April 2011

Ocd Plus formlly oc -illnesses-and_creativity.net

Ocd and More

The on-line journal/blog of a sufferer of obsessive-compulsive disorder OCD.

If writing did not exist, what terrible depressions we should suffer from.
Sei Shnagon c. 966 – 1013

April 2011

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Archive:Select archived blog entries for between 2004 to 2010

Introduction

January 2011

February2011

March 2011
April 2011
No entries for May
June2011
July 2011
August 2011
No Entries for September
October 2011

November 2011

December 2011

January 2012

February 2012

March 2012

April 2012

From September 2010 onwards all quotes in blog entries will be included in
this coloured font. I have done this on my Sheep website and I think it makes it so much easier to identify quotations. In some entries there are a good number of quotations and it can get confusing.

April 10th

I know this blog is becoming to look more like an environment/ animal rights blog rather than a blog about my life with OCD. But these issues are close to my heart, particularly that of animal rights. So here again is more information and action you can take including a petition /e-mail you can send to the Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper and other Canadian government officials.

I cannot understand the callous disregard for the lives of other sentient creatures with whom we share this earth. The suffering of animals at the hands of human beings causes me the greatest of sadness. I would like to see a world were animals are left alone, if there is any intervention on the part of man it is only to aid an injured or sick animal or to assist him or her in other ways when and only if necessary. I would like to see the end of farming, the use of animals for entertainment and experimentation, an end to all abuses of any creature.

Please read what follows which appears also in my other website
think-differently-about-sheep.com/

Stop the Canadian Seal Hunt

He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.
Immanuel Kant

Once again Canada ignores pleas from compassionate people world-wide to stop the barbaric seal hunt. This year the Canadian government has sanctioned the mass killing of as many as 400,000 helpless baby harp seals.

Below is a request from PETA for you to try and put a stop to this atrocity, please consider signing the petition and or making a domination:

In the weeks ahead, scores of these young animals will be beaten, shot, stabbed with sharp hooks, and sometimes even skinned alive—all so that someone can wear a coat, a collar, or cuffs made of real baby-seal fur.

PETA and caring people like you are fighting relentlessly to protect these animals. We must pressure the Canadian government to listen to the pleas of the international community and millions of people around the world who want this annual slaughter to stop. Seals need our help right now. Please take the following two important actions today:

Sign PETA's petition demanding an immediate and permanent end to the annual seal slaughter.

Make an urgent donation to PETA to help us win the fight to stop the killing of seals and other animals for their fur. Your generous gift will allow us to take on the fur industry—designers, retailers, and consumers—as only PETA can.

Also from PETA:

More action you can take to stop this dreadful cruelty not worthy of any Nation wishing to be called civilised.

Canada's commercial seal slaughter is about to kick into high gear, but you can do something to help stop it. PETA has created a compelling new infographic that provides key information about the massacre, like how seals are bludgeoned and sometimes skinned alive and how much taxpayer money is wasted promoting a product that Canada loses money on every year.

You will find a link to a larger graphic below

All you have to do to spread the word is follow this link to the infographic, then tweet it, e-mail it to your friends, or post it to your Facebook and MySpace pages. With your help, millions of people will instantly see the truth behind Canada's shameful excuses for failing to put a stop to this travesty.

Written by Michelle Sherrow

Blog entry from The PETA Files:

peta.org/b/thepetafiles/archive/2011/04/04/do-you-have-60-seconds-to-save-seals.aspx?

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
Ghandi

What does this annual massacre of helpless baby animals say about Canada's moral progress? As you can see by reading some of the comments in the above PETA blog, this brutal slaughter does little for Canada's image at home or aboard.

Like thousands of people throughout the world I have written letters to Stephen Harper (Prime minister of Canada) and other Canadian government officials and signed petitions. Animal rights and welfare groups have campaigned tirelessly for a cessation of this slaughter and the EU and the USA have banned seal products, yet the government of Canada have remained impervious to all pleas for compassion and a cessation of this annually brutality.

It is time that the Canadian government listened and stopped this massacre here and now.

I along with many others say to Stephen Harper: Please stop this shocking cruelty now and forever. If human beings are to ever progress towards a peaceful society we must stop killing the creatures with whom we share this world.

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages."
Thomas Edison

April 11th

A lot has happened since Christmas that I would like to tell you about but there is just such a lack of motivation, a block if you like. I rather think that if I can get back into the swing of more regualr entries things will improve.

The last months have been difficult but really no more difficult than other months in what appears to me to be a continual onslaught of perversity, a constant battle with both my mental and physical health and the general struggle with the increasingly difficult life that many people are forced to live nowadays. Life for everyone seems filled with too much to do, tension stress and downright misery. Well there is much to tell you and one day I hope I can start to once again share my life more fully as a suffer of OCD.

One development may surprise you and that is that we are guardians of a lovely little rabbit. Now as a sufferer of contamination OCD this has not been the least bit easy and continues to be a bit of a struggle, but not only from the aspect of contamination OCD. Now I say guardian rather than owner as I do not believe that people should keep pets and I would not go into a pet shop and buy a pet, incidentally I, along with those who are into animal rights, prefer to say companion animal rather than pet, because I do not consider that you can own another living being and pet implies ownership. Yes it may seem a play on words but it isn't , although words do not matter do they its the intention. We are looking after our like rabbit who is about six years old and female called sooty. A name given to her by my husband because she is a black rabbit, a tiny dwarf rabbit in fact. Now of all animals kept as companion animals I am against animals that have to be caged or restricted in anyway such as birds, reptiles, fish, rodents and rabbits, so we certainly would not go down to the local pet shop and buy a bunny and put him or her in a tiny hutch and leave her there most of the time. Which is what a lot of people tend to do.

The story of how we came to adopt Sooty is a long one and I will tell you as soon as I can. The short version is as follows. Her previous owner - now here I will not say guardian because this is not the way most people think about their relationship with animals regarding them as property which was the case with this person - could not cope with looking after her rabbit. I hate to say unpleasant things about people on the net but it appeared to us the novelty wore off and she neglected her rabbit. Yes she loved her rabbit and still takes an interest in what we are doing to make a life for this little animal but she seemed not to know the poor creature needed space and companionship, and over last winter during the bitter cold this rabbit was left out in the cold. There were though at this time additional and traumatic and dire circumstance that added to the owners problems with her rabbit as she was not available to look after her, so we went round and rescued her. They say animals can cope with the cold but last winter about 80 parent of one species of owl was wiped out. Few creatures can cope with such dire weather. Can you imagine being left out in a hutch with wire mesh at the sides rendering not much shelter and warmth at all, being no better than outside in that bitter cold of last December? Besides animals love warmth and comfort just as we do.

The story is longer and more complicated and I will tell you as much as I can another time but the owner agreed for us to adopt her rabbit.

John does all the tasks that would be difficult for my son, who also has some degree albeit mild contamination OCD, and I . It is not easy by any means but I have surprised myself that I could do this at all. It may simply be that my OCD scrupulosity, the need to do the right thing, has overwritten if you like my fear of contamination concerning the rabbit. Overcome though is not quite right, I should say it may have helped me to cope with my contamination OCD with regards to our rabbit to some degree, although there have been moments of incredible anxiety, including four trips to the vet and other issues concerning our attempts to get our bunny a rabbit companion, an assuming episode which I must share sometime . No not from the pet shop, from the RSPCA. Many people concerned with animal rights look after animals, but an animal who needs a home after being mistreated or abandoned from places such as the RSPCA, a sanctuary or rescued from a person who is not able to look after their animal companion. I should though not assume that I am solely driven by scrupulosity OCD and I rather think that I as a person regardless of OCD I would still wish to help others including other creatures, its just that OCD has warped this aspect of my personality with perhaps an exaggerated and distorted form of my desire to help others by adding the anxiety component. Well I am not going to go into a long rabble about scrupulosity and its many miserable manifestations here to day, perhaps this is something I should do another time as indeed scrupulosity and ethical ruminations are increasingly become a big problem for me.

Well it is a long story and one I wish to share as it may be of interest to those of you will a similar type of OCD but it will take some time in the writing and will appear in the article section rather than here as it will be a long entry. For now I will just add short comments about this when I can as I hope to return to more blogging about my life with OCD.

April 12th

Concerning Zentangles mentioned in a March entry, I wonder if any one has had a go at this? If you have and would like me to display your work in the gallery please send them in, either take a photo or scan them and send the files. It would be interesting to see how we all get on. I have found it a good distraction, something you can do when you have a moment or two, although I find it difficult not to plan them and most of mine are contrived and I have soon gone from back ink to adding colour pencil. When I get the time I will scan my attempts and put them here on my blog to show you and if enough people send them in I will create a section in the gallery to display them. In any event if you send in your work I will include them in the gallery.