A few years ago…

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Hi everyone… Recap. A few years ago, maybe ten, I joined the old Ocd action forums. (Pre-December 2020). I go back a long way… I found Ocd action, when I was completely plagued by contamination and checking Ocd. I couldn’t go shopping, I couldn’t open doors, I would check multiple times that doors were really locked. I would then feel a compulsion to go back and check again… But once more was never enough. Simple cooking was an absolute nightmare. I’d wash hands between ingredients, everything my fingers as much as touched. The kitchen towel would be soaking wet, my hands skin cracking from the excessive washing. I would antibac gel my bankcards before putting them in a card reader to pay for goods. Antibac before touching the number buttons, and the button that wasn’t always green… I believed that I contaminated carpets indoors if I still had my outdoor trainers on… The paths outside were reasonable, but I figured that I could make my grandchildren ill, because they crawled on the floor before learning to walk. If I touched anything, I believed not only that I had contaminated it, but also that I would pick up whatever was already on the item, and transfer it to the next thing I touched. And that I was responsible because I knew that I had touched the item. I’d be trapped in rooms at a day centre, cos I daren’t touch the door handles. It was a nightmare. I felt responsible for everyone and everything. I couldn’t drive alone, cos I’d end up going back on my route, just to make sure… But the more I checked, the stronger the urge to check again would become. I ended up quitting my job, cos the need to check was overtaking everything. I worried about using the right chopping boards for food, paranoid about that one. I worked for people who I believed  would try to sue me, if I made the slightest mistake… It was a blame culture. It was so bad that, Three managers left before me. I would worry about the cleanliness of the computer keyboard…  Hold myself to ransom if I couldn’t achieve perfection. I was valueless… A product of my own imperfections… I would worry about handling money… Coins are never perfectly clean, and I knew that… So I couldn’t give someone else money, in case they became ill, and that I would then blame myself…  No one goes through life without learning from mistakes… But I wasn’t allowed to make mistakes… I would berate myself for every error in my childhood, and I was middle aged. Guilty… Guilty… Guilty… For being human. Nothing was ever good enough… My teachers compared me to my academic sister… If she can do it, then Why can’t I? I still don’t know the answer to that one! But I have found, in later life, that there are things that I can do, and she never could. And some of those things are amazing! We all have ‘gifts’, but we open them at different times in our lives. We are all amazing… Just in different ways. I’m not wealthy… I don’t own my own house, or hold down a clever job. I’m just ordinary… But that is okay…  I love my music, my instrument sounds absolutely gorgeous for me… No one else… Just me…  And I cannot read music… I tried to learn lots of times… But I can play by ear, and that is something that cannot be taught. But that is okay… I’m not competing any more, cos we don’t all live on a level playing field, so to speak.  Today, it was a ginormous pizza for dinner… I ate it holding it in my fingers. At one time, I would sterilise the plates… Wash cup handles… In a café, I was careful not to touch anything that would be left for someone else, like cutlery… And paper serviettes… I wouldn’t lick my fingers… As if my saliva would be dangerous if it got on the tablecloth… I can sit on my bed, without worrying if I’ve left germs on it. It would all be ‘Me’.  My fault if anybody thought they could make a big deal of tummyache… They were looking for things to blame me for… I tore myself to shreds… Multiple attempts at suicide… Changing jobs cos I couldn’t cope. If anyone else did anything the slightest bit imperfect, I would be the only ‘witness’.  Never mind what others were doing to me, I was tearing myself down, and doing a real good job of it.

So you see… As far as contamination, and checking Ocd goes, I’ve been there, done that, worn the tee shirt, so to speak. These days, and on this new forum, I like to share the results of my CBT sessions that I did some years ago… I’m doing ERP virtually all the time, proving that we can recover a bit from the demon Ocd.  The coronavirus situation has complicated things. We need to keep to the rules… We aren’t through the pandemic yet.  I use the antibac provided in public places… I no longer carry my own. Cos it is difficult to stop at antibaccing the bottle after I’ve done my hands…  My computer mouse has always been okay… I don’t need to antibac my music keyboard… CD’s don’t need to be antibacced. The CD drive doesn’t need to be antibacced  inside and out… To be honest, I let my wife drive the car, it is her car after all, and to be honest… I like to be chaeuffered about… It’s not a necessity, but a personal preference…  What is on my shoes? The same as everyone elses shoes… What is on my fingers in the supermarket? I use antibac gel on the way in, And from the very first item I put in my trolley, everything is on everything… Especially once it has gone through the scanner to pay… And, everyday, every shop that comes to more than forty-five pounds, on the bankcard has touched the green button, just like it has been for years… And yet we still shop in supermarkets… They have stayed in business… That is evidence. Evidence that will stand up in court… As far as ordinary germs are concerned, We are defended…  All of us… We just need to keep to the covid rules while we journey out of the pandemic. God bless you for reading…

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