Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Flooring. Is any of it safe?
I know I haven't been writing very often. It just seems like when things cool off with OCD for a while then I don't have anything to write about. Lately, I have been dealing with flooring. I know it sounds boring. We had a pipe freeze and break last winter. Water flooded the laundry room and into the hall and we had to pull up part of the carpet padding. I want to replace our flooring but I just don't know what to do. I have researched almost every website and I thought I found the solution. I was going to go buy it today. I am now not going to buy it today and I'm sure my husband will probably be disappointed. I was all fine and dandy and now I've chickened out. I found a laminate flooring and it was in our budget and it was even greenguard certified which means it's has gone through lots of testing to make sure it's safe for the air quality for VOC's. Most people probably don't know or care what a VOC is. It is Volatile Organic Compound. It's found in almost everything. So, the reason I don't want it is because it's coated with something called aluminum oxide. I have no proof this is going to be harmful. I just was thinking of alzheimer's and aluminum and how people have said it could contribute to it. I of course got on the computer and had to start "researching." I didn't find much but I don't want to go buy the new flooring now. Even the eco-friendly options have stuff in them that are not good or they are way too expensive. My carpet now really is not in good shape and I just may have it for a lot longer if I can't decide what to do. It's so frustrating. I was starting to have my hyper-ventilation breathing which just feels like I'm not breathing naturally but no one else notices and I did not sleep good because of this. I am feeling sleepy now because I took a clonazapam. I am not going to go to sleep though because I have so much other stuff to do. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. That's another thing I need to work on is getting myself on a schedule. Don't know if that'll happen. LOL.
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I know that no one can reassure enough when OCD makes you question things, but I'd bet there isn't enough aluminum in the floor coating to cause Alzheimer's. I know where you are, though, and hope you can find the strength to face things. :)
ReplyDeleteHum.. how about lately your hubby to decide what to do what the floor? I read somewhere about this method called Responsibility Transfer Therapy... which means you transfer the responsibility to someone else so you won't have to worry about it =D
ReplyDeleteTake care and I hope everything works up well for you =D
Thank you for your nice words and helpful suggestions. I'm still stressing over it.
ReplyDeleteOh, I know how painful a bout of researching things can be! The ocd is not going to find any option acceptable--it wants 100% certainty you are picking the safest flooring. Can you take your best guess?
ReplyDeleteYou'll get a hit of anxiety worrying that you are wrong, but over the long term, you will be breaking the pattern of the ocd fear. I don't want to live in a world where I can't know the future harms that might occur, but I can't have any other world. It sucks.
But your ocd isn't protecting you--it could turn on you at any moment and say, "That old carpet is dangerous, you must eradicate it," and then flip back to "The laminate is dangerous, don't get it" and maybe the carpet really is a hazard, but ocd doesn't care, it just latches on.
I think I've heard of what Diana describes, about responsibility transfer, in the work of Ian Osborn.
ReplyDeleteYup. Bingo. I read it from "Can Christianity Cure Obsessive Compulsive Disorder" by Ian Osborn. =D
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