Yesterday after talking to my OCD friend I had a more positive perspective on the ordeal to come, but by this morning some of the old fears returned along with a new anxiety provoking thought not related to the present problem with our house, a thought more OCD oriented. It sits in my mind stuck gnawing away and adding momentum to the misery of life right now. Here the weather over the last couple of days is cold and miserable, a dull cloud leaden sky which yields no rain yet hangs heavy like the mood over my heart. it is 5.05 am I have already been awake and working on the computer for over half an hour. Sitting here is cold, the damp on the wall is so obvious this morning, it is always much worse if there is a sharp frost. It is depressing and my heart sinks even further as soon as I enter the room. What is to be done about this problem I do not know. It will simply be left as we cannot afford or cope with having work carried out on the roof. If you are considering buying a stone house forget it. The phrase as solid as stone is meaningless, stone is anything but solid at least the sedimentary stone which comprises the walls of the older section of the house. It has been suggested that we render it, cover the stone with a water proof layer. None of the other houses in the row of terraces have done this there has to be some other way. After all this problem must surely rise in all the old castles and other stone buildings up and down the country. There has to be a solution but what. Considering many of the houses in the locality are built of stone; most of the town of Barnard castle is constricted entirely of stone, this problem has to occur elsewhere and there has to be a solution without our having to risk being ripped off or engaging a builder who really has no idea how to fix this problem with the porosity and erosion of the stone part of our dwelling.

Anyway enough !!!! You the reader must by now be thoroughly bored with all this rambling about houses, damp courses and so on and on and on........ It is a big issue for me right now and one that is seriously effecting my already precarious mental and physical health but dwelling on the problem really serves little purpose although talking it over with my OCD friend made me feel more positive for a while. But than of course boredom does play a part I would much rather be engaged in more interesting actives on my computer than looking for solutions to the problems with our house, finding the right kind of help, reading up about damp and kitchens and well... boooorrrrrrring... I find such matters of no interest and in addition to the money worries and the OCD problem which arise I resent the waste of my precious life trying to find out where to go and what to do. The phrases the information highway and the information age seems somewhat hollow sometimes, meaningless, at least concerning practical matters such as this, and trying to find solutions to such problems can often be very illusive indeed on the internet and even else where. I cannot understand why people get so wrapped in house alterations and improvements, people who buy old houses and do them up taking months and months to complete eludes me. There has to be more to life that wasting it in such pursuits. Yes our homes need to be pleasant comfortable environments free from damp and structural problems but we do not need to be slaves to our house continually decorating, altering it, adding extensions absorbing vast amounts of time and money often money that we do not have. .

There are so many interesting things in life and to me to spend ones time forever messing about with our house unnecessarily is a waste of life. My husband’s brother and his wife are always decorating their home, we always say that their home is rather like the Forth bridge; by the time they have finished at one end of the house they start again at the other -at least it appears that way. My sister in law and her husband bought a bungalow and than spent two years adding an extension to the attic!!!!! turning it into a bedroom which can only be accessed by a ladder Why buy a bungalow in the first place. Two years is big chuck out of your life is it not, and this of course is in addition to having to go out to work. But of course this is only my opinion and if engaging ones time in such pursuits brings you satisfaction well who am to criticise.

February 21st

Right now I need to try and focus my mind on to others things other than the ordeal to come. Yes in many respects mine is an over reaction compared to the trauma that has befallen thousands of people last year in the hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes that left many dead, injured and thousands homeless. I cannot for one minute imagine how I would cope with such adversity, the mere thought fills me with utter dread. But comparing different types of suffering and it’s various degrees really does little to mitigate my anxieties concerning the ordeal to come even though such an ordeal has nothing in common with many of the sufferings of countless others I nonetheless less suffer to a good extent. The mind all by itself can turn and will exaggerate the smallest problems into a catastrophe particularly for those who suffer as we do and feeling guilty because you cannot cope and there are others suffering more severely really does little to help. Yesterday I spoke to a lady who had had her housed gutted and she and her son had to live upstairs for a while confined to one room. She said it drove her to distraction but I got the feeling that she was nothing like as traumatised as I am or will be when the time arrives . But we cannot compare ourselves with normal people as sufferers of any anxiety disorder we are already anxious if not outright fearful, depressed, exhausted, often confused and overwhelmed to begin with and such extra anxiety piled on the top of our existing problems becomes magnified: We become more sensitive to adversity any adversity however small or seemingly insignificant if compared to others.

But today we are all going to try to set it aside although of course there needs to be a few days in which to sort out our belongings and our furniture and removing as much as possible from the downstairs rooms to the rooms upstairs. For anyone who is a hoarder and clutterer removing all ones clutter and trying to confine it into half the space is a challenge. I am not at this time severely effected by OCD hoarding and cluttering but it is a problem nonetheless and is fast become a more serious problem. A neighbour has offered to take some things and another lady who lives some way away as offered also but I really do not like to have certain things miles away, silly I know but I just can't do it. I do have OCD after all and one cannot turn it off just like a tap because circumstances make is difficult; I cannot dispose of my clutter just to make life easier, which of course it would be to at least allow this lady to take away certain things, no more than I can tell myself that I must not get a headache or a spate of headaches because it would be easier if I did not.

February 23rd

It’s pouring of rain I cannot believe it sometimes it is as though everything seems to go against us. Furthermore I have a significant headache which may or may not be a migraine. Yes today begins the commencement of the dreaded job of fitting a damp course. Typical is it not, isn’t it bad enough without I have to endure the additional suffering of a sudden increase in adverse weather and a headache. Of course everyone else in the entire country is effected by the weather and no doubt many others take it as a personal matter, but sometimes however irrational it appears you do take it as though it is has been designed to make your life more of a misery than it is already.

The last few days have been an utter misery of exhaustion, fear, depression and indeed sadness but also a determination to try and rid myself of my hoarding and cluttering OCD which is beginning to spiral out of control and which has been highlighted by the present circumstances.

In order to have the damp course fitted the two downstairs rooms including the vestibule and the cupboard under the stairs have to be cleared out and all our furniture and belongings have to be removed to the rooms upstairs. Plaster will need to be stripped from the walls and the chemicals for the damp course injected and than it has to be re-plastered. The radiators have to be removed and so will the fitted kitchen which is very old and will fall to bits. What a nightmare. The anxiety has nearly driven me crazy I have been irritable and deeply depressed. Not fair on my husband and son I know as they themselves are traumatised by the events of recent years and now by this the latest in a continual scenario of one problem and misery after another. My son also has mild contamination OCD and all three of us have some degree of hoarding and cluttering tendencies although I guess mine is by far the worse and motivated by less rational thinking.

I did not realise quite how much clutter we had, both the vestibule and the cupboard under the stairs is crammed with hoarded clutter. Ornaments that no one really wants or likes; the kind of things one wonders why one ever bought them in the first place. Books which have either been read or will never be read staked in boxes and bags. Bags of soft toys and general heaps of undefined clutter; paper and other odds and ends. Old abandoned artwork along with stored more successful artwork done over fifteen years - yes it is times like this when I wonder what is the point of painting when all it does is add to the increase in clutter. My late sister and bother in law’s ornaments are there also; I have explained in earlier entries my difficulties parting with them. The kitchen drawers are filled with bits of paper, old receipts, unremembered letters about things we cannot now recall, from people we no longer remember about matters that were not obviously of any importance yet these papers where kept just in case. You would think all this junk would have been sorted when we moved but no it was for the most part simply packed and bought here to sort out another time, the other time of course never arrived. And here we are now faced with what to do with it all while this job is carried out. There is not much room upstairs as there is so much clutter there also, our wardrobes crammed with stuff already. Shelves of books and more ornaments, soft toys and more of my sister and brother in law’s things line the walls, are pilled on the floors and the bed. But some how we have to get most of it somewhere upstairs. I am too stressed and anxious to try to sort it all out now and pack it up to sort out afterwards vowing to do something about the escalation of this problem.

A couple of neighbours have offered to take some our clutter, even the settee and TV. Both are amazed at the amount of stuff we have and they have only seen part of it as we only took over what we thought would not look too overwhelming and which would indicate to them that we had a problem with throwing away our things. Although this has helped it is not nearly enough and after empting the kitchen cabinets of the crockery and food we have hardly room to move and I sit here now at my computer desperately trying to ignore the sea of clutter that surrounds me. Sitting here now I try to ignore the overwhelming and claustrophobic effects. I wonder if I will survive this with any sanity remaining and there have been tears and tantrums and anger. Yes anger as once again our lives have been severely and negatively effected because of the unscrupulous behaviour of others. We have ten years remaining on the guarantee but the people who fitted the damp course are no longer in business, I have explained this all in a previous entry. This unscrupulous practice and its prevalence was confirmed again later today by the person who came to install the damp course, he told us that it was common practice to set up a business damp proofing using inferior watered down chemicals, give a thirty year guarantee and when they have made enough money and before people claim from the guarantee, which of course they inevitably will because the job had not been done properly, they close the business and reopen in another name. And you are left with a deliberately bodged job and no valid guarantee and no way of getting your money back or taking any action whatsoever against these unscrupulous bastards.

Other than the obvious implications of this serious upheaval such as the effect this will have upon my health, not to mention the considerable expense, one of the saddest things to come out of this is the loss of our photographs and some of the many books and soft toys that where stored in the cupboard under the stairs including soft toys made by my late sister, toys which I had forgotten had been stored there. All of which were to me precious things. The loss of most of the photographs we have taken over the years is indeed a sad loss, all our memories forever gone, most of the photographs from the time of our marriage until now have been irretrievably destroyed because of the severity of the damp. Often when I lament the harm that others have done to us over the years whether by design or otherwise I am met with the response that I should try to forgive and set it aside and let it go. I know it sounds awful but I find such advice irksome at best and extremely annoying at worst and I wonder how forgiving these people would be if they had personally been taken advantage of in such a callous manner. Forgiveness has to be felt in the heart it is of no use mumbling all the right words. Rather like the advice that one should not worry about death because there is nothing one can do to avoid it. Yes that is true but just saying the words does not free one of the fear which again rise from the heart despite all the rationalities and platitudes. Forgiveness similarly has to be felt and quite frankly it is to me silly to forgive people who have harmed you unless they have asked for such forgiveness. One lady even told me to forget about the builder who recently ripped us off, “just let it go“. It is that kind of advice that allows such unscrupulous rogues to continue to ruin peoples lives, they cause untold misery of which even they may not be aware. - yes I still find it difficult to comprehend how anyone can behave in such an unethical way in total disregard of the consequences. I still tend to think that if such people thought it through and considered the possible consequences which go beyond obtaining money under false pretences , stealing they would perhaps reconsider. But most likely not I guess I am very naive to even think that such is possible as these people simply do not think or care past their own selfish ends. The law needs to be changed to protect vulnerable people from being exploited, it is criminal.

I have smelt this smell of rotting vegetables since we came here and I now recall how the vendors had a huge rubber plant in front of the under stairs cupboard in which the smell was to become very strong. Why did we not ask them to remove this plant? Where we so naive or was it simply an unexplained hesitancy, a tendency which seems to manifest itself on numerous occasions as though we do not process the situation in the immediate moment. Yes we should have insisted the plant was removed and surely the surveyor should have insisted upon it’s removal. Now in retrospect it was obviously there to deter anyone from opening the door and becoming aware of this repugnant odour a thoroughly unpleasant smell that although was mild and more fusty than the powerful rotting veggie smell which it eventually became for the last three years as the problem with damp became worse.

I do not wish to complain about my husband and son but I think they were in a state of denial for the most part as they insisted that they could not smell this obnoxious and to me blatantly obvious smell. However as the damp became more apparent and began to creep up the walls in most of the downstairs rooms it became obvious that we had a serious damp problem.

The workmen arrived on time, all were very pleasant indeed, but there is a problem - isn't there always. I just want to leave the house and leave them to get on with it before my courage fails. We had practically cleared the two rooms for treatment except for the settee which we painstakingly covered but which I continued to worry about. But no there is something we overlooked although it was not our fault and resulted from a misunderstanding. Apparently the kitchen should have been removed. We were told that this task would be done for us. What to do... the workmen can only carry out what is included on their work sheet. So we have to smash it will a sledge hammer and dump it in the yard !!!!! If I am still sane at the end of the day and the days to come it will be a miracle of the power of endurance.

We had decided to go out for the day while the first stage of the work was carried out. But it had become so bitterly cold and it was pouring of rain. I have rarely felt so victimised and so utterly miserable as this problem was compound by quite a nasty headache which would add to the misery and if it became migraine this of course would further increase my suffering. But staying in was unthinkable and so we wandered about the city mostly visiting the museum. I had banged my head on the car getting in I really felt as though nothing will ever be right for any one us. The previous week the weather had been sunny and mild, very mild for the time of year, but no today it was cold and damp and my head ached and I worried I could have a blood clot in my brain as a result of banging my head. This fear haunted me as I wandered half heartedly round the museum, the exhibits passing in a blur my mind on my fears and what was happening at home. My fears, which are borne of the tragedy which happened to my brother in law after he had sustained a fall and hit his head, where accentuated by my headache which bizarre as it may seem had taken on a different quality which of course made me feel that this was the result of my head injury rather than the usual headaches.

After returning home my headache became a migraine. Sometimes I think that life is one round of misery and an on going struggle with my mind and my body. I feel so overwhelmed by the present adversity and the effect that this will have upon the rest of our lives as money for our old age has been absorbed by this enormous expenditure an expenditure that should not have been necessary save for the greed, selfishness and unethical behaviours of people whom I will never know and who will never know me or the harm that they have done. Bitter resentments rise to the fore crowding my mind as past grievances concerning how my husband was treated when we was made redundant and all the wrongs perceived in recent years torment me and my anger cannot be abated. I have always tried to be a decent person and have taken great pains to avoid harming any living creature. It angers me that evil thrives and the people who perpetrate such wickedness seem to go through life unscathed. Yes I use the word evil it is not too strong a word to describe people who obtain money from vulnerable naive people. It sickens me that these people prosper on the misery of others. I feel as though I am never allowed any respite, not even to just go to the pub and have a meal, a simple bloody meal of chips and onion rings and a glass of sandy to save the anxiety of trying to cook tonight, without a migraine turning up right at the last minute after a day of misery. I take my medication but it is not easy to even lie on my bed for clutter.

I am angry crazy with anger and irritation I cannot move in the bathroom towels get contaminated. I worry about who has used the toilet, who has touched my towels, I feel I will never get rid of perceived contamination. Trying to take a shower causes more anxiety as I try to avoid the clutter and perceived areas of recent contamination as a result of this ordeal. I get frustrated, cry, shout my anger at the universe, at a God I no longer think I believe in and loudly lament the dammed injustice of it all.

I cannot find any cooking utensils or the food we have bought and can’t cope to make a cup of tea let a lone a meal in my kitchen stripped bear and full of dust and contamination.

The workmen are due again tomorrow to inject the chemicals for the damp course into the holes that they have made in the walls. Another OCD concern about the toxicity of these chemicals. And now tonight we sit huddled in my son’s room sitting round the TV, it is the only room in which we can reasonably move about and it is also full of clutter. I only hope that tomorrow the weather will be less cold, less severe and I do not have to contend with another headache as once again we will need to find some place to bide our time while the work is carried out.

February 24th

I think I am having a reaction to the chemicals, my mouth and tongue feel a slight burning sensation and my eyes are sore and itchy. We were told the chemicals where perfectly safe but that does not mean I can’t have an allergic reaction does it? My son says “it’s all in your mind, its psychosomatic.” Aaaggghhh such comments drive me crazy. I am anxious, fearful of the slight reaction becoming severe. The smell is mild but I can smell it nonetheless with my hypersensitivity. We open all the windows, its cold and miserable another wet day and I feel as though we are living through some nightmare which seems to be getting worse, rather like the kind of nightmare in which you are struggling to wake up.

We decided to go into the city again, its no fun sitting cramped in the upstairs rooms going stir crazy and I am anxious of the chemicals and the social interactions although the man who is doing the job is very pleasant and easy to talk with. But exchanging a few pleasantries is about all I can mange.

While we were out he called on his mobile phone telling us that the sink will have to be removed on Monday when the plasterer comes to do his part of the job. Just when we thought that things were not too had and at least we still the sink!

We had been told the previous day that there is a leak in the pipes in the kitchen and now I am convinced there is a leak also in the bathroom. I am really becoming increasingly more angry as yet again there is more evidence that we were taken advantage of when we first arrived here nearly four years ago when there was a leak in the pipes in the bathroom. The water company fixed the outside leak but where not responsible for inside leaks. The plumber who did the job offered to fix the problem privately for us after telling us the water company would cut us off if we did not get it fixed. This is in fact according to my understanding incorrect but at the time we did not know this. He also found leaks next door and got himself a job there also. Now I am not saying that he over charged but I do feel we were manipulated into getting the job done and I now do not believe that this job was completed in a satisfactory manner. However that of course remains to be seen and it seems pointless now for me to go into detail as such is beginning to get me. I feel as though you can trust no one anymore in this dog eat dog society where the capitalist mentality as extended so deep that everyone is out to exploit any situation as a means to acquiring exorbitant amounts of money from people who do not have it and it is all done with callous disregard for the misery that it causes. The situation has arisen where there are in any case few skilled trades people and consequently they can charge whatever they like and the unscrupulous do so with out conscience or even awareness of the suffering their blatant greed causes.

When we arrive home we have an hour to wait and than this part of the job is completed. But there is water on the protective plastic covering on the floor leaked from the radiators which had to be removed. I am amazed I am still sane enough to sit here and write now As those of you know who have read my blog that I have a fear of legionaries disease and even touching the radiators sends me scuttling to the bathroom to wash my hands, now there is dirty brown water all over the plastic coverings on the floor! My husband cleans it amidst panic hysteria as I wail instructions for him to wipe it with kitchen towel, throw the soiled towel down the toilet, wash his hands after I have turned on the tap being careful not touch the tap before his hands are clean or get anything on his clothing or his hands. Than there is of course the plastic. What to do with the plastic? Cut it up and put it in a black plastic sack and bin it. Is that the end of the matter? Of course not. That would be too easy ones OCD is not going to allow you to mitigate your anxiety quite so easily: Indeed no for now I worry that I will harm the rats or other creatures or even people who forage in the council tip. I know all rubbish is ground up and compressed in the dust cart but still the fear remains that in some way some creature may die. For now I try to ignore it and tell myself that I can remove this bag from the dustbin at anytime if I cannot cope with this. But than what will I do with it, tuck it away somewhere in the garden? Yes maybe this will be okay for now but such problems escalate and as time goes on my sensitivities and awareness will increase and I will feel that more and more things that I need to throw away are harmful and this is how all obsessions and compulsions escalate out of control. And this is particularly the case with hoarding compulsions of this nature that are borne of fear of causing harm by discarding things deemed harmful, at least harmful according to the neurotic OCD perspective. I hope I will forget about this black sack but this is unlikely as of course I will be checking and rechecking what I am writing now ready for publication, so I will be continually reminded. I am very concerned about these anxieties as I do not wish to become like a neighbour of ours in Sussex who threw nothing away or a lady further down the street whose home became unliveable, a truly harrowing and disturbing case of severe OCD hoarding and cluttering of which I will tell you another time perhaps. But thinking of what became of this unfortunate lady is frightening for those of us who have similar compulsions which go beyond the packrat tendency of not merely wanting to throw away useless possessions or collecting more possessions . At the time of writing there are only a few exceptions, empty pill packets, hair dye packets and a few other things, but as of yet nothing too seriously disturbing. Most of our clutter is just ... well ...clutter ornaments, crystals, rocks, books, soft toys, nothing of any value but not much actual rubbish such as a black sack of contaminated plastic.

I am cranky for the rest of the evening. I know it is not fair on the others but I have severe OCD I am not a saint. I do my best but it is not easy to be placid and agreeable and put on a calm facade when one is teetering on the on the brink of madness or complete breakdown. I read a book from the library a question and answer home care and improvements book. I open it, the first page I see right in the middle there it is: Rising damp is a myth, the chemicals are poisonous. There is a letter from a person who claims to have ME as a result . Unbelievable. Well that really made my day considering I already believe that I have fibromyaliga an illnesses similar to ME! Now of course I am anxious on two accounts : I feel guilty assailed with doubts about having had the Job undertaken in the first place, but what else can the wet rising up the walls of the ground floor be other than rising damp? I am now anxious that my family and I will be poisoned. No we have not been naive again, we have not been manipulated into having this work done, we have engaged the services of the foremost provider of this type of work which has an international reputation and has been in business for over seventy years.

February 25th

Driven from the confines, and that I mean literally, of our home by the smells of the chemicals and my allergies or whatever it is that is making my eyes sore and my lips burn we sit in the pub. It feels just great to sit in the warm clutter free environment by the cosy real coal fires. I am not one for crowed public places but even though it is Saturday it is relatively quiet for a lunch time. Although worked has stopped for the weekend the downstairs of our home remains unliveable and I have spent the last few hours sitting in the sea of claustrophobic clutter in the hobbies room quietly and sometimes loudly and hysterically vowing to rid myself of this burden of possessions whilst trying to write for this website.

This morning I came across the following article linking depression with a gene which if you have it will make you more prone to depression and less able to handle life's adversity.

Well I think that I most certainly have this gene. Although my circumstances would indeed be trying to just about anyone and everyone, people with whom we have spoken express their horror and personal experiences all of which have been extremely negative. But for a suffer of OCD particularly contamination OCD and also depression is of course less able to cope with such difficult circumstances. I am not handling this upheaval at all well with bouts of crying boarding on hysteria, alternated by depression, apathy and occasionally complacency and resignation. I fear for my sanity. I fear that this like all the other adversities of recent months and years will cause my OCD to deteriorate further and I fear a possible breakdown. I dread next week fears crowd my mind what if they do not turn up to complete the job, what if we have no electricity, no water... well the list goes on as the devious OCD mind presents one desirous scenarios after another. How I would gave coped had I been a victim of an earth quake or other disaster, how the unfortunate people who have been through these ordeals have coped I cannot imagine . I would think that many have not. My situation pales in compression and looks like a walk in the park compared with the ascent of Everest. No I cannot for one minute imagine the suffering that occurred last year, and the aftermath that continues the unabated misery.

February26th

Its going to snow now and be bitterly cold so say AOL’s weather forecast . I am on the verge of tears but must not succumb to this as crying will only bring on a headache and or migraine and that is the last thing I need to compound my misery. Normally I love the snow but my delight in this is diminishing rapidly and irretrievably. Naturally such inclement adverse weather will make the misery of our present situation much worse. The entire downstairs is unheated, it is damp and cold. I have cleaned the kitchen the stove, sink and worktop but tomorrow the sink is to be removed and the kitchen will be probably unusable until Friday although I hope that they will be able to at least leave us the taps but I am not holding my breath. We should have postponed this work until the summer but the winter has for the most part until now been relatively mild but I knew I just knew the weather would change I knew it would snow . I am not a metrologist nor am I clairvoyant I am simply a pessimist , a deep seated pessimism borne of the escalating adverse events and circumstances that have dogged my life and the lives of those I love. At least that is now it appears to me it is as though nothing will ever go right not even for a short while, there seems no respite from the fear worry and grinding misery of my existence, this is no exaggeration. Of course I am aware that I do not suffer alone many people have no home, they are destitute, their home destroyed by the disastrous forces of nature unleashed last year or by war and other evil circumstances perpetrated by the power hungry and greedy. There are many who have no home because they cannot afford the huge mortgages or high rents ...well there are any number of adverse circumstances that render people homeless. I may not have a very comfortable modern home but at least I have a roof  over my head even if it does leak and the walls are damp and all the other things to many to mention.  Many people have lost their home and their possessions and more importantly their lives, there is much suffering in this world and there are few times that I am not aware of this sad fact of life and most of this suffering is either made worse by others or in fact bought about by the actions of selfish people. But thinking of others in similar or in many cases more direr situations does little to make me feel better or in anyway consoled. In fact it compounds my suffering and accentuates my very negative perspective of life, life which appears to be to be so filled with unhappiness, so much misery for myself and millions ,countless millions of living beings both now, in times past and in the future. Now I think of that poor sheep the one with half her wool missing and it makes me sick at heart. I cannot bear to know of the suffering of any living creature and yes this would most likely apply even to those who have harmed us.

February 27th

I cannot believe it! We are sitting in the waiting room of one of those quick fix tyres services stations. My husband noticed the tyre was flat but didn't think to say anything -until now Aaaggghhh. He hoped that after inflating it, it would be okay. My husband has no sense of danger, at least if it is not blatantly obvious and his laid back attitude infuriated me as this problem should have been addressed earlier not only for the sake of safety but for the sake of convenience and the reduction of too many stressful situations at one time Now on the morning of the commencement of the worse part of the installation of the damp course just as we are about to leave the house, he is there inflating the tyre which had gone flat again, so now we have to get a tyre fixed, I cannot believe just how perverse life can be. I was pretty angst I can tell you and although I feel rather guilty for perhaps my rather other the top eruption of anger towards my husband it was in some ways justified although he like my son is not coping and dysfunctional. But this felt like the last straw.

I had barely fled the house rushing frantically from the bathroom my hands over my ears to try and deaden the sound of drilling. It felt as though the whole place was falling in. Although the plasters had been in less than ten minutes the ground floor of my home looked like a building site. Yes I know this cannot be avoided but it is a shock nonetheless, a shock I would imagine for anyone but for a sufferer of OCD contamination it is a nightmare of fear and anxiety. I had expected them to have removed the existing plaster with a hammer and chisel. I know, how naive can you get, what is not done by machinery these days. Dust swirling everywhere in think clouds we were glad to be going out for the day even if it was to wander aimlessly about the city. Oh if only but now we sit waiting for the tyres to be fixed.

This afternoon I have an appointment with my psychiatrist. I wish I had cancelled, it is all just too overwhelming, by the time I arrive at my appointment he might think I need committing, yes serious I do worry about such things the thought of being committed to hospital against my will haunts me although it is extremely unlikely at least at the present time . I am so sacred, anxious I will get migraine; I have no home to retreat to today and now for a couple of hours no car! I really get sacred should the pain of migraine compound my misery and I have no where to administer my medication or to lie down. No one really understands what it feels like not even my son or husband. They fail to understand why I get so angry irritated and anxious, they do not know what it is like to have the fear of this awful pain and to find ones self in a position where you can do nothing about it. Fortunately I do not have much of a headache, perhaps just the odd twinge but the wind is bitter, it is so cold ,it increased my headache slightly or at least I fear it will . We wonder of to the nearest superstore to buy a hat, kill some time and waste money we do not have depressed and dejected and ready to scream. On the walk back to the service station there is dog mess everywhere! Not a pleasant subject I know but this is the thing I hate the most, it is so digesting and unnecessary and today I take back what I said about this being less of a problem in the North east. Right on the forecourts of the service station is dog mess. I ruminated worrying that I may have stood in some of the less obvious smears here and there on the fifteen minute route to the shop. The neighbourhood here is rather run down, closed boarded up factories and offices often in such places problems such as this are more prevalent. why oh why do people have to make bad situations worse by spoiling there own environment.

We waste some more time roaming round the city dreading my impending appointment. I feel rather guilty as I feel as though I have let my psychiatrist down rather, as after months of badgering him to put me on the list for CBT after only a few appointments I had to defer treatment. There were several reasons for this. I had only recently lost my brother-in-law to whom I was very close . The treatment involved coming to my home for desensitisation therapy during which the therapist would contaminate my home. My son who has aspergers syndrome and also mild contamination OCD did not think he could cope with that as of course it would effect him. Some of the desensitisation would be extreme such as touching the toilet seat and going round the house touching everything so the whole place feels contaminated . He did not think he would cope with this. I had to consider his reactions as I did not want to risk his OCD becoming worse as a result. Also our house is of course gutted, as a result of this damp course it will take weeks to gain even a semblance of normality it would be difficult for this type of therapy to even take place let alone be successful. And quite honestly I feel now that my life is too complicated and I would be wasting the therapists time. I had been prepared to cope with some other aspects of my OCD such as compulsive checking and also my social phobia and chronic worrying, catastrophizing and so on but the therapist wished to include all my OCD and other problems. He considered it would not be of use to treat only certain aspects of my disorders in isolation. He felt that if things improved in one or two isolated areas than the anxiety would focus more upon the untreated aspects.

Just prior to my appointment during the late afternoon we pop back home briefly to see how the work is progressing. I am so traumatised by all this I dare not leave the car and go inside afraid of what I will see. But I inadvertently see into the kitchen and that looks bad enough, there is actually a pile of plaster being mixed on top of my cooker, washing machine and table which have been shoved together, I am horrified but hesitate to make a fuss unsure if I'm overreacting or not, I am also kind of numb. Shocked I did not realise quite how destructive this work would be my kitchen looks like a building site. My husband goes in to check things out after some time he comes out and tells me they cannot fix the sink taps back tonight. I panic the builder comes also to talk me, a pleasant person who assures me he will ring the plumber and if I really can't cope he will arrange for the plumber to put the taps back tonight. But this seems unreasonable as of course tomorrow they will need to disconnect it all again and besides there is no way I can cook in that kitchen so its another meal in the pub.

The rest of the evening at home is miserable cramped in my son’s room watching TV unable to stay awake tired from lack of sleep from the previous nights anxiety. My hands are dry like parchment from all the hand washing resulting from my increased contamination fears. This is so uncomfortable it also keeps me awake as hand cream does little to mitigate this dryness. The weather has turned bitterly cold the coldest it has been all winter and there is nothing to say that can mitigate my misery and certainly nothing I can write here to offset this truly negative situation. It is not that I am going to see some improvement in my home after this trauma in fact it will be quite the opposite with no kitchen, the walls half plastered, which we remain so for at least two weeks and than they can only be painted with emulsion for the duration of eight months, there is little to compensate. No this was not a job that would enhance my home in any aesthetic sense so I do not have even this to look forward to, it was a job that had to be done for the sake of our health and to prevent the decline of our property.

February 28th.

This is the last day of the plastering part of the job than this the most disruptive aspect will be over and after two days the radiators will be connected and all that will remain is for us to decorate and sort-out our belongings. Now although I say all that remains... but this is a daunting task and not one that any of us are really that able to do right now. But we have no choice society rather turns its back on people like us and you are left to cope with no support whatsoever. There is therapy of course but often people who suffer with mental health problems need more than just therapy often some practical support is required as coping with things that most normal people take in their stride, albeit with great difficulty particularly for this kind of situation, is an enormous ordeal with devastating consequences and many people suffering from depression particularly may simply give up. Imagine the scenario for someone living alone or a dysfunctional family , no family or friends already burdened by depression who finds even the simplest of chores difficult such as shopping or even getting out of bed. Alone this person would likely have either never had the job undertaken in the first place or else simply withdraw and just let the whole situation to take its own course and than find his or herself unable to cope with the horrendous task of the aftermath of such. And in many instances the aftermath of trying to clear up the devastation can be worse than he actual job. After the plasters had left we were faced with a sitting room and kitchen which looked like a building site. The carpet had been roiled back but the floors had not been covered there was dust everywhere, sand and plaster stuck to the floor in both the sitting room and the kitchen, the floor of which is tiled. They had mopped the floor once. This of course did nothing except to turn the dust to mud after several washings the floor remained much the same, it took all day of scrubbing and cleaning to get most of the dust from the floor and still there is dust in-between the grouting of the tiled floor in the kitchen. I was exhausted and angry, the floors should have been covered and so should our furniture, it is impossible for anyone, even for someone who does not have hoarding and cluttering issues to get all of their furniture upstairs particularly in a terraced house. The furniture we were assured would be covered by sheets. Not one thing was covered, our book case had to be left in the sitting room and the fridge, cooker and washing machine, a settee and a TV table. Fortunately we had covered the settee and TV table and sealed the door with tape otherwise the items inside would have been ruined. Although we were told our furniture would be protected I was not about too take this chance, had I not cover these things ourselves at of course extra expensive I seriously doubt that even the settee would have been covered.

Many people who suffer with mental health problems are left to flounder by society. If you are depressed often you do not even have the wherewithal to ask for help and often there is no one to ask. People with mental health problems and people with other difficulties in functioning such as those like my son with aspergers syndrome and other forms of autism other than therapy are left to get on with it. Many people such as ourselves often need some practical advice. Now I do not wish to appear critical of my psychiatrist who was indeed very understanding that I could not carry on with the CBT therapy, however failed to understand the difficulties and pressure which face me and my family right now. My son’s doctor also failed to see the seriousness of our situation and the strain that we are under, strain which would be relieved to some extend simply by the simple provision of some practical advice or even actual practical help. She considered that perhaps there was an overreaction to the disruption which would be cleared away by the local housewife in a couple of hours. This doctor has obviously never had a damp course fitted. My sister used to say that I expected too much from people that I had such a high standard of ethical behaviour and expectations and people rarely ever measured up to them. I am however becoming quite aware now of the fact that you are mostly on your own in this world and one should not expect the help of others, not friends, acquaintances or the social services or anyone! There is no provision for such  practical help in the social services nor the many charities who support those who may require such .