I have OCD badge for vaccination

Posted on 23rd February 2021

A big step made yesterday – I ordered two ‘I have OCD’ badges to pin to my coat when I leave the house at the end of this week. I have been called for the COVID vaccination, which is positive and necessary, but as I’ve not visited the doctors for many years, it is very daunting and scary.

The thought of entering a building and sitting on a chair waiting for a needle to be administered is frightening for me with contamination OCD. On the rare occasion it has been necessary to visit a doctor I’ve stood up in the waiting room, reading the posters pretending to be interested, to avoid sitting down, and perching precariously on the edge of the patients chair with at least five layers of clothing, when speaking to the doctor.

Will I be allowed to stand up waiting in line for the vaccination? Will I be able to have the jab whilst standing, because I can’t wear my usual five layers of clothing as my arm has to be accessible?

The staff there are busy doing a fantastic job, so they won’t want me to hold up the process by saying “would you mind wearing a new pair of gloves please” and “could I see the needle be taken out of a sterile sealed blister pack please” – will they? Or would they understand?

I’m hoping that wearing a badge saying ‘I have OCD’ on both the left and the right side of my clothes will forewarn the person with the needle that I am extremely anxious not obnoxious.

I am so tempted to avoid this embarrassment and forego the vaccination, but I have a duty to my family, friends, and the greater good of reducing infections, so I must attend and then do it again in 12 weeks, followed by annually it’s looking increasingly like – oh blimey.

Over the 30 years plus of having OCD I’ve been so fortunate to be able to avoid many medical preventative procedures and interventions, but on this occasion I’m all out of avoidance tactics or practical work-arounds, and no excuses can be valid when this virus causes such devastating outcomes.

Apart from the anxieties above, I will be admitting, in public for everyone to see, ‘I have OCD‘ – that is a huge step for me!! Will I be confident enough to wear these badges when I eventually feel confident enough to go shopping? Perhaps best to take the first step in this direction by gauging responses (looks and comments) whilst being vaccinated as it’s non-negotiable and it is a medical environment so people will hopefully be understanding. One thing is for sure, a large glass of wine will be waiting for me when I return to the safety of my home.

Visuals depicting OCD

Posted on 17th February 2021

‘A picture paints a thousand words’ as the saying goes, therefore today I’ve been exploring which visual best suits my life with OCD. Is it a bully whispering in my ear, if so what does this bully look like? Do I have a bird sitting on my shoulder chirping nuisance OCD thoughts in my ear to prevent normal behaviour? I entered keywords into Word ClipArt for inspiration without much joy, so moved onto 123rf.com for images to buy.

Entering ‘OCD’ in the search box resulted in 2,174 images – I duly went through half of them (clearly obsessive) but still struggled to bond with any photographs/illustrations. So I entered ‘Mental Disorder’ in the search box – this resulted in 36,344 images! I was on a determined mission, but even I couldn’t look through more than a few hundred, but again nothing really resonated with me.

My partner, who is an illustrator, came up with the image above to represent me living in COVID times, but I’m afraid I wasn’t too impressed that it reflected the reoccurring nuisance thoughts. To be honest, at first glance I thought the dangerous red virus droplets were poppies falling on the umbrella!

So I’ve given him a more specific brief of: brain synapses/neuro transmitters, ping-pong thoughts going back and forward in perpetual motion like a Newton’s cradle, and thought bubbles with scary words in them like contamination, blood, germs, dirt, poo. These things are how I think of my OCD.

I look forward to his next illustration that I’ll add in my next post.

Covid precautions, OCD and taps

Posted on 10th January 2021

It’s been such a long time since I last posted on here – I should have made more New Year Resolutions, with allocation of time to this blog being an important one. In my defense, time just flies by with huge ‘To Do’ lists every day leading up to Christmas, and then a chaotic New Year with family illnesses (that is my excuse over).

In all seriousness, living in a world plaqued with Covid and all the necessary precautions, and my OCD behaviours of decades on top, maximum concentration and effort is needed to be vigilant with ‘hands, masks and space’, and that is just in my home!

Due to work and sick family members my partner is “exposed” to life outside of my protective bubble, namely home, so he has to wear a mask around me as much as possible and wherever possible keep a distance if he isn’t wearing a mask (i.e. whilst eating and drinking), and as for washing his hands?!

Life was unbearable for him living with me ‘on the hand-washing front’ prior to Covid contamination, but now everything he touches that enters the house with a shiny surface in the last three days means it potentially has the virus lurking, ready to be digested by him or me, and we have all seen the awful consequences on the 24×7 news bulletins.

I used to wash my hands far too often prior to 2020, but now the thoroughness, duration and frequency has become an occupation. They say you need to spend a minimum of 20 seconds (singing Happy Birthday twice) but that never feels sufficient for me – three times 20 seconds and then after drying it might not “feel right” so start the process all over again. As anxiety is extremely high, tap checking for no drips takes much longer than usual, it goes like this:

After turning off both hot and cold taps, stare to check for no drips – off, they are definitely turned off.
With my hand under the turned off hot tap count to random number, say 4, meaning a countdown of 4 seconds – yes there are no drips, the hot tap is off.
Then do the same with the cold tap – pick a number, perhaps 2 for the cold tap, meaning 2 seconds – yes there are no drips, the cold tap is off.
Maybe I’ll just check that hot tap again (if would cost more if it was dripping), another number, maybe 6 (I prefer even rather than odd numbers and it can’t be 13), meaning 6 seconds of checking passes by.
Right I’ll dry me hands now. Oh, but one more check of both taps before leaving the bathroom. Yes both taps are off.
I’m leaving the bathroom now and start to descend the stairs, when that horrible OCD bully creeps into my head and whispers menacingly “But what if the tap isn’t turned off and the plug is in the sink and it overflows, and water damages the important technology devices on the table downstairs, directly positioned under the bathroom, what if that happens and you destroy all the files with years of work in them, imagine hours of dripping taps, how much water would that be and what destruction and damage would that cause, how much would that cost to put right?” I try to ignore these worrying thoughts, with worse-case-scenarios, but no, the bully wins again.
I need to go back into the bathroom and do a couple more checks with my hand under both taps.
Yes both taps are off and are not dripping, so I exit the bathroom, but then … I smell my hands to ensure they smell clean with a residue of highly perfumed soap but oh dear, I can’t smell soap, and up pops OCD bully “But what if your hands are not sufficiently clean, and you touch something that could contaminate a loved one, imagine if you made them sick, best you go and wash your hands again?” If time is tight, this worry has to be ignored but occasionally the bully wins.

This process is for one hand wash, so you can work out how much of my day, and night, is wasted when I visit the bathroom. No wonder I feel like I’m always busy, but have very little productivity to show for my waking hours.

It is so annoying that as most people are now washing their hands so frequently to prevent Covid contamination, that some thoughtless people say “I’m so OCD”. No, OCD is more than a quick rinse of soap and water. OCD plagues your thought processes. OCD doesn’t trust what your eyes can see – my eyes can see there are no drips and the tap is off, but oh no, the OCD bully won’t let me trust the sense of sight, it wants the sense of touch involved too, not just once but many times over.

OCD worry is exhausting — ocd exposed worry

Isolation and shielding is tough

Posted on 10th May 202010th May 2020

Being stuck in my own home should be easy for me – I have OCD so people and places raises challenges for me – but knowing you can’t interact, in even a limited way, is more challenging than I imagined it would be. Shopping, or not being able to shop, is my biggest headache.

I feel embarrased that I was one of those “panic buyers” for toilet rolls and handwash in early March, so I’m grateful I have those essentials covered. It took several trips to several supermarkets but mission accomplished and I breathed a sign of relief at my bounty and won’t be buying any more for several weeks (or even months) knowing that if IBS flares up or a stomach bug I won’t have to resort to kitchen roll that might block up the sewer pipes. As I write this the shortage in toilet rolls seems to be over but anti-bacterial soap is still not available in abundance (I hear).

Because of my OCD I like to pick out all my shopping products carefully – I have a certain way of adding them to the trolley and putting stuff on the conveyor belt – no bread, pastries or cakes must touch either, it needs to balance on a sturdy item and not touch the bottom of my carrier bag. Whilst stocking up on toilet rolls and handwash I took the liberty of ensuring I had the cleaning products I’d need for emergencies – anti-bacterial washing-up liquid, anti-bacterial spray, bleach, kitchen rolls and tinned staple foods. The last shopping bill I had, which was over eight weeks ago, was over £100 but had no real meals to eat – the trolley looked similar to the drawing below and goodness knows what the check-out operator must have thought “she’s a fairly big woman so what does she eat as there’s nothing on this conveyor belt”?

I’ve never been able to do ‘on-line shopping’ because of my trolley/conveyor belt/carrier bag OCD dos and don’ts, as I imagine items being dropped on the floor or the person doing the picking/packing/delivering has not washed their hands after the toilet or just picked their nose etc. The kind people doing my shopping now would not do either of the latter nasties, but there is no way they would think the way I do about how the items go in the trolley, on the conveyor belt or into the carrier bag (thankfully they think normally).

For the last eight weeks of isolation/sheilding (to protect my loved ones) has meant relying on lists for someone else to do my shopping and it reminds me that I buy and eat too much – I write one list and then edit out as much as possible – think of the rationing in the war years I tell myself, make do and be creative with existing food stuffs you have in the pantry. I feel embarrassed when compiling a shopping list that someone else gets to see what I consume living on my own (especially chocolate treats and alcohol) and then has to put every item into the trolley, on a conveyor belt, into bags, into a boot and then onto my doorstep – effort that I enjoy doing ordinarily. In fact shopping used to be the highlight of my week and could take several hours of mooching the isles looking for new products to try.

Retail therapy is, or was, my guilty pleasure, and for the foreseeable future I expect this pleasure will be on hold for several more months but at least my shopping list doesn’t have to include any cleaning products!!