Isolation and shielding is tough

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).

Panic buying soap

 

Toilet roll shortage

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”?

OCD trolley full of shopping

 

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!!

 

Shopping

I know I’m naughty to continually want to shop.  I am at my happiest when shopping, even if it’s for mundane groceries – any excuse to get myself off to the shops.  I can’t wait for it to be someone’s birthday, anniversary or Christmas so that I can ‘shop ’til I drop’ and burn off calories in the process.  On top of that the internet has made it possible for me to shop 24×7, 365 days a year, even from the comfort of my sofa.

I even bought a house so that I could return the largest room back into a shop, so that I can shop for stock!  I was in paradise shopping for stock that I hoped customers would want to buy at a marginal profit, to earn a small living.  I think the economy improved from 2013 until December 2017 with all the shopping I efficiently performed.

I started to get concerned that my spending on stock was equaling (if not exceeding) my income from sales, and eventually I slowly but surely came to the realization that my ‘little shop’ was costing me money and heartache – the heartache is a whole other story that I’ll write about another time.

So as the holiday period for Christmas 2017 arrived I took the decision to close the shop and not reopen it in January 2018.  The fall out from this decision has meant that I’ve desperately needed to go on an economy drive and it was suggested to me that I keep a spreadsheet of ALL my spending, oh boy that was a nasty shock.

Because of my economy-drive and the accountability of even £1 spent, I’ve really appreciated how reckless my spending has been for many many years.  The end result is:

  • My shop is full to over-flowing with stock, that currently has no access to customers purchasing any of it – so bang goes birthday or Christmas present shopping for many years to come, as I’ll have to use up my stock and hope the relatives and friends don’t notice.
  • There is too much stock in the shop to revert the space back to a living room (as it was when I bought the property) and the rafters would struggle under the weight if it was all put into the attic, plus that space is full to capacity with previous years spending.
  • My personal cupboards, drawers, wardrobes, ottomans, and shelves are full to breaking point with all my “treasures” and supplies of every conceivable consumable from hand wash to stationery – a woman can’t run out of toiletries and post-it notes or envelopes, but I could supply the whole village in the likelihood of an alien invasion.

Cupboards rammed full

Over the last six weeks I’ve come to realize that I do have a shopping problem – to say I love “retail therapy” or that I’m a “shopoholic” is not a funny throw-away comment anymore.  It can’t be right that I look forward to running low on butter or toilet rolls so that I can have an excuse to go to the supermarket, but as you no doubt experience yourself, hardly anyone, especially a shopoholic like myself, can walk into a supermarket and not be tempted to buy more than you went for.

I thought I’d read a great deal about OCD, but clearly not because yesterday I was surprised about how big a problem shopping can be for sufferers – the condition is named monomania or Compulsive Buying Disorder.

It must be incredibly painful for people with OCD that absolutely dread having to go shopping, perhaps because too many people are in an aisle and can be off-putting that they’ll brush against them, or the process of even getting to the shops is too traumatic.  I read that the packaging being perfect is a worry, that there can be no sign of tampering and that the item being bought needs to “feel right”, both at the shelf and then again at the conveyor belt/till.

http://www.ocdaction.org.uk/forum

On the OCD Action forum (see link above) I read how one lady was checking packets of toilet rolls for split/damaged packaging and was then horrified to see a colleague watching her.  She covered her embarrassment by saying she had seen a competition on the wrapping last time she bought the rolls, and was looking for it on the packaging again!  Us people with OCD need to be so creative with our excuses to hide our true behaviours, and it is sad in my opinion.

I do suffer with the above problems – always vigilant about the distance kept from strangers (if they touch me accidentally they don’t realise my outer garment will need washing), never touching the shelving or conveyor belts and never touching the handle on the trolley (I use the metal frame).  I always take items from the middle to ensure that the least fingers have touched the item and that the potential for it to have been picked up off the floor after dropping off the shelf is minimised.

All of that said though, the pleasure of shopping for me outweighs the OCD inconveniences.

If you would like to read more information about this subject, the link below is very useful.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1805733/

 

 

 

 

 

Retail challenge

Over the last few days I have found a new challenge when it comes to shopping – I cannot purchase wool to knit with that is wrapped and not exposed to dirty fingers.  Has the ball of wool been dropped on the floor in the factory or the shop?  Did the shelf-filler wash their hands after the toilet?  Have lots of customers touched the wool?  Will the counter top at the till be clean to place my ball of wool on?  Germs, and then contaminated wool.

I’m prepared to buy more wool than I require (a bale? of wool, or a packet of 12 balls), as long as it is in protected cellophane.  I can tell you that this simple product seems impossible to find.

I’ve trawled around the usual shops likely to sell wool, starting on Sunday afternoon followed by Monday searching on-line with Amazon and Ebay, but even with their huge choice I couldn’t find chunky wool photographed in cellophane, so that I can buy it and get started on knitting a throw.  It would also appear that there aren’t any wool shops near, or in a 15 mile radius of my address after Googling this need for wool.

I have it in my head that I need to knit to distract my wondering and frustrated mind in the evenings, whilst sitting on my ‘OCD clean white sofa’.  Nothing (and definitely no one) gets to be on my sofa unless it is extremely clean – there is a 12 inch exclusion zone – even I have to change my clothes to sit on my sofa!

 

Help with my OCD

 

This is when my OCD infuriates me because I won’t settle until I’ve located wool that is wrapped.  I tell myself to let it drop, and pick up another hobby, but the bully keeps reminding me like an itch that needs to be scratched.  The message rolling over and over in my mind is “it can’t be impossible to find wool that is wrapped – picture the contentment of knitting on my sofa with clean wool that hasn’t been touched by dirty hands”.

After many hours of hunting on-line, I decide to hit the crafting sections of The Range and Hobbycraft but with no joy.  I asked in Hobbycraft last night if they have ANY wool in the storeroom that hasn’t been unpackaged and needs to be put on the huge array of shelves holding wool, but “No everything is out” I was told.  Can this really be true, or is the assistant too lazy to look.  I decide to bear all and say “I have OCD and therefore cannot buy the wool on display” but I received a blank look and no sign of compassion for my conundrum.

Now being a fussy person, I was actually looking for chunky pale green wool with flecks of pink and yellow to match my decor in the living room, but by now I would compromise my colour scheme in order to buy wool protected from the elements – is this so hard, wool, I need wool, clean protected wool of any description!

In desperation at 7.30 p.m. I try the more bizarre options for one-off offers in Poundland, and Lidl – I was amazed to see that Poundland had wool – not the colour or thickness I’d choose but “beggars can’t be choosers” as the saying goes.  However, upon asking the shop assistant I’m again told “no all the wool we have is out on display”.

I put my thinking cap on and wonder if a work-around solution to this crazy annoyance would be to buy the wool I loved in Hobbycraft (yes they actually had pale green with pastel flecks) and put it in the washing machine, in a pillowcase.  Odd I know, but I have done this in the past but because you take the paper label off from around the middle, it just goes crazy in the pillowcase and I spent hours untangling and re-rolling it into a ball.  I decided that much as I love the wool, I am very likely to buy it (being a shopoholic) and put it in a ‘safe place’ waiting to be brave, or is that daft, enough to risk the whisking up it gets in a washing machine.

Today is day three of the finding clean wool challenge and unfortunately my OCD mind hasn’t stopped berating me so I ended up mooching through drawers upon drawers of goodies I’ve stock piled over the years with crafting projects and pretty haberdashery, in the hope that I’ve some remaining wool from previous knit-feasts I’ve embarked on.

Joy upon joy, I find wool!  Each ball is individually wrapped, and then in a cellophane bag that I bought from John Lewis a few years ago – thank you John Lewis.  It may not be pale green with pink flecks, but hey isn’t a muddy grey colour a good substitute?  No clearly it isn’t, and I won’t enjoy the end product nearly as much, and it’ll play on my mind each and every hour of the project I sit knitting, and I will continue to pursue my quest to find the right wool in a protected packet because that is what OCD living is like.

If you can help me find a supplier that sells OCD friendly wool, please get in touch and put me out of this misery.

OCD Happy knitting