A Work In Progress

I added on to the description of this blog.

It now reads:

A blog dedicated to the retaliation against obsessive, intrusive thoughts and OCD.

I got to thinking, I used to think I had Pure O. But although the majority of my OCD is obsessions, I do have a few compulsions and have had many in the past that have been eliminated through Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. So why limit this blog to intrusive thoughts only?

When I first heard of OCD, it included "checking" for the most part - people turning their lights off and on, locking their doors over and over again, checking their stoves and ovens ten to twenty times before leaving the house. Think Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets. I always thought to myself, "I don't do checking." But that is not the case.

A few years back I started checking my cell phone. I would purposely set it on silent and check my phone every 3 minutes to see if someone had called or left a text message. Every few minutes I would glance at my phone's display. Then I got a new phone. The backlight went out after a minute of non-use. So then I had to actually push an unlock button to light the phone up every three minutes to check the phone.

When I would go in for CBT, my therapist would make me put my phone in my pocket or turn it upside down. This went away after awhile because when I left my family, I always wanted to be on guard in case something happened to my girls, so I started leaving the phone's ring on all the time. Now, I find myself back to the phone on silence and the checking has started again. Dang. The way I feel about it is that if something were to happen to one of them, three minutes is not really going to make that much difference.

A weird thing happened to my walking in between lines. Several years ago, a friend and I were walking to the gym from the parking lot. She asked me why I always had to walk on horizontal lines. I really hadn't noticed it before, but she was right. If I missed a line, I would go backwards and step on it. So I told my therapist about it. I don't remember what happened, but after that, now I avoid horizontal lines, cracks, changes in color on the ground, edges of shadows, etc. We practiced for a short time in her office, me standing on the edge of a rug for as long as I could. My anxiety level would always shoot up. We never went any farther because I just don't feel that compulsion is something standing in the way of my life.

Some supermarket tile floors are very stressful for me and the Las Vegas casinos were a nightmare. I actually had a panic attack one night and had to go back to the hotel room.

So as you can see, I am not Pure O afterall, and I am definitely not a hoarder. For more information on Pure O, click here. Are you a checker, a hoarder, other, Pure O, or something in between? Feel free to comment.

Peace,

~b~