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

August to 2009

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Gristmill: The environmental news blog |

This blog is part of Grist Magazine's website, a magazine dedicated to environmental issues.

Positive Attitude Quotes, Free Happy Positive Loving Messages, Popular Motivativational sayings.

A good selection of interesting quotations

If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.
Margaret Atwood

Don't get it right, just get it written.
James Thurber

August 8th

I will this time try to refrain from lamenting about my inability to include as many entries as I once did. At least I have managed to sort out the problem with accessing all the pages on  my bog and things now in this regard are back to normal. It was a long task taking three or four hours. Moreover it was not particularly an interesting task and it was an annoying one with software glitches, as is usually the case with any aspect of web site creation. I am not very good at doing mundane boring tasks of any kind were my mind is not intensely occupied, but it's done now and it is a relief if nothing else, although I hope to redesign these pages if possible and make another attempt at achieving them, at least to achieve all the previous entries. After getting in such muddle last time I am not going to attempt anything to ambitious. My organisational skills have never been brilliant but in recent months they have declined even further and I simply cannot get my head round organising previous entries into some sort of achieve.

I am going to try and write more despite the increase in difficulties in this regard. As the above quotations suggest, it is better to write anything however imperfect than not to write at all.

Whether or not any of my lamenting does anyone any good is of course a matter of perspective. I do have a very difficult life not only with OCD but also with a number of other conditions therefore much of what I write will not be positive although if something positive happens or if I came across anything such as in a book or on the net I will include this. Sadly I see the world as it is, depressed people do, to use a common comparison they see the thorns not the rose. Sadly for me though rather like a rose bush there are considerably more thorns than roses which tend to our weigh the positives. So many things in my day to day life make me depressed from a personal level to a global one. The other day my mood was effected after hearing about the alarming decline of bees both in the wild and in a cultivated situation, which I do not approve of incidentally, not only does this have drastic implications for mankind but it is also distressing that these creatures may become extinct, the death of any being however small makes me sad, it is as simple as that. That is the way I am. There is suffering on an unimaginable scale in this world from the tiniest insects to ourselves of course and it is not easy to shut this out and get on with ones life, and the suffering of other creatures adds greatly to that of my own. Depression also of course appears on a personal level and any negative outcome no matter how small or seemingly insignificant by the standards of people who do not experience chronic depression can send me into a deeper level of despondency.

It is difficult to be happy when others are not. In the village where I live there has been a lot of suffering recently and it is not easy to ignore this and these circumstance pry on my mind . Even the problems of people I do not know can effect my mood and I now try to avoid listening to the radio or watching TV news.

August 10th
If you regularly read my blog you will notice a couple of entries added today in the July blog. Yes they’ re out of date, written over a month ago. The problem is until today I could not find them in the chaos that is my filing system, although the word system cannot be used here in any literal sense as of course there is nothing remotely systematic about my filing arrangement whatsoever. As already mentioned in one of these belated entries ADD is a huge problem, my organisational skills or rather the my inability to organise is of course a manifestation of ADD.

But I am hoping to follow the advice from the two quotes at the top of this month’s entries and try to convince myself that it is more important that I write something, anything, rather than write nothing because I worry about grammar, spelling or eloquence or any other issue. I most probably will not be able to set aside my obsessing about saying something which may have a negative effect and such ruminations can of course result in significant delays in up loading entries or even result in entries being deleted.

From this month I hope to try to include more diary like entries about how I really feel and try to ignore anxieties that this will cause, harm such as discourage anyone. This blog though began as an attempt to really tell it like it is, with no embellishments, not likely, or omission, more likely. From next month at the top of each page there will be a warning that some of the entries are negative and readers read them at their own risk.

I would like to write the kind of blog that tells you how after years of OCD misery I have overcome my condition, but alas this would be pure fiction. My life is just terrible, there are few if any moments when I am not feeling depressed, anxious, fearful, worried, embroiled in a constant battle with my mind and body which rages day in day out with few moments of peace, if there are they are fleeting ephemeral. I am most likely a good deal older than most internet users and considering the nature of my OCD aging is bound to increase the severity of the condition. I am not going to reiterate the nature of my OCD as there is plenty of information about this in my memoir and if you find that heavy going you can read my shorter version simply called rather unimaginatively My story

I like to attempt to share with you my frustrations, irritations, annoyances and what make me feel so depressed and down right angry. I am a sensitive person and many things in my environment will make me depressed, fearful, anxious, irritated, and down right angry, cantankerous annoyed. I will try and share these with you.

I may however simply do nothing of the sort when depression and sheer exhaustion set in but I am going to try. I also have my new website which indeed I do give more attention to than this and this is because I feel deeply about the appalling suffering of our fellow creatures with whom we share this world. The plight of other creatures treated inhumanely, abused in factory farms, killed for food, saddens me to a degree difficult to express and has resulted in a deepening of my depression. Notwithstanding this I feel great compassion for other animals and although my website will probably make little difference to the continued atrocities that take place in the world toward these defenceless animals I nevertheless feel a great desire to do my bit in bringing the attention of others to the appalling situation in the world concerning the mistreatment and exploitation of animals.

I will just sit here now and again and try to write about the events of the day, how I feel, my irritations my frustrations and down right annoyances and my anxieties and well all the aforementioned. And yes I will use antiquated words like aforementioned as this is how I write, though I rarely speak the way I write, in fact my speaking is just so muddled and confused these days I avoid talking to anyone, none except my immediate family. I simply cannot communicate with people face to face and although writing is better it is still no easy matter and sometimes the words will not flow. So we will have to see what happens.

My writing will not only concern OCD directly or bleatings about may aches and pains, but also include the expression of my constant anger, annoyance and sadness about life in general. Each and every everyday it seems that I am sad, angry and irritated, even enraged by... mostly I guess by the the behaviours of other people, or simply the awfulness of life not only for myself but for all beings, all creatures. Sadly it is human kind who causes a good deal of the suffering in this world that and angers me. Human greed is like a pandemic, as is selfishness, indifference and apathy. The world seems to my mind a very hostile place with disease running rampant, suffering on a scale unimaginable to most, but for the sensitive OCDer or other sensitive person - its not is not only people with OCD who are sensitive of course - the world is a pretty dreadful place and a good number of people are keenly aware of this, although sadly so many seem oblivious until suffering knocks on their door. I often ask myself how on earth anyone can not be depressed when one not only suffers one's self but lives in a continuous sea of suffering, a sea of Samsara as the Buddhist poem goes.

Rest in natural great peace
This exhausted mind
Beaten helpless by karma and neurotic thought,
Like the relentless fury of the pounding waves
In the infinite ocean of samsara.

Rest in natural great peace.

Nyoshul Khenpo

I sometimes think I would like this on my grave stone, an epitaph to my painful misery filled life as it so aptly describes life and how it effects me . Samsara basically in very simple terms means suffering although the original meaning is more complex. There is also the verse from laminations which is included in my memoir. 

My soul is deprived of peace.
I have forgotten what happiness is.
I tell myself that my future is lost...
Lamentations

This is me my life. Sadness is never far from my thoughts be it mine or that of other's and when I say others I include all creatures, all beings.

August 17th

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams; it is still a beautiful world.
Max Ehrmann Desiderata
I have just re-newed my website subscription and within less than an hour my website’s software malfunctioned and all the work I did to sort out the problem with the links in the other blog pages needs to be redone. Hours of work lost. Well its not as straight forward as that, but I am sure you really do not want a long rambling detailed explanation. Suffice it to say it has taken hours today to try to sort this out. With computers it is so difficult to find out how to remedy software and other glitches, and often you have to spend hours trying to resolve problems that I am dammed sure others have experienced yet there is so little information or anyone or anywhere you can go for advice. I really resent the time wasted, which can be considerable, with this sort of thing and often all that is required is finding the right thing to click because something has altered, something often fairly insignificant. This often happens through no fault of your own and is I assume either a bug in the software, or the result of some virus or simply nothing explicable. I can't open my website in my Front Page software so I can’t work on my website updates. Why??????? Just five minutes previously it was working fine than all of a sudden there are no files in the folder, a message on screen says it does not exist despite the fact it is sitting there in the same folder it has been in for the last four years! In the end I have to download my website from the host server and it takes hours.

To get a break from the misery my husband and I visit the local Botanic gardens. But with OCD is there ever a break from the misery, do you ever relax, find a bit of peace, enjoy the sunshine? Not of course not, at least for those with severe OCD, but despite the same old unreasonable expectations and that same reality shock you somehow remain hopeful that a nice walk into the countryside or a garden or other place in nature will afford you some modicum of peace. And despite all your pervious experiences you are still upset and depressed when it does not and you lament your time there and want nothing more than to go home again.

It was a pleasant day, warm with sunshine and those fluffy white cumulous clouds I like so much, A brisk wind is blowing which I often find so invigorating. Yes the idyll I seek is as elusive as ever. As usual its difficult to get some privacy in the toilet, there is only one and I find it difficult to use a toilet if there are other people waiting, it all adds to the the stress. Queuing at the counter to show our passes always irritates me, my husband is impatient and wants to go in and not bother to show our passes, after all he reasons we know we are no sneaking in and have a current season ticket. We go here in order for me to have walk round without having to look over my shoulder for someone’s out of control dog ready to jump all over me, which happened recently in the lake district which resulted in my having a heated altercation with the dog's owner and having to change my cloths and throw away my trousers. It would have helped if he had at least apologised. His dog should not have been off the leash along a road, nor in country where there are sheep if the dog does not do as he is told. In fact where there are sheep I do not think a dog should be off the lead at all! And in many places now on land where sheep are grazing there are notices that dogs should be on a lead. But few people take any notice and do as they please.  Of course dogs need to run free but there are more suitable places. I was so angry and I can feel my anger... no rage returning now as I write this. Yes I take a spare set of cloths for reasons concerning my migraine which I have explained before. Yes I love animals but with OCD I have an anxiety concerning dogs and rabies, again explained in detail elsewhere and of course in my memoir.

But today is not without its problems as I catch my leg in some brambles as we leave the garden to walk down the footpath . I really freaked out by the resulting scratch, the anxiety being contamination, resulting in infection . Perhaps some animal who has rabies has salivated over the brambles. Yes I know that here in the UK there is no rabies but who knows some idiot sneaks in an infected animal. There is always doubt, that is what OCD is all about is it not. My day of course is ruined by these thoughts, I am annoyed with my husband whose idea it was to venture down this foot path and we re-enter the garden and sit into the cool of the breeze. I try not to cry but really I am so depressed. Not only about the scratch but about my awful situation in general. I am very depressed now with barely any respite and OCD restricts my life in just so many ways that there are few areas of my life that are not effected by it. Yes I can still appreciate that despite the awfulness of this world, the suffering of all creatures of which I am keenly aware and which compounds my depression, but,  rather like the Desiderata  says, it is still a beautiful world and I appreciate that it is despite all the misery. And despite my depression I can still experience this, the beauty of this world but this serves only to make me feel more miserable as I know that I can never fully enjoy the positives as I am so overwhelmed by the negatives of my own suffering and that of others, all creatures of course not just man. Behind the beautiful facade of a spring day, a lake, a mountain, a running stream, a meadow in full bloom even the magnificence of a thunder storm or the rage of a blizzard, all of which I appreciate, there is just so much suffering of which I am always aware and I rather think that for me at least it will never be any other way, for once you see the world as it is you can never go back. 
 

August 18th

Finally the problem with the website software has been solved after more frustration and floods of tears despite anxieties about precipitating a headache or migraine. The downloaded website loaded into a different folder and this caused even more confusion. So many hours simply wasted. I find it very depressing to loose so much time sorting out a problem that was no fault of my own and the solution to which really does nothing more than to rectify a mistake either mine or another’s . With computers and software its not easy to ascertain how these faults arise. I really felt like giving into despair and feel so miserable and as though I am not up to the task anymore. My son arrived home and helped, without his assistance I would not have managed to resolve this issue.

In recent moths I feel as though my ability to do much of anything is on the decline and it is not just complex things such as website construction either. Once I used to be a good cook and could prepare a three course meal with no trouble at all, and I recall once doing so with a visitor who chatted throughout the preparation non stop, finally remaking that she would not have been able to produce such a complex meal if she had had to listen to some one yak on for the duration. Now however even simple things seem to go wrong. Depressed on Friday I had made a coffee Victoria sandwich and the whole thing caved in the middle. I jokingly I referred to it as a volcano cake but it was really quite a disaster, more like a biscuit that a cake.

Perhaps it is simply that my focus of priorities has changed, but I feel somehow a steady decline in my ability to function due to depression and anxiety, although fearful imaginings often lead me to contemplate worse possibilities. I am so easily depressed now, any thought or situation seemingly compounds my depressed mood and its a constant struggle to keep going. I think sometimes its the OCD that is my only real motivation to get out of bed in the mornings and also in many ways there is a compulsive drive to fight depression and at times I feel that just now and again I would like to give up the constant battle to fight my depressed mood and just give into despair rather than trying to content with it.

Most mornings I wake anxious about a number of possibilities concerning any of the strange conditions from which I suffer. Is it this or is it that. I am so anxious I dare not even write down the names of the diseases that I worry that I may have for fear that in some way by doing so I will make my fears a reality, as though the very thought will make me ill and not only my thoughts but also the thoughts of all who read what I write. If only just one morning I could wake with a happy thought, the fear of death or old age presents without fail, the only exception is if I wake with a severe migraine and than all I can think of is taking my medication as soon as possible. It seems the only respite from one type of negativity is the presentation of another negative occurrence.

August 21st

It is 4am, I can hear my neighbours quietly talking through the thin party walls, yes rather a worry should we one day get some noisy neighbours as the walls in this room seem to be so thin. But that is not my point today, no, rather hearing them talk in the early hours reminded me that it has been so long since I was excited about anything! The reason my neighbours were up at 4am was because they had to get up early to travel down to Heathrow to be at the airport two hours before their flight to Florida. It has taken them two years to save for this holiday and they really must be so excited. As I heard the muttered drone of their voices I felt a pang of envy, not especially because of their destination, I have never been abroad I have always had anxiety about flying even before OCD reared its ugly head. But hearing them in the early hours of the morning reminded me how I once used to feel excitement for a holiday, how I would be up so early raring to go so not to miss a moment, unlike now being up so early merely to use the bathroom for about the third time during the night after a night of suffering a severe headache.

How I used to enjoy the lead up to a holiday, selecting cloths to wear, buying something new, even having my hair styled and coloured. It’s been over twenty years since I have set foot in a hair dressing salon and even more time has passed since I felt excitement about an anticipated event such as a holiday. I have forgotten what it feels like, that rush of excitement and to day vicariously brought back just a hint of what it is like. Yes we go on holiday once a year and the destination matters not but now instead of enjoying packing and buying new cloths I am stressed out, tense, often regretful that I encouraged the trip whilst throwing anything into a bag, as long as my cloths are clean little else matters and I have not even enjoyed shopping for something new as it has become a chore rather than a pleasure. I have so few clothes now, I can’t cope with buying them, neither can I find any to wear feeling increasingly more and more irritated by clothes which today seem to be made from rough material which to my heightened senses feels like sand paper and it is a misery now instead of pleasure to go clothes shopping, not to mention the expense.

I just about managed to colour my own hair but rarely now but struggled to do so for our last trip. I am unable now , due to OCD and , society anxieties, headaches and migraine, to visit the hair dressers and probably could not afford it anyway. In the last three decades, thinking about it now it could be even longer, instead of excited anticipation and counting the days off I feel dread. Yes I want to go and I want to feel excited about the normal things that people experience on such occasions. I know if only I was not depressed or restricted by OCD or bothered by headaches I might feel less anxious about and anticipate my holiday with some happiness and excitement. I am always anxious going anywhere even for a day's outing should I get a headache or migraine and all trips any and everywhere are fraught with OCD fears of contamination, motivation sapped by depression not to mention all my other woes.

Today was no exception and we went into the Yorkshire dales, the weather was awful, what happened to that long hot summer we were promised I wander, but the main problems were my anxiety, my depression and my OCD and last but by no means least my headaches, irritable bladder and IBS. As before I knew that even despite the weather with its heavy bursts of torrential rain that if it was not for the aforementioned miseries I would enjoy such a trip . The hills are profuse with heather and the smell that wafts on the wind is just wonderful, the hills are splendid, wild, with little streams winding their way through, and sheep grazing, plenty of places to walk, the type of place I  really love. But the anxiety about dogs, too many people in the tea room, and although the pub was empty except for one person there was always the anticipation that a dog may enter or it suddenly becomes overcrowded.

Most of the day due to anxiety I felt I needed to use the toilet, which fortunately in this part of the dales there are public conveniences but which are becoming an increasing rarity in many places making my life extremely difficult. I did get quite a significant headache but remained for a further hour before returning home hoping it would ease off, which they sometimes do. But no and after more heavy downpours we return home but before we leave the dales both my headache and the rain ease off and I regret now giving in and returning home.

I would show you some photos we managed to take of the heather but they did not turn out too well as the weather was really not suited to photography, but here is photo of a lamb who by this time of the year is nearly all grown up of course as they soon grow quickly from tiny lambs you see in spring. A really delightful creature, quite tame, she allowed us to take many photographs.

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You can see more of our photographs of this sheep and others and also other subjects on Flickr:  Lamb sleeping on Flickr - Photo Sharing! and also on my other website's photograph section Photograph Gallery Introduction

Concerning photographs I am working on a page of photographs sent in by an OCD suffer for the gallery which I hope will be ready to publish in a week or two. Please remember this website's positive purpose which is to display our creativity or other possibilities. So if anyone have any photographs or other art such as poems, needlework, or paintings, drawings anything creative I will be happy to display them in the gallery. Not an artist... Well I would be happy to receive your accounts about your experiences with any of the conditions included on this website or writings about anything..

It may make take a while for me to prepare anything you may send though as I now run two websites.

Here is link to my other website from which the link above is included and which as regular visitors to my website know has nothing to do with mental illness but focuses on animal rights and information about all sorts of animals not just sheep.
Think Differently About Sheep

Sometimes I think that as sufferers of OCD we do need to focus our attention elsewhere from time to time, and give our lives some meaning even if only in a small way.

August 23rd

I have finished the website of photographs mentioned above. Please check out Luis great photographs of a famous Uruguayan    sculpture "Prometeo encadenado", (Prometheus Bound). Luis if your recall is a student of Sculpture. Luis's Photography

As I have said above if anyone else would like their photos or other artwork in the gallery please let me know.

August 25th

Well this month here are a few more entries than usual, but as I have had great difficulties in one way or another with software problems and the usual OCD interference I have only actually made one upload. But sadly even with the software problems, although this certainly caused delays and may well still do so, I cannot, it seems, get to grips with the OCD anxieties about writing and anything I write is checked and obsessed over time and time again. Quite what to do I have not idea and to quote a rather by now well used title of the OCD film starring Jack Nicholson, this is most likely "As Good as it Gets"

August 27th

Another two days on and still not been able to load up due to a glitch or two, but  please be assured I am trying my best to rectify the problem. It is enormously difficult when such problems arise when you feel stressed, anxious and depressed all the time. Sometimes even simple day to day tasks seem like a huge chore and your thinking processes seem all over the place. I would not want to be without my computer as it is an excellent distraction and when things are working okay, or at least relatively well enough to function as I doubt I ever use a computer without some glitch occurring, it does help to distract my mind from some of the misery and gives me a sense of purpose, at least the two websites. Anyway fingers crossed as the saying goes. Of course if every aspect of this upload goes wrong you will not be reading any of this anyway.

Well I am going to load up and go sit in my backyard while uploading takes place, its 6.30 and daylight, the sky is blue and I need to make the most of the declining summer. I do regret not sitting out in the early morning to have my breakfast, the quietest time of the day before the traffic roars through our village, but you know what it like there is always something you think you should be doing and the morning is the best time of the day to work on my computer. Do you ever find that no matter what you are doing you think you should be doing something else. As is the case on a summer's morning you don't want to miss out on the nice weather, the rare times we get any, but on the other hand you simply want to get on with your other  activities such as for me this computer .

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All comments are welcome including polite constructive criticism and difference of opinion. However I reserve the right not to publish anything that I consider would be offensive or in any way of detriment to anyone particularly those who sufferer with the illnesses included on this web site.