many ways of letting people know without being blatantly obvious of my concerns in order to warn them of perceived dangers. No one comments and everyone uses the milk. I tell my husband not to have the orange juice for similar reasons. Maybe my concerns are justified and yes such considerations are in the realms of reality; the milk and orange juice could be past the recommended sell by date and may have been in the refrigerator longer than the advised time for opened containers but most people would not give it a thought for one second.

The most difficult part of the whole business in the kitchen is the tea towel which fell on the floor when I opened the door to wash the cups up, another escape from a social situation when my husband suddenly goes to the toilet.. I walk, in the towel falls to the floor, I step on it before I can stop myself but having fallen to the floor it is contaminated already anyway. What do I do? Sometimes the only thing that saves me from becoming even worse than I am now is embarrassment. To panic would be so embarrassing, so would mentioning what had occurred and asking where to put it to be washed. it is surprising how many would think this extreme and my fear of being considered odd is significant. Also because of my social phobia this would be difficult; sometimes one fear is over ridden by another.  I did not know where to put the towel to be washed so I screwed it up and put it somewhere that hopefully would indicate that it needed washing Perhaps I should have said something I doubt if anyone would have taken much notice, it probably ended up back on the towel rack and I felt guilty but I just did not know what to do.

This kind of thinking is there all the time these are minor incidents in a day filled with so any others. The instructor never turned up and the afternoon was a strain of social anxiety and the time crawled by. I cannot describe the misery I felt, it is so difficult living a life on the periphery of existence longing to be normal to have conversations to join in as though it was as easiest thing in the world such as eating a meal - unless of course you have an eating disorder. This just goes to show that what can be so easy for one and undertaken with any forethought can be for another an ordeal of unmitigated misery and anxiety. We left offering some lame excuse, feeling awkward, imaging what they would say as soon as we left feeling as though they would be relieved if we never came back. Is that all in my mind I ask myself but  I doubt I will ever know.

Concerning blogs : Although I have initially looked through the recommended blogs in my blog roll I have not read every single entry and have selected each on its overall merit: interesting regular entries . However the comments and opinions of the respective blog owners do not necessarily reflect my own opinions.

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