What about creating a daily journal?

[wannabefreeParticipant]

Hi everyone, I’m looking at returning to something I did at Uni. A daily journal… What I’ve been doing, How I feel about it, and notes regarding what I will start doing when I return to my task later…  In the night, something to remember in the morning… Write it down, I will refer to the journal daily to see where I left off, I then know exactly what I intend to do regarding restarting…

It is a small word processing document… literally Kbytes. We used to be able to get up to ten, onto a single floppy disc!  So, memory stick, portable hard drive, nothing too big, even SD card… Keep it somewhere safe, so it remains private. No one else needs to see it, they’ve got enough on with their own lives.

I find that once I’ve got it down on a page, I stop the thing going round and round in my head. I relax, and actually start to feel at peace with myself.

It’s different to a diary, in that we can different amount of texts at a time… Write for as long as we like about anything at all…. It’s just an idea…

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

I sometimes think these forums have served as a kind of journal for me.  To write the stuff out of my head, and onto a page, and just leave it there, is actually quite good, it stops stuff going round and round in my head…

There is a book about ‘The concept of Bontamination’ written by a friend/colleague of mine. It is pretty good in the race against contamination OCD, especially now as the Covid situation is sort of relaxing a bit… Not so many places are stocking antibacterials now… And I used to use it everytime  I actually came into contact with anything at all…

It is really strange not having to wear a face mask in a bank anymore!

Wannabe

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Today’s entry… Flyspray… Mist the room, close all doors and windows.  How long do I wait before re-entering? It doesn’t say on the can… Perhaps an hour will do… I have to sleep in there tonight.   ?

I know that surfaces are safe once dry…

We’ll have to wait and see on this one.

Swimming and gym today… followed by lunch in a Cafe. I already know that no one can become ill because of me… I am most likely cleaner than they are anyway. Okay ? ?

More later…

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

I actually like the idea of a daily journal… It is a good way of powering a positive vibe or way of living.

Some people suggest that we should ‘Never put off till tomorrow, what you can get done today.’  Okay, yes, it is a good idea in essence. But, What about this one;

‘Always leave/plan something great for tomorrow. Something to look forward to. It doesn’t have to be particularly big, or expensive… Just nice, a good experience. Something you really like to do. ‘  That way, first thing in the morning, when you awake, you always have something positive to look forward to during the day ahead, and that is good for us, positive, nice, even.

There maybe other things in the day which might not be particularly pleasant, but at least there will be at least one good thing. Try it… It works!

So… Tomorrow, when I awake, I will start the day with a nice cup of coffee.  Then maybe, A slice of tiger bread toast, spread with something nice…  These occurrences are not particularly expensive, but they lift my spirit. Put me in a positive frame of mind. In that state, I will have the strength to face whatever comes my way, solve it, or find a compromise with it, it becomes more manageable. I try to do this every day or night shift. It enables me to get to sleep a lot easier. My plan can be written down, so it isn’t dominating my thoughts and going around and around in my head, as soon as my head touches the pillow… I can relax… And sleep. Sleep is important, so the better sleep pattern we have, so much the better.

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Well… I have to be honest, my journal hasn’t been doing much yet… But then, I am not doing a lot of stuff at the moment. Uni starts next year. One thing I do a lot of is write memos on my tablet, especially when I have a fair bit to write down or remember for later. When I have an internet signal, I send myself emails, it might be a song title, or just a very brief idea. I have been known to create shopping lists this way, the mobile phone is so versatile these days. I haven’t actually recorded the spike I had yesterday… It caught me unawares. Fortunately, this sort of thing is extremely rare. I was in a really strange situation and place. The thoughts died away eventually, after maybe 6 hours or so.  This isn’t a diary… The sort of thing we would be given at Christmas, with tiny pages and spaces, and that had been abandoned by new year, it isn’t filled every day, and some days have more writing than others. I find that these forums are good for this sort of thing too. Looking back, I can see where things have sometimes gone wrong, and how I managed to recover. I can see how far I’ve come, and also how long it has all taken. A very positive step…

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Something else for my journal… Today I ordered an item of clothing on line. It is due to arrive in a few days… I’m now worrying… Will it fit? Mmmmm… Should I be worrying? I don’t know… But it won’t change anything… I have to wait until it arrives…  If it’s wrong, I’ll either alter it, or buy another of a different size. But until it arrives, I can do nothing… I need to leave it in my journal. Other things are due to arrive this week too…  I love buying secondhand. I trust that the item will be reasonably clean. It will be good enough… I’m tempting fate with this… The parcels will have been handled by many… The person who wraps it, the postal staff, and then me, from my doormat probably… It worked out okay last time I did it… I can alter clothing if necessary… I actually used a sewing machine a few days ago… I had to figure out how to thread it! It’s many years since last time… But I managed it… A borrowed sewing machine… Borrowed cotton… No one is ill yet… Not even from the burger bar a few days ago…  So… I’ll leave it all in my journal, and pick it up in a couple of days… It is there to refer to if need be, but the main thing is, leave it there, all written down. Close the book, and get some sleep… Sleep…

Until tomorrow then…

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Well… The item of clothing arrived! I tried it on, and it is a little small, but will stretch a bit. It cannot be sterilised, but then, Why should I? It is only the same as something I would try on in a shop… Remember when we used to try on shoes in a shoe shop? We checked our size on the special gauge, that is not cleaned between every customer… Never was… And we are okay… At one of the swimming pools I used to go to, we had to use footbaths… But not anymore. Do we get ill? Well, if it does happen, we never hear about it, do we? Well we don’t. And it is a large chain of sports clubs…  It works well for me, because I go in the gym for gentle workout, then into the Jacuzzi for a really good warming up. We sometimes have a drink after. In the gym, not everyone wipes down the equipment after they have used it… Fool them, if they try to claim for anything… They aren’t adhering to the rules of the club. I’ll always be okay… Well, I have been so far, CBT has proved that beyond reasonable doubt. We are remarkably resistant to the world around us. Our normal environment. That is my item in the journal for today… More again soon… It helps to write things down, it gets them out of my system. The trick then, is to somehow leave it on the page… Leave it all until morning… Just leave it on the page… Until morning…

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

A journal of all our successes, however small. If we report a failure, write a positive strategy alongside it, it will then fail less often. We will see our progress forward… Even with the occasional setback, we are always moving forward in time, always progressing. We progress by trial and error, always getting better, Sometimes quick, sometimes slowly, but we ‘are all getting there’, so to speak. We are always gradually winning… Honest!

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Well,  I  don’t know… I am due to recommence study in a couple of months… A daily journal has already been suggested to me…

Wannabe

[Forum Moderators]

Forum Moderators:

First, thank you Wannabe for sharing your journal with the forum. We wish you the best of luck with your studies. We’re sure you’ll be a brilliant and dedicated student!

We’d also to remind all users that everyone’s welcome and encouraged to start a similar journal-like topic. Are you experiencing something new in your life that you’d to share, especially in relation to OCD? Or, would you like to write about past and present experiences of living with OCD? The more you interact with the forum, the more supportive and helpful it’ll be for everyone!

Forum Moderators

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Coming soon..

Wannabe’s Friday night blog…

Just a lighthearted weekly idea…

I don’t care anymore if anyone reads it or not. The real joy is in the writing ????
<p style=”text-align: center;”>Wannabe</p>

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Something I try to do is, always, leave something good for tomorrow… That way, I always want to get out of bed in the morning…

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Something I have just started doing, is simply saying ‘Thank you’.

It doesn’t matter who to, just saying the words seems to help. It lightens the load…

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

I wrote a letter to my bullies… I  really  laid it on thick…  Every tear was documented. I named them all , everything, all my early life…

A couple of a4 pages full.

They will never read it, cos most of them will have died of old age by now.

But it really helped me. I keep it hidden. It is for my benefit now…

Wannabe

[Author]

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