The last ten years of contamination and checking ocd. And where I seem to be now

[wannabefreeParticipant]

Hi everyone… At least I’m in recovery now… I’ve written books under the name of Marcus John Kim, documenting my journey, and research on this very subject. I’m also looking into the concept of ‘Bontamination’, a sort of positive equaliser figure that fights against the very negative concept of ‘Contamination. When we touch something that is reasonably clean, if we contaminate it, then we also Bontaminate it. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here at all, cos we’d have no immune system. Nothing, the slightest thing would kill us. Some of the minor illnesses like coughs and colds will last longer, because, in order to get some sort of defence against the pandemic, we’ve been inadvertently breathing in antibacterial vapours, which may protect us against covid, but the 99.9% rule has bumped off the good germs too, our defenders. Anyway… Like others I know, I am taking on higher education to qualify in something appropriate. A sort of Patient to professional, in the belief that, the best helpers, are the wounded helpers… We know what it feels like, We’ve been there, done that, worn the Tee shirt, so to speak… I still wear that Tee shirt sometimes…  This is the forum that ultimately saved my life, along with a lot of wonderful people along the way. So I would like to be a regular on here… Every couple of days or so… We can try to get through this together… We Can get through this together…

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Hi, my books, as are many other peoples, are readily available on Amazon. I tried to shell some hard boiled eggs tonight… But I really struggle. The shell sticks to the egg inside… Before they are cooked… Are they clean? I don’t know of anyone who has ever washed them in soap… And what about when we open the box in the supermarket, to check for broken ones… We don’t have anywhere to wash our hands before picking up packets of biscuits, and cakes… All of which we have eaten since childhood, without thinking about washing the packet first… What about Bread? It goes through the checkouts, by an operator who has always handled everything to scan it, and then sometimes handled cash… Supermarkets are statistically very safe to shop in… Any trouble, their reputation would be ruined… But we survived… This is what my CBT therapist taught me. It took a while for me to accept it, but so far, no tummyaches or awkward ‘side effects’. So… Armed with that evidence, I won’t bother cleaning the keys on this computer tonight… Much like an old piano, it is okay. More later. God bless you for reading.

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Hi, I’ve solved the hardboiled egg situation… I can buy them ready cooked and shelled, and supplied with a dip of mayonnaise, from the delicatessen section of my local supermarket. Taking into account the energy to boil eggs, then chill them, then shell them, this is an efficient, and convenient way to have hardboiled eggs at home. And no, I didn’t wash the plastic packet before opening…  And pork pie… Nobody washes those… It would ruin them!

Question; What do we do when using someone’s toilet facilities, and find that the soap is run out? Simple, Rinse hands under tap, and dry on towel. That will be the most anyone else in the building has done, and they are obviously okay. Well… I believe so… And so far, it has turned out okay for me.

As long as I don’t actually begin responding to the occasional intrusive thought, it is possible to move on to doing something else… I know that If I go out, and I have the keys in my hand when walking away from the door, I will definitely have locked the door. If I go back to check, the stronger the urge to just check again, and again, and so on. I always hold the key in my hand until I reach the car. Then I know, beyond all reasonable doubt. Eventually it becomes easier to just not go back and check more than ‘once only’.

I believe that clothes etc, are contaminated, or should I say ‘Bontaminated’, the second they come out of the washer, regardless of what we’ve washed them in… Years ago, washing went out on the line into the open air to dry. The air we breathe is polluted to a certain extent.  It could be said that spraying biocides (And that is what the manufacturers actually call them) onto our fabrics puts vapour in the air, that we breathe… Is this why there is such a lot of asthma around?  Can it be said the cleaning sprays damage the delicate biology of our lungs?  After all, they kill everything on hard surfaces…

It keeps the soap companies in business, I guess.

Wannabe

 

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Hi everyone… The eggs turned out to be okay, in fact I’ve just bought some more! As before, I will resist cleaning the wrappers first, before opening them, even though, the checkout operator has handled absolutely everything… Evidence suggests, that that will be okay, and has been so all my life…  And I’m in my mid sixties, grew up on a council estate, and worked down a coal mine… So…  I have a crochet blanket that I wrap around my trousers as I study… It is cheaper than switching an electric heater on. That blanket is on my bed at night… So just what exactly is on it? I once asked similar of my CBT therapist, and he said he didn’t know… And he had a house full of pets!

To be fair, I guess it won’t harm me or anyone else around me… At least, it hasn’t so far!

In a moment I’m cooking chicken breasts for tea… I’ll get them in the dish, and wash my hands with soap… Once in the oven, no worries, I know how long they have to be in there. When I worked in care work we were paranoid about serving chicken… Eggs had to be like rubber, it was disgusting.

Tomorrow we have to do a tip run, helping our sons to get rid of some junk. It will involve unloading the car of what is in it already, then handling bin liners to go to the the disposal site. We have done it before… It has been okay before…

I intend to spend some time playing my electronic organ… I’ve in the past, recording music on youtube. but due to study pressures, I just haven’t had time. To be fair, it could do with a dusting, a soft paintbrush the best thing to get around all the switches and stuff.

I’ll update on the chicken tomorrow…

God bless you for reading.

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Hi everyone… The chicken turned out fine… Really nice in fact. Tonight it will be pasta, and yet more chicken!

I’m itching to get started on my studies, but my module hasn’t opened up yet. In the meantime, a visit into our loft space, and getting lots of stuff stored, was a good achievement this morning, which nearly got catastrophised (See my other thread). But, I sort of saw it coming, and jammed the gears, metaphorically speaking. My favourite, handknitted white, chunkyknit cardigan has been worn loads of times, and never been washed before. (It would damage it).  And what about ‘Christmas’ jumpers? Mine hasn’t been washed for many years… I shudder to think what has managed to get onto that…

When we eat a bar of Chocolate, or open a packet of really nice biscuits… Even if our hands are clean before we start, What about the packet? We give those around us permission to be slightly grubby… But what about ourselves? Surely we have that right too? We can all claim that right.  Absolutely.

A few years ago, I went to college to learn computing skills… Wordprocessing, desktop publishing, database  and suchlike. I would go into the training centre  for a couple of hours, two or three times a week. At different times of the day. I was never on the same computer, cos all my work was saved onto floppy disks. (A full length novel would fit onto a simple floppy disc) But it would mean that, each time, a different machine, a different disk drive, a different keyboard. We never cleaned them before and after each use. We all signed in, on the same computer terminal. And ate biscuits and chocolate between sessions. If anyone ever got ill, it would have got in the papers, and on the news… But it didn’t. We survived, and learnt a really useful skill whilst we were there. I have certificates…

Today, it is, use the antibacterial gel if provided on entry to a shop, any shop, once only. We have been told by the science, that that is fine, it is sufficient. I don’t know of anyone who would say they sanitise the door handles of their car, inside or out, before touching anything else… And, How many times have you eaten a ‘drive-in’, or takeaway burger?  Before Covid, nobody would give it a seconds thought. And what about picnics in the park, or on the beach? As children. We were fine, weren’t we?  We give other people the right to not be perfect. I claim that right too…

God bless you for reading…

Wannabe

 

 

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Hi all,

Today I have been taking it easy… I was explaining to one of my relatives about how our thoughts can go way out of control, and make us panic. Panic attacks are very frightening. We can pass out, so our body re-regulates the breathing and heartbeat to ordinary values, and what our own body does when it is resting. I think it might be likened to a car rolling down a hill out of control.  I park the car at the side of the road on a downhill stretch of road. I stand on the pavement, and realize I haven’t set the parking brake correctly, and the car is beginning to roll forward, slowly gaining speed as it does so. Now, if we picture that situation for a moment. We know that, In order to prevent the car fast rolling forward into say, another car, or a wall, the sooner we begin to attempt to stop the forward motion somehow, the greater the chance we have, of bringing it to a safe stop. Otherwise it could eventually begin going too fast, for us to do anything about it, and we just have to let it go, because we don’t want to get run over by our own car.

I reckon it can be very like that metaphor, during our day, when our analytical thought patterns kick in, and we begin to worry about everything that will happen to us in the future, or anything else that happens to be on our mind. A thinking ‘Catastrophe’.  (See my other thread about that). The sooner I begin to fight back, metaphorically speaking, the greater my chance of saving my situation. So from; I can lean back in my chair, resting my weary head back against the cushion. I could then worry that something in my hair is now on the cushion, and will thus pass to the head of the next person who sits there, and then to their house, car, bed, children etc.etc.etc.!! I go to;

If I pause when I first lean back on that cushion, I STOP the whirring gears from going way toof ar or fast, by deciding that whatever is already on my hair, is harmless, as per everyone else who has A) sat in the chair before me, and B) Whoever else will sit in that same chair in the future.  My hair is fine… Therefore, the chair must be fine, as was everyone who sat there before me. I’m not going to cause harm, Whatever could ever be on my hair. And thus, the whirring gears of panic never actually get to the point of being out of control… Brilliant! I don’t need to worry about the chair cushion…

We can apply this to other things… In CBT we get to the point where whatever could have ever been there, is fine on our hands our hair, everywhere, because we ERP it, and yes, no one gets ill… Not because of ourselves anyway.  I was like this in a daycentre a while ago… I was the patient… I couldn’t even touch door handles, so would find myself trapped in rooms.

In a supermarket or food establishment toilet facility, a lot of the time there are two doors to return to the main area, both of them with pull handles. I think it is okay to suggest that not everyone washes their hands… It only takes one… It is suggested that the door handles are made with anti-bacterial coatings or metal. But even that needs time to work. So it stands to reason that, for a lot of people, by the time we get to the till, our hands are ‘grubby’, and so is all of our shopping, which is handled by the checkout operator, and will in turn be passed to the next person in the queue, and so on…

Now, Have you ever heard of anyone getting ill, because of someone else, in a supermarket, or a finger restaurant? It doesn’t happen, at least, not enough to get in the papers, and give them adverse publicity…

Society has been doing this without thinking for decades now… Eventually My CBT therapist got me to be able to cope with other instances such as this, after a few years of, literally, using antibacterial gel, not just once at the door, as we do now in pandemic, but also multiple times around the store, getting through bottles of it at an alarming rate, and ruining my skin in the process. I wouldn’t even go through a till, if there was any packaged raw meat on the conveyor belt…  These days, I don’t bother to look.

In a freezer food shop, the assistants wear cloth gloves… To keep their fingers from getting frostbite… At the till, those gloves are probably wet… But that must be okay, or health and safety people would change it.

So, We now have evidence and can praise ourselves for any achievement, however small. Coming from someone else it might be like receiving reassurance, which, as we have found out, can actually make us worry about something else, and so on, perhaps from our distant past…  Self praise is different… Try it… ‘ Life is about the journey, not just the destination… (Ralph Waldo Emerson et al)’ So the trick is to enjoy the journey by praising ourselves for getting better at this Cognitive Behavioural Therapy with Exposure Response Prevention stuff.. (Even if we have just got on the wrong train or bus! LoL) Metaphorically speaking.  And each day, just until bedtime.

Did I used to do this stuff?  Oh yes… I struggled with door handles, even touching cutlery in cafes, worktops, light switches,  Walking on outside and inside flooring, Blankets, clothing, shoe laces,  and trying to be perfect at everything I did, whilst inadvertently, giving everyone else the right to do things their own way, and if that meant not being surgically clean, then so be it…

Tonight I am using a scrollball mouse on my computer… Impossible to clean anything like 100%. So I don’t bother at all most of the time. What would I use anyway? It has delicate electrical devices inside, so it has to stay dry, even though it will be low voltage off the usb port. So, the more I use the computer, the more dna I put on it. But is it really that dangerous? The evidence I have in life experience says no… And anyway, what is already going to be on the next persons hands? We don’t honestly need to know, do we? So let’s sleep tonight.  Listen to some favourite music, happy TV… Allow the mind to think happy thoughts, or simply go blank. And tomorrow, when it eventually gets here, we’ll go gently through the process again, knowing that, it does get easier for others, and soit can for ourselves. And that is good enough. Even for me. A OCD sufferer in Recovery mode.

God bless you for reading,

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Hi everyone… Today it has been a steady day… I start full on study next week… For the first time for a very long time… I actually have a tutorial on Wednesday next week… The last time I had one of those was when I quit university… I had a mentor, who, instead of praising me, and working with the good things I could take into the course, simply berated everything, and gave destructive criticism.  Apparently, the uni had had problems with this particular training placement establishment before, so why they sent me there, I really don’t know. Never mind… Nearly thirty years later, and I’m giving study another go.  I’m learning on line, so I can study at home, in my own time, and structure my day around it. As a retired person, study is a good way to fill the brain up with things to do. Intrusive thoughts tend to get crowded out, with the reading and study input. It is psychology, which I find absolutely fascinating. I have books on Amazon, and music recordings on Youtube, although it is a while since I did that, I do intend to return to it though….

How do you clean a piano? Well, first of all we have to find one… What about portable music keyboards? Many with note letter stickers on the keys… Really, really grubby… Any musical instrument… We have to touch, hit or blow most things…  I don’t know of anyone who has succeeded in cleaning one… It is basically impossible, unworkable. So, if we think about touring musicians… An antique violin will have been handled by thousands of people over the years… And let’s be realistic here, they won’t have all washed their hands…  Do they get ill? We don’t find out…  In fact, I would suggest that the musicians are more at risk of the drinking water in different places… It doesn’t put people off playing music…  So, let’s look at playing a musical instrument… Anything. One of my sons is learning Saxophone…  It’s a good thing his neighbour doesn’t do shift work…

Today it was cheese sandwiches for lunch… One of mine fell on the Kitchen carpet… But it is ‘Tiger’ bread, so I quickly picked it up, and ate it. We have no pets, so the kitchen carpet is ‘Reasonably clean’. (Plus the five second rule). We cannot afford to waste food. Tomorrow will be a shopping trip… A walk up a public footpath… That, although people walk dogs there, it is clean on the tarmac. At the shop, I will use the gel by the front door, just the once, once only, and wander into the store… Amongst other things, there will be bread and milk… All the wrappers will ultimately be handled by the till operator, and me, into the bag, and home, paying with loyalty and bank cards… That, to be fair, in the last six months I haven’t purposely cleaned.  And I’ve bought a massive variety of different produce with my cards. It saves me searching for the exact money. When the food is used, the packs and milkbottles  will not be cleaned with anything… After all, what could I use? That is evidence we can take on board. Let’s go to a ‘finger restaurant’, and dare to do what others are doing… Eating food at the tables, with no cutlery. Just as we have for years.

One last thing for now…  Tomatoes… To be honest, I never have washed them, cos I will get wet too, but what are they normally washed in? Just water… No soaps, no antibacterials… That would ruin the flavour. But what are organic tomatoes grown in? If we go by the extreme route… After I’ve  placed organic tomatoes on my kitchen worktop, Should I then bleach the worktop?  It is certainly food for thought…

God bless you for reading.

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Hi everyone… My studies officially started today… I  did do a bit of pre-work yesterday,  so, as it is Saturday, I  have been idle!  My wife does all the driving these days, she is very good at it. And it is her car… Tonight we had a takeaway supper. We have only recently started getting a delivery service, as we live way out in the countryside. We rent, so someone else does all our maintenance. Houses to buy are out of most peoples budget now… Anyway,  the supper… Was it okay? Well, it tasted fine… We have had food from the same place before, and been okay. It was ordered on-line. And came in a carrier bag. We ate using forks, because the food was extremely hot. We’d have actually burned our fingers! I had some chocolate… my fingers were fine for that. Tonight, it is an early night. Sleeping on the same pillowcase as last night, and the night before… Will it be okay? Well, it has been so far, and that is supporting evidence… More later,

God bless you for reading.

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

So far, no issues with the food, or indeed my pillow… I know that I move around a lot at night, tossing and turning, rolling around. I start off on my back, watching something funny on DVD. By the time morning comes, my face is buried in the pillow, the fabric of which is very rarely washed… I just don’t bother… A) It doesn’t seem to do me any harm, and B) If I wash it, it will be reinforcing the idea that it might not have been clean enough… And yet, I’m okay… As a teenager, most of my clothing would have been on the floor of my bedroom… And yet I’ve survived into my mid-sixties… I must have a really good immunity/defence system, or I would always be ill… And yet I’m not… I reckon I can use that as evidence for myself, to not feel guilty for not having my hands continuously in anti-bacterials… They would ruin my skin if used in large quantities… And indeed did, when I was at my deepest depths…  Now it is just the occasional blip, a sudden thought, that sometimes I verbally talk back at out loud, defending myself, asserting my right to not be surgically clean… After all, I don’t expect that from anyone else…

God bless you for reading…

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Hi everyone… I’ve started a study course with the Open University… Sort of trying to go from patient to professional… I am still a patient, and take daily medicines to help me, along with reading books by great writers to inspire my own writing, but also to encourage me to keep pushing on.  Studying is really difficult for me, as I’m getting on in years, and having to work with modern technology that I sometimes find quite baffling. Watching a three year old scrolling through pictures on a smart phone and suchlike, they’ve been born into it, there weren’t even pocket calculators until after I’d left school… I just cannot get my head around how the ‘cloud’ works…  I’m still remembering how revolutionary, floppy discs were, and how a full length novel would go onto a 1.45 megabyte disc! Now it’s terrabytes! Fine for lots of videos and suchlike… Okay… My OCD isn’t just about contamination issues, it is also about checking… I get to the car, Have I locked the house front door? Mmmm… Isn’t it weird how, the more we check something, the stronger the urge to ‘just check it again to just make sure…’  In past times I would go out in the car, and actually drive back home, just to see if I had actually locked the door. Thinking back, it always was… I had locked the door, and I had checked… Several times, before I finally reached my destination…  It feels like I’m being negligent by not going back to check…  If, God forbid, we were to have a burglary, the insurance people would ask if the the door had been locked all the time, How could I truthfully and confidently say ‘Yes’ ,when my OCD was shouting in my ears words to the contrary..? It took a giant leap of ‘Faith’.  To begin with, I would have someone with me… A witness… I would then just lock the door and leave it, hoping that, if I had left the door unlocked, they would know, and prompt me to lock the door…  It never happened… Over time, I got to just walking away from the door after locking it, Knowing, that, whatever my OCD said, I would have locked the door because I always do. The proof is that I always, always have to unlock the door to get back in… And the keys are always in the last pocket, especially when it is pouring with rain!!!  More later,

God bless you for reading.

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Hi everyone. Quick update…

I got to a supermarket today… A supermarket with one of those trolleys you can place your waste polythene in for them to recycle. I had stuffed it all in a carrier bag at home already. Well, never mind being slightly concerned what the opened plastic bags etc would leave on the inside of the carrier bag I intended to take my shopping home in, The trolley was already piled high with other people filled carrier bags, full of plastic… Now… There was no way that I was going to give away my carrier bag, so I got it out of the bag, a handfull at a time, shoving it deep into the trolley so it wouldn’t bust out over the floor. It all went in, with effort, so the inside of my carrier bag will something on it, to get all over the new shopping… Not to worry… On the way into the main supermarket, I used the gel provided, to sanitise my hands, as they ask everyone to do, I then grabbed a basket, and got a lot of stuff, I was going to make it worth the trip. (!)  At the till, I loaded it all into my bag, paid and then went back to the car…  When we got it all home, one item, a really nice pork pie, is wrapped in waxed paper. I simply opened the wrapper, cut it in half, and then in half again, and had a quarter each with my wife… It tasted lovely…  I would say that the wrapper would have had good things on it, so the pie is equally bontaminated, as maybe very slightly contaminated. But What with? Is there enough to overwhelm my natural defences?  By my own ERP research so far, No…   But we’ll have to just wait and see on that one. By the way, I also had a couple of hard-boiled eggs dipped in Mayo… We can wait and see on that one too… The thing is… It has always been okay before when I have done this… The tiger bread tasted lovely too… More later…

God bless you for reading.

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Another supermarket today… Two baskets, that went on the floor each time I took anything from the shelves, the chiller cabinets, everywhere… I handled everything, the till operator handled everything, then I handled it again into reused carrier bags, then paid by card… I really have no idea what could have been on that!

Let’s wait and see… More later…

God bless you for reading…

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Tomorrow it is church…  Wearing face masks, and sitting on plastic chairs… Hopefully not in a draught!  Fortunately I’m not judged… I can sit where I want, and wear jeans and jersey…  Some places can be very high brow. I say, if you play guitar, get in there and rock the joint!  Today we visited relatives… Upstairs, and not immaculate… But okay… They are, and so are we…  There has been an advert on television for yoghurt with live bacteria in it, and good for the gut… But what if I should spill some on the worktop?  It is live bacteria…  Something ‘Bifidus’ has been mentioned, Is that a real word!!!?  Should I get the antibacterial spray out?  And ‘Air fresheners’, What exactly have we been inhaling all these years?  In the car, windscreen washer fluid… Great for getting unmentionables off the windscreen, but when we breathe it in, and we all have, for decades now, What does that actually do to our lungs?  We live, Don’t we? Anyway, I was up all night last night, sitting up in bed, fully clothed, with blankets over my knees… Whatever was in my bed, is now absolutely everywhere I have sat today… They are my favourite trousers… Combats, with loads of useful pockets…  I’ll most likely wear them to church tomorrow, and at the house of someone who has invited us for lunch…

And cuddly toys… Are they ever perfect? Of course not, and many are not suitable to wash… I have cuddlies that my grandchildren throw around when they visit… And, to the best of my knowledge, they are never ill, I know that, cos they never miss a day of school… Anyway, I’m tired now, so it is nearly time for some shuteye.

God bless you for reading…

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Hiya, I’ve just had to go through 5 pages of moderator posts, to find this one again!!!

Well, nothing untoward happened… I went to an antiques centre, handled lot’s of items…  Bought a couple, then went into the cafe for two bacon rolls… No cutlery, just bare hands… Delicious… I only get bacon when I am out, cos I have so much trouble cooking it right… At no point did I worry about what could be on my hands… And guess what, no one else in the cafe was either… Blessed freedom…  We deliberately car shared, so that we could not buy anything big… We just bought loads of small stuff instead!  Today it has been about study… I’ve also found out today, how to make playlists of the music on my tablet.  Is that clean? I don’t know, I haven’t cleaned it recently, and as for the grandchildren’s computer games… Well, we could probably grow seedlings on those! And children, in general, aren’t continuously ill are they? Any more than we were, when we were small children ourselves… So, as I’ve mentioned on another thread… Just maybe, we are being ‘Bontaminated’ all of the time, the air we breathe, the water we drink, and so on… And our bodies continue to adapt. By having less than perfect hands, houses etc, we are not being negligent at all… We are actually doing our selves, and others, a favour… Let’s just be ‘reasonably’ clean… More later…

God bless you for reading…

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Hi all, Today, I visited a supermarket. I was aware of myself not really wanting to place anything on the floor… Not my basket, the bottles of milk, and the carrier bag… I do love food shopping… I never go when I am hungry… I find that this way I actually spend less… I’m very cost savvy. And, as I do the catering in our house, I’m planning food groups days in advance. Our kitchen is not tidy, but then, if it was, I wouldn’t be able to find anything… As far as the freezers and fridge go, I have a pretty good idea of what we have, and where it is all stored. In the chest freezer, I have three large carrier bags, the food segregated into each, and written on a contents list. I then know where to look… I’m good at cooking food. I wash hands before starting, and then only if I have something sticky on my fingers. You can do it this way too… It has never harmed anyone during my lifetime…  Remembering to lock the car is a good one…  Something I do get annoyed with, is the coffee water dispenser… It never fills the cups properly, and I always find myself needing to refill the cold water reservoir on the back… You can get them to take fancy ‘pods’ , or sachets… But the water filling is a right pain in the bum…  Tonight it is a short text… I have been working on the construction of my website for quite literally hours today, but it is nearly ready now… The dustbins were a challenge… They are stored in a dark passageway behind my home, so I have to use the torch on my phone, so I put everything in the correct coloured bin…  You can do this… Just get the phone light on first, it saves it being fiddly when you are also trying to open the top of the bin…  At some point, I will again do a tip run, for my sons… Taking stuff in the car, to chuck in the skips is quite therapeutic…

Okay, more later,

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Yesterday, it was all about soap… We were running out… I use liquid soap, cos it doesn’t keep falling in the sink… When can we take a risk, and start using ordinary soap again… I absolutely love the golden Pears soap, it smells so… nice.  When do we start to allow our natural defences to have a chance to defend us again? Anti-bacterial gel kills the good guys too, 99.9%. When do we allow ourselves to be less than surgically clean?  If we don’t do so, then our natural defences will become redundant, and will evolve out of us… Meaning that we will have to use chemical means forever, to prevent us getting ill. It is bad enough, that we now  have to rely on a flu jab every year to keep us safe…  It looks like we may need a Covid booster every year too…  Our natural defences have taken millennia to develop, alongside the pollutants we are pumping into the atmosphere, and the traces of plastic that are now present in marine fish that come into the food chain… Anyway, all the liquid soap was antibacterial, so I did go with that, but I’m on the lookout for pears bar soap…  As regards the gel bottles at public entrances, some are empty now, whereas the one at our church gives enough for three or people at a time, and sometimes I forget…

God bless you for reading.

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Today it is all about getting a water filter tank to go in our fridge… Can I trust it to be safe? After years of listening to misguided food hygiene lectures, it will be a challenge… Mind you, we had cheese sandwiches for lunch… With favourite bread…  I have never met, in the whole of my life, anyone who washes a plastic-wrapped block of cheese, with anything, before opening it… We slice through the wrapper, and cut a nice thick slice, and just eat the cheese… Using our bare fingers… Let’s be honest, if it was dangerous in any way, We’d have known about it long ago… And what about those little cheese triangles? We have survived with flying colours… This is evidence to support our Exposure Response Prevention stuff, as part of CBT…  Think back to when we used to go out with our schoolmates, sharing a fizzy drinks bottle, passing it around, wiping the top with our bare hands to ‘clean’ it ready for the next person… Never mind what we were wiping off, What were we putting on? Our hands would have been grubby from climbing trees, scrambling over rocks, all the things that youngsters do… And yet, here we are today, with strengthening immune systems, as we gradually reduce the amount of antibacterial gel we are using… If other people can get away with not being perfectly clean, but instead being ‘Reasonably’ clean, then maybe I can try to be like that too, and let go the stress…

God bless you for reading…

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Hi again, everyone… Today has been interesting… I had a voucher towards food at my local store… I got there, and started loading the trolley… I had a minimum spend, so went for it, so to speak… I got most of the way around the store, then realised, I had my cards to pay, but that I’d left the voucher on the table at home. I thought about things for a moment, then got someone to keep an eye on the trolley for me, and got home, ten minutes away, picked up the voucher, then carried on with my shop…  It meant a lot of walking…  Any dog poo on the pavement? To be honest, I wasn’t looking that closely, but know that, if there was to be any, I’d see it in front of me, at a hundred yards… So, no need to keep looking back over the path I’ve already walked on…  The shop is quite pricey, but local, and today would be the only day that I would do the minimum spend for the voucher to become valid.  What about the packets? Well… I wasn’t too concerned, just as long as I got my savings… I’m a very savvy shopper, I know every inch of that store, so watch the varying prices with a vengeance… Anyway, it is cheaper than taking the car to the next village, and going to the cheaper stores there…

What about fuel? Never mind the prices, I’ve still got to get it into the car, and it is Diesel, which, if you should get it on anything like clothing, stinks for days…  I have taken to, when using a bread side-plate, I just wipe it off with a kitchen paper towel…  We are getting a dishwasher to make things easier, we’ll use enough plates etc. to fill it, run it, then put all the crockery etc. back in the cupboards, and repeat… Nothing in the way on the worktops… I do the catering in our house, so I try to organise things to be as easy and efficient as possible.  And I select the food in the shop…  Anything on the packets? Almost certainly yes, but dangerous? Very unlikely…

In the shop, the counter assistant scans everything for everyone… And statistically, we will be fine… The very fact that the shop stays trading, is testament to that.

I’m really tired, it has been an extremely busy day…

More later,

God bless you for reading…

Wannabe

 

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Hi everyone… What about a bar of Chocolate? Ever washed one? Ever met anyone who has?

Let’s be honest, people just don’t…

Public toilets… If someone doesn’t wash their hands, what do they pick up from the cubicle door lock? Everyone else’s germs? Even if there are no exit/entry doors, as in a motorway cafe, for instance… They will have handled toilet roll, the flush lever, and the cubicle door… If they have used the urinals… What is on their fingertips? And they go to the take-away food court… Eating with bare fingers…

But they don’t get ill…

When we worry about contamination OCD, we don’t realize that, the other person already has more on them, than we could ever give them…  If they were to get ill, it will be from themselves…  They have no evidence to sue the restaurant… Nothing at all… Literally, No case to answer. We literally cannot harm anyone else by not washing the natural oils out of our skin…

We just need to be ‘Reasonably clean’.  Those people who blame everyone, harm themselves first, and then, once they get their few hundred pounds from their litigation solicitor, they find that their GP will no longer treat them… They’ve become a legal risk… So… They don’t really win their case, do they…

Today, I went out in the car…  I’ve noticed that a majority of people aren’t wearing face masks anymore… Do they honestly think that they can sue me?   I went in one supermarket, and there was no antibacterial stuff by the door… So it must be okay to shop there… They have a reputation to uphold… Thousands of customers… All paying for shopping… All handling absolutely everything… Before I have even entered the building… So why the hell do I feel responsible for their safety?

That’s my Ocd… With absolutely no evidence to back it up… That makes me free!  I’m free!

In a supermarket, I cannot possibly make anyone else ill if they are grubbier than I am…

I’ve just eaten a load of grapes… Apparently they are supposed to have been washed first… What?  Why do they say that? Well… For exactly the same reason that bottles of milk have a warning label stating that the bottle contains milk… Purely to guard against the greedy litigation solicitors… The manufacturer has provided a warning, so, if you didn’t actually wash the grapes, just as most people don’t, the manufacturer has passed all the responsibility to the customer…  You have no case… That way they stay in business, and have a watertight defence in court. And we get have milk on our breakfast, and in our tea or coffee. And don’t get me started about library books…

More later, God bless you for reading.

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

I have today ordered some clothing on-line… So I don’t ruin it, I will not be washing it before wearing it… Why should I? I’ve often bought clothing in clothing stores… I try stuff on to see if it fits… No point buying the wrong size…  I’m still writing… My latest stuff is available on Amazon kindle.  Today, the sun has been shining here… But I’ve hardly noticed it, cos of my writing…  I get a lot out of writing optimistic stories…  I’ll sleep tonight… Hopefully… My mate David has been spreading the word… Maybe the world isn’t ready for it yet. For now I’m returning to fiction…

How are you all?

God bless you for reading…

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Well, I survived the church visit today… Sat on a cloth seat… Enjoyed the togetherness… To be honest, the compulsion to wash hands all the time, is finally subsiding… And carrying antibacterials in my pocket is just too complicated for me now… I use it only when entering public buildings, and even then, only if it is provided… That way, if I have got Covid, I won’t pass it to anyone else… Even though I may be the only person in the shop wearing a face covering…  It is easier now to not go back and check anything… It is actually better that I just don’t start… Okay… I’m burned out today, so this update is a short one…  I don’t know what is on my hands, save to say, I washed them once only after going loo.  And that seems to suffice for others around me…

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Hi everyone… Well, We’ve made it to another weekend. It has been an extremely busy week. We now have a dishwasher. Except our plates don’t fit!!! 🙂  A good reason to get some new ones after thirty odd years…  We have to plumb the machine in… But at least it will be easier. I do all the catering at home… I’m lead carer for my wife.  My Ocd is easing a bit, mind you, it does when the nice weather comes… Tomorrow we are out visiting people… But that should be okay… I’m not carrying bottles of alcohol gel around with me any more, but will use it where provided when entering shops etc.  I’ve just noticed that Easter isn’t far away… I’m into chocolate in a big way! It is said to be a mood enhancer, but then they tell us it is fattening! We just cannot win, can we?  I hope to do some more recordings on my fabulous electronic organ… I used to put stuff on Youtube, but I’m so busy these days, that things like that tend to get waylaid.  Okay, I have been looking on the satellite channels for entertainment, and one app is called Anthem TV.  They have really old programmes on, but one of my favourites is a chap called Judge Greg Mathis. He is a sort of cross between Judge Judy, and the courtroom scene in ‘What’s up doc’, starring Ryan o Neal and Barbra Streisand. Absolutely brilliantly funny, played by a guy by the name of Liam Dunn.  Comedy is great for lifting the spirits.  Okay, I’ll try not to leave it so long next time…

God bless you for reading…

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

As I am a writer, I have been doing some writing today… I picked up some manuscripts from before my Ocd really took hold… It has been so long, since I’ve been able to edit something with depression in it, rather than specifically Ocd.  The depression however, was really, really bad. I ended up retiring from work due to ill-health… All because of a way over the top regime of, amongst other things, food hygiene, and people who were quite literally, unpleaseable. Nothing was ever good enough… I believe that, not long after I left, the management company pulled out, resulting in the closure of the premises… At least I survived… Just…  I’m now managing to live a happy life, after a very long mental illness, something I even had at school, but was never diagnosed.  I have got hold of some new dinner plates, small enough to go in the dishwasher, a process we are converting to, as there are only two of us at home, there is no point filling a sink of water after every meal.  I’ve heard that the dishwasher tablets are quite hazardous, so will be taking extra care when placing them in the machine.

I travel to visit the grandchildren on Sunday… A hotel overnight stop.  How about the beds in hotels… Are they really that clean? And if so, How do they manage it?  How could they manage it? The best way is, don’t look… The sheets are fresh, along with the pillowcases… Unlike the ones on our beds at home, Right?

And the quilt covers too…

What about the TV remote control?  Aren’t they gonna be basically the same as the ones we have at home?

In Summertime, we go to the seaside… Onto the beach… Some people brave the coldness of the sea itself… I shudder to think what could be in the water… But in most cases it is not flagged up as being hazardous…  On the South coast of Britain, we have the English Channel, one of the busiest maritime corridors in the world… In the North sea, the oil and gas fields…  And in some places, the air isn’t brilliant either… But we live… Our natural defences constantly adapting to the world around us…  I’m into cuddly toys, in a big way… Are they ever perfect? I doubt it… On my first day at school I remember having a huge teddy bear with me, it was bigger than me too… Other children would have played with it too… We all survived…  In my journey through OCD, I have had to relearn to just let things be…  It has not been easy at all. Two courses of CBT, with Exposure response prevention (ERP), thrown in, by a therapist who was very dynamic… Very, Hands on… Going through the tasks with me. Mentoring me, if you like.

Let’s try and relax for a couple of days… Alright, One day, right up until bedtime… Let us take the batteries out of something, and not worry about them. If they’ve leaked (A rare occurrence these days), it will be obvious, and everywhere…  So, if they are dry, we can just put them back in the item they came out of.  Only replace them when they’ve completely worn out.

Another thing… When we take the laundry out of the tumble dryer… Is it sterile? Will it still be sterile when exposed to air? That same air we breathe every moment of our lives?   Why should it matter?  Is whoever demands these things of us, themselves using the same exacting standards in their own lives?  In a word No. Definitely not… They cannot reach these standards, because they are, quite simply, unattainable. Maybe they give a big ask, so that we don’t look to see what they are really up to… Why try to pin the blame on me?

If someone you know, takes offence… Metaphorically give them the lawnmower, I heard someone say… My mate David is very quiet at the moment… He is still writing too, but has scaled back his operations a bit, he is working on some stuff of his own now…

Okay… Back in a couple of days…

God bless you for reading…

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Hi everyone… The Ocd has kept it’s distance today…  I keep wondering if I should wear my face covering in shops… Not everyone does…  If I’m the only one wearing one, I pretend that I have covid, and I’m protecting them. Avoid sarcasm… I did some plumbing today… We now use an electric dishwasher in the kitchen, so we don’t use gas… We are trying to go all electric, ready for next winter, when they are due to hike up prices again. Pure greed. It is all about trying to be as efficient as possible. With electric heaters, all the heat goes into the water, whereas, with gas, a percentage of it goes straight up the chimney… Adding to the greenhouse gases. Dual fuel discount is more than cancelled out by the ridiculous standing charges. And as electricity does everything, gas has to go… Food now takes priority over heating…  When it is really cold, I wear a boiler suit over my clothing… Even use a quilt off the bed… Which brings me to my Ocd challenge. Is the inside of our bed clean? Does it matter if I get into bed fully clothed, and then sit on the settee in the living room?  Well… I can try and analyse what would normally be inside my bed, or I can do as children do, and people who wear pyjamas all day; If it is okay for others, then, by law of averages, it must be okay for me… So, though it feels a bit gross, Statistically, it does no harm to anyone. Resist the intrusive thoughts, until they die away of their own accord. It always happens eventually. Eventually.  So, the challenge is this… Let’s all get back into bed with our daytime clothes on, wait five minutes, and then just carry on with our day… Let’s ‘Bontaminate’ everything… Shall we try?

God bless you for reading,

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Hi everyone.  Childminding duties today, so I am exhausted. No studying for me tonight… So far, tomorrow is free until the evening.  I still get odd moments when I  wash hands a little too much. I shove the thoughts back over backwards metaphorically speaking. Sometimes this is all so difficult… But we are getting through…

God bless you for reading,

Wannabe

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