This may surprise a few people but I have suffered from severe depression for many years. I know, weird isn’t it?
“But you seem so cheerful!” people say to me “You can’t be depressed!”
Anyone who says things like this to me has clearly never seen me in private when I have reached the extreme low points.
Now, you may be thinking ‘Oh, well this is going to be a miserable blog post!’ and I would say ‘Aah, well that is where you’re wrong!’ so there!
On the contrary, this blog post may delve into misery at points but I assure you that it has a happy outcome. With that in mind, I shall continue.
As I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself, I have suffered from severe depression for many, many years. Whether this is due to my OCD is unknown – it’s difficult to know which came first. All I know is that I was a miserable child, a miserable teenager and a miserable adult.
Several people have said to me in the past that depression doesn’t exist and that it is all in my head – so to speak. I always find this completely insulting and it really doesn’t help when I am feeling so low. Anyone who has suffered through depression will tell you that it is a terrible illness and one which can have an enormous impact on your life and the lives of your loved ones.
In my case, there was nothing particularly bad in my life that caused my recent terrible spell of depression. I have a job that I love, a husband whom I love, I’m now debt free after a lot of effort, I have everything I could want – yet several weeks ago I felt like I couldn’t go on and apart from my OCD there was no reason for this to occur.
It didn’t help that I was recovering from viral meningitis and felt physically terrible but that wasn’t the cause of it. For about a year I have spent most of my time feeling dreadful, feeling unworthy, fat, ugly, useless and a disappointment. My husband tells me I’m wonderful on an almost daily basis but to no avail. Nothing seemed to lift the darkness, I found myself having some terrible thoughts – not specifically about harming myself but I just didn’t want to have to go on feeling the way I did.
There was no obvious reason for it, a time when I should be the happiest in my life and all I could think about was how miserable I was. The worst thing was that I knew that my misery was making my husband sad and it was hurting him to see me that way – but that just made me feel worse.
So, I sat in my psychiatrist’s office around two weeks ago in a sorry state. I was at as low ebb as I could have reached to be honest. I’ve tried everything over the past year to improve my mood but nothing seemed to work. I have had Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for my OCD and have taken various anti-depressants but I just didn’t feel any better.
This time my psychiatrist advised me to take new medication, I was offered the same medication last year and I refused it as I didn’t want to take any more medication than I was already on. However, this time I was so miserable and so desperate to feel better I accepted the medication at as low a dose as possible. Now, everyone is different and I am in no way suggesting that what helps me will help anyone else and I would strongly advise anyone with depression to seek help from their GP as different therapies benefit different people.
I took the low dose of the medication and I have to admit that I felt like a zombie for around 2 or 3 days, I kept drifting into sleep at odd times. The first day I couldn’t keep my eyes open, I was so sleepy. The side effects were not nice but after a few days I started to feel quite cheerful.
For the first time in a long time I actually felt quite happy, sort of content. I didn’t feel drugged up or hazy – just a feeling that everything was going to be ok. The OCD voice in my brain that generally told me that I hadn’t done things properly seemed to quieten down considerably and for the first time in a year I found myself looking forward to things.
The oddest thing is, I’ve spent so much of my life feeling miserable inside that I actually have no idea how to cope with not feeling that way. Isn’t that weird? I’m so used to feeling miserable and worried and desolate that now I don’t feel it I sort of miss it – I was so used to it, that living without the constant misery is actually very peculiar. I commented to my husband recently that I am so used to living with depression that I don’t really know how to act without it.
I don’t feel euphoric or high, I just feel like everything is ok. Who knows how long it will last, I am only to be on this medication for a few months so we’ll just have to see what happens over the next few months but even a break from the depression is very welcome, regardless of how long it lasts.
It at least gives me hope that perhaps I won’t feel as bad as I did forever, there is hope.
Showing posts with label OCD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OCD. Show all posts
Monday, 6 September 2010
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
OCD
With all the misery in the world at the moment, I'll try not to add to that with this blogpost but things have been so desolate that it may dip into the morose at times - sorry.
I have been through a mammoth struggle in the past year and I really just want to get my thoughts out and to hopefully raise awareness of a disorder that can be utterly debilitating and left untreated can lead to all manner of problems functioning in life. It may seem a little selfish to talk about myself so much in this blog post but I really need to explain what has been happening.
As you may know, I have obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). I have had OCD since I was about 8 years old but it was only really diagnosed formally a few years ago. I've spent my entire life knowing that there was something that wasn't 'right' with me mentally but I didn't know exactly what it was.
Many people seem to have an inaccurate view of what OCD is, people regularly say to me - 'If you have OCD then at least your house must be immaculate!' which is just not true, I have a fear or chemicals that trumps my fear of contamination so I tend not to scrub things meticulously. My flat has 'safe' areas that I feel are clean and 'unsafe' areas that I feel uncomfortable in and are untouched for long periods of time. I also do not feel completely compelled to gain symmetry in everything as is often portrayed on the TV, some OCD sufferers do but others don't. Everyone with OCD has different obsessions and compulsions and it is important to understand this.
My first real memory of OCD behaviour was when I was a child. I remember being told that if you didn't drink enough that you would become dehydrated, I became extremely anxious about this, not knowing how much I was supposed to drink to keep hydrated. One night I drank as much water as I could before I went to bed, assuming that this would keep me hydrated. However, when I got into bed I became more and more anxious and got up several times to drink more water. As you can imagine, this lead to needing the toilet rather a lot but every time I went to the loo I became utterly terrified that as I had gotten rid of some water that I needed to drink more - so the cycle of going to the loo then drinking water from the tap continued throughout the night. I remember my parents getting cross with me, not understanding what was wrong, and telling me to go back to bed but every time I did I needed the loo, then I felt utterly compelled to drink more water.
In isolation this may just seem like the episode of an anxious child who perhaps got the wrong end of the stick when given some advice but some of my other behaviour highlighted that this was not just an isolated incident.
In my early years at secondary school I developed a series of tics that I couldn't control and for which I was generally mocked. I would clear my throat every few seconds, the compulsion to do so was overwhelming even when I didn't feel necessarily that my throat needed clearing. I developed a nervous cough and the more people mocked it, the worse it got. Surpressing it just made it worse, surpressing it led me to start sniffing every few seconds instead so then I was mocked for that. I found that in later life, surpressing my OCD behaviour would result in me feeling compelled to blink a certain number of times every few minutes.
I was a complete nervous wreck as a child for little reason, I worried about everything. If a disease was mentioned I would become completely consumed with worry that I would get that disease - I thought that every dog would give me rabies, that everything I touched would make me ill or poison me, that even walking under certain trees would cause me harm. I became terrified of death, every time I thought about the death of people around me or my own I would become almost hysterical.
My main problem was that, despite being absolutely terrified of pretty much everything, I was too scared to tell anyone about my thoughts. I was worried that I would be taken to a psychiatric hospital and locked away or that people wouldn't believe me. Every time I tried to explain to people what I was worried about and get reassurance people would look at me as if I were mad. My main phrase in life as a child seemed to be 'will I be alright if I do (insert anything here)?'. I must have driven my parents bananas with my constant asking for reassurance. Because no one actually knew what the problem was, no one could really help me. I felt so ashamed, asking for reassurance so often and so I developed ways to cope. Unfortunately these coping mechanisms were to make my anxiety and my life a whole lot worse.
I would check things copiously and often unnecessarily. The worst part of OCD is that, there is a part of your brain that says 'I know that I have locked my door' or 'I know that I have switched the tap off' but there is another more insidious part of the brain that continuously questions and doubts whether you do know that things have been done.
Looking back, my OCD has affected large parts of my life - I almost missed an exam at college as I had to go back home and check that my hair tongs were off, despite the more rational part of my brain knowing that I had unplugged them before I left the house. I have often missed out on going places because of anxiety about food, available toilets, fear of contamination, fear of not locking the door of my house properly. In one of my jobs in my life I was the only girl in the office and was completely terrified that the tap would be left on in the female toilets and that I would be blamed even if it wasn't me so after leaving work I would often have to go back and check the taps several times - no matter how close to home I got. I would touch things with tissues in my own home if I felt they were 'contaminated'.
A lot of my life has revolved around my OCD and it has prevented me from doing so many things. At several points in my life my hands have been cracked, sore and bleeding due to the sheer amount of handwashing I have done to ease my anxiety about contamination. I kept quiet about it, tried to hide my coping behaviours from people but that has always made them worse and I have suffered clinical depression for most of my adult life because of my OCD. Whenever I tell people that I have suffered from depression they usually say 'but you seem so cheerful!' - sadly I have tried to cover my misery most of my life that I tend to think that everyone wants to see me cheerful and have done so. OCD can be such a destructive disorder.
Over the past year I have had the biggest flare up of my OCD that I have ever experienced and I have had to finally face up to the rather grim reality that, although OCD can wax and wane, there is no absolute cure. I think that this was the biggest cause of my depression, I had to face up to the fact that my OCD is a disability which I will probably fight against for the rest of my life.
I haven't been very communicative over the past year or so, my OCD overwhelmed me. I have isolated myself and been too afraid to see people. For the past year or so I have not been able to function in any capacity. There was no one single event that caused this relapse, just a slow decline into the worst period of mental illness in my life.
About a year or so ago I was coping with my OCD symptoms. I would check things but not obsessively, wash my hands but not to excess. I was able to get buses, travel places, go to supermarkets - all the usual things that most people do on a daily basis. Slowly I started to notice that I was checking the floor more often, worrying that I was standing on sharp things like knifes or needles, this fear started to escalate until I could barely go anywhere without worrying that I had cut my foot open and that I would bleed to death. I have always had checking and washing behaviour but I was unprepared for the horrors of my OCD that were to come.
While sitting on a bus one morning there was a girl sat behind me talking on her mobile phone, I was fiddling with my MP3 player and not paying much attention. The bus came to my stop and I started to get up and walk down the bus when I suddenly thought 'What if I have hurt that girl in some way?'. Now, you need to understand that while people have intrusive thoughts all the time, most people dismiss them - consider the last odd thought that crossed your mind, you probably dismissed it right? With me and a lot of other OCD sufferers, we tend to attach more meaning to those thoughts than they really require. I thought 'I wouldn't hurt anyone physically, ever! I didn't hurt the girl' but my brain wouldn't let it go. I then thought 'Aah, but you were worried that you had hurt her so maybe you did'. I searched my memory and in my heart of hearts I knew that I hadn't hurt her in any way or even gone near her - but my brain kept doubting my memories. I turned back to look at the girl and she looked fine, chattering away on her phone, but my brain told me that maybe I was confused and perhaps I had hurt her but was seeing her as fine because I wanted to. I started to feel anxious and as I got off the bus I continuously checked that the girl was ok, she was fine but I couldn't convince myself of that. As the bus drove away I could see the girl and knew she was fine so why was I worrying that I may have hurt her??? I couldn't breathe properly, my breathing was coming fast and my heart was beating so quickly I thought that it was going to beat out of my chest. I started to feel light headed and my fingers tingled, I felt like I was going to pass out or have a heart attack. To say it was awful is an understatement. I don't want to hurt anyone, I never would hurt anyone deliberately so why would I worry that I had hurt a complete stranger? I have since found that the anxiety is due to the disparity between what you think and your general ideas on things - I never want to hurt anyone and even the thought that perhaps I had hurt someone caused massive anxiety.
During the course of that day there were several instances of the same thing, I started worrying that I had punched people or shouted at them in the street. I started to worry about what I was saying and doing and this hyper vigilance just served to make things worse because the more I tried to remember what I had said or done, the more my brain would say 'Well, if you thought it then you must have done it'. The absence of the memory of shouting things, doing things etc just made me think that perhaps I had done those things but couldn't remember. I had so many panic attacks that day that I had to go home and when I went home I simply went to bed as the mental exhaustion was horrendous. I worried that my thoughts made me a bad person, that I was somehow evil deep down and that was why I was having these thoughts. I worried that I was being possessed, I felt so confused and scared all the time with no reason whatsoever.
Now, I just want to reitterate that I am in no way dangerous, I know that, my psychiatrist knows that and you need to know that. Apparently the fact that I have these anxieties is supposedly a good sign as it means that I have no desire to do any of the things I worry about and wont carry out any of these things.
I genuinely started to think that I was losing my mind and due to the sheer volume of panic attacks I had started to have on buses, in the street etc. I became utterly terrified to even go outside. This led to my agoraphobia. Every time I tried to leave the house I ended up having a panic attack, even the mention of having to attend any appointment gave me panic attacks.
Just because I didn't go outside didn't mean that the problems ended. I became scared to touch things in my flat, things that I had been able to touch perfectly fine before I now considered contaminated. I couldn't even use the phone or the computer at one point, fearing that they were somehow dirty and contaminated. I could barely eat anything as I worried that my food would be contaminated. It would take so long to go to bed as I had to check everything was off first, door locked etc. I couldn't read anything as I couldn't concentrate and slowly but surely my decline continued until I couldn't even leave my bed for several weeks. I couldn't make food for myself or wash my clothes, I became convinced that even my clean clothes were dirty. I would be totally unconvinced that the taps were off in the flat and would spend hours checking taps and that doors were locked.
The cruel thing about OCD is that even though you doubt everything that you do, there is still a part of your brain that is hyper aware of what you have done and haven't done so the confusion worsens as it is almost like having two conflicting people inside your brain. What's even more frustrating is that I knew that it was my own brain doing this to me but I was powerless to stop it, when I had a compulsion to check something for example I absolutely had to do it or the anxiety within me would rise to unbearable levels. Often it was easier to check whatever it was then walk away but then I wouldn't believe myself and would have to check again and again and again...
The anxiety was crippling, I felt nauseous pretty much most of the time and my stomach churned every time I even thought about doing anything that would involve me touching things. I stopped showering as the panic attacks made a shower last 2 hours and I would almost pass out. I stopped brushing my teeth, putting on make up and even brushing my hair. I had to do things over and over again until I felt right. Life became unbearable for both me and my poor long-suffering husband.
I really went to bits, the OCD was crushing me and my world seemed to get smaller and smaller with regards to where I felt I could go or what I could do. Due to the sheer helplessness I felt at not being able to control my thoughts and anxieties I became immensely depressed. I can't put into words exactly how low things got for me, I just felt that I was never going to get any better and that the rest of my life would be like that.
I am lucky enough to have a loving husband who did everything he could to help me. He urged me to see the doctor and he re-referred me back to my psychiatrist and they referred me to a mental health team. My husband went to every therapy session with me, held me when I was hysterical, shaking and sobbing, he supported me through everything. He even read as much about OCD as he could to see how he could help. The important thing is that he listened to me and never judged me and that made all the difference. In my life, whenever anyone noticed my OCD behaviour in the past they would often look at me with scorn, pity or bemusement and this just made me feel more ashamed. That's no ones fault, OCD is difficult to understand if you are not going through it.
I've been receiving therapy for several months now and I'm feeling a bit brighter. I accept that everyone has intrusive thoughts and that I am not a freak, but I have had to accept that I do have a mental illness for which there is unlikely to be no cure. I am learning new coping methods and trying my best to recognise my obsessive thoughts and apply what I have learned to get through them.
Without my husband I wouldn't be making such a good recovery today, his endless patience and support has kept me going through times that I just couldn't have borne alone. I have a long way to go and my recovery is slow but steady. I still find it incredibly difficult to get out of the house and walk around the streets without having anxiety attacks but I am getting better. I still worry that I have punched people or shouted at people on buses or in the street but it's getting easier to convince the doubting part of my brain that I haven't.
I am not looking for sympathy, pity or attention - the point of me writing this is to raise awareness of OCD, it can be an utterly debilitating condition. I may look funny when I am continuously checking things or if it takes me a long time to do something but it truly isn't amusing in any way. I would urge anyone with the same thing to seek help from their doctor as it may not improve on it's own. It is a distressing condition and one which can affect not only the person suffering from it but people closest to them. There are several treatments and although CBT may seem scary, believe me nothing is more scary than having to continue life the way I have been this past year.
I'm improving a little every day and with the help of my husband I know that, while I may not live a 'normal' life, things will get better.
I have been through a mammoth struggle in the past year and I really just want to get my thoughts out and to hopefully raise awareness of a disorder that can be utterly debilitating and left untreated can lead to all manner of problems functioning in life. It may seem a little selfish to talk about myself so much in this blog post but I really need to explain what has been happening.
As you may know, I have obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). I have had OCD since I was about 8 years old but it was only really diagnosed formally a few years ago. I've spent my entire life knowing that there was something that wasn't 'right' with me mentally but I didn't know exactly what it was.
Many people seem to have an inaccurate view of what OCD is, people regularly say to me - 'If you have OCD then at least your house must be immaculate!' which is just not true, I have a fear or chemicals that trumps my fear of contamination so I tend not to scrub things meticulously. My flat has 'safe' areas that I feel are clean and 'unsafe' areas that I feel uncomfortable in and are untouched for long periods of time. I also do not feel completely compelled to gain symmetry in everything as is often portrayed on the TV, some OCD sufferers do but others don't. Everyone with OCD has different obsessions and compulsions and it is important to understand this.
My first real memory of OCD behaviour was when I was a child. I remember being told that if you didn't drink enough that you would become dehydrated, I became extremely anxious about this, not knowing how much I was supposed to drink to keep hydrated. One night I drank as much water as I could before I went to bed, assuming that this would keep me hydrated. However, when I got into bed I became more and more anxious and got up several times to drink more water. As you can imagine, this lead to needing the toilet rather a lot but every time I went to the loo I became utterly terrified that as I had gotten rid of some water that I needed to drink more - so the cycle of going to the loo then drinking water from the tap continued throughout the night. I remember my parents getting cross with me, not understanding what was wrong, and telling me to go back to bed but every time I did I needed the loo, then I felt utterly compelled to drink more water.
In isolation this may just seem like the episode of an anxious child who perhaps got the wrong end of the stick when given some advice but some of my other behaviour highlighted that this was not just an isolated incident.
In my early years at secondary school I developed a series of tics that I couldn't control and for which I was generally mocked. I would clear my throat every few seconds, the compulsion to do so was overwhelming even when I didn't feel necessarily that my throat needed clearing. I developed a nervous cough and the more people mocked it, the worse it got. Surpressing it just made it worse, surpressing it led me to start sniffing every few seconds instead so then I was mocked for that. I found that in later life, surpressing my OCD behaviour would result in me feeling compelled to blink a certain number of times every few minutes.
I was a complete nervous wreck as a child for little reason, I worried about everything. If a disease was mentioned I would become completely consumed with worry that I would get that disease - I thought that every dog would give me rabies, that everything I touched would make me ill or poison me, that even walking under certain trees would cause me harm. I became terrified of death, every time I thought about the death of people around me or my own I would become almost hysterical.
My main problem was that, despite being absolutely terrified of pretty much everything, I was too scared to tell anyone about my thoughts. I was worried that I would be taken to a psychiatric hospital and locked away or that people wouldn't believe me. Every time I tried to explain to people what I was worried about and get reassurance people would look at me as if I were mad. My main phrase in life as a child seemed to be 'will I be alright if I do (insert anything here)?'. I must have driven my parents bananas with my constant asking for reassurance. Because no one actually knew what the problem was, no one could really help me. I felt so ashamed, asking for reassurance so often and so I developed ways to cope. Unfortunately these coping mechanisms were to make my anxiety and my life a whole lot worse.
I would check things copiously and often unnecessarily. The worst part of OCD is that, there is a part of your brain that says 'I know that I have locked my door' or 'I know that I have switched the tap off' but there is another more insidious part of the brain that continuously questions and doubts whether you do know that things have been done.
Looking back, my OCD has affected large parts of my life - I almost missed an exam at college as I had to go back home and check that my hair tongs were off, despite the more rational part of my brain knowing that I had unplugged them before I left the house. I have often missed out on going places because of anxiety about food, available toilets, fear of contamination, fear of not locking the door of my house properly. In one of my jobs in my life I was the only girl in the office and was completely terrified that the tap would be left on in the female toilets and that I would be blamed even if it wasn't me so after leaving work I would often have to go back and check the taps several times - no matter how close to home I got. I would touch things with tissues in my own home if I felt they were 'contaminated'.
A lot of my life has revolved around my OCD and it has prevented me from doing so many things. At several points in my life my hands have been cracked, sore and bleeding due to the sheer amount of handwashing I have done to ease my anxiety about contamination. I kept quiet about it, tried to hide my coping behaviours from people but that has always made them worse and I have suffered clinical depression for most of my adult life because of my OCD. Whenever I tell people that I have suffered from depression they usually say 'but you seem so cheerful!' - sadly I have tried to cover my misery most of my life that I tend to think that everyone wants to see me cheerful and have done so. OCD can be such a destructive disorder.
Over the past year I have had the biggest flare up of my OCD that I have ever experienced and I have had to finally face up to the rather grim reality that, although OCD can wax and wane, there is no absolute cure. I think that this was the biggest cause of my depression, I had to face up to the fact that my OCD is a disability which I will probably fight against for the rest of my life.
I haven't been very communicative over the past year or so, my OCD overwhelmed me. I have isolated myself and been too afraid to see people. For the past year or so I have not been able to function in any capacity. There was no one single event that caused this relapse, just a slow decline into the worst period of mental illness in my life.
About a year or so ago I was coping with my OCD symptoms. I would check things but not obsessively, wash my hands but not to excess. I was able to get buses, travel places, go to supermarkets - all the usual things that most people do on a daily basis. Slowly I started to notice that I was checking the floor more often, worrying that I was standing on sharp things like knifes or needles, this fear started to escalate until I could barely go anywhere without worrying that I had cut my foot open and that I would bleed to death. I have always had checking and washing behaviour but I was unprepared for the horrors of my OCD that were to come.
While sitting on a bus one morning there was a girl sat behind me talking on her mobile phone, I was fiddling with my MP3 player and not paying much attention. The bus came to my stop and I started to get up and walk down the bus when I suddenly thought 'What if I have hurt that girl in some way?'. Now, you need to understand that while people have intrusive thoughts all the time, most people dismiss them - consider the last odd thought that crossed your mind, you probably dismissed it right? With me and a lot of other OCD sufferers, we tend to attach more meaning to those thoughts than they really require. I thought 'I wouldn't hurt anyone physically, ever! I didn't hurt the girl' but my brain wouldn't let it go. I then thought 'Aah, but you were worried that you had hurt her so maybe you did'. I searched my memory and in my heart of hearts I knew that I hadn't hurt her in any way or even gone near her - but my brain kept doubting my memories. I turned back to look at the girl and she looked fine, chattering away on her phone, but my brain told me that maybe I was confused and perhaps I had hurt her but was seeing her as fine because I wanted to. I started to feel anxious and as I got off the bus I continuously checked that the girl was ok, she was fine but I couldn't convince myself of that. As the bus drove away I could see the girl and knew she was fine so why was I worrying that I may have hurt her??? I couldn't breathe properly, my breathing was coming fast and my heart was beating so quickly I thought that it was going to beat out of my chest. I started to feel light headed and my fingers tingled, I felt like I was going to pass out or have a heart attack. To say it was awful is an understatement. I don't want to hurt anyone, I never would hurt anyone deliberately so why would I worry that I had hurt a complete stranger? I have since found that the anxiety is due to the disparity between what you think and your general ideas on things - I never want to hurt anyone and even the thought that perhaps I had hurt someone caused massive anxiety.
During the course of that day there were several instances of the same thing, I started worrying that I had punched people or shouted at them in the street. I started to worry about what I was saying and doing and this hyper vigilance just served to make things worse because the more I tried to remember what I had said or done, the more my brain would say 'Well, if you thought it then you must have done it'. The absence of the memory of shouting things, doing things etc just made me think that perhaps I had done those things but couldn't remember. I had so many panic attacks that day that I had to go home and when I went home I simply went to bed as the mental exhaustion was horrendous. I worried that my thoughts made me a bad person, that I was somehow evil deep down and that was why I was having these thoughts. I worried that I was being possessed, I felt so confused and scared all the time with no reason whatsoever.
Now, I just want to reitterate that I am in no way dangerous, I know that, my psychiatrist knows that and you need to know that. Apparently the fact that I have these anxieties is supposedly a good sign as it means that I have no desire to do any of the things I worry about and wont carry out any of these things.
I genuinely started to think that I was losing my mind and due to the sheer volume of panic attacks I had started to have on buses, in the street etc. I became utterly terrified to even go outside. This led to my agoraphobia. Every time I tried to leave the house I ended up having a panic attack, even the mention of having to attend any appointment gave me panic attacks.
Just because I didn't go outside didn't mean that the problems ended. I became scared to touch things in my flat, things that I had been able to touch perfectly fine before I now considered contaminated. I couldn't even use the phone or the computer at one point, fearing that they were somehow dirty and contaminated. I could barely eat anything as I worried that my food would be contaminated. It would take so long to go to bed as I had to check everything was off first, door locked etc. I couldn't read anything as I couldn't concentrate and slowly but surely my decline continued until I couldn't even leave my bed for several weeks. I couldn't make food for myself or wash my clothes, I became convinced that even my clean clothes were dirty. I would be totally unconvinced that the taps were off in the flat and would spend hours checking taps and that doors were locked.
The cruel thing about OCD is that even though you doubt everything that you do, there is still a part of your brain that is hyper aware of what you have done and haven't done so the confusion worsens as it is almost like having two conflicting people inside your brain. What's even more frustrating is that I knew that it was my own brain doing this to me but I was powerless to stop it, when I had a compulsion to check something for example I absolutely had to do it or the anxiety within me would rise to unbearable levels. Often it was easier to check whatever it was then walk away but then I wouldn't believe myself and would have to check again and again and again...
The anxiety was crippling, I felt nauseous pretty much most of the time and my stomach churned every time I even thought about doing anything that would involve me touching things. I stopped showering as the panic attacks made a shower last 2 hours and I would almost pass out. I stopped brushing my teeth, putting on make up and even brushing my hair. I had to do things over and over again until I felt right. Life became unbearable for both me and my poor long-suffering husband.
I really went to bits, the OCD was crushing me and my world seemed to get smaller and smaller with regards to where I felt I could go or what I could do. Due to the sheer helplessness I felt at not being able to control my thoughts and anxieties I became immensely depressed. I can't put into words exactly how low things got for me, I just felt that I was never going to get any better and that the rest of my life would be like that.
I am lucky enough to have a loving husband who did everything he could to help me. He urged me to see the doctor and he re-referred me back to my psychiatrist and they referred me to a mental health team. My husband went to every therapy session with me, held me when I was hysterical, shaking and sobbing, he supported me through everything. He even read as much about OCD as he could to see how he could help. The important thing is that he listened to me and never judged me and that made all the difference. In my life, whenever anyone noticed my OCD behaviour in the past they would often look at me with scorn, pity or bemusement and this just made me feel more ashamed. That's no ones fault, OCD is difficult to understand if you are not going through it.
I've been receiving therapy for several months now and I'm feeling a bit brighter. I accept that everyone has intrusive thoughts and that I am not a freak, but I have had to accept that I do have a mental illness for which there is unlikely to be no cure. I am learning new coping methods and trying my best to recognise my obsessive thoughts and apply what I have learned to get through them.
Without my husband I wouldn't be making such a good recovery today, his endless patience and support has kept me going through times that I just couldn't have borne alone. I have a long way to go and my recovery is slow but steady. I still find it incredibly difficult to get out of the house and walk around the streets without having anxiety attacks but I am getting better. I still worry that I have punched people or shouted at people on buses or in the street but it's getting easier to convince the doubting part of my brain that I haven't.
I am not looking for sympathy, pity or attention - the point of me writing this is to raise awareness of OCD, it can be an utterly debilitating condition. I may look funny when I am continuously checking things or if it takes me a long time to do something but it truly isn't amusing in any way. I would urge anyone with the same thing to seek help from their doctor as it may not improve on it's own. It is a distressing condition and one which can affect not only the person suffering from it but people closest to them. There are several treatments and although CBT may seem scary, believe me nothing is more scary than having to continue life the way I have been this past year.
I'm improving a little every day and with the help of my husband I know that, while I may not live a 'normal' life, things will get better.
Friday, 27 November 2009
The bus fuss...
I don't know if it is just me, perhaps I have a sign on my face of which I'm unaware or maybe I have the sort of face that says that I am eager to please, but people on buses regularly talk to me. I don't mean 'Ooh, this weather is terrible isn't it?' or 'The price of bus fares gone up again? Gosh, I remember when it was 50p' etc. I'm talking about random non-sequiturs such as 'That was the pub!!! That's where it happened!' or 'Did you have the sprouts?'.
Today was another example of bus passenger conversation that completely threw me. I had to go to the hospital this morning as I was given a set of tests last week and I was told to provide a urine sample. To cut a long story short I messed up the test and, for reasons that will remain undisclosed due to not wanting to get into the ickyness of the situation, I had to return to the hospital to pick up another sample bottle. My OCD has led to extreme agoraphobia over the past few months and on several occasions, going out of the house and even to the hospital has led to panic attacks. Today I was incredibly shaky but I just about coped. Anyway, I was riding along on the bus, attempting to go home when I decided that I would get off at another stop past my flat and then get a bus back - don't ask, there was a logic there but it's probably not worth analysis. Just as I passed the flat an elderly gentleman in the seat in front of me suddenly spun around and said loudly 'I used to live round here you know'. I didn't quite hear him at first as I was wearing headphones and trying to calm down so I took them off and said 'Sorry?' and he repeated himself 'I used to live up there' he said, pointing to the bus window but not in any direction that I could really attribute to a particular location 'Have you heard of *mumble*?' As I didn't hear him and he was a complete stranger to me I felt the need to be polite and I didn't want to seem like I hadn't been listening because I had so I chose the polite option 'No, I don't think I know that' I replied and at which point he looked faintly cross and turned away. I waited for his reply but he returned to staring out of the window. A few people on the bus looked at me bemused but the man didn't turn around again. As I got off the bus a few stops later I turned to the man and said 'Have a good day' but he just looked at me as if I had said 'Screw you!' which incidentally made me obsess at to whether I had been offensive even though I knew that I hadn't - oh the joys of OCD!
Admittedly this isn't the most extreme bus incident that I have been involved in, there have been numerous other bus encounters both good and bad, but it made me think of some of the things that have happened.
Perhaps these things have occurred because of the frequency with which I travel on public transport or maybe I am just a magnet for bus weirdness but you'd think I would be used to it by now. The bus service in Edinburgh is excellent, better than I have experienced anywhere else, the buses are warm, comfortable, reasonably priced and generally on time (prior to the closing of Princes Street and the subsequent tram network building works anyway - but that's a whole different conversation for another day). As anyone who lives in Edinburgh knows, it seems much easier to get around Edinburgh on the buses than by car.
Now, I wouldn't consider myself the most unsociable person in the world but as I'm sure that anyone who knows me would probably tell you that I am utterly inept when it comes to small talk. I don't know what it is but I just can't manage small talk with strangers, I can happily talk to people about anything as if I have known them for years but ask me to have a conversation about the weather and I end up nervously talking about something wholly inappropriate like sex and then I feel embarrassed but can't stop talking. It's not a pretty sight, my burbling nervously away. I also noticed another horrible trait I have when attempting to be polite - I can't seem to control my facial expressions properly. Yesterday on a bus (again!) a little dog was on the bus and was sniffing at my legs inquisitively and the dogs owner said 'Don't worry, she's ok' and I replied 'She's just trying to be friendly' and I smiled but as I caught sight of myself in the reflection in the bus window I looked like a clown attempting to go to the loo! My smile was sort of forced and wonky because I was nervous but I must have looked positively maniacal! I got off the bus shortly afterwards as I was so embarrassed.
I've spent a lot of time on buses over the years, my Dad is a bus driver and I think that my enjoyment of travelling on buses must be in my genes. I love just sitting there watching the scenery go by, perhaps that's one of the reasons on a long list why I have never learned to drive. Anyway, I digress...
Travelling on buses a lot has led to several incidents that I have never forgotten for various reasons and some people I know may have heard about these incidents.
While on an Edinburgh bus I got on and noticed that the bus was crowded but there was one seat facing backwards in front of a rather sleepy looking elderly gentleman. There were people standing in the aisles which should have been an indication to avoid the man but I thought 'how bad can it be?' and I seated myself in front of the man. Within seconds of the bus setting off the man raised his head and bellowed 'MMMMoooooonnn Riiiiivvveerrr!!!!' and proceeded to sing 'Moon River' interspersed with him tapping my leg and yelling 'Come on blondie!!! Sing up!!!'.
I wanted to say no, I wanted to pretend that I hadn't heard him but he continued to yell at me so I ended up loudly singing 'Moon River' and 'Oh Danny Boy' with the man, facing the entire rest of the bewildered bus passengers. I really wanted to get off the bus but I had heavy bags and all I wanted to do was go home so I effectively performed several musical numbers to a busful of people coerced by a random drunken man! Oh the shame!
A few years ago I had been on an all night drinking session with a few mates and I stayed at one of those mate's house. I staggered out of their house at around 9am the next morning having had no sleep at all and for some reason I decided that I wanted to go do a bit of shopping in Princes Street before I went home. After wandering around like a zombie for a few hours I decided that I needed my bed so I caught the bus. Now the only reason I am setting the scene in this way is because I want you to know what state I was in when this occurred. It was summer and it was warm on the bus and it had become infested with flies and wasps. One of the wasps flew to the back of the bus and was zzzing around madly. People were shuffling around and trying to avoid getting stung when this guy stepped forward, took a piece of paper out of his pockets and unceremoniously squished the wasp. A girl cried in horror 'oh, you didnae have to kill it!' at which point the man turned around and on a hugely crowded bus said 'I like killing things'. There was a sort of stunned silence before a guy at the back said 'ooookkkaaayyyy'. The man then asked the passenger next to him the following horrifying question 'Have you ever killed a rat?' and he proceeded to explain how to kill a rat, he moved on to explaining how other animals can be killed and I hurriedly got off the bus in fear. Now, maybe he was just joking or perhaps he was a professional pest controller but I wasn't sticking around to find out. Most of the other bus passengers followed suit and perhaps that was his motive for saying it, it was a crowded bus after all. It was sort of simultaneously horrifying and comedic.
Years ago, while waiting for a bus with my boyfriend at the time an elderly gentleman shuffled up to me and said 'Can you put your hand in my pocket love?'. I must have stared at the guy with astonishment for quite a few seconds as he repeated himself and I ended up replying 'What for?!?'. It turned out that his bus pass was in his back pocket (thankfully not his front pockets although I'm not sure that it made it any better a request!) and he had arthritis in his hands so couldn't retrieve it. Don't get me wrong, it is a perfectly reasonable request and I am always happy to help people but what sort of opening line to a stranger is 'Can you put your hand in my pocket love?'?!?! I retrieved said bus pass and he wandered off leaving my boyfriend at the time howling with laughter and me pondering how he got it in there in the first place...
Ok, I suppose strictly speaking that was a 'waiting for a bus' story rather than a 'bus story' so onto the next one.
Many years ago when I was thinner and much younger I had just had my hair permed and was wearing a vibrant red dress and feeling quite good about myself, an elderly gentleman on the bus leaned over to me and asked the time. I gave him the time and he said 'do you know that you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen?'. Judging by the vodka he was swigging and the fact that it didn't look like his first drink of the day, I took the comment with a pinch of salt. I thanked him but he kept insisting that I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and we almost got into a fight as I disagreed. I suppose to be fair, as I didn't know him, I didn't have any previous experience of the women he had seen throughout his life so possibly I was a bit hasty in challenging his view but I'm not exactly Angelina Jolie. So rigid was he in his opinion that I had to get off the bus several stops earlier than I had planned only to find that he followed me to the supermarket I was going to. Thankfully I managed to shake him off before things got out of hand. I'm sure he just wanted me to believe him and I know that it was a lovely compliment but it was also quite a scary experience.
Now I don't want you to think that it's just Edinburgh, I was on a train in New York and a magazine hit me on the head from the rack above. A girl started talking to me, asking me if I was ok when this man further down the train yelled that it was my fault that I was hit on the head by the magazine. I don't know how that was even possible as I hadn't put the magazine in the overhead rack but apparently it was my fault!
Admittedly my bus experiences have generally been in Edinburgh. After a guy on the bus said 'Isn't this snow awful?' I agreed and we were talking about snow in general when this other guy leaned over and angrily said 'Snow! This is nothing! In Canada the snow was up to my neck!' and I said 'Oh it's never been that bad here' and he said 'Well think yourself lucky! You don't know the meaning of the word snow!!' before turning away in disgust. It wasn't a competition! It wasn't even a conversation I was having with him, it was just general British weather chatter. Like I said, I'm not good at small talk.
Another time, while sat on a bus in a traffic jam, a drunken guy was sat in front of me and he kept looking at me and saying 'you alright?' repeatedly to me and each time I said 'yes' he continued in the same tone but when I didn't reply he started shouting it at me until I replied so I moved seats. In the new seat I was accompanied by another guy who said 'That's a wee shame, being shouted at like that, young girl like you, shouldnae have to put up with that'. I politely thanked the man and he asked me if I lived in Edinburgh, I said yes and he asked me if I was married. At the time I wasn't and said so and he asked me if I owned my flat. When I said no he said 'There's a way you could get a house y'know'. By this time you'd have thought I would be used to this but I still said 'How do you mean?' and he said 'Get yourself pregnant, that'd do it. I've got a friend who could get you pregnant if you like?'. Seriously, he asked me if I had thought of it as an option and I said 'Erm, no thank you' and he said 'Oh well if you don't want my advice then!' and turned away! I mean, what can you do! The bus was in a massive traffic jam and there was nowhere for me to escape but back to the 'you alright?' man seat!
The strange thing is, I just want to underline the fact that all of these happened during daylight hours! I dread to think what it's like at night on the buses!
So to all the bus drivers who must experience a lot more than I see, I salute you. If you've had to cope with the superset of my bus experiences, you must have so much patience and a sense of humour! And to the bus driver who said a few months ago 'I could write a book about the mad things that happen on here!', please do, if nothing else it will be cathartic!
Today was another example of bus passenger conversation that completely threw me. I had to go to the hospital this morning as I was given a set of tests last week and I was told to provide a urine sample. To cut a long story short I messed up the test and, for reasons that will remain undisclosed due to not wanting to get into the ickyness of the situation, I had to return to the hospital to pick up another sample bottle. My OCD has led to extreme agoraphobia over the past few months and on several occasions, going out of the house and even to the hospital has led to panic attacks. Today I was incredibly shaky but I just about coped. Anyway, I was riding along on the bus, attempting to go home when I decided that I would get off at another stop past my flat and then get a bus back - don't ask, there was a logic there but it's probably not worth analysis. Just as I passed the flat an elderly gentleman in the seat in front of me suddenly spun around and said loudly 'I used to live round here you know'. I didn't quite hear him at first as I was wearing headphones and trying to calm down so I took them off and said 'Sorry?' and he repeated himself 'I used to live up there' he said, pointing to the bus window but not in any direction that I could really attribute to a particular location 'Have you heard of *
Admittedly this isn't the most extreme bus incident that I have been involved in, there have been numerous other bus encounters both good and bad, but it made me think of some of the things that have happened.
Perhaps these things have occurred because of the frequency with which I travel on public transport or maybe I am just a magnet for bus weirdness but you'd think I would be used to it by now. The bus service in Edinburgh is excellent, better than I have experienced anywhere else, the buses are warm, comfortable, reasonably priced and generally on time (prior to the closing of Princes Street and the subsequent tram network building works anyway - but that's a whole different conversation for another day). As anyone who lives in Edinburgh knows, it seems much easier to get around Edinburgh on the buses than by car.
Now, I wouldn't consider myself the most unsociable person in the world but as I'm sure that anyone who knows me would probably tell you that I am utterly inept when it comes to small talk. I don't know what it is but I just can't manage small talk with strangers, I can happily talk to people about anything as if I have known them for years but ask me to have a conversation about the weather and I end up nervously talking about something wholly inappropriate like sex and then I feel embarrassed but can't stop talking. It's not a pretty sight, my burbling nervously away. I also noticed another horrible trait I have when attempting to be polite - I can't seem to control my facial expressions properly. Yesterday on a bus (again!) a little dog was on the bus and was sniffing at my legs inquisitively and the dogs owner said 'Don't worry, she's ok' and I replied 'She's just trying to be friendly' and I smiled but as I caught sight of myself in the reflection in the bus window I looked like a clown attempting to go to the loo! My smile was sort of forced and wonky because I was nervous but I must have looked positively maniacal! I got off the bus shortly afterwards as I was so embarrassed.
I've spent a lot of time on buses over the years, my Dad is a bus driver and I think that my enjoyment of travelling on buses must be in my genes. I love just sitting there watching the scenery go by, perhaps that's one of the reasons on a long list why I have never learned to drive. Anyway, I digress...
Travelling on buses a lot has led to several incidents that I have never forgotten for various reasons and some people I know may have heard about these incidents.
While on an Edinburgh bus I got on and noticed that the bus was crowded but there was one seat facing backwards in front of a rather sleepy looking elderly gentleman. There were people standing in the aisles which should have been an indication to avoid the man but I thought 'how bad can it be?' and I seated myself in front of the man. Within seconds of the bus setting off the man raised his head and bellowed 'MMMMoooooonnn Riiiiivvveerrr!!!!' and proceeded to sing 'Moon River' interspersed with him tapping my leg and yelling 'Come on blondie!!! Sing up!!!'.
I wanted to say no, I wanted to pretend that I hadn't heard him but he continued to yell at me so I ended up loudly singing 'Moon River' and 'Oh Danny Boy' with the man, facing the entire rest of the bewildered bus passengers. I really wanted to get off the bus but I had heavy bags and all I wanted to do was go home so I effectively performed several musical numbers to a busful of people coerced by a random drunken man! Oh the shame!
A few years ago I had been on an all night drinking session with a few mates and I stayed at one of those mate's house. I staggered out of their house at around 9am the next morning having had no sleep at all and for some reason I decided that I wanted to go do a bit of shopping in Princes Street before I went home. After wandering around like a zombie for a few hours I decided that I needed my bed so I caught the bus. Now the only reason I am setting the scene in this way is because I want you to know what state I was in when this occurred. It was summer and it was warm on the bus and it had become infested with flies and wasps. One of the wasps flew to the back of the bus and was zzzing around madly. People were shuffling around and trying to avoid getting stung when this guy stepped forward, took a piece of paper out of his pockets and unceremoniously squished the wasp. A girl cried in horror 'oh, you didnae have to kill it!' at which point the man turned around and on a hugely crowded bus said 'I like killing things'. There was a sort of stunned silence before a guy at the back said 'ooookkkaaayyyy'. The man then asked the passenger next to him the following horrifying question 'Have you ever killed a rat?' and he proceeded to explain how to kill a rat, he moved on to explaining how other animals can be killed and I hurriedly got off the bus in fear. Now, maybe he was just joking or perhaps he was a professional pest controller but I wasn't sticking around to find out. Most of the other bus passengers followed suit and perhaps that was his motive for saying it, it was a crowded bus after all. It was sort of simultaneously horrifying and comedic.
Years ago, while waiting for a bus with my boyfriend at the time an elderly gentleman shuffled up to me and said 'Can you put your hand in my pocket love?'. I must have stared at the guy with astonishment for quite a few seconds as he repeated himself and I ended up replying 'What for?!?'. It turned out that his bus pass was in his back pocket (thankfully not his front pockets although I'm not sure that it made it any better a request!) and he had arthritis in his hands so couldn't retrieve it. Don't get me wrong, it is a perfectly reasonable request and I am always happy to help people but what sort of opening line to a stranger is 'Can you put your hand in my pocket love?'?!?! I retrieved said bus pass and he wandered off leaving my boyfriend at the time howling with laughter and me pondering how he got it in there in the first place...
Ok, I suppose strictly speaking that was a 'waiting for a bus' story rather than a 'bus story' so onto the next one.
Many years ago when I was thinner and much younger I had just had my hair permed and was wearing a vibrant red dress and feeling quite good about myself, an elderly gentleman on the bus leaned over to me and asked the time. I gave him the time and he said 'do you know that you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen?'. Judging by the vodka he was swigging and the fact that it didn't look like his first drink of the day, I took the comment with a pinch of salt. I thanked him but he kept insisting that I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and we almost got into a fight as I disagreed. I suppose to be fair, as I didn't know him, I didn't have any previous experience of the women he had seen throughout his life so possibly I was a bit hasty in challenging his view but I'm not exactly Angelina Jolie. So rigid was he in his opinion that I had to get off the bus several stops earlier than I had planned only to find that he followed me to the supermarket I was going to. Thankfully I managed to shake him off before things got out of hand. I'm sure he just wanted me to believe him and I know that it was a lovely compliment but it was also quite a scary experience.
Now I don't want you to think that it's just Edinburgh, I was on a train in New York and a magazine hit me on the head from the rack above. A girl started talking to me, asking me if I was ok when this man further down the train yelled that it was my fault that I was hit on the head by the magazine. I don't know how that was even possible as I hadn't put the magazine in the overhead rack but apparently it was my fault!
Admittedly my bus experiences have generally been in Edinburgh. After a guy on the bus said 'Isn't this snow awful?' I agreed and we were talking about snow in general when this other guy leaned over and angrily said 'Snow! This is nothing! In Canada the snow was up to my neck!' and I said 'Oh it's never been that bad here' and he said 'Well think yourself lucky! You don't know the meaning of the word snow!!' before turning away in disgust. It wasn't a competition! It wasn't even a conversation I was having with him, it was just general British weather chatter. Like I said, I'm not good at small talk.
Another time, while sat on a bus in a traffic jam, a drunken guy was sat in front of me and he kept looking at me and saying 'you alright?' repeatedly to me and each time I said 'yes' he continued in the same tone but when I didn't reply he started shouting it at me until I replied so I moved seats. In the new seat I was accompanied by another guy who said 'That's a wee shame, being shouted at like that, young girl like you, shouldnae have to put up with that'. I politely thanked the man and he asked me if I lived in Edinburgh, I said yes and he asked me if I was married. At the time I wasn't and said so and he asked me if I owned my flat. When I said no he said 'There's a way you could get a house y'know'. By this time you'd have thought I would be used to this but I still said 'How do you mean?' and he said 'Get yourself pregnant, that'd do it. I've got a friend who could get you pregnant if you like?'. Seriously, he asked me if I had thought of it as an option and I said 'Erm, no thank you' and he said 'Oh well if you don't want my advice then!' and turned away! I mean, what can you do! The bus was in a massive traffic jam and there was nowhere for me to escape but back to the 'you alright?' man seat!
The strange thing is, I just want to underline the fact that all of these happened during daylight hours! I dread to think what it's like at night on the buses!
So to all the bus drivers who must experience a lot more than I see, I salute you. If you've had to cope with the superset of my bus experiences, you must have so much patience and a sense of humour! And to the bus driver who said a few months ago 'I could write a book about the mad things that happen on here!', please do, if nothing else it will be cathartic!
Friday, 13 November 2009
The Fear of it all
I saw a psychologist recently to talk about my OCD and general anxiety and I was thinking about the nature of fear, seeing as that seems to be at the root of the vast majority of my problems.
Now you may think that is a pretty miserable way to start a blog post but I have been battling depression my dear reader, I will attempt to keep this post light without straying into the totally morose :) Someone told me recently that they found my blog posts boring which sort of upset me but I decided that I would write this anyway, seeing as I had something to say and wanted to say it. Plus I spend most days alone so it is nice to feel like I am talking to someone, even if no one ever reads this far.
I'm frightened of pretty much everything! I didn't think that this was the case until I was compiling an 'anxiety ladder' - basically a list of things I'm frightened of in order of how terrified I am of each. Now, rather hysterically, this lead me to actually think for once of what I am truly terrified of...and it turns out to be pretty much everything! I suppose realistically I should have made a list of things that were likely to happen and a separate list of things that are very unlikely to happen as adding all my worries to the list made it ludicrously long!
With the psychologist's help I managed to get this down to two main fears - Fear of loneliness and Fear of death for myself or my friends and family - which pretty much encompasses everything! I have always had these two specific fears but ridding myself of these fears appears impossible.
A few years ago I decided to see what actually frightened me TV wise to try and somehow relieve some of the fear. I spent about 6 months watching as many horror films as I could possibly manage in my own obsessively fastidious way. Not only did this lead to a lot of desensitisation but it also lead to some pretty horrendous nightmares and thus the reappearance of my long standing insomnia. I eventually found several TV shows/characters that quite literally terrified me:
1. Ghostwatch - Yep, the BBC drama that launched a vast amount of my teenage nightmares. I watched the show when I was about 15 and despite the warnings and the clearly bizarre ending and the fact that even though Sarah Green disappeared into a cupboard never to be seen again she was on TV during the next few days, it still dug deep into some sort of deeply traumatic part of my psyche. It didn't help that my Dad seemed to think that my fear of a made up ghost on a drama was hilariously funny and this led to him shouting 'Pipes is coming to get you!' at various moments (referring to the ghost within the show). I can laugh about it now but it wasn't enormously funny at the time. In retrospect my fears of this show were laughable but you know what, I bought it on DVD a few years ago and I couldn't bear to watch it. I bought it from a well known retailer during the day and I took it home, put it in the DVD player and attempted to watch it at 2pm in the afternoon and I couldn't get past the DVD menu screen! Somehow this show led to 'a bad taste in the brain' as my husband calls it, the experience of being terrified of something that you didn't think that was that scary long after the films credits have rolled.
2. The Woman in Black - Not sure how many people have seen this drama but it just goes to prove that you don't need a huge budget of special effects and a bevvy of attractive actresses running around screaming to make a truly unsettling TV. The show was based on a novel by Susan Hill and I saw it when I was about 13. There is one specific moment that utterly chills the blood as the main character in the story is lying in bed he awakes to a most extraordinary vision. I wont spoil it for those who wish to see it but it most definitely led to the 'bad taste in the brain' situation for me.
3. Twilight Zone: Nightmare at 20000 feet - This shouldn't be as scary as it is but somehow this sort of plugged into my dual fears of flight and seeing garish faces at the window when you don't quite expect it. I tried to watch this again recently and I just couldn't bring myself to go through it again.
4. Davros: Leader of the Daleks - I utterly adore Doctor Who but just the sight of Davros has me hiding behind the sofa! I just don't know what it is about Davros' terrifying visage that troubles me the most, I think it leads back to my general fear of Daleks in my childhood. The idea that something could be so uncaring and unflinching in it's goal to 'Exterminate!', not allowing any room for compromise or negotiation, just terrifies me. This has not been improved for me seeing as the Daleks can now fly thus rendering the running upstairs for safety option completely useless.
This is just 4 of the most televisually petrifying things for me but I assure you that the full list is pretty long! Surprisingly most of the true horror films didn't really scare me that much and I found that most of the things that I find truly terrifying are those things that seem remotely plausible to actually occur.
I have been reading a book recently that indicates that, although people fear certain situations, the likelihood of these things happening are fairly slim. It gives facts and figures to back up the information but sadly it still doesn't stop me from worrying about meteorites falling on my flat or seeing a face staring through a window several storeys up. I've got that sort of 'The probability of that happening is miniscule...but it's still possible' mentality which is never going to help.
I think most of us live with a general fear day to day, there's so much to worry about and the overriding fears of the general public seem to have changed over the years.
With my OCD I worry about pretty much everything to the point where it affects my day to day functioning, the fear is often overwhelming but sometimes the fear of the opposite of something happening can be just as terrifying. Someone once told me that if a good opportunity comes along you need to grab it and not let fear hold you back. Fear of unemployment many years ago spurred me to walk into an office and ask for a job even though they hadn't advertised one - incidentally they gave me a job apparently because of my sheer courage (and a good reference helped I understand :) ). Fear of missing bugs made me strive to be as good at software testing as I can possibly be so I worked harder (and hopefully smarter). I've said on many occasions that although my OCD can often override my brain, it does have the advantage of making me strive harder at things and you can't beat enthusiasm and determination. I was told recently that my determination is palpable when it comes to beating my OCD but it is simply the fear of not being able to live my life properly that gives me the determination to carry on. So there you go, fear is not all bad I suppose.
Think of all the things you do each day or rather the things you may not do because of fear, you may be surprised. I dyed my hair a few weeks ago for the first time in my 32 year old life, what had always stopped me before was fear - fear I would hate the colour and fear that I would mess it up. I had my hair dyed a vibrant red and you know what, I love it! Fear stopped me doing it before but now I feel like a new woman!
Well, I may always fear the daleks, I may always fear things that go bump in the night but apparently I have been told that the only thing to fear is 'fear itself'...
Great, that's another fear to add to my anxiety ladder...
Now you may think that is a pretty miserable way to start a blog post but I have been battling depression my dear reader, I will attempt to keep this post light without straying into the totally morose :) Someone told me recently that they found my blog posts boring which sort of upset me but I decided that I would write this anyway, seeing as I had something to say and wanted to say it. Plus I spend most days alone so it is nice to feel like I am talking to someone, even if no one ever reads this far.
I'm frightened of pretty much everything! I didn't think that this was the case until I was compiling an 'anxiety ladder' - basically a list of things I'm frightened of in order of how terrified I am of each. Now, rather hysterically, this lead me to actually think for once of what I am truly terrified of...and it turns out to be pretty much everything! I suppose realistically I should have made a list of things that were likely to happen and a separate list of things that are very unlikely to happen as adding all my worries to the list made it ludicrously long!
With the psychologist's help I managed to get this down to two main fears - Fear of loneliness and Fear of death for myself or my friends and family - which pretty much encompasses everything! I have always had these two specific fears but ridding myself of these fears appears impossible.
A few years ago I decided to see what actually frightened me TV wise to try and somehow relieve some of the fear. I spent about 6 months watching as many horror films as I could possibly manage in my own obsessively fastidious way. Not only did this lead to a lot of desensitisation but it also lead to some pretty horrendous nightmares and thus the reappearance of my long standing insomnia. I eventually found several TV shows/characters that quite literally terrified me:
1. Ghostwatch - Yep, the BBC drama that launched a vast amount of my teenage nightmares. I watched the show when I was about 15 and despite the warnings and the clearly bizarre ending and the fact that even though Sarah Green disappeared into a cupboard never to be seen again she was on TV during the next few days, it still dug deep into some sort of deeply traumatic part of my psyche. It didn't help that my Dad seemed to think that my fear of a made up ghost on a drama was hilariously funny and this led to him shouting 'Pipes is coming to get you!' at various moments (referring to the ghost within the show). I can laugh about it now but it wasn't enormously funny at the time. In retrospect my fears of this show were laughable but you know what, I bought it on DVD a few years ago and I couldn't bear to watch it. I bought it from a well known retailer during the day and I took it home, put it in the DVD player and attempted to watch it at 2pm in the afternoon and I couldn't get past the DVD menu screen! Somehow this show led to 'a bad taste in the brain' as my husband calls it, the experience of being terrified of something that you didn't think that was that scary long after the films credits have rolled.
2. The Woman in Black - Not sure how many people have seen this drama but it just goes to prove that you don't need a huge budget of special effects and a bevvy of attractive actresses running around screaming to make a truly unsettling TV. The show was based on a novel by Susan Hill and I saw it when I was about 13. There is one specific moment that utterly chills the blood as the main character in the story is lying in bed he awakes to a most extraordinary vision. I wont spoil it for those who wish to see it but it most definitely led to the 'bad taste in the brain' situation for me.
3. Twilight Zone: Nightmare at 20000 feet - This shouldn't be as scary as it is but somehow this sort of plugged into my dual fears of flight and seeing garish faces at the window when you don't quite expect it. I tried to watch this again recently and I just couldn't bring myself to go through it again.
4. Davros: Leader of the Daleks - I utterly adore Doctor Who but just the sight of Davros has me hiding behind the sofa! I just don't know what it is about Davros' terrifying visage that troubles me the most, I think it leads back to my general fear of Daleks in my childhood. The idea that something could be so uncaring and unflinching in it's goal to 'Exterminate!', not allowing any room for compromise or negotiation, just terrifies me. This has not been improved for me seeing as the Daleks can now fly thus rendering the running upstairs for safety option completely useless.
This is just 4 of the most televisually petrifying things for me but I assure you that the full list is pretty long! Surprisingly most of the true horror films didn't really scare me that much and I found that most of the things that I find truly terrifying are those things that seem remotely plausible to actually occur.
I have been reading a book recently that indicates that, although people fear certain situations, the likelihood of these things happening are fairly slim. It gives facts and figures to back up the information but sadly it still doesn't stop me from worrying about meteorites falling on my flat or seeing a face staring through a window several storeys up. I've got that sort of 'The probability of that happening is miniscule...but it's still possible' mentality which is never going to help.
I think most of us live with a general fear day to day, there's so much to worry about and the overriding fears of the general public seem to have changed over the years.
With my OCD I worry about pretty much everything to the point where it affects my day to day functioning, the fear is often overwhelming but sometimes the fear of the opposite of something happening can be just as terrifying. Someone once told me that if a good opportunity comes along you need to grab it and not let fear hold you back. Fear of unemployment many years ago spurred me to walk into an office and ask for a job even though they hadn't advertised one - incidentally they gave me a job apparently because of my sheer courage (and a good reference helped I understand :) ). Fear of missing bugs made me strive to be as good at software testing as I can possibly be so I worked harder (and hopefully smarter). I've said on many occasions that although my OCD can often override my brain, it does have the advantage of making me strive harder at things and you can't beat enthusiasm and determination. I was told recently that my determination is palpable when it comes to beating my OCD but it is simply the fear of not being able to live my life properly that gives me the determination to carry on. So there you go, fear is not all bad I suppose.
Think of all the things you do each day or rather the things you may not do because of fear, you may be surprised. I dyed my hair a few weeks ago for the first time in my 32 year old life, what had always stopped me before was fear - fear I would hate the colour and fear that I would mess it up. I had my hair dyed a vibrant red and you know what, I love it! Fear stopped me doing it before but now I feel like a new woman!
Well, I may always fear the daleks, I may always fear things that go bump in the night but apparently I have been told that the only thing to fear is 'fear itself'...
Great, that's another fear to add to my anxiety ladder...
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
Smoke Free, Wheat Free, Alcohol Free and too much Free time...
My OCD has finally reduced me to this, sitting in front of the PC unable to go outside on my own and having to be looked after for a large amount of the time by my wonderful husband.
Don't get me wrong, I really like our flat - it's warm and safe and contains a large amount of fluffy bears - but staying in the flat for pretty much the best part of the last month is not my idea of a good time. I'm not being held here against my will, I could leave any time I wish - except I can't.
My OCD has reached epic proportions and I seemed to have developed some kind of agoraphobia which seems to mean that any time I need to go out, my husband has to come with me for reassurance and seeing as he works full time it's not always practical.
I never thought it would come to this, I'm under the care of my psychiatrist and my hormone/chemical levels are being checked. I have lost almost 2 stone due to stress and anxiety (which, while certainly not a good way to lose weight has made moving around slightly easier for me).
Anyway, I didn't decide to blog today to tell you all about my woes, not at all, I just thought that with the credit crunch, recession etc that I would discuss giving up my vices.
5 years ago I was a relatively heavy smoker, I guess you could say I was binge drinking a fair bit of the time too - although to be fair, my idea of binge drinking was drinking 2 glasses of wine on a saturday night then nothing else for a week. Perhaps you might have called me a sporadic drinker. I ate chocolate, lots of it - sticky, gooey, moreish chocolate. Essentially my diet wasn't exactly what you would call healthy.
Anyways, in 2007 my OCD caused me great distress and I gave up smoking - as terrible as it sounds I didn't give up for my health or because the cost was starting to get galactically high, I gave up smoking as I was so worried that an unextinguished (is that even a word???) cigarette would cause a massive fire and I couldn't cope with the responsibility of that happening. I always stubbed out my cigarettes and got rid of them but you never quite know if there are definitely out. So I stopped smoking, just like that. Well...I say 'Just like that', three little words that do not in any way shape or form convey the sheer torture of giving up smoking. Now, I know what you're thinking, that being a non smoker is a good thing and I should have felt healthier...but I didn't, not at the time anyway. I craved cigarettes, all I wanted was just one, that's all, I could stop anytime I wanted! Except...except that wasn't strictly true was it - I actually started smoking in the first place attempting to show someone how non addictive cigarettes are! What a fool I was!
I had tried a few things in the past but nothing seemed to replace that craving. Now, before I go on, I really do wish to say that I feel 200% better as a non smoker and I would encourage anyone to give up smoking where possible. However, when giving up smoking I had no way prepared myself for the hacking cough and hideous chest infection that I got just after quitting. For me, getting through the first three months was possibly the most unpleasant period of my life health wise - just to reitterate though, definitely worth giving up smoking. It took about 6 months before the cravings really subsided and after that it's been pretty easy.
I gave up caffeine and anything caffeine related about 10 years ago so I was ok there - the next thing I had to give up was alcohol. Aaah, alcohol - a glass of chilled wine with a meal or the riotous tequila slammer - so good and yet so incredibly bad if I have too much! In order to get through my OCD bad patch I had to dispense with the alcohol altogether in order to prevent my condition from worsening - believe me, I held off the giving up of alcohol for as long as I could but when I was scrubbing my hands raw and crying with the fear of contamination and the sheer anxiety of worrying about the door not being locked, I had to concede that the OCD was back big style and my relationship with alcohol had to stop. For the moment anyway.
I gave up chocolate last month, I suppose strictly speaking that was down to the fact that I couldn't go out anywhere alone to get some and I had sort of said to my husband that I was giving up chocolate so he didn't buy any - bless him.
Also, due to the pain I am still suffering in my abdomen (yep, it's been approximately 10 months now and I still don't have a diagnosis for the pain :( ) I was told to see if a wheat free diet would help, just incase it was wheat intolerance.
Now, before I continue, I just want to say to all those people with wheat or gluten allergies or intolerances - I really feel for you. Going on a wheat free diet was the most complicated thing I have done in a long long time. You see, my main diet has always been rich in things such as pasta, bread, biscuits etc so giving up pretty much everything I usually eat and adopting a wheat free diet for a month was incredibly hard. I lost half a stone purely from lack of food as it was just so difficult to find things that were wheat free. The local supermarkets have a range of wheat free foods, some better than others, but it was just so hard to think about anything other than bread! I didn't think that you could become addicted to bread but there you go, I thought that the wheatful loaves in the supermarket were mocking me, saying 'aah, what's that in your basket there? Wheat-free bread? Hmm, going to enjoy that are you?' when all I wanted was a thick slice of buttered toast. The wheat free bread, whilst trying darn hard to satisfy me was just not enough and I started craving illicit sandwiches in the wee small hours oozing with mayonaise and mustard...
Then there was the matter of wheat free pasta. Again, it tried it's best but there is just no substitute for a wheatful lasagne. So every day I ate my wheat free pasta and bread. I didn't eat any rice either as I was told to avoid that too. Essentially I existed on chicken, a few veg (shock horror) and potato - incidentally, when it comes to potato products, there's wheat in some unexpected places.
Like I said, I really feel for anyone on a wheat free diet as my husband and I only kept to the menu for a month before diving straight back into our old ways. Sadly, it didn't help with the abdomen pain but as experiments go, it was fairly eye opening.
Which leads me to the enormous amount of free time I seem to have at the moment. Recently my role at work became redundant and due to the lack of any other suitable roles within the company I find myself consigned to the unemployment queue of life.
Unfortunatley, as my OCD has worsened to terrible levels and my abdomen pain is still there, the chance of finding a job at the moment is bleak. I have a fair amount of therapy to undergo before I can even leave the house, let alone find a job.
I haven't felt well enough to go outside alone, I've found it difficult to talk to people or see my friends or even communicate at all and I worry constantly about contamination from objects in my flat so, as you can imagine, my life at the moment has consisted of hours of TV.
With all of the other things I have given up, my lack of vices, has led me to becoming addicted to Television. My free time is consumed by repeats of Casualty, Doctors, The Jeremy Kyle Show along with the newer additions such as The Inbetweeners, Torchwood, Psychoville, That Mitchell and Webb look etc. Which just goes to show that my brain always has to have something to be addicted to just to keep me going.
With all this free time and mental issues I have started to become peculiar - yesterday I had to admit to my husband that I talk to my teddy bears during the day, I don't have long existential discussions with them I just comment on the TV to them. Surely that's not too strange though, don't judge me :)
Stress and anxiety can do a lot to the body and mind - I find it extremely difficult to have a shower these days without having a panic attack. The only thing that I can successfully do on my own is go to the toilet, everything else seems to have become a team effort or tasks that my husband has had to take over from me. While I know that at some point I will feel better, things are pretty hard at the moment.
Giving up all the things I have given up has certainly been quite a journey - when do I get to be OCD Free?
Don't get me wrong, I really like our flat - it's warm and safe and contains a large amount of fluffy bears - but staying in the flat for pretty much the best part of the last month is not my idea of a good time. I'm not being held here against my will, I could leave any time I wish - except I can't.
My OCD has reached epic proportions and I seemed to have developed some kind of agoraphobia which seems to mean that any time I need to go out, my husband has to come with me for reassurance and seeing as he works full time it's not always practical.
I never thought it would come to this, I'm under the care of my psychiatrist and my hormone/chemical levels are being checked. I have lost almost 2 stone due to stress and anxiety (which, while certainly not a good way to lose weight has made moving around slightly easier for me).
Anyway, I didn't decide to blog today to tell you all about my woes, not at all, I just thought that with the credit crunch, recession etc that I would discuss giving up my vices.
5 years ago I was a relatively heavy smoker, I guess you could say I was binge drinking a fair bit of the time too - although to be fair, my idea of binge drinking was drinking 2 glasses of wine on a saturday night then nothing else for a week. Perhaps you might have called me a sporadic drinker. I ate chocolate, lots of it - sticky, gooey, moreish chocolate. Essentially my diet wasn't exactly what you would call healthy.
Anyways, in 2007 my OCD caused me great distress and I gave up smoking - as terrible as it sounds I didn't give up for my health or because the cost was starting to get galactically high, I gave up smoking as I was so worried that an unextinguished (is that even a word???) cigarette would cause a massive fire and I couldn't cope with the responsibility of that happening. I always stubbed out my cigarettes and got rid of them but you never quite know if there are definitely out. So I stopped smoking, just like that. Well...I say 'Just like that', three little words that do not in any way shape or form convey the sheer torture of giving up smoking. Now, I know what you're thinking, that being a non smoker is a good thing and I should have felt healthier...but I didn't, not at the time anyway. I craved cigarettes, all I wanted was just one, that's all, I could stop anytime I wanted! Except...except that wasn't strictly true was it - I actually started smoking in the first place attempting to show someone how non addictive cigarettes are! What a fool I was!
I had tried a few things in the past but nothing seemed to replace that craving. Now, before I go on, I really do wish to say that I feel 200% better as a non smoker and I would encourage anyone to give up smoking where possible. However, when giving up smoking I had no way prepared myself for the hacking cough and hideous chest infection that I got just after quitting. For me, getting through the first three months was possibly the most unpleasant period of my life health wise - just to reitterate though, definitely worth giving up smoking. It took about 6 months before the cravings really subsided and after that it's been pretty easy.
I gave up caffeine and anything caffeine related about 10 years ago so I was ok there - the next thing I had to give up was alcohol. Aaah, alcohol - a glass of chilled wine with a meal or the riotous tequila slammer - so good and yet so incredibly bad if I have too much! In order to get through my OCD bad patch I had to dispense with the alcohol altogether in order to prevent my condition from worsening - believe me, I held off the giving up of alcohol for as long as I could but when I was scrubbing my hands raw and crying with the fear of contamination and the sheer anxiety of worrying about the door not being locked, I had to concede that the OCD was back big style and my relationship with alcohol had to stop. For the moment anyway.
I gave up chocolate last month, I suppose strictly speaking that was down to the fact that I couldn't go out anywhere alone to get some and I had sort of said to my husband that I was giving up chocolate so he didn't buy any - bless him.
Also, due to the pain I am still suffering in my abdomen (yep, it's been approximately 10 months now and I still don't have a diagnosis for the pain :( ) I was told to see if a wheat free diet would help, just incase it was wheat intolerance.
Now, before I continue, I just want to say to all those people with wheat or gluten allergies or intolerances - I really feel for you. Going on a wheat free diet was the most complicated thing I have done in a long long time. You see, my main diet has always been rich in things such as pasta, bread, biscuits etc so giving up pretty much everything I usually eat and adopting a wheat free diet for a month was incredibly hard. I lost half a stone purely from lack of food as it was just so difficult to find things that were wheat free. The local supermarkets have a range of wheat free foods, some better than others, but it was just so hard to think about anything other than bread! I didn't think that you could become addicted to bread but there you go, I thought that the wheatful loaves in the supermarket were mocking me, saying 'aah, what's that in your basket there? Wheat-free bread? Hmm, going to enjoy that are you?' when all I wanted was a thick slice of buttered toast. The wheat free bread, whilst trying darn hard to satisfy me was just not enough and I started craving illicit sandwiches in the wee small hours oozing with mayonaise and mustard...
Then there was the matter of wheat free pasta. Again, it tried it's best but there is just no substitute for a wheatful lasagne. So every day I ate my wheat free pasta and bread. I didn't eat any rice either as I was told to avoid that too. Essentially I existed on chicken, a few veg (shock horror) and potato - incidentally, when it comes to potato products, there's wheat in some unexpected places.
Like I said, I really feel for anyone on a wheat free diet as my husband and I only kept to the menu for a month before diving straight back into our old ways. Sadly, it didn't help with the abdomen pain but as experiments go, it was fairly eye opening.
Which leads me to the enormous amount of free time I seem to have at the moment. Recently my role at work became redundant and due to the lack of any other suitable roles within the company I find myself consigned to the unemployment queue of life.
Unfortunatley, as my OCD has worsened to terrible levels and my abdomen pain is still there, the chance of finding a job at the moment is bleak. I have a fair amount of therapy to undergo before I can even leave the house, let alone find a job.
I haven't felt well enough to go outside alone, I've found it difficult to talk to people or see my friends or even communicate at all and I worry constantly about contamination from objects in my flat so, as you can imagine, my life at the moment has consisted of hours of TV.
With all of the other things I have given up, my lack of vices, has led me to becoming addicted to Television. My free time is consumed by repeats of Casualty, Doctors, The Jeremy Kyle Show along with the newer additions such as The Inbetweeners, Torchwood, Psychoville, That Mitchell and Webb look etc. Which just goes to show that my brain always has to have something to be addicted to just to keep me going.
With all this free time and mental issues I have started to become peculiar - yesterday I had to admit to my husband that I talk to my teddy bears during the day, I don't have long existential discussions with them I just comment on the TV to them. Surely that's not too strange though, don't judge me :)
Stress and anxiety can do a lot to the body and mind - I find it extremely difficult to have a shower these days without having a panic attack. The only thing that I can successfully do on my own is go to the toilet, everything else seems to have become a team effort or tasks that my husband has had to take over from me. While I know that at some point I will feel better, things are pretty hard at the moment.
Giving up all the things I have given up has certainly been quite a journey - when do I get to be OCD Free?
Friday, 16 January 2009
Lets Face(book) it :)
Please allow me to introduce myself, my name is H and I have OCD. I have had OCD as long as I can remember but I was only formally diagnosed with it about 2 years ago. Phew! Glad that's out of the way!
I have been ill for a few months with abdomen pain and because of this I have spent those months sitting in my flat awaiting various parts of the NHS to examine parts of me that even I don't really want access to. Last week, for example, I had a colonoscopy which is by far and away the most horrendous test I have ever had to go through. Anyway, I will get to that in time, once I have stopped emotionally rocking back and forth in my head hugging my knees. I digress...
Lately, due to my lack of socialising in the real world I have been using Facebook as a way of pretending to myself that I have had the odd bit of human contact other than my husband and various medical staff. The one thing that occurred to me is that Facebook has started to make me sad, actually that's a tad unfair as it is not the fault of Facebook but the fault of all the wonderful people I know that are having great lives.
It seems that most of the women I know are either pregnant, travelling to exotic places, modelling or generally enjoying themselves. Now, while I think this is wonderful...for them...I can't help but feel that the world out there is rock and rolling as I am sat in my flat day after day. I haven't had a diagnosis for the pain that I have and so while I am waiting for the that I am living vicariously.
Whilst I was feeling envious, I wondered also if it is just me or is everyone envious of the photos of drinking games, spectacular locations and general tomfoolery posted by other people - the witty banter!
Now, I have a husband, a wonderful man whom I love with all my heart and we enjoy our lives but I can't help but feel like perhaps people are enjoying themselves more than me - I've become ridiculously competitive which is exactly what I don't want.
Then, aaah a panacea for the pain, I have become faintly obssessed with talk shows. One in particular - that's the terrible thing about OCD, sometimes you can become obssessed with things that you really don't want to be obsessed with and you can't get them out of your mind no matter what you try.
There is a particular talk show that I am very fond of, wholly due to the almost agressive and forthright attitude of the host (I'm not obsessed with the host, don't worry) and while I understand that certain problems probably need an audience of maybe your family, friends etc they perhaps don't need to be on national television. However, I can sort of see the point of this sometimes, although today I was watching the humiliation of a poor women who had been lied to repeatedly by her partner who was not exactly Brad Pitt. Now, whether you view it as entertainment or genuinely helping people - there are some pretty messed up family units out there and up until a few years ago I kind of understood what it was like to get into some tricky situations without really intending. When my husband said 'Does this stuff really happen to people?!?' I had to concede that, yes, it does - thankfully my talk show behaviour is well and truly finito but the people on these shows appear to suffer so many indignities.
Let's all get connected on Facebook and attempt to out-enjoy all the other happy people - it's not a complete solution but it's a start :)
I have been ill for a few months with abdomen pain and because of this I have spent those months sitting in my flat awaiting various parts of the NHS to examine parts of me that even I don't really want access to. Last week, for example, I had a colonoscopy which is by far and away the most horrendous test I have ever had to go through. Anyway, I will get to that in time, once I have stopped emotionally rocking back and forth in my head hugging my knees. I digress...
Lately, due to my lack of socialising in the real world I have been using Facebook as a way of pretending to myself that I have had the odd bit of human contact other than my husband and various medical staff. The one thing that occurred to me is that Facebook has started to make me sad, actually that's a tad unfair as it is not the fault of Facebook but the fault of all the wonderful people I know that are having great lives.
It seems that most of the women I know are either pregnant, travelling to exotic places, modelling or generally enjoying themselves. Now, while I think this is wonderful...for them...I can't help but feel that the world out there is rock and rolling as I am sat in my flat day after day. I haven't had a diagnosis for the pain that I have and so while I am waiting for the that I am living vicariously.
Whilst I was feeling envious, I wondered also if it is just me or is everyone envious of the photos of drinking games, spectacular locations and general tomfoolery posted by other people - the witty banter!
Now, I have a husband, a wonderful man whom I love with all my heart and we enjoy our lives but I can't help but feel like perhaps people are enjoying themselves more than me - I've become ridiculously competitive which is exactly what I don't want.
Then, aaah a panacea for the pain, I have become faintly obssessed with talk shows. One in particular - that's the terrible thing about OCD, sometimes you can become obssessed with things that you really don't want to be obsessed with and you can't get them out of your mind no matter what you try.
There is a particular talk show that I am very fond of, wholly due to the almost agressive and forthright attitude of the host (I'm not obsessed with the host, don't worry) and while I understand that certain problems probably need an audience of maybe your family, friends etc they perhaps don't need to be on national television. However, I can sort of see the point of this sometimes, although today I was watching the humiliation of a poor women who had been lied to repeatedly by her partner who was not exactly Brad Pitt. Now, whether you view it as entertainment or genuinely helping people - there are some pretty messed up family units out there and up until a few years ago I kind of understood what it was like to get into some tricky situations without really intending. When my husband said 'Does this stuff really happen to people?!?' I had to concede that, yes, it does - thankfully my talk show behaviour is well and truly finito but the people on these shows appear to suffer so many indignities.
Let's all get connected on Facebook and attempt to out-enjoy all the other happy people - it's not a complete solution but it's a start :)
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