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...
Friday, 13 November 2009
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
The fortnight of positivity!
It's easy to feel miserable in these times of financial hardship, high levels of unemployment and with winter drawing in. I've suffered from depression for a long time, which is odd considering that most people say that they think I am a cheerful person. Hmm, looks like I put on a really good show! It's no ones fault, I've been disguising my depression in the same way that I hid my OCD for so many years, now I just don't bother. I was a miserable child, a miserable teenager and I'm a miserable adult. My husband knows that if he finds me crying over a plotline in Eastenders and asks if I am ok, if I say I'm fine then it is just general depression - I do tend to tell him when something is wrong, he's not psychic. I've never really understood my depression to be honest, I just didn't want to be the kind of person who sits miserably in the corner at parties so I try very hard to seem happy. Oddly enough, trying to act happy makes me even more depressed!
The thing is that, in the grand scheme of things, I don't have that much to be miserable about - yeah I'm unemployed and have been for the longest time in my career, my health is not great but I have a truly fantastic husband who makes me feel great so surely that should cancel out depression? Nope, it doesn't work like that sadly, so to speak.
Anyway, I didn't start this blog entry to spread my misery my dear reader, quite the opposite actually. I came to a realisation about my general state of mind that has altered my perspective recently. It started last week...
For the past four months I haven't really interacted with many people at all, which explains the seeming lack of emotion in my writing at the moment. I am generally a very social person but OCD and depression do tend to make me pretty grim company! During these months I have spent most of my time in my flat and therefore the only interaction I have had with humans is my husband, my doctor, hospital staff, bus drivers (although the general conversation with them stretches to showing them my bus ticket and saying Thank you at the end of the journey) and my Dad (who coincidentally is the only bus driver I do get to have a conversation with :) ). I have spent a great deal of time watching TV, listening to the radio and reading news and other articles on the internet. This interaction has lead to a very bizarre and interesting tilt in my perspective.
For example, last week I was feeling particularly down as my OCD seemed to ease up for a few days then came back just as bad and this often frustrates me. I was unable to have a shower due to the fear and I spent about two days in bed, just sleeping and crying for the most part (Gosh, this really is a miserable blog entry! Apologies, there is a point to all this and it's a positive point so stick with it). When I spend any long period of time in my flat I do tend to lose touch with reality a little and it's easy for me to develop odd opinions based purely on what I have ingested informationwise over the course of the day.
Now, when watching TV my husband and I have differing tastes when it comes to quality entertainment - my husband very much enjoys documentaries, comedy shows, programmes about boats and ships and informative science shows. I on the other hand like some of these shows but I am queen of the guilty TV pleasure - as much as I want to give the impression that I am an intelligent person who watches sophisticated shows, there is still a part of me that clamours to watch mindless trash. I believe that there is a time and a place for informative shows but there should also be lots of time for the nonsensical fluff that clogs the TV. Oh and the adverts! The glorious, brightly coloured banners of the commercial break! Apparently, I was told that when I was a very small child I used to cry through the programmes and when the adverts came on I used to dry my eyes, sit up and pay attention. I am not sure what the adverts were like in the late 70's and early 80's but I'm sorry to all the people trying to sell me things - it's not like a baby can advise their parents to buy things is it. Anyway, I digress...
Last week I watched TV programmes on the following topics:
How an erupting volcano could possibly trigger another ice age
How an asteroid could wipe out the human race and pretty much all other life on the planet
How the bee population is dwindling and this could widely affect the food chain
The chances of us being able to find another planet to live on
Climate change and the effect of global warming
Crime in the UK
Shows about accidents and the terrible consequences
Shows about World War II and the loss of lives
A show on what is the most likely thing to end life on earth
News in general
Medical dramas
I've got to tell you that after a few days of feeling down and watching this kind of content, as you can imagine I was pretty much distraught. It's kind of my own fault though, I should have had the TV company put up a banner at the bottom of my TV stating 'Enjoy apocalyptic programmes responsibly'!
You see, as well as the other mental issues I have I also have been described as a 'naturally anxious personality' and so these shows, coupled with my unemployment and general feelings of uselessness as a member of society made me feel particularly depressed. It's easy for relatively small risks to have a big impact on me when I am particularly nervous. For example, after watching a particularly graphic programme on car crashes last week I point blank decided in my head never to get in another car - which is not really massively practical.
It's not the TV's fault, it didn't choose to turn itself on (actually our TV does have a habit of switching itself on during the night but it doesn't choose the shows that I should watch!). It's not the fault of the makers of the programmes or the broadcasters, in my case it's my fault for tuning in when depressed. Perhaps I should have sensors attached to my tear ducts that means that the slightest hint of misery and the TV tunes into something that I enjoy, like Scrubs, Wildlife S.O.S. or Frasier. Never mind a porn filter on my internet access, I need a misery filter!
I mean, I understand that generally good things seem to be more newsworthy than bad things, misery in TV shows is somehow more entertaining that watching happy people living their happy lives - soap operas would be ludicrously boring if everything went perfectly for every character. It reminds me of something my Mum said when I was a kid - while watching a film where the main character was given a quest I asked my Mum why they didn't just choose a different way of doing the quest that seemed easier and my Mum said 'Because if he did that the film would only last five minutes wouldn't it?' which in retrospect explains a lot of things about the shows I watch.
After thinking about my general environment recently, I came to the following conclusions:
I'm spending too much time in the flat not communicating with people properly
I'm watching too much miserable TV
I'm reading too much miserable stuff on the internet
I perhaps may have watched too many horror films
I haven't been listening to much cheerful music recently
Now, the getting out the flat part is not too easy and I will work on that but as for the other points, I'm going to surround myself with only positive information for the next two weeks and, in some sort of bizarre self experiment, attempt to lift myself out of the depression. It can't do any harm surely?
So my poor husband is saddled with me listening to cheerful music (not sure if listening to The Smiths while writing this blog entry really counts :) ) , watching TV shows that could be classed as light entertainment, taking positive steps each day to improve my health situation like attempting to learn to relax and generally attempting to think positive thoughts. It's not as easy as it sounds but, as people kept annoying me by saying 'try to think positive thoughts' I figure it's worth a go.
Two weeks of 'positive thinking'! Not sure how it's all going to pan out but my hopes aren't high :)
The thing is that, in the grand scheme of things, I don't have that much to be miserable about - yeah I'm unemployed and have been for the longest time in my career, my health is not great but I have a truly fantastic husband who makes me feel great so surely that should cancel out depression? Nope, it doesn't work like that sadly, so to speak.
Anyway, I didn't start this blog entry to spread my misery my dear reader, quite the opposite actually. I came to a realisation about my general state of mind that has altered my perspective recently. It started last week...
For the past four months I haven't really interacted with many people at all, which explains the seeming lack of emotion in my writing at the moment. I am generally a very social person but OCD and depression do tend to make me pretty grim company! During these months I have spent most of my time in my flat and therefore the only interaction I have had with humans is my husband, my doctor, hospital staff, bus drivers (although the general conversation with them stretches to showing them my bus ticket and saying Thank you at the end of the journey) and my Dad (who coincidentally is the only bus driver I do get to have a conversation with :) ). I have spent a great deal of time watching TV, listening to the radio and reading news and other articles on the internet. This interaction has lead to a very bizarre and interesting tilt in my perspective.
For example, last week I was feeling particularly down as my OCD seemed to ease up for a few days then came back just as bad and this often frustrates me. I was unable to have a shower due to the fear and I spent about two days in bed, just sleeping and crying for the most part (Gosh, this really is a miserable blog entry! Apologies, there is a point to all this and it's a positive point so stick with it). When I spend any long period of time in my flat I do tend to lose touch with reality a little and it's easy for me to develop odd opinions based purely on what I have ingested informationwise over the course of the day.
Now, when watching TV my husband and I have differing tastes when it comes to quality entertainment - my husband very much enjoys documentaries, comedy shows, programmes about boats and ships and informative science shows. I on the other hand like some of these shows but I am queen of the guilty TV pleasure - as much as I want to give the impression that I am an intelligent person who watches sophisticated shows, there is still a part of me that clamours to watch mindless trash. I believe that there is a time and a place for informative shows but there should also be lots of time for the nonsensical fluff that clogs the TV. Oh and the adverts! The glorious, brightly coloured banners of the commercial break! Apparently, I was told that when I was a very small child I used to cry through the programmes and when the adverts came on I used to dry my eyes, sit up and pay attention. I am not sure what the adverts were like in the late 70's and early 80's but I'm sorry to all the people trying to sell me things - it's not like a baby can advise their parents to buy things is it. Anyway, I digress...
Last week I watched TV programmes on the following topics:
How an erupting volcano could possibly trigger another ice age
How an asteroid could wipe out the human race and pretty much all other life on the planet
How the bee population is dwindling and this could widely affect the food chain
The chances of us being able to find another planet to live on
Climate change and the effect of global warming
Crime in the UK
Shows about accidents and the terrible consequences
Shows about World War II and the loss of lives
A show on what is the most likely thing to end life on earth
News in general
Medical dramas
I've got to tell you that after a few days of feeling down and watching this kind of content, as you can imagine I was pretty much distraught. It's kind of my own fault though, I should have had the TV company put up a banner at the bottom of my TV stating 'Enjoy apocalyptic programmes responsibly'!
You see, as well as the other mental issues I have I also have been described as a 'naturally anxious personality' and so these shows, coupled with my unemployment and general feelings of uselessness as a member of society made me feel particularly depressed. It's easy for relatively small risks to have a big impact on me when I am particularly nervous. For example, after watching a particularly graphic programme on car crashes last week I point blank decided in my head never to get in another car - which is not really massively practical.
It's not the TV's fault, it didn't choose to turn itself on (actually our TV does have a habit of switching itself on during the night but it doesn't choose the shows that I should watch!). It's not the fault of the makers of the programmes or the broadcasters, in my case it's my fault for tuning in when depressed. Perhaps I should have sensors attached to my tear ducts that means that the slightest hint of misery and the TV tunes into something that I enjoy, like Scrubs, Wildlife S.O.S. or Frasier. Never mind a porn filter on my internet access, I need a misery filter!
I mean, I understand that generally good things seem to be more newsworthy than bad things, misery in TV shows is somehow more entertaining that watching happy people living their happy lives - soap operas would be ludicrously boring if everything went perfectly for every character. It reminds me of something my Mum said when I was a kid - while watching a film where the main character was given a quest I asked my Mum why they didn't just choose a different way of doing the quest that seemed easier and my Mum said 'Because if he did that the film would only last five minutes wouldn't it?' which in retrospect explains a lot of things about the shows I watch.
After thinking about my general environment recently, I came to the following conclusions:
I'm spending too much time in the flat not communicating with people properly
I'm watching too much miserable TV
I'm reading too much miserable stuff on the internet
I perhaps may have watched too many horror films
I haven't been listening to much cheerful music recently
Now, the getting out the flat part is not too easy and I will work on that but as for the other points, I'm going to surround myself with only positive information for the next two weeks and, in some sort of bizarre self experiment, attempt to lift myself out of the depression. It can't do any harm surely?
So my poor husband is saddled with me listening to cheerful music (not sure if listening to The Smiths while writing this blog entry really counts :) ) , watching TV shows that could be classed as light entertainment, taking positive steps each day to improve my health situation like attempting to learn to relax and generally attempting to think positive thoughts. It's not as easy as it sounds but, as people kept annoying me by saying 'try to think positive thoughts' I figure it's worth a go.
Two weeks of 'positive thinking'! Not sure how it's all going to pan out but my hopes aren't high :)
Thursday, 27 August 2009
To all those who want to say 'I told you so'... :)
It was my birthday last week and, because I am a melancholy person at the best of times, I was reflecting on what I have learned over the course of the last 32 years. I came to a rather scary conclusion - even if age does lead to wisdom, your kids are never going to believe any of your advice until they get old too!
I found it frankly terrifying the other day that I referred to something 'in my day'! I'm 32, not 82! This led me to think about all the times when my parents or anyone older than me would say 'you'll understand when you grow up' - and I hate to say this and it truly pains me to admit that they were generally right.
For example, when I was about 14 I had my first boyfriend - he was a nice guy and we spent lots of time together but he became distant after about 6 months. This may have been down to the fact that my parents were divorcing and I was a bit of a mess and therefore was being a stroppy little diva - I can't remember the reason but he split up with me and I was totally devastated at the time. I moped about listening to Morrissey and The Smiths and The Cure, crying profusely and shouting at everyone that 'they didn't understand how I felt!!'. Now, looking back on this, perhaps I was a bit over dramatic but at the time I just thought that it was the worst thing that could ever happen - Ever! And at this time my Dad, going through a break up of his own, simply said 'you're 14 and in a few weeks time you wont even know what the fuss was all about' and at the time I really resented that comment - didn't he know that I was in pain! The truth was that after about 6 months my pain had eased and I had another boyfriend. It's not that I didn't care about my first boyfriend, I did care very much, it was just the mere fact that what my Dad was trying to say, in a possibly more tactless way, is that time heals pretty much just about anything - but I didn't believe that, well...not at the time anyway.
I didn't understand why my parents divorced, but as I got older and had relationships I started to realise how things can go easily downhill.
Incidentally, at 15 after my second boyfriend dumped me after about 6 months I wore black clothes and mourned the end of the relationship for about a year. I was a seriously overly dramatic teenager! That's the point though, at the time you think that it's the end of the world.
I also thought about other things that people had said to me over the years - for example 'When you are a teenager and in your early twenties, time seems to go really slow but once you hit late twenties/early thirties - time just flies!'. When I was 26, a friend of mine said this to me in the office I worked in. I didn't believe him at the time, he was older than me and in my head I just thought 'that wont happen to me!'. How could I ever be so wrong!
Another of my friends used to talk about going to DIY stores and buying furniture for his home and I, at the age of about 26, would rib him mercilessly and call his trips to furniture stores 'Dawn of the Domestic Dead' while mimicking a zombie (you get the picture) and he said 'one day, you'll be the same'. I laughed and said 'no way! I will never be like that!'...
...Cut to approximately four years later and I was stood in a popular furnishings store buying cushions and vases and wondering where to put the new lamp I had just picked out when I had a moment of clarity. I thought 'Oh no, he was right!' - and he was. Not only was I turning into the exact thing I had mocked but I was enjoying the purchase of household furnishings!
When one of my friends was planning his wedding several years ago he was telling me about choosing the design of wedding invitations and I said 'They're just invitations, I can't see what the fuss is all about' and he replied 'One day, when you get married, you'll understand how important they are'. Again, I just laughed it off but then last year when I was painstakingly applying miniscule champagne glasses outlines to bits of card for my own wedding, I could kind of see what he was getting at.
When I was single, people constantly told me that when I stopped looking for the perfect man that I would find him. I thought that was rubbish, until the moment when I looked at the man who is now my husband and realised that the perfect man for me was right under my nose and I just didn't realise. We celebrated our 1st year wedding anniversary last week and he makes me so happy - I really should listen to people more.
Another thing I have gained clarity on is the way that people can manipulate you for good and bad and how I didn't realise how right those people were that said 'when you look back on this, it will all make sense'.
How unfair is that?!? That you sometimes only truly learn that people are right after you have done the wrong thing? I suppose that really the phrase shouldn't be 'you learn from your mistakes' but rather 'after you have done something stupid, you truly will know why'.
I was such a pain in the bum for most of my life, never taking advice or truly believing that when people say 'you'll understand when you're older'. The funny thing is that, even though I have been through a fair amount of stuff in my life, no one will take my advice! Is that the punishment for not listening to my elders?
So, to all those people who said that I would understand things better as I got older - okay, you were right! you were right! you were right!
If anyone wants me, I'll be eating humble pie...
I found it frankly terrifying the other day that I referred to something 'in my day'! I'm 32, not 82! This led me to think about all the times when my parents or anyone older than me would say 'you'll understand when you grow up' - and I hate to say this and it truly pains me to admit that they were generally right.
For example, when I was about 14 I had my first boyfriend - he was a nice guy and we spent lots of time together but he became distant after about 6 months. This may have been down to the fact that my parents were divorcing and I was a bit of a mess and therefore was being a stroppy little diva - I can't remember the reason but he split up with me and I was totally devastated at the time. I moped about listening to Morrissey and The Smiths and The Cure, crying profusely and shouting at everyone that 'they didn't understand how I felt!!'. Now, looking back on this, perhaps I was a bit over dramatic but at the time I just thought that it was the worst thing that could ever happen - Ever! And at this time my Dad, going through a break up of his own, simply said 'you're 14 and in a few weeks time you wont even know what the fuss was all about' and at the time I really resented that comment - didn't he know that I was in pain! The truth was that after about 6 months my pain had eased and I had another boyfriend. It's not that I didn't care about my first boyfriend, I did care very much, it was just the mere fact that what my Dad was trying to say, in a possibly more tactless way, is that time heals pretty much just about anything - but I didn't believe that, well...not at the time anyway.
I didn't understand why my parents divorced, but as I got older and had relationships I started to realise how things can go easily downhill.
Incidentally, at 15 after my second boyfriend dumped me after about 6 months I wore black clothes and mourned the end of the relationship for about a year. I was a seriously overly dramatic teenager! That's the point though, at the time you think that it's the end of the world.
I also thought about other things that people had said to me over the years - for example 'When you are a teenager and in your early twenties, time seems to go really slow but once you hit late twenties/early thirties - time just flies!'. When I was 26, a friend of mine said this to me in the office I worked in. I didn't believe him at the time, he was older than me and in my head I just thought 'that wont happen to me!'. How could I ever be so wrong!
Another of my friends used to talk about going to DIY stores and buying furniture for his home and I, at the age of about 26, would rib him mercilessly and call his trips to furniture stores 'Dawn of the Domestic Dead' while mimicking a zombie (you get the picture) and he said 'one day, you'll be the same'. I laughed and said 'no way! I will never be like that!'...
...Cut to approximately four years later and I was stood in a popular furnishings store buying cushions and vases and wondering where to put the new lamp I had just picked out when I had a moment of clarity. I thought 'Oh no, he was right!' - and he was. Not only was I turning into the exact thing I had mocked but I was enjoying the purchase of household furnishings!
When one of my friends was planning his wedding several years ago he was telling me about choosing the design of wedding invitations and I said 'They're just invitations, I can't see what the fuss is all about' and he replied 'One day, when you get married, you'll understand how important they are'. Again, I just laughed it off but then last year when I was painstakingly applying miniscule champagne glasses outlines to bits of card for my own wedding, I could kind of see what he was getting at.
When I was single, people constantly told me that when I stopped looking for the perfect man that I would find him. I thought that was rubbish, until the moment when I looked at the man who is now my husband and realised that the perfect man for me was right under my nose and I just didn't realise. We celebrated our 1st year wedding anniversary last week and he makes me so happy - I really should listen to people more.
Another thing I have gained clarity on is the way that people can manipulate you for good and bad and how I didn't realise how right those people were that said 'when you look back on this, it will all make sense'.
How unfair is that?!? That you sometimes only truly learn that people are right after you have done the wrong thing? I suppose that really the phrase shouldn't be 'you learn from your mistakes' but rather 'after you have done something stupid, you truly will know why'.
I was such a pain in the bum for most of my life, never taking advice or truly believing that when people say 'you'll understand when you're older'. The funny thing is that, even though I have been through a fair amount of stuff in my life, no one will take my advice! Is that the punishment for not listening to my elders?
So, to all those people who said that I would understand things better as I got older - okay, you were right! you were right! you were right!
If anyone wants me, I'll be eating humble pie...
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?
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
Growing old in the time of 'lol'
Perhaps I am just getting old but the other day I realised that I don't think I have ever written 'lol' as part of a text, email etc. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong but I really can't remember a time I have ever written 'lol' - apart from here, and the status updates on Facebook and Twitter where I have mentioned that I have not written it in communication to people of course. Perhaps I just have no sense of humour and that the reason I have not written it is because I didn't find anything humorous enough?
Or then again it could be for the fear of getting it wrong, worrying that it may not mean Laugh Out Loud but something perverse or tremendously bad. Too often I have seen people write down abbreviations only to have to retract them as they were inappropriate to the sentence.
This got me thinking that really, when it comes to the new language that seems to have been created on the internet, SMS etc I am horribly out of my depth. You are reading the thoughts of someone who actually had to look up 'LMAO' through Google to fathom out what everyone was talking about. It just seems to me that a brand new language seems to have seeped into the technological community while I was going for long walks or playing Elite Beat Agents on my DS.
I never really thought of myself as old before, I'm 32 this year, but these days I really do find myself saying things like 'I remember when the only games console I could get was a Sinclair ZX81'. We weren't a rich family, not by any stretch of the imagination but we had that ZX81 for many years. I still remember my Mam staying up most of the night to program a game into the ZX81 which was supposed to be like Frogger but turned out to be a few x's running the length of the screen being chased by z's.
At some point we had a Dragon 32 which I have got to say, sparked within me the adoration of the first truly brilliant game I had ever played - Jetset Willy. Where else in those days could you be chased by hoovers and toilets while clearing up after what seemed to be the worlds most psychadelic party! I never completed it of course, I found out many many years later from one of the producers in my office that there was a major bug that prevented the game from being completed. Mind you, considering I could barely get even a quarter of the way through the game that wasn't going to be too much of an issue for me.
I had a Gameboy when I was about 15 (still have it somewhere - only had two games for it though). And then nothing. For years. I didn't have a games console or anything even close to that until a few years ago when I bought a Nintendo DS. I had a PC and my husband bought me a Nintendo Wii a few years ago but during that time I didn't really play a lot of games. Which may surprise people when they hear that I used to be a games tester. As I said in my interview at the time, I never set out to be a games tester - I love testing software and games had so many interesting facets to test, it was a wonderful opportunity for me. Anyway, I digress...
On my way to the doctors last week I heard a group of teenagers on the bus discussing their phones and iPods and it really made me think how far we have come in terms of entertainment. I had a battered Sony Walkman for most of my teenage years and adulthood, it took a lot of coaxing from one of my friends to even get me to look at an MP3 player when they finally arrived. I resisted CD's for a long time as I thought that they weren't as good as cassette tapes. I mean, for crying out loud - I have a Betamax video and about 40 tapes, I remember when the only face cream I could get in my town was Oil of Ulay (and for any young person reading this - nope, that's not a misprint) and I remember when you could go out and leave your door open...
Yep, I think that successfully concludes that I am getting old, in one sentence. I marvel at the rudeness of people on the TV - I remember when the Weakest Link was shocking in terms of insults and I remember when I first saw the Jerry Springer Show and was aghast that someone had cheated on their partner with five other people. I remember when the internet didn't exist, when I had never heard of wikipedia and twittering was something done by the birdies in the trees.
Not that I want to go back in time, goodness no, there are so many wonderful things on this planet that make life so much better. Watching my husband and his brother playing Left 4 Dead on the XBox and listen to my husband telling his brother not to keep running off in the game, only for him to do the same and almost fall off a ledge. Getting massive cramp in my wrist attempting to finish 'Sweet Home Alabama' on Guitar Hero on the Nintendo DS. Listening to 'Don't Stop Believing' by Journey on an MP3 player the size of a match box.
I may be old but the excitement from all the new technology we have now gosh darn it just makes me feel so young again.
Or then again it could be for the fear of getting it wrong, worrying that it may not mean Laugh Out Loud but something perverse or tremendously bad. Too often I have seen people write down abbreviations only to have to retract them as they were inappropriate to the sentence.
This got me thinking that really, when it comes to the new language that seems to have been created on the internet, SMS etc I am horribly out of my depth. You are reading the thoughts of someone who actually had to look up 'LMAO' through Google to fathom out what everyone was talking about. It just seems to me that a brand new language seems to have seeped into the technological community while I was going for long walks or playing Elite Beat Agents on my DS.
I never really thought of myself as old before, I'm 32 this year, but these days I really do find myself saying things like 'I remember when the only games console I could get was a Sinclair ZX81'. We weren't a rich family, not by any stretch of the imagination but we had that ZX81 for many years. I still remember my Mam staying up most of the night to program a game into the ZX81 which was supposed to be like Frogger but turned out to be a few x's running the length of the screen being chased by z's.
At some point we had a Dragon 32 which I have got to say, sparked within me the adoration of the first truly brilliant game I had ever played - Jetset Willy. Where else in those days could you be chased by hoovers and toilets while clearing up after what seemed to be the worlds most psychadelic party! I never completed it of course, I found out many many years later from one of the producers in my office that there was a major bug that prevented the game from being completed. Mind you, considering I could barely get even a quarter of the way through the game that wasn't going to be too much of an issue for me.
I had a Gameboy when I was about 15 (still have it somewhere - only had two games for it though). And then nothing. For years. I didn't have a games console or anything even close to that until a few years ago when I bought a Nintendo DS. I had a PC and my husband bought me a Nintendo Wii a few years ago but during that time I didn't really play a lot of games. Which may surprise people when they hear that I used to be a games tester. As I said in my interview at the time, I never set out to be a games tester - I love testing software and games had so many interesting facets to test, it was a wonderful opportunity for me. Anyway, I digress...
On my way to the doctors last week I heard a group of teenagers on the bus discussing their phones and iPods and it really made me think how far we have come in terms of entertainment. I had a battered Sony Walkman for most of my teenage years and adulthood, it took a lot of coaxing from one of my friends to even get me to look at an MP3 player when they finally arrived. I resisted CD's for a long time as I thought that they weren't as good as cassette tapes. I mean, for crying out loud - I have a Betamax video and about 40 tapes, I remember when the only face cream I could get in my town was Oil of Ulay (and for any young person reading this - nope, that's not a misprint) and I remember when you could go out and leave your door open...
Yep, I think that successfully concludes that I am getting old, in one sentence. I marvel at the rudeness of people on the TV - I remember when the Weakest Link was shocking in terms of insults and I remember when I first saw the Jerry Springer Show and was aghast that someone had cheated on their partner with five other people. I remember when the internet didn't exist, when I had never heard of wikipedia and twittering was something done by the birdies in the trees.
Not that I want to go back in time, goodness no, there are so many wonderful things on this planet that make life so much better. Watching my husband and his brother playing Left 4 Dead on the XBox and listen to my husband telling his brother not to keep running off in the game, only for him to do the same and almost fall off a ledge. Getting massive cramp in my wrist attempting to finish 'Sweet Home Alabama' on Guitar Hero on the Nintendo DS. Listening to 'Don't Stop Believing' by Journey on an MP3 player the size of a match box.
I may be old but the excitement from all the new technology we have now gosh darn it just makes me feel so young again.
Thursday, 12 February 2009
Obscrussions
I think I may have just invented a new word today that completely sums up a feeling I often get that is kind of halfway between an obsession and a crush. Allow me to elaborate...
When I was about 17 I attended a Maths class (yes, ok, I got a D in my GCSE maths and had to resit it - in my defence, in the resit I got a B!) and the teacher of the class was a wonderful guy. He had a great sense of humour and a quick wit and I was totally smitten. Now, this guy was probably in his late thirties or early forties and his fashion sense was not his primary concern but I thought he was the best thing since sliced bread. The thing is that, and heres the thing, I had no desire to sleep with him/have any sexual contact etc I just thought that he was wonderful. That's the odd thing about having an obscrussion, you think that the object of the thoughts is fascinating and extraordinary, but you have no sexual feelings towards it/them whatsoever.
Thankfully I don't think that I ever mentioned this strange obscrussion to anyone as they would have mercilessly ribbed me and said 'You fancy him!!!'. No one would have understood that I didn't want a relationship with the man, I was just enthralled by him. Also, I just want to point out that I never did anything about it and I presume that he is still blissfully unaware of my feelings, well...unless he has read this I suppose.
Anyway, that was one in a long line of obscrussions I have had over the years with men, women and objects. It seems that the obscrussions are present regardless of my sexual preference - despite being completely heterosexual I had a massive obscrussion on Kylie Minogue, again - never did anything about it, well, except for buying her singles, albums and wanting to look like her when I was a teenager.
You see, that's the thing, you can never truly convince anyone that you don't want to have sexual contact with the person that your obscrussion is currently based. I used to get the whole 'Oh, you fancy him! You do! You blushed!' when I am still as pale as I have always been, I don't know if I have ever blushed and believe me, I've lived through some pretty toe curling moments during the course of my life.
Having OCD, obsessions are pretty much par for the course for me - intrusive thoughts, obsessing over the tiniest detail, one good reason why I have always seemed pretty competant as a software tester and also, when I came up with this word Io gt so obsessed that I had to write this blog entry - and I have had crushes during my life and so it was difficult to define a feeling that wasn't exactly an obsession or a crush. More like something in between.
I've had obscrussions about the most oddest things - my friend's hair for example...
My friend will remain nameless in this instance as he is, as far as I know, unaware of this strange feeling that consumed me so badly several years ago. I became completely fascinated with his hair - the colour, the shape, the texture. I used to sit in an office near him (oh boy, he is probably going to guess at some point) and every week day I would find myself staring at his hair, wanting to touch it mainly but generally just wanting to look at it. Now, let me assure you that while this gentleman was one of the nicest people I know, I had no desire to be anything other than friends with him. It wasn't an obsession as it didn't occupy my every waking moment or get in the way of my day to day duties and it wasn't a crush as there was no sexual nature to it - it was something in between.
The funny thing is that I go through phases where I become incredibly fascinated with something then I will pretty much drop it like a hot potato. For example, I watched The League of Gentlemen several years ago - I bought the series 1 DVD and eagerly went home to watch it. The very next day I went out and bought the series 2 and 3 DVDs, the Christmas Special and the Live DVD. I bought a T-shirt and for a while it was my hot topic. Then it was Frasier - I watched every single episode, many times, before I dropped that too, in the pit of my discarded obscrussions. At first it was mainly TV shows - Scrubs, Top Gear, Spaced, The Mighty Boosh - then it became TV characters - House (played by the very talented Hugh Laurie), Doctor Who (mainly David Tennant - despite complaining that I 'didn't like the new guy' after Christopher Eccleston I soon found myself buying Doctor Who mugs, watches, going to the Doctor Who museum in Blackpool etc What can I say, I warmed to him), Dr Cox from Scrubs (pretty much summing up my obscrussions on grumpy people in general - also see Edmund Blackadder and Inspector Morse ((I know, I know, what can I say really))).
Anyway, after ruining that sentence I should probably calm down a little but that's the thing, I get ridiculously passionate about something for a very short period of time then before you know it I have moved onto another obscrussion. I've had these feelings about Gordon Ramsay, Charlie Brooker, Richard Hammond when I have absolutely no desire to even meet them in real life - I just want to see everything they have been in on the TV. I don't want to stalk them, I've got far better things to do with my time, I just have a mild obscrussion.
Now, I don't think that I am entirely alone in this as my Dad is very similar. After my parents divorced I lived with my Dad for about 5 years before I came up to Edinburgh to go to university and during those 5 years I watched him go through a number of obscrussions.
At one point, all he wanted to buy was Bonsai Trees - not the real ones I might add but the cute little plastic/glass ornaments. The small house was filled with them, like a mini fake bonsai forest. Then he was all about the bronze, every ornament he bought had to be bronze. Then it was novelty tea pots, then onyx - he must have been a car boot sales traders dream. Oddly enough after that it became hoovers, then TV's, then computers, until his house started to look not disimilar to something from Steptoe and Son. It was always clean but the amount of junk in that house was breathtaking. This led me to think that perhaps it wasn't just me.
For me, my OCD and obscrussions appear to be totally separate. I get obsessed about numbers and the way songs sound and whether the door is locked or the hob is off (seriously, it takes me about 30 mins to leave the house with all of the checks I have to do - and that's on a good day) whereas my obscrussions appear to be totally different.
One of my biggest fears at one stage was that, when I took my OCD meds I was afraid that I would find out that my feelings for my husband were just an obscrussion or obsession as the meds allude to take away or at least ease the obsessions. The obsessions were eased and thankfully my strong feelings for my husband still remain and are definitely not an obscrussion. I love him more every day.
Even with the meds I still have obscrussions though so if you ever see me in HMV, clutching a handful of DVD's at the till - all starring David Tennant or Simon Pegg, be warned that my obscrussions rage on.
And if you see me staring at your hair, heck just take it as a compliment! :)
When I was about 17 I attended a Maths class (yes, ok, I got a D in my GCSE maths and had to resit it - in my defence, in the resit I got a B!) and the teacher of the class was a wonderful guy. He had a great sense of humour and a quick wit and I was totally smitten. Now, this guy was probably in his late thirties or early forties and his fashion sense was not his primary concern but I thought he was the best thing since sliced bread. The thing is that, and heres the thing, I had no desire to sleep with him/have any sexual contact etc I just thought that he was wonderful. That's the odd thing about having an obscrussion, you think that the object of the thoughts is fascinating and extraordinary, but you have no sexual feelings towards it/them whatsoever.
Thankfully I don't think that I ever mentioned this strange obscrussion to anyone as they would have mercilessly ribbed me and said 'You fancy him!!!'. No one would have understood that I didn't want a relationship with the man, I was just enthralled by him. Also, I just want to point out that I never did anything about it and I presume that he is still blissfully unaware of my feelings, well...unless he has read this I suppose.
Anyway, that was one in a long line of obscrussions I have had over the years with men, women and objects. It seems that the obscrussions are present regardless of my sexual preference - despite being completely heterosexual I had a massive obscrussion on Kylie Minogue, again - never did anything about it, well, except for buying her singles, albums and wanting to look like her when I was a teenager.
You see, that's the thing, you can never truly convince anyone that you don't want to have sexual contact with the person that your obscrussion is currently based. I used to get the whole 'Oh, you fancy him! You do! You blushed!' when I am still as pale as I have always been, I don't know if I have ever blushed and believe me, I've lived through some pretty toe curling moments during the course of my life.
Having OCD, obsessions are pretty much par for the course for me - intrusive thoughts, obsessing over the tiniest detail, one good reason why I have always seemed pretty competant as a software tester and also, when I came up with this word Io gt so obsessed that I had to write this blog entry - and I have had crushes during my life and so it was difficult to define a feeling that wasn't exactly an obsession or a crush. More like something in between.
I've had obscrussions about the most oddest things - my friend's hair for example...
My friend will remain nameless in this instance as he is, as far as I know, unaware of this strange feeling that consumed me so badly several years ago. I became completely fascinated with his hair - the colour, the shape, the texture. I used to sit in an office near him (oh boy, he is probably going to guess at some point) and every week day I would find myself staring at his hair, wanting to touch it mainly but generally just wanting to look at it. Now, let me assure you that while this gentleman was one of the nicest people I know, I had no desire to be anything other than friends with him. It wasn't an obsession as it didn't occupy my every waking moment or get in the way of my day to day duties and it wasn't a crush as there was no sexual nature to it - it was something in between.
The funny thing is that I go through phases where I become incredibly fascinated with something then I will pretty much drop it like a hot potato. For example, I watched The League of Gentlemen several years ago - I bought the series 1 DVD and eagerly went home to watch it. The very next day I went out and bought the series 2 and 3 DVDs, the Christmas Special and the Live DVD. I bought a T-shirt and for a while it was my hot topic. Then it was Frasier - I watched every single episode, many times, before I dropped that too, in the pit of my discarded obscrussions. At first it was mainly TV shows - Scrubs, Top Gear, Spaced, The Mighty Boosh - then it became TV characters - House (played by the very talented Hugh Laurie), Doctor Who (mainly David Tennant - despite complaining that I 'didn't like the new guy' after Christopher Eccleston I soon found myself buying Doctor Who mugs, watches, going to the Doctor Who museum in Blackpool etc What can I say, I warmed to him), Dr Cox from Scrubs (pretty much summing up my obscrussions on grumpy people in general - also see Edmund Blackadder and Inspector Morse ((I know, I know, what can I say really))).
Anyway, after ruining that sentence I should probably calm down a little but that's the thing, I get ridiculously passionate about something for a very short period of time then before you know it I have moved onto another obscrussion. I've had these feelings about Gordon Ramsay, Charlie Brooker, Richard Hammond when I have absolutely no desire to even meet them in real life - I just want to see everything they have been in on the TV. I don't want to stalk them, I've got far better things to do with my time, I just have a mild obscrussion.
Now, I don't think that I am entirely alone in this as my Dad is very similar. After my parents divorced I lived with my Dad for about 5 years before I came up to Edinburgh to go to university and during those 5 years I watched him go through a number of obscrussions.
At one point, all he wanted to buy was Bonsai Trees - not the real ones I might add but the cute little plastic/glass ornaments. The small house was filled with them, like a mini fake bonsai forest. Then he was all about the bronze, every ornament he bought had to be bronze. Then it was novelty tea pots, then onyx - he must have been a car boot sales traders dream. Oddly enough after that it became hoovers, then TV's, then computers, until his house started to look not disimilar to something from Steptoe and Son. It was always clean but the amount of junk in that house was breathtaking. This led me to think that perhaps it wasn't just me.
For me, my OCD and obscrussions appear to be totally separate. I get obsessed about numbers and the way songs sound and whether the door is locked or the hob is off (seriously, it takes me about 30 mins to leave the house with all of the checks I have to do - and that's on a good day) whereas my obscrussions appear to be totally different.
One of my biggest fears at one stage was that, when I took my OCD meds I was afraid that I would find out that my feelings for my husband were just an obscrussion or obsession as the meds allude to take away or at least ease the obsessions. The obsessions were eased and thankfully my strong feelings for my husband still remain and are definitely not an obscrussion. I love him more every day.
Even with the meds I still have obscrussions though so if you ever see me in HMV, clutching a handful of DVD's at the till - all starring David Tennant or Simon Pegg, be warned that my obscrussions rage on.
And if you see me staring at your hair, heck just take it as a compliment! :)
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
The Gas man, the broken washing machine and the obese Wii Mee
Last week was, quite frankly, miserable. Don't worry dear reader, I'm not going to get all depressed on you now - there were some funny aspects admittedly but it was mostly miserable.
It started with the letter from the gas company a few weeks ago...
According to the gas company, who will remain nameless, they had visited our property on many occasions and left cards etc but they had not been able to gain access to our flat to examine the meter for it's yearly check thingie. Now, here's the deal - I have been off sick from work for approximately 4 months and I have been in most of the time (when I haven't been at the hospital having parts of me probed or at the doctors). So either they were going to a totally different property or just very confused. Anyway, they said that they would come round 2 weeks ago. I waited in all day and they failed to show up. I was quite rightly livid and my husband phoned them back and rearranged the appointment. Anyway, to cut a long story hopefully reasonably short, they finally were scheduled to arrive last wednesday.
They claimed that they would phone ten minutes prior to arrival and that it would be between 8am and 12 noon. So at 9am I was still in bed - I still have a lot of abdomen pain, don't you judge me now :) - when the buzzer to the main door of the flat parped loudly. I jumped up to answer it and no one spoke on the intercom, despite my plaintive cries of 'Hello?'. Then there was a hard rap on the door and as I had only just clambered out of bed I was wearing fleecy pyjamas and a huge bright pink fuscia dressing gown and pink furry slippers (attractive huh?) with the most ridiclous bed hair. I opened the door breathlessly, I had gotten a shock when the buzzer went ok and I'm not as healthy as I used to be!, and said the following: 'Oh, oh, thank goodness you've come, I've been expecting you!'
Now, I don't usually get so excited when men come to read the meter but I had spent an entire day the week before waiting for them and I was so relieved! I wouldn't have to spend an entire day wondering if I could go to the loo uninterrupted or start eating without having to discard the food untouched because the doorbell rang etc
Anyway, back to my wholly inappropriate comment at the door...
I don't know who was more shocked - me because I had said something that could be misconstrued or him because he thought he was going to get molested by some desperate housewife with a pink fixation (I'm neither desperate or fixated on pink, I'd just like to add). To make matters worse, as I had just climbed out of bed and as the door was open, the guy could see right through to the bedroom with the covers pulled back as if I was ready to drag him in! By this point my face was probably the colour of my gown and fluffy slippers. So what did I do in this embarrassing situation my dear reader - did I shut up and motion wordlessly to the meter? did I pretend it had not been said? Oh no, that would have been too easy, I spluttered and said 'Oh no, that must have sounded so dodgy, I'm not expecting you in that way! It's nothing dodgy like that or anything I just mean that...'. Then I did what I should have done in the first place, motioned towards the meter and shut my trap. The rather bewildered man rushed in, looked at the meter, pressed a couple of buttons on his handheld machine and said 'That's fine, goodbye'. Never has a gas man checked a meter so quickly! Now, to be fair, they did say that they would give me 10 minutes notice and that never materialised so you could say that it was their fault I was in that situation - let's just say that if someone needs to do something to the flat, I will be ready at least ten minutes before the start of the period in which they will arrive...or at least pretend I have laryngitis and can't talk!
Which leads me to the second problem last week - the Sickness of the Washing Machine! About two weeks ago, our washing machine was a fairly happy kitchen appliance, washing it's way through load after load of yummy clothing but then it developed some sort of major blockage and conked out. I'm no washing machine expert, everything I know about washing machines could be written on the head of a match, then ignited as I don't actually know anything about them at all. After continually harrassing my husband to phone my dad, who quite frankly eats washing machines for breakfast (well, not so much as eats as fixes but you get the general idea), he finally phoned my dad.
Just as a brief aside, my Dad has been into all things mechanical for decades - when I was 15 I came home from school to find him sat on the dining room carpet with some sort of long metal pipe, scrubbing the inside of what appeared to be the engine of a car. I said 'Dad, what's that?', eyeing the oil which had somehow crept over the poorly laid newspaper onto the axminster carpet (that sounds quite grand carpet but it had been on the floor for approximately 25 years before being desecrated by various machinery so it was, by now, a bit worse for wear). My Dad replied 'it's the engine from the car'. What can you say to that really? I think that when my parents divorced that my Dad thought 'Right, see this carpet? I'm gonna get me some machinery on this carpet and no woman is going to stop me!' and to be fair, as I was the only girl/women in the house, I didn't really. He hauled washing machines out of skips to restore them to their former glory, vacuum cleaners from scrap yards to vacuum another day! Basically as long as my Dad can get something open he can generally fix it - with the exception of my Jem doll with the LED earrings. He cut the top of the dolls head open to fix a broken LED then realised that even if he affixed the top of the head she would still look like Frankenstein's monster and that's just scary for kids.
Anyway so my poor put upon husband eventually phoned my Dad. My husband is very skilled at fixing things but my Dad has eons of experience so I thought that between the two of them they could probably fix it. After much to-ing and fro-ing it was found that the filter and pump were hidden and the problem seemed to be with one of these items. Whilst I am aware of the purpose of a filter and pump in several objects, I'm not particularly familiar with any of the gobbledegook that was coming out of the phone from my Dad or from my husband with regards to how they function in the washing machine. As the problem didn't seem to be easily fixable and the machine is less than a year old, it was decided that an engineer would be called.
This was prior to the gas man incident but I was still annoyed that I would have to spend two days waiting for various workpeople.
Now, as you may have realised, I have OCD and while I'm not wholly fixated on cleaning, I am terrifed of germs and contamination - yep, it seems daft I know and the rational part of my brain agrees with everyone else but the OCD part is a lot harder than the rest of my brain and can generally bully me into submission. The washing machine engineer was prompt and, as he arrived the day after the gas man, I was ready and dressed and watching The Jeremy Kyle Show as he arrived - at least he was on time. The guy came into the flat and plonked his laptop on our clean worktop protector - I visibly flinched, considering the germs/dirt that would now be lurking (I'm sure he is a very clean man but that just does not mean diddly squat to someone with OCD). I had just boiled the kettle to make him a cup of coffee which he declined and he put his coat over the kettle. All I could think about was that something might fall out of his pocket into the kettle and make us all ill or that the kettle would be hot and burn a hole in his jacket, causing a fire and he would have to dangle me out of the window to escape - the kettle is near the window and I would have to run the other way but that's not the point.
He then asked me if I had a bucket, I gave him a bucket but it turned out that it was too deep so, as there was no other alternative, he had to use the washing up bowl. Anyone else would have allowed him to use the washing up bowl and then washed it afterwards but not me, I had to go out and buy a new washing up bowl that very day - I jest ye not - and that was just a riot trying to cart it around on the bus.
He then asked if we had a towel. I thought that he was just going to wipe his hands on it but it turned out he was going to wipe the floor, the inner rim of the washing machine etc which again led me to dispose of the towel later on.
He kept pouring the dirty water from the washing machine into the sink caring little of the splashage onto the freshly washed plates and cutlery that resided in the drainer. The clean washing up sponge was hurled into the mini sink (that I never touch because it is too disgusting for some reason) in a cavalier fashion meaning that it too, like the towel, had to go. Essentially I was in the middle of an OCD nightmare that only lasted for 30 minutes but believe me, felt a lot longer.
Needless to say, I had to scrub the entire kitchen once it was over and go out and buy a new washing up bowl, drainer and new sponges. The 'contaminated' items are now languishing in our kitchen, hoping to be revived and used for other household purposes, preferably not by me.
Anyway, last week was also the week that I decided that enough is enough with my weight. I used to be so slim but now, well I wont tell you my weight but my BMI is now almost 37 which is pretty bad as things go. It's quite odd as about four or five years ago I had anorexia nervosa. I struggled with the cruel eating disorder for several years and at my lightest I was about 7 stone 6. I've always had a strange relationship with food and just over a year ago I gave up smoking which in many ways was a good thing but for my weight it was a huge mistake. I'm sure that not all people who give up smoking put on weight but I ate for Scotland - chocolate, crisps, mainly chocolate - I became orally fixated (yes, go on, have a chuckle).
So, combined with the terrible abdomen pain I have, I have managed to acquire 4 stone within a year. That would be impressive if the weight was diamonds or gold but as it is fat it is not nearly as welcome.
I decided that, even though I can't do much exercise because of the pain, that I would use Wii Fit for the Yoga to at least tone up. As someone who used to do boxercise and could easily get into the crab position all those years ago I kind of thought that it would be a breeze. I was so wrong.
Aside from the fact that when the Wii Balance Board weighed me and told me I was obese, it also made my Wii Me obese so not only is my podgy body right under my nose, it is now staring at me from the TV screen as I exercise - Nice. I know that this is to motivate me and I have indeed lost a pound in the past week, it's still very depressing to be told that I have a Wii Fit age of 44 (I'm 31). Thankfully I don't cry easily! Actually...actually that's a lie, as I'm off my OCD meds I cry like a baby at the merest hint of a polar bear on the TV but anyway, at least I didn't hit the ice cream feeling like a failure.
I've been doing the yoga and some of the muscle exercises and I do feel better for it but I have to admit to cravings for chocolate, cakes, mainly chocolate and often a cigarette!
All in all, last week was fairly depressing and I was hoping this week would be better but after forgetting my PIN number at the ATM this morning I'm not sure that's going to be the case.
Also, the boiler needs fixing...
It started with the letter from the gas company a few weeks ago...
According to the gas company, who will remain nameless, they had visited our property on many occasions and left cards etc but they had not been able to gain access to our flat to examine the meter for it's yearly check thingie. Now, here's the deal - I have been off sick from work for approximately 4 months and I have been in most of the time (when I haven't been at the hospital having parts of me probed or at the doctors). So either they were going to a totally different property or just very confused. Anyway, they said that they would come round 2 weeks ago. I waited in all day and they failed to show up. I was quite rightly livid and my husband phoned them back and rearranged the appointment. Anyway, to cut a long story hopefully reasonably short, they finally were scheduled to arrive last wednesday.
They claimed that they would phone ten minutes prior to arrival and that it would be between 8am and 12 noon. So at 9am I was still in bed - I still have a lot of abdomen pain, don't you judge me now :) - when the buzzer to the main door of the flat parped loudly. I jumped up to answer it and no one spoke on the intercom, despite my plaintive cries of 'Hello?'. Then there was a hard rap on the door and as I had only just clambered out of bed I was wearing fleecy pyjamas and a huge bright pink fuscia dressing gown and pink furry slippers (attractive huh?) with the most ridiclous bed hair. I opened the door breathlessly, I had gotten a shock when the buzzer went ok and I'm not as healthy as I used to be!, and said the following: 'Oh, oh, thank goodness you've come, I've been expecting you!'
Now, I don't usually get so excited when men come to read the meter but I had spent an entire day the week before waiting for them and I was so relieved! I wouldn't have to spend an entire day wondering if I could go to the loo uninterrupted or start eating without having to discard the food untouched because the doorbell rang etc
Anyway, back to my wholly inappropriate comment at the door...
I don't know who was more shocked - me because I had said something that could be misconstrued or him because he thought he was going to get molested by some desperate housewife with a pink fixation (I'm neither desperate or fixated on pink, I'd just like to add). To make matters worse, as I had just climbed out of bed and as the door was open, the guy could see right through to the bedroom with the covers pulled back as if I was ready to drag him in! By this point my face was probably the colour of my gown and fluffy slippers. So what did I do in this embarrassing situation my dear reader - did I shut up and motion wordlessly to the meter? did I pretend it had not been said? Oh no, that would have been too easy, I spluttered and said 'Oh no, that must have sounded so dodgy, I'm not expecting you in that way! It's nothing dodgy like that or anything I just mean that...'. Then I did what I should have done in the first place, motioned towards the meter and shut my trap. The rather bewildered man rushed in, looked at the meter, pressed a couple of buttons on his handheld machine and said 'That's fine, goodbye'. Never has a gas man checked a meter so quickly! Now, to be fair, they did say that they would give me 10 minutes notice and that never materialised so you could say that it was their fault I was in that situation - let's just say that if someone needs to do something to the flat, I will be ready at least ten minutes before the start of the period in which they will arrive...or at least pretend I have laryngitis and can't talk!
Which leads me to the second problem last week - the Sickness of the Washing Machine! About two weeks ago, our washing machine was a fairly happy kitchen appliance, washing it's way through load after load of yummy clothing but then it developed some sort of major blockage and conked out. I'm no washing machine expert, everything I know about washing machines could be written on the head of a match, then ignited as I don't actually know anything about them at all. After continually harrassing my husband to phone my dad, who quite frankly eats washing machines for breakfast (well, not so much as eats as fixes but you get the general idea), he finally phoned my dad.
Just as a brief aside, my Dad has been into all things mechanical for decades - when I was 15 I came home from school to find him sat on the dining room carpet with some sort of long metal pipe, scrubbing the inside of what appeared to be the engine of a car. I said 'Dad, what's that?', eyeing the oil which had somehow crept over the poorly laid newspaper onto the axminster carpet (that sounds quite grand carpet but it had been on the floor for approximately 25 years before being desecrated by various machinery so it was, by now, a bit worse for wear). My Dad replied 'it's the engine from the car'. What can you say to that really? I think that when my parents divorced that my Dad thought 'Right, see this carpet? I'm gonna get me some machinery on this carpet and no woman is going to stop me!' and to be fair, as I was the only girl/women in the house, I didn't really. He hauled washing machines out of skips to restore them to their former glory, vacuum cleaners from scrap yards to vacuum another day! Basically as long as my Dad can get something open he can generally fix it - with the exception of my Jem doll with the LED earrings. He cut the top of the dolls head open to fix a broken LED then realised that even if he affixed the top of the head she would still look like Frankenstein's monster and that's just scary for kids.
Anyway so my poor put upon husband eventually phoned my Dad. My husband is very skilled at fixing things but my Dad has eons of experience so I thought that between the two of them they could probably fix it. After much to-ing and fro-ing it was found that the filter and pump were hidden and the problem seemed to be with one of these items. Whilst I am aware of the purpose of a filter and pump in several objects, I'm not particularly familiar with any of the gobbledegook that was coming out of the phone from my Dad or from my husband with regards to how they function in the washing machine. As the problem didn't seem to be easily fixable and the machine is less than a year old, it was decided that an engineer would be called.
This was prior to the gas man incident but I was still annoyed that I would have to spend two days waiting for various workpeople.
Now, as you may have realised, I have OCD and while I'm not wholly fixated on cleaning, I am terrifed of germs and contamination - yep, it seems daft I know and the rational part of my brain agrees with everyone else but the OCD part is a lot harder than the rest of my brain and can generally bully me into submission. The washing machine engineer was prompt and, as he arrived the day after the gas man, I was ready and dressed and watching The Jeremy Kyle Show as he arrived - at least he was on time. The guy came into the flat and plonked his laptop on our clean worktop protector - I visibly flinched, considering the germs/dirt that would now be lurking (I'm sure he is a very clean man but that just does not mean diddly squat to someone with OCD). I had just boiled the kettle to make him a cup of coffee which he declined and he put his coat over the kettle. All I could think about was that something might fall out of his pocket into the kettle and make us all ill or that the kettle would be hot and burn a hole in his jacket, causing a fire and he would have to dangle me out of the window to escape - the kettle is near the window and I would have to run the other way but that's not the point.
He then asked me if I had a bucket, I gave him a bucket but it turned out that it was too deep so, as there was no other alternative, he had to use the washing up bowl. Anyone else would have allowed him to use the washing up bowl and then washed it afterwards but not me, I had to go out and buy a new washing up bowl that very day - I jest ye not - and that was just a riot trying to cart it around on the bus.
He then asked if we had a towel. I thought that he was just going to wipe his hands on it but it turned out he was going to wipe the floor, the inner rim of the washing machine etc which again led me to dispose of the towel later on.
He kept pouring the dirty water from the washing machine into the sink caring little of the splashage onto the freshly washed plates and cutlery that resided in the drainer. The clean washing up sponge was hurled into the mini sink (that I never touch because it is too disgusting for some reason) in a cavalier fashion meaning that it too, like the towel, had to go. Essentially I was in the middle of an OCD nightmare that only lasted for 30 minutes but believe me, felt a lot longer.
Needless to say, I had to scrub the entire kitchen once it was over and go out and buy a new washing up bowl, drainer and new sponges. The 'contaminated' items are now languishing in our kitchen, hoping to be revived and used for other household purposes, preferably not by me.
Anyway, last week was also the week that I decided that enough is enough with my weight. I used to be so slim but now, well I wont tell you my weight but my BMI is now almost 37 which is pretty bad as things go. It's quite odd as about four or five years ago I had anorexia nervosa. I struggled with the cruel eating disorder for several years and at my lightest I was about 7 stone 6. I've always had a strange relationship with food and just over a year ago I gave up smoking which in many ways was a good thing but for my weight it was a huge mistake. I'm sure that not all people who give up smoking put on weight but I ate for Scotland - chocolate, crisps, mainly chocolate - I became orally fixated (yes, go on, have a chuckle).
So, combined with the terrible abdomen pain I have, I have managed to acquire 4 stone within a year. That would be impressive if the weight was diamonds or gold but as it is fat it is not nearly as welcome.
I decided that, even though I can't do much exercise because of the pain, that I would use Wii Fit for the Yoga to at least tone up. As someone who used to do boxercise and could easily get into the crab position all those years ago I kind of thought that it would be a breeze. I was so wrong.
Aside from the fact that when the Wii Balance Board weighed me and told me I was obese, it also made my Wii Me obese so not only is my podgy body right under my nose, it is now staring at me from the TV screen as I exercise - Nice. I know that this is to motivate me and I have indeed lost a pound in the past week, it's still very depressing to be told that I have a Wii Fit age of 44 (I'm 31). Thankfully I don't cry easily! Actually...actually that's a lie, as I'm off my OCD meds I cry like a baby at the merest hint of a polar bear on the TV but anyway, at least I didn't hit the ice cream feeling like a failure.
I've been doing the yoga and some of the muscle exercises and I do feel better for it but I have to admit to cravings for chocolate, cakes, mainly chocolate and often a cigarette!
All in all, last week was fairly depressing and I was hoping this week would be better but after forgetting my PIN number at the ATM this morning I'm not sure that's going to be the case.
Also, the boiler needs fixing...
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