Yesterday was a hard day

I've had some pretty good days lately. Yesterday, the stress levels were high with OCD in full force. My day started with going to get groceries. I had got into a line to pay when I realized when I went through that particular cashiers line before she had several bandaids on each hand. I looked at her hands and she had a bandaid on her finger. It was too late to back out since there wasn't anyone in line in front of me. I thought about saying I forgot to get something and back out but I didn't. That started a hard day. I came home and washed alot of the outside packages of food and put some things in different bags from home. That went on all day and even into this morning.I didn't throw anything away though.

I then went to the pet store to get shampoo for my dog. I have gone to so many stores to get her shampoo and haven't been able to get it because it is placed by flea products. I don't use any flea products on my dog and she doesn't have fleas. She has had them but I then have to comb her out and bathe her until I get rid of them. I have put flea stuff on her and I can't stand it. Then I don't want to pet her or my children to touch her. One time I was putting the flea stuff on her and some got on my finger. That was so not cool. I look back on it now though sometimes to help get me through other things. If I got that on me and I survived then I guess I'll be okay. Anyway, back to the subject I was on. I got some shampoo but then I got home and realized it was an odor control shampoo. It had some ingredient in it that was going to bother me. I didn't try to buy that type of shampoo. I went back to return it and the lady talked me into getting another kind that I should not have got because below it on the shelf which had some small holes in the shelf was a spray bottle of flea and tick insecticide. So for me that means that somehow vapors will escape from that bottle and get on the shampoo that sat right above it. If it doesn't somehow get inside it will get on the outside of the bottle. I don't know why I even got it. I guess I thought I could handle it. I should know myself better by now. Now it sits in the garage a $7.99 bottle of shampoo that costs way more than the shampoo I buy for myself. I probably will just throw it away. I thought maybe I could pour it out into a different empty bottle but I just don't know. I don't even want to deal with it now. I was so exhausted by the end of the night. It's amazing how OCD can really wear a person out. I am trying to take it easy today and I am just staying home and relaxing.

BANDAIDS- Oh how I hate thee.

Yes, really, another run in with bandaids this morning as I was getting my groceries rung up at the store. I think the cashier had a couple on each hand. I didn't throw my groceries away today but I had to clean off the outsides of the containers with soap and some things that were in boxes I took out and put into another bag. It sucks. My fear is a fear of getting AIDS. This is a real fear that people with OCD live with. It is so real to me that it feels like this itch that won't go away and leave me alone. Right now I feel very uncomfortable. I could feel comfortable if I threw my groceries away. I can't always do that because we are a one income family and money is very scarce right now. I would feel bad about doing that and I know it's not rational. I try to rationalize by thinking hmm...how many other people have touched this before it got to this store and after? How many people have touched my produce with their grubby hands before I touched it? I'm sure it's alot of people, and I'm sure I'd be OCDing out of control if I knew. I just try to make myself feel better about the current situation but, I guess I have eaten groceries all my life and I think I'm okay. I get so mad and just want to pound my fist because I hate feeling this way. It is an awful feeling when you think you could harm your family by bring contaminated food into the house. I have the weight of the world on my shoulders. Again, these posts are not to make anyone feel sorry for me. It's my way of helping release what is going on in this mind of mine.

Fear

Here returns a haunting fear of mine. It comes and goes. When it's here it's bad. It takes me to a place where I dread going. A place I always think I never want to return. Why does it go away and then come back. I guess it's always in the back of my mind and then when it wants it viciously invades and takes over and drags me down with it. With my OCD, I have a terrible fear of aids/hiv. I used to fear myself getting it but not to an extreme. My daughter got her ears pierced two years ago. I knew that it would cause great anxiety for me. I try to be brave and not let my OCD get in the way of my children doing things. I let her do it. It was a really hard decision. The moment they pierced them I was strucken with total fear and my mind went crazy. She was crying to, so that made my anxiety even worse. Oh, it hurts to even go to that place. I didn't want to get out of bed the next day. The feelings of depression, doom, and what have I done all were so real. WHAT HAVE I DONE? I was sure she probably got hiv from it. I still get so afraid of it. I am just as afraid to have her tested for it. Today I am feeling those anxieties again. If she gets sick or bleeds or has to go the the doctors it makes it worse. She pulled out her tooth yesterday and came out in the kitchen with blood everywhere. Then I feel bad thinking I can't even touch her blood because it could be contaminated. This makes me feel awful. She was helping me cut vegetables up for stew on Saturday and she cut nicked her finger. She said she didn't cut herself but then I noticed she had a bandaid on. I decided not to serve or eat the soup. This is just confirming my fears and making it seem more real but WHAT IF? I'm more concerned about her actually having it than me catching it because I'd rather have it too if she did. She does have a doctor's appointment on Friday that I just scheduled because her tummy has been aching on and off for a month. I get high anxiety because I feel like if I go to the doctor's I should just have her blood tested and then that gives me anxiety beyond belief and it just feels awful.  I've posted about this before and I really was hoping not to have to post about it again. It just is a way for me to process my feelings when there's really no way to process and be content until I have 100% certainty. I tell myself if I just get her tested I'll know one way or another. Is this the solution? If I did get her tested and she was fine then I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore. Am I being ignorant if I don't get her tested? Lord, help me cause I so need you now. The fear is here again. It's taking over and bringing me down with it. UP and DOWN is what OCD does to me and I never know when to expect it. It comes out of nowhere and turns my world upside down and yet I have to function and still take care of my family when I just want to curl up in a ball and cry.

A needle, a bump, rubbing alcohol, and other body blunders, and some more battery concerns.

Where to begin?  It's been an interesting week.
I found a couple ugly, horrible looking, red, swollen, bumps on my body and I think they are just ingrown hairs. I don't like the look of infection around them. I used to be able to take a needle and poke out a sliver with no worries. Now, I worry that the needle might be contaminated even though I've had it for a long time sitting in my dresser drawer with mending supplies. Even though I clean it with my 99 something percent rubbing alcohol. It could still have some blood germs that could give me something on it yep. I know it sounds funny when I read it but not when I'm experiencing the sense of realness when OCD is kicking in. So, anyway this is gross but I poked the pimple or whatever it is to try to start some healing. That didn't work. I just put some neosporin on it for a few days but that hasn't helped either. I found another one fairly close in proximity but I don't know why I have these. I'm not really worried that I have them it's more about the infection in them. I always worry that things infected in my body are going to travel to my brain or heart. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow to see if they can take care of it for me. So, that morning I was obsessing over the disease I might have given myself from my dirty needle. I was over it by mid-morning. I looked in my doctors handbook about sliver removal and it said to use a needle that was cleaned with rubbing alcohol so I figured it must be fine and sterile enough.

I was having some issues again with possible battery leakage. I have had a laptop for a while now. I don't like the fact that it contains a BATTERY on the underneath side of it. I would not even set the laptop on my lap because of that and I don't know what the other wireless stuff might do to me or the battery could leak. I know it's so weird. Anyway, I've notice some whiteish stuff which is probably dust but I can't be CERTAIN and that's what my OCD wants is 100% CERTAINTY. I cleaned the surface of my desk and the underneath of my computer but it was bothering me. I get more worried because I'm afraid if it is battery acid then I'll get it in my eyes when I take out my contacts. I am over it today. I was wearing gloves yesterday to type on the computer before I took my contacts out. I know it's funny. Ha, Ha, I can even laugh at it. It was funny when I was doing it but I knew I just didn't want to deal with it any other way at that moment. GLOVES are my friends. I don't have gloves on today.

Trying to keep my head above water.

Here I am in a sad, cold place just back to a place I didn't want to ever find myself again. Will it end? Do I really have to get my daughter's blood drawn to test for hiv to make this stop. I don't want to. I am so afraid to do it. It all started when I took her to Claire's at the mall last August to get her ears pierced. The second it happened I tingled with fear through my body and the obscessing began. A deep depression which continued through the year. What have I done I asked myself. Here I am now again. I was free for a while and doing great and not even worrying or thinking about it but now I've been hit again like a ton of bricks. Part of me says just get a test and then if she's fine everything will be back to normal and the fear gone. My psychiatrist said he didn't think testing would necessarily be the answer and had me up my clonazapam to three times a day. About  a week later I was still falling apart and he prescribed me risperidone to help break up the thoughts. I never took it because there was some side effects like possibly fatal or uncontrollable twitching that might not go away after use of medication. Yes, I went to the dreaded internet researching where I know I should go and was researching aids and hiv and scared myself and made myself feel sick. When I see the words aids or hiv it can make me start this vicious cycle.  I am afraid to even post this becasue it might even make things worse for me. Then I say should I get the test or drug myself more. Getting the test is like moving a mountain. It scares me like crazy and the waiting would almost kill me. I am a sick person. I am a scared person. Some days I am a normal or semi-normal person. When I go to these places I just want to crawl into God's arms and have him wrap me up tight and let me cry and tell me everything is going to be okay.

It's been a wild ocd filled weekend and yesterday

I have been filled with lots of anxiety over the last few days. Saturday was full of anxiety over a kid getting a bloody nose at my daughter's basketball game. The blood dripped all across the gym floor as the kid was running for the bathroom. They wiped the many blood spots up with a towel and I didn't see any disinfectants anywhere. The game went on. All I could think about was that my daughter would be touching a ball that probably would bounce on some of those places where the blood had been. Then when she sat down to get a drink of water she opened her water bottle the part that goes in her mouth with her hands. Then she started wiggling her loose tooth. I had to go over there and tell her to keep her hands out of her mouth and off her face. After the game I went over there with my little bottle of hand sanitizer to squirt on her hands. I had to do it twice because once just wasn't enough. I do feel bad that I do this to my kids. She says it's annoying. Yes, it is annoying. The rest of the day I was paranoid because of the entryway in our house that could be contaminated with blood from our shoes and the inside of the car.

Sunday was a whole new set of worries. I let my daughter and the neighbor girl play at the end of our driveway in the whatever it is the dirt sand stuff that builds up I guess it run off the gutters. They didn't ask if they could play in it they just did. They got there swimming suits on because they were getting it wet and playing in it. So, it didn't hit me until Sunday morning a What have I done? Hit me like a ton of bricks. My daughter said she was itchy that evening and her friend came over the next day and said she was itchy. I thought oh great was there chemicals, pesticides who knows what in there from runoff. I was not happy. I was scared. My husband said they're just being kids.

I have to say i am very afraid of x-rays because of radiation. I freak when I have to get the regular few. I was prepared to have a full mouth set yesterday for my check-up. I didn't know exactly what or how many this was. I thought it was going to be a scan or something. I declined it five years ago when they wanted to do it. I was informed half way through it was a total of 18 x-rays. Oh, that wasn't cool. I took extra vitamin C hoping that would help my body. It didn't bother me so much until last night. I started worrying. I had to get on the computer to look up stuff on x-rays. I called the dentist office today for some "reassurance". They usually like to tell me it's like walking outside comparing the amount of radiation I find it hard to believe. When I talked to thereceptionist this morning she helped me put my mind at ease as much as possible. She said it's such a little amount and that she just had hers done tto and then went and had an MRI the same day.She said she mentioned to them she had just had several dental x-rays earlier that day. She said they just laughed and told her it's such a small amount that it was fine. Alrighty then! I guess I'll just take my vitamin C, fish oil, multi-vitamin, vitamin D and green tea I bought today. I hope it helps. I really hope I have a better day today.

Thoughts

This blogging thing can be hard. I feel like I should write something every day weather anyone else is reading it or I'm just venting and getting it out. OCD is hard. I was at the dentist's office yesterday because my daughter had an appointment. I was sitting in the lobby looking at a magazine and then felt something on the cover of the magazine so I turned it over to look and see what I might be touching. I first noticed what looked like blood. I then noticed a squished little fruit fly or something by it. Can I convince myself that this blood was from the bug? NO! I know it had to be but then my OCD tells me it was from a human who probably had some sort of disease I could get and give to my family. I went into the bathroom and washed my hands. I then put hand sanitizer on a few times. When we got in the car I washed my hands with a few wet wipes. They still did not feel clean. I had to wash my hands a few times when we got home. I have washed off my steering wheel and other things in the car with a soapy paper towel but I feel like I need to do it again. I am not excited about going grocery shopping this morning because I still feel the contamination and it might get on my food. I am going to go clean my steering wheel again and probably my keys and purse handle again.