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

November 2007

Links to recommended blogs:

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

November 1st

Honesty: The best of all the lost arts
Mark Twain

"Its free" Eileen says “there are honesty boxes but no one takes any notice of them“. No one? I ask. Eileen is telling me about the entrance fee to a popular attraction in my locality. It matters not which one it was, there are several which use an honestly box with the hope that people will do the right thing and drop whatever the charge is into the box. A vain hope or so it would seem as apparently according to Eileen, no one uses an honesty box and indeed nowadays I can well believe that this is in fact true. But I prefer to use an honesty box and would feel guilty if I did not but also I feel conspicuous by doing so. As though there is some shame in being honest, as though you are a mug

All of this got me thinking about OCD scrupulosity from which I suffer. Yes indeed it has to be said that to be over scrupulous can be misery and when it comes to OCD the extremes are well... extreme. At times it can be sheer torment as your mind tells you that you are being dishonest when in fact you are not. Yes there are grey areas where you ask yourself if your over scrupulousness arises from you or your OCD.

OCD scrupulosity includes any issue concerning ethical behaviours, often the person with this type of OCD takes his or her standards of ethics to extraordinary levels and is tormented that if these ethical values are not compiled with some ill fortune may come his or her way, either to the person themselves or to a loved one or close friend or relative.

Honesty and other similar issues are generally the places where such extremes arise but any moral ideal may be involved. For me personally it is not too clear which part arises from my own moral sense of right and wrong or that of OCD. Certainly anxiety about finding a penny in the street and feeling as though I had stolen it surely rises from OCD, so generally speaking I would leave it there, larger amounts I would take to the police station with some anxiety as often one is met with such looks of incredulity which are nothing short of embarrassing. I am not talking about a purse or a wallet but loose money, a note. Once Kevin and I found a bank note in the street and I insisted we take it to the police station. My son was only about ten or so, so other than the OCD precipitated anxiety I wanted to set him an example. No I did not want him to become over scrupulous but there are times when really I simply do not know what is the right thing to do. The note was not mine but it is unlikely anyone would claim it. It was a twenty pound note nonetheless the person who lost it would most likely think it unlikely that anyone would hand it in. The police were rather off hand about the whole matter. I felt  rather silly. Would I have done this had I not suffered with OCD scrupulosity? I have no idea. Obviously on bigger issues the decision is more clear cut such as finding a purse or a wallet. I know that the real me underneath my OCD would of course hand it in, but a lost note with no way of identifying who had lost it, yet it is not impossible that some one could claim it. I know I might ring the police on the off chance had I lost twenty pounds. The problem is though the thoughts and fears behind the actions which determine OCD. One should not feel seriously anxious over minor infringements of even ones own set of ethics if one accidentally violates them. Incidentally no one claimed the twenty pounds so Kevin could spend it with a clear conscience

Sometimes for the person with OCD the anxiety as well as the moral issues can be extreme at least by normal consensus but nevertheless not clear cut. For instance not buying a garment because there where two different prices on two of the same items or buying the garment with the more expensive price tag; or if I do not want the garment feeling the compulsion to point this discrepancy out to a member of staff, because if I did not I would feel responsible, as though I have in someway contributed to some dishonesty, this is most certainly OCD. Yes regarding the later consideration maybe this is the right thing to do, but it is the fear behind this action that is the problem, and the sense of guilt and responsibility that arises and the fear of some misfortune if I do not do the right thing no matter how extreme to others this may appear. The fear is that if I do not point this out I will feel as though I am being dishonest, and most certainly this would be the case if I bought the cheaper garment without mentioning this. This also involves another type of OCD behaviour which is included in scrupulosity and that is over responsibility.

Over responsibility is an enormous part of OCD scrupulosity, because ones sense of responsibility is often related to ethical considerations, albeit to an exaggerated degree . I recall once finding a garment with a huge hole after someone had ripped off the security tag, and taking it to the customer service desk where I got a most cold reception. I think they thought I had done this. I could not leave the garment on the rack, which most people would have done as I would feel guilty and the thought would haunt me. I would worry should an unsuspecting customer buy it not noticing the hole and arrive home only to find that he had a hole in the garment and need to return it. I than worried that if that happened and he got killed on the way to the shop to return the garment, than it would be my fault for not having pointed this out to the sales assistant. And do keep in mind that because of my social anxieties and tongue-tiredness it is not always easy to approach someone and point such things out.

If I am looking through clothing and accidentally snag a garment, if I do not buy it I will feel guilty. If I only have a penny or two too much in my change I will feel guilty and anxious if I do not go back to the shop but also anxious about the social interaction and the looks of incredulity I will receive.

One holiday I bought a book in a second hand bookshop in Glastonbury. It was late, the shop was about to close, and there was no price on the book, although similar books where ten pounds. It was quite a large book and the assistant charged me only five pounds. I said I think it is worth more and questioned if she was sure about this and she insisted that this was okay. Nonetheless I worried I felt I had been dishonest but felt rather an idiot for having questioned her decision. I comforted myself that the following day I would put some money in an envelope and put it through the door. But I knew this would distress my husband and in any case anyone could open it the following day and simply pocket the money. So I left it, but this thought played on my mind now and again through the entire year and it even occurred to me when we arrived for our next holiday to go to the shop and pay the difference. But in that case I did not, the social anxiety cancelling out the fear of being dishonest, which sometimes happens as one fear over writes another. The guilt however remains and I have never read this book and each time I see it on the shelf these thoughts return albeit with less intensity, nonetheless despite the decrease in intensity years later the thoughts return the moment I see this book. There is no doubt that this instance is an example pure and simple of OCD scrupulosity. Incidentally notwithstanding such insight the thoughts and feelings remain and no amount of rationalisation, particularly at the time did anything to alleviate the anxiety.

However it is not only theft and similar dishonesties which course problems with being too scrupulous, but also issues such as not keeping to the rules for instance dropping litter even if accidentally. If a piece of paper, even a tiny scrap such as a receipt accidentally blows away while fiddling about in my purse, I will chase after it due to anxiety about dropping litter. Which is of course is sensible and if I did not have OCD I would not deliberately drop litter but on the other hand I would not get anxious, fearful that some dire consequence will befall me or those I care about if this should happen by accident and I am unable to retrieve it.

If I am in the supermarket and someone has left for instance cheese or other perishable item of food on a shelf, as people do if they have changed their mind about purchasing it and can’t be bothered to take it back to the cooler, I have to take this to a member of staff and make it clear that this was found on a shelf and it may have been there for a long time and may have gone off. I feel it my responsibility to do so in case the assistant puts it back in the fridge with the possible result that someone could get food poisoning and die and it would than be my fault. Some years ago I saw a fly sit on pie in a shop window I knew that if I went into the shop and told the sales assistant that she would take no notice and sell the pie, so I bought the pie and threw it away. I did feel uncomfortable, it was a local shop and I think they knew I was vegetarian and thought it odd my buying a meat pie. However they would not for one moment in their wildest imaginings have an inking as to my motivation for buying the pie.

These are just a few examples of my scrupulosity, there are many variations and subtleties and sometimes it can go as far an interfering with my writing. There are times when I have to alter detail or make vague reference to protect the identities of people I mention and sometimes I have to be vague about my OCD and this in itself may be due to certain superstitious obsessions . Because of this and for other reasons I can at times feel as though I am lying and this can cause anxiety. So scrupulosity is a pervasive problem with hidden facets, not immediately noticeable even to oneself. Like other aspects of OCD it can become so engrained in your thinking that often it can go unnoticed as such thoughts and behaviours become so commonplace, so imprinted upon your mind.

One thing I have to say however is that we should never be ashamed for being honest or scrupulous in any other way. We should never be ashamed that we do not flaunt the law or do anything which might endanger someone or that we have a heightened sense of social justice. Yes at times it might be exaggerated. However we should consider concerning ethics that maybe occasionally this exaggeration is perhaps in any case only so in comparison to the common consensus, which does not necessarily validate or invalidate as the case may be. For instance my stance on animal rights may seem even by the standards of many people concerned with animal rights to be extreme. But do not lets forget that sometimes society's laws do not go far enough and simply because society in general thinks it okay to breed animals and slaughter them or use animals for labour does not mean that this is okay. Indeed it is my opinion that such things are not at all ethical.

So with obvious exceptions it does need to be considered that ethics and moral behaviours are a matter of opinion and ones personal world view. I tend to ignore laws which are in my opinion unfair if as a consequence much harm is done to myself or anther as a consequence of adhering to such laws. I do not follow the law to the letter. Yes of course I think am right and others are wrong and you would never in a million years persuade me that it is not wrong to kill and eat an animal. Emotionally I cannot see other people's points of view at all and have no understanding for peoples differences of opinion, I freely admit this. However on a logical intellectual level I understand that others think differently, the same as I accept that there are nine planets in the solar system even though I have no personal experience with this, but I often cannot understand emotionally why people have the opinions they have and why they might think differently to myself on any issues, particularly one as emotive as animal rights. I understand intellectually that many people's stance on our treatment of animals arises from anarchic beliefs and necessities which are now on longer of consideration. Most notable the belief that the entire resources of this planet and its myriad species of sentient beings are here for our use and sadly our abuse, which is mostly I believe the cause of both animal abuse and environmental damage. I cannot understand why for the most part, although things have vastly improved with more and more people becoming vegetarian, why people cannot see that the need for killing animals is long past and that the modern method, unlike the hunter gathers of Palaeolithic times when the killing of an animal was perhaps necessary (although there is evidence that killing animals did not exactly take place as we imagine it did during these times) is nothing short of cruelty and an atrocity as we systemically breed and slaughter animals on a massive scale, as though they were nothing more than commodities on a conveyor belt .

Also I have to say, otherwise I will become anxious for the reasons mentioned in the paragraph before the last one, that there are times when I have broken the law and have not felt guilty. The law like the general consensus of public values and opinions is not always right, except of course concerning the main issues, but on the grey areas it can sometimes be dictatorial and it may in certain instances simply need revising. When my headaches where at their height, when everyday I was prostate on the couch with a constant headache I became desperate for relief and sought treatment from many non conventional sources and this included the use of cannabis. No I did not feel guilty, I was in unrelenting pain and cannabis is often used for pain and other conditions such as the relief of the aches and pains of older people, for sufferers of MS and a number of other conditions. I believe that this drug should be available on prescription for such purposes. However it is not and it is a criminal offensive to be in possession of cannabis. But I needed some help and urgently and I feel neither shame nor guilt although I certainly do not recommend anyone taking this or any other drug. Yes cannabis is harmful as indeed is any drug if misused but as a medication it is my opinion that the law should be changed to enable doctors to prescribe cannabis where appropriate. So yes I did brake the law on three occasions. Incidentally cannabis did nothing to relieve my headaches and did nothing of anything at all positive. Well you can read all about this in my memoir.

Well I should perhaps leave it there, although I could go on and on. Some one wrote with the suggestion that perhaps it would be better to write about my experiences in smaller segments. I agree wholeheartedly but this is difficult for me, there is a need, a compulsion if you like to add details. Not a compulsion in an OCD way but a driving need and one which is beyond my control. I am simply incapable of filtering out the detail in order to make the main points and therefore write more concisely. However some people like details , people like myself who need to know all the in and outs, the whys and the wherefores. I need to find an happy medium but for now for good or ill this is as good as it gets.

November 2nd

The following link will take you to a new and very interesting blog from a young man with OCD. I will be including Justin's blog in my new blog roll which I am in the process of compiling. Please support Justin by adding your comments to his blogs.

Where Justin can be Justin

November 3rd

I will be taking a break from the internet for a couple of weeks from November 3rd to 17th. During this time I will not be available to respond to e-mail. However, Please note my website will appear on-line as usual. I like to let everyone know this becasue and I would be concerned that without some notification those who write to me will wonder why I have not replied. Such worries me of course, what doesn't when you have OCD and are a chronic worrier. I know from my own experience how quickly one can jump to conclusions if one does not receive a reply within a reasonable time. I tend to be a little paranoid and will think that the person I have written to does not wish to write to me. I think this can often arise within the imaginings of people who are depressed and as a consequence rather sensitive. So the aforementioned is my notification of my intention and below is my explanation

I am taking a little time out in order to catch up with some tasks relating to my website. For instance John’s photos need some new inclusions and if space becomes a problem some of the older ones which have been on John’s Web Pages since the website first came on-line will be deleted. But if space permits they will remain for the present as deleting files on the server and organising such a task is a mammoth undertaking for anyone with ADD. I also will endeavour to try and format the fonts on my blog so that all pages have the same fonts, quite a task, with so many pages, nearly three years of blog entries. I also need to short out the chaos of disorganisation in my filing system that is now becoming a problem and causing my computer to work less efficiently. My computer is a nightmare of disorganised chaos typical of anyone with ADD.

I feel rather guilty not responding to e-mail for a couple of weeks, and yet again what does not make a person with OCD feel guilty, not much I can tell you. However because I have a problem with making transitions from one task to another I can’t respond to e-mail and than turn my attention to such an involved task as updating my website to the extent I hope to do in the next couple of weeks. I find if I flit from one task to another I simply cannot focus my attention to the new job at hand. Those of you who regularly visit my website will know that about a couple of times a year I will need to take time to simply sort out problems with my website and my computer.

Also I do need to simply take a few days break, as it can be mentally exhausting, particularly when it comes to writing entries for my blog and articles due to the OCD problems which interfere with writing, such as checking for errors, ruminating over the content should I inadvertently say something which may result in harm, as you may have read in my blog .Which incidentally I would like to try and index according to subject which again is another very time consuming task and one which will most likely have to wait for another time, but which I would like to at least make a start.

I also simply need a little time out to recharge my batteries. I have been having an increase in headaches and have become more depressed and anxious and would like to try and simply take a few days to relax and wind down a bit. Sit and read do something less mentally taxing although I have to admit where OCD is concerned there are not many things I do without its interference. I tend to get very absorb in my website particularly my writing at the expense of other things. The weather has been so mild of late it will be pleasant simply to sit outside and read, yes indeed it was possible to sit outside and read yesterday despite it being autumn.  Writing can be very compulsive to some extent and there is a similar feel to it like the one many of us get when we have the compulsion to eat for instance. And although in the case of writing it can be good thing, I do get exhausted, sometimes I just need to take take a break as once I begin writing I find it difficult to stop. This will probably be more in the way of a change rather than a rest.

I do still enjoy the actual process of rearranging my website something that I have not done for a while due to my attention on writing which gives rise to exhausting compulsions. I don't wish to give up writing of course becasue if I do OCD has again won. And if you stop doing something it will only turn its attention elsewhere. Although at this point in my life I am not able to do much to prevent the obsessions and compulsions which arise during this task as they do with most aspects of my life I can work round them even though such is frustrating, time absorbing and exhausting. This last batch of entries has been an exhausting endeavour as I have been particualry tormented by OCD and have checked over and over, deleted some entries altered others, worry, worry, worry.

Please feel free to continue to write to me but please bear in mind that from November 3rd to 17th I will not be online to respond to e-mail but will reply as to you as soon as possible after this time.

Before signing off so to speak may I draw your attention to a petition and campaign

A new campaign has been launched by the National Autistic Society in order to increase the public awareness and understanding of autism called Think Differently About Autism.

An introduction concerning this campaign can be found by clicking this link

The National Autistic Society - think differently about autism

If you wish to skip The introduction and go straight to the NAS new microsite concerning this campaign please click the link below

Think Differently About Autism - The National Autistic Society

Please also sign the petition which is included on the above linked webpage on the right had corner.  Which calls on the government to ratify the UN convention on the Right of Persons with Disabilities.

November 15th

Today whist showering I feel as usual that I use so much water. It is said that showering uses less water than bathing, if you have OCD however this may not be the case at all. I have many rituals whilst washing and as washing is a very personal matter I will not go into too much detail, suffice it to say my body has to be washed in a certain way and in a certain order. If, after finally getting out the shower feeling much like a bedraggled drowned rat, I happen to become contaminated the whole process starts all over again. This usually happens if I have a particularly nasty headache and you will hear me cursing the perversity of life. For indeed to someone with so many fears and anxieties life seems so incredibly perverse. I will have to shower again for instance if I have the notion that the towel smells odd and more often than not I don’t notice this until I am drying my hair with the towel. Sometimes the towels get put away damp, this is usually my husband putting towels in the cupboard before they are completely dry, as a result they smell fusty. However I have to admit that sometimes it is simply a notion that the towel is fusty, it is just another OCD torment, and it is as though at times there occurs some kind of olfactory hallucination, because often other people cannot smell any of the odours about which I complain. There is quite a ritual about getting the towels out of the cupboard, a lot of hand washing after opening the cupboard door, than washing the taps and washing my hands again it can be quite performance. I think have given account of this before in this blog and most certainly in my memoir and other writings. So washing can be exhausting but more importantly these rituals consume a lot of water with not only re-showering but having to rewash the towels, which more often than not will not just be limited to the towel I picked up, but also the towels which are in the same batch of clean laundry

This morning whilst showering my thoughts turned to my Australian pen-pal whom I have known for at least fifteen years, long before the days of the internet. She and I both suffer with many other conditions in addition to OCD and life for us both is extremely difficult. Right now as you may know there is a serious drought in Australia, there has been little rain in five  years, it is in fact the worst drought in 1000 years. Australia suffers worst drought in 1,000 years | Guardian Unlimited The land is scotched dry, farm animals and indeed wild animals are dying . There are severe water restrictions with heavy fines of hundreds of dollars for non compliance. According to my pen pal each person is allowed, at least I think its each person rather than each household, only 140 litres of water for personal use, which includes washing, cooking ...well everything. Fortunately my friend does not have contamination OCD. Nonetheless of course this is an added burden to a complicated life. But if she did have contamination OCD, how would she manage? There must of course be many contamination OCD sufferers caught up in this nightmare, for to a person with contamination OCD make no mistake it is a nightmare. (Although it really does not need to be said, it is of course obviously a dreadful situation for many other reasons, as indeed is any drought situation anywhere in the world, and in many parts of the world dying of thirst is a far more dreadful consequence. However such comparisons do little to alleviate our fears or help us to see our situation in a more reasonable perspective, and do little of anything other than to make us feel guilty for our behaviours and fears)  How do they cope? How would I cope? I wondered if when you have to compulsorily restrict your use of water and therefore cannot give vent to your washing compulsions if they than eventually subside or would you simply be unable to comply with the restrictions because your compulsions are so powerful? But of course eventually you would have to comply; even if you could afford the fines I would imagine persistent offenders would end up in prison, where of course you would have no choice whatsoever in the matter.

Sadly I think I can well imagine what would happen, as after the initial trauma you would probably, with time, find some way of placating OCD’s torment about contamination and OCD would than reinvent itself and focus its attention on another facet of the myriad aspects of your life to bring into being a whole new set of OCD thoughts and behaviours. Unfortunately this is how OCD works and is why having this condition is a life long battle. Having beaten the OCD monster on one front, either by the necessity of circumstances, such as the drought in Australia or by sheer bloody determination, it will than muster up its forces and begin a whole new campaign. I do not wish to be discouraging, I am merely realistic. OCD is our enemy, if we do not know our enemy it will defeat us time and time again , at least forearmed with the Knowledge of how OCD works you are better able to be on the alert for its never ending array of new strategies and tactics.

I have made progress at times, but during my entire life I have never been able to sustain such progress. I think that the reason such improvements fail is that OCD sufferers need on going support becasue of the reasons I have discussed in the previous paragraphs. Another reason is that co-morbid conditions effect our OCD. I believe that sufferers with OCD or indeed other anxiety disorders who have other co morbid conditions may find that these increase the severity of the primary condition and unless these are addressed the prognosis is less favourable.

November 16th

During my time away from the net I did not manage to get as much done as I had hoped, a common complaint familiar to many. I certainly did not get much in the way of relaxation. Perhaps we all set too high a target for our endeavours, a common tendency in our modern over achievement obsessed society. By so doing we add pressure to our already difficult lives, which in turn creates stress which is not at all a good thing for people whose lives are already riddled with stress due to the feelings of anxiety which we endure for most of the time.

However I have endeavoured to dot the Is and cross the Ts so to speak and have managed to tidy up my website and have removed all those “new” labels where appropriate. Rather embarrassing to find so many, some right from last year. Often when I list inclusions as new I than forget to remove the new designation as other inclusions are added and this is particularly so in John’s photographs section. This rather defeats the object of alerting people to newer photographs, articles or other inclusions. Sadly this is a result of my absent mindedness, an ADD thing, a result of a chronic poor memory which I had since childhood and which is now probably made worse due to stress - stress really does have a detrimental effect on your memory - and increasing age.

I have updated John’s photographs pages with many new photographs and a new wallpaper section. Some older pages have been archive rather than deleted, but as time goes on and my allotted space on the server of my website host becomes limited these will eventually be deleted. As usual all photographs are for free distribution with the usual conditions

I have rather hesitantly added a couple of clipart graphics. One adapted from my sister’s patchwork. Another of a sheep, my favourite animal as you may have already guessed, although I love and am concerned about all animals, including dogs and it is a great sadness to me that OCD contamination fears interfere with my relationships with animals. I had hoped to include more clipart but I am having trouble remembering how to make my clip art transparent. I just cannot understand that once extracting the object, the part of the imagine I wish to transfer on to a transparent background ,why when it is pasted in to a web page it is no longer transparent. It is driving me crazy and I simply cannot understand what is going wrong. It actually made me so depressed last night as I know there is a simple explanation and like so many things there is most like an equally simple solution, but finding this solution is not that easy. Finding specific answers can often be elusive on the internet and manuals which come with software programs are in my opinion poorly written with too many instances where assumptions of existing knowledge is all too often made.

Depression over such an insignificant issue you may think rather extreme. However when one is so sensitive to any negative circumstance in ones day to day life depression can arise, or in my case increase, as of course I have a constant background of depression which is easily enhanced over any comparatively trifling reason. Concerning the clip art though poor memory is most likely the main problem, which is invariably worse if I am not constantly occupied with something as the how-to knowledge soon disappears. This was quite a problem with reorganising my website and impeded progress, as having to look over how to do this or that is very time consuming and frustrating. And I might add a little frightening and depressing, for it is indeed depressing to forget things one already knows and has in many cases painstaking learnt. For the most part website creation and graphic editing programmes are very difficult to master and they do require a good memory as indeed do most activities on the computer.

There is also in the gallery section a lovely new poem
 My Little Man by Shirley, a sufferer of OCD from Australia  concerning a kitten which Shirley owned for a while but which she was not allowed to keep becasue of a “No Pets” ruling in her apartment complex. Also a new painting in Kevin’s web pages, a reproduction of a famous masterpiece, the first completed painting by Kevin for some time. Kevin, as those of you know who read my blog, is my son and he has Asperger syndrome and suffers anxiety and depression. He is very depressed most of the time and finds it difficult to become motivated to do anything with his natural talent. Also perfectionism is a significant impediment which increases his anxiety, often so much so that this in turn saps motivation and induces procrastination, as at times he, like I, can literally dread attempting anything because of the torment of perfectionism, and it can take a long time to complete a painting .

I have also changed many of the fonts throughout the website and now all the fonts are the same in my blog. I have also changed the fonts on many pages including the main pages. I hope these are easier to read. I am very aware right now of how difficult text may be to read on the net due to eyesight problems mentioned in an earlier entry. There are many reasons why it may be difficult for someone to see text, and of course I cannot cater for them all and really there is no need to do so as fonts and indeed backgrounds and other format can be changed to suit your individual needs. Here is a link to a website concerning dyslexia with instructions how to alter your WebPage format.
Changing the web site colours, Leicestershire Dyslexia Association

Please keep in mind though that this can produce some odd glitches such as huge text here and there and other oddities and it can sometimes be difficult to get back to the default setting, but of course this is only my experience. I admit I tried it once and found it difficult. Also this may work in many websites but not all, and may make some unreadable.

You can of course alter the font size if you have windows by clicking the start menu, than control panel, than click Appearance and themes, than click display, and in the display properties window which appears click the appearance tab and than go to the Font size drop down menu at the button of the window. Here you can select normal, large fonts or extra large fonts. Do bear in mind this will alter the font sizes for the entire computer.

I am sure there are similar facilities on a Mac but I of course having a PC cannot advise you.

If you are new to computers I would not bother to do this as it can be a little stressful if you are unsure. I find the best way when reading text if there are large amounts in a font which you find difficult to read, is to copy and paste it into your word processor, where you can set your own font style and size and indeed colour, as I find it is the colours that cause most of the problems. Green on a white background for me is better than black on white which makes my visual distortion worse. I was amazed to find dark blue fonts on a bright pink background on one website selling tinted glasses, which are said to help some people with visual dyslexia and other types of visual distortion.

I did welcome the break from all the writing that I do although I did write one blog entry, as writing is for me despite all the OCD interference rather a compulsion in a hypergraphical way. I did not get my photos or the muddle of chaos in my computer files sorted and may need to take a day or two out later on to do this. As I have said before it is difficult for me to do such tasks in bits and pieces, an hour here an hour there, as I find the transition from one task to another quite difficult.

During the maintenance of my website, whilst looking through my statistics on the server, I was very discouraged to find that visits to this website have steadily decreased since the middle of the summer. There may be many reasons for this. One of which is that, unless of course you follow my blog, once you have visited my website you may assume that there will be few if any new additions and therefore you may not revisit. Although I do try to update once a month or so depending upon what visitors send to include or my own writing or photos, it nonetheless may appear that little has changed. Also one of the larger OCD websites which once included a link to this website has for some inexplicable reason decided not to include the links of sufferer’s websites. It was mostly from this link that I received international visitors. I am very disappointed by the decision to exclude sufferer’s links and cannot understand why; e-mails of enquiry to ascertain the reason have been ignored. The links that are included are all websites with, I imagine, useful information for those who live in the remit of these organisation's influence. However surely it is we who actually suffer with the condition who have the real insight as to what it is like to suffer this dreadful condition rather than the experts, who despite all their textbook knowledge and their desire to help can never fully empathise with our predicament. Sometimes personal experiences of other sufferers can do much to alleviate our own suffering in a way that cannot be provided by a mental health professional.

Most certainly the exclusion of my link on this popular website has had an effect on the number of visits I receive. I depend on links from other websites for visitors to my website. My website appearing anywhere near the top in a search engine is unlikely. Although my blog comes near to the top of many search engines the actual website does not appear at all if the term OCD or anxiety, for instance, is typed into the search field, if it does it is so many pages down that no one would bother to search that far. So links with other OCD websites are vital for me to receive visitors. No this is not the case of my having a deflated ego, it is simply a relevant consideration as a huge amount of time and energy is put into maintaining this website and it negates the purpose of my doing so if few people visit. And yes despite all of my negativity I think that this website has its place even if only to inform - through my writings and that of other contributors - society in general, students of psychology, even qualified psychologists, carers and interested others what a misery the shallow tormented lives we who suffer with OCD and indeed other related disorders lead. Also I think that there is a need to focus on the positives, such as for instance many of us have an ability even if it is difficult at times to pursue. Indeed most people with OCD and other related disorders appear to have some talent or ability in a significant way and there is I believe a need from time to time to focus on such talents, hence the creativity aspect of my website.

Finding a suitable name for my website to cover all these aspects including the conditions other than OCD upon which this website focuses was difficult to find quickly, and I did not wish to delay publication ruminating and struggling to find a short apt domain name. This now I regret, as the long and rather odd name is not helpful to locating my website in a search engine. I hope if possible to change the name, but this is no easy matter and again will require some time to organise. So links are vital and now my link appears only in half a dozen websites , my statistics have fallen. It is difficult to get linked to many websites, even an anxiety disorder group to which I belonged for over ten years would not include my link. The reason given that the four sufferers website links already included was sufficient; again surely what we as sufferers have to say is important. It takes little time and space to include links, so surely the number of links is irrelevant. Links to other websites is one of the most popular pages on this website. People prefer to visit recommended links and a good selection of website links can only be of benefit to both the website owner and the visitor. Many people do not wish to waste time searching for good websites, which can often happen when looking for suitable information on search engines. I of course accept that other websites have the right to include or not include links as the case may be however I also feel the need to express my disappointment.

Links to some forums can be seen as spamming and after a recent experience, only one I must admit, I feel uncomfortable writing to forums with my link, which I guess can easily be considered as spamming if I have visited the forum simply to add my link. However spamming is not really the right way to look at this as I maintain this website entirely at my own expensive, which when one is not able to work is difficult indeed. I have nothing of any monetary value to gain. The advertisements you see are for charitable organisations only; I receive no payment. Other than this there is no advertising so I have nothing financially to gain at all. So there is no profit making agenda as there is on many websites concerning health matters or indeed any other matter.

There are still some things in my website which need attention, a few more pages where I may alter the fonts to make them easier to read. Please please anyone who sees any mistakes; broken links or any other faults please e-mail me. Also do send in your stories, sharing experiences with others can be so helpful in alleviating the isolation one often feels when you think no one else has the same problems as you do. Do not worry if your story is not positive, mine certainly is not, even negative accounts can help relieve that awful isolation often felt by those of us who have seemingly intractable OCD or do not gain much help from the medication and CBT which is hailed as a cure all for OCD, but which sadly may not necessarily be of value to everyone. We are all different and other approaches may be required. Often we can feel that we are in someway less able than those for whom such therapies have been useful. I will not say cured. I do not wish to be negative, and such therapies have been helpful for some towards leading a more normal life, however in my opinion considering my own experience there is no real cure for OCD in the sense that there is a cure for ...well I can’t actually think of anything for which there is a permanent cure without the need for continual medication or therapy as is of course the case for mental health problems.

Please send your photos of your artwork/crafts. Those of you who have a digital camera or indeed any camera, do take a few photos, they do not have to be professional. John is not a professional photographer and some of the umpteen zillion photos he or I take are just awful. Most of us can take a few good photos now and again particularly with a digital camera. I think it is important to focus our attention on other issues, the positives in our lives. Don’t think of talents as merely the visual arts. Perhaps you are a singer, well write about your singing or you are a gardener, than share your anecdotes about or photos of your garden.

I do understand if such is difficult for you, we are not all the same and the thought of sending in photos or writing about your experiences may be extremely stressful for a lot of people. But if you can contribute I and others will be grateful.

Thank you all who have contributed articles, personal stories, art and so on.

I will attempt to upload my latest updates although if there are problems it is because there seemed to be a lot of glitches as a result of changing the fonts and tables. Why I have no idea, who understands the perversity of computer software, I know I don't. So if there are problems please be assured these will be rectified as soon as possible.

I will not be on-line to respond to e-mail until the 17th November after which time I will reply to anyone who has written as soon as possible.

November 21st

The true art of memory is the art of attention.
Samuel Johnson
 

A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness.
Elbert Hubbard

We are in the library today. The title of a book catches my eye, A Dummies book: Improving your memory for Dummies. The book is well worn, rather grubby, which to a person with OCD is off putting. I can borrow books from the library although there is mild anxiety, but oftentimes if I do not know who has touched the book I am okay to touch and borrow it. However if it is visibly dirty it is more difficult for me to even handle, let alone borrow such a book. However this is not the point of my comments here. Rather the tatty much read book lead me to the consideration that many people are not happy with the way their brains function or rather do not function with regard to memory and I asked myself that perhaps we expect too much from our brains. Perhaps society expects too much from the majority of people who are only of average or lower than average intelligence or indeed anyone because one should keep in mind that memory does not denote the degree of intelligence anymore than inabilities to spell or read or write. Many highly intelligent people are for example dyslexic. In fact in most diagnostic descriptions high intelligence is cited as a characteristic of dyslexia.

I am a shocking speller with a poor memory, one that has been poor right from childhood. I am a slow learner but with determination when I am allowed to learn at my own pace I get good results. In my mid thirties in an attempt to improve my education in order to take my mind off OCD after making improvements whilst in hospital, I enrolled for a couple of GCSEs courses having left school at fifteen with no qualifications whatsoever. I enrolled and took exams for English and Biology. I passed with a grade A for both examinations. I took these subjects as a correspondence course and was therefore able to progress at my own rate, had I taken them as a student at school or as an adult education course I would have failed as I do not learn at the rate expected of a student in a classroom setting. I learn much better from books although of course not having a tutor can make that very hard work from time to time as there is no one to ask a question and one has to sometimes search for a long time to find answers. I taught myself how to use software to create this and in the beginning my son’s website and when I joined a computer course for website creation the tutor was quite astonished that I had learned to create a functioning website without any personal tuition whatsoever, website creation being apparently the most difficult course in the series.

So everyone’s brain functions differently and we should not perhaps consider that there is something-wrong because we do not have a good memory. We should certainly not assume that this means we are not intelligent. Than again does intelligence matter that much,  certainly to earn a living but in order to be happy ? Probably not in fact it may often appear that the more intelligent one is the more likely one is to suffer with anxiety or depression. "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. Ernest Hemingway."

Of course if a loss of memory or decrease in your ability to remember has suddenly occurred you should consult a doctor.  But if you have always had difficulties with your memory perhaps you should consider such difficulties in a different perspective rather than feeling inadequate.

Some of us have good memories but for others it can be a struggle, I think though that memory for most people is only improved by effort of some degree except for those with savant abilities of an Eidetic memory which is rare. Those of us with poor memories should not feel inadequate or failures, remember that those with a good memory are only so becasue of the way their brains are wired, it is not an achievement, nothing to boost about or for such people to diminish others whose brains work in a different way.

Neither is it the fault of a person who has a poor memory. In fact if you do have a poor memory and you struggle on regardless, studying, revising over an over as I did with my GCSEs, a very minor qualification incidentally but for a person such as myself with my learning difficulties a great achievement, you have in fact achieved more than a person for whom a good memory is second nature. A person who reads information and retains it effortlessly has not accomplished very much compared to the person who has to struggle to retain information by persistent effort.

We can improve our memory of course but if we are wired that way we will never have a savant type memory. Again concerning memory, as it is with most facets of our lives there is often the tendency to compare ourselves with others, it is this that gives rise to our feelings of inadequacy.

Yesterday there was a public lecture at the university science building about the discoveries of new planets. I find such fascinating and was tempted to go however my fear of not comprehending, sadly a result of poor memory and other learning disabilities, deterred me. Yes indeed in such situations one can feel inadequate or simply frustrated and yes it has to be said that in the above instance this has nothing to do with comparing myself to others rather it is simply sheer frustration over ones abilities or lack thereof. And yes I have to add that feelings of inadequacy can make me depressed. However for me personally this is not because of making comparisons with others, although  this tendency does occur from time to time, but rather I plain and simply wish to understand things ,that at this present time I do not, and which would for me take a huge effort to do so and than only at a basic level.

I was so frustrated over the problem recently of not being able to recall how to make clip art transparent, a relatively simple thing to find out but with no one to ask it takes time to track down relevant information, but I have now done so. However if I do not practice this I will once again forget how to do this. I was indeed very depressed not to be able to do something I have already learnt to do. And indeed it can be scary and one begins to be rather hypochondriacal about ones memory imagining all sorts of scenarios, particularly of course as one gets older.

Many years ago when I was much younger I accepted the way that my brain functioned, and regarded such simply as the way it is rather than fretting or obsessing that things should be otherwise. In those days I would not have given this matter any consideration whatsoever; It would not have occurred to me to consider for a moment attending such a lecture. Yes of course we should endeavour to improve ourselves as best we can and I have learnt far more since leaving school; without enormous effort I would not be sitting here now if I had accepted that I was not able to spell or my English was awful and never attempted to improve my education even only relatively marginally. However as with many things in life it is knowing our limitations, knowing when we can make improvements but not tormenting ourselves if we are unable to attain the level of achievement that we set ourselves, often at an unrealistic level.

As I grew older and society’s emphasis on intelligence and academic ability increased so did my already low self-esteem. I have worried and fretted over my memory consulting my doctor who told me that not everyone wants to be or is able to be an astrophysicist. Umm I thought well... actually I do... I also would not have minded being a palaeontologist either, both way beyond my academic ability even if I studied until the cows came home.
( Incidentally what a peculiar metaphor, I try to void using metaphor or other ambiguous terms of expression as when we look at these expressions they are utterly nonsensical, confusing to international visitors whose first language is not English or people on the autism spectrum who don’t understand metaphor but that is another discussion for another time perhaps. Incidentally I think that although I understand common metaphor having learnt what it means, metaphor in general hinders my ability to understand and is yet another impediment to comprehension.) I would also like to have been an Aid worker in Africa but such ambitions are beyond me for one or more reasons. My son had hysterics when I told him I would like to have been an Aid Worker in Africa, I guess he was thinking of my OCD contamination problems as being rather incongruous, not to mention my phobia of creepy crawlies which in such a climate of course would be huge problem.

There are very few people with the type of memory that easily absorbs and retains information, therefore for the vast majority memory can be considered a problem, at least relative to society's demands. Often problems are only problems becasue we consider them so or society considers them so.

Nowadays despite the advance of computers to make calculations, store information and so on we are increasingly required to be able to remember more and more information, to learn more and more. Hence the new phrases we often hear: Too much information or information overload. I think that we can struggle to cram in far more information than we are able to comprehend or remember and by so doing we actually make our brain less effective. I find trying to learn too much too quickly or on demand is exhausting and after a time my brain simply becomes less effective and my memory deteriorates. It is rather like when you are using too many resources on the computer, trying to do too much at one time and a window appears telling you that you do not have enough virtually memory to complete this or that task.

In addition to memory abilities concerning the acquisition of education many people worry about short-term memory in everyday life. The kind of situation where you find yourself upstairs and not knowing why you are there, you have forgotten why you came upstairs or opened the fridge door or whatever. Or you forget what someone has told you only minutes before. Or you find a book or other item and cannot recall when or where you bought it. Or the situation I find most upsetting is to ask someone a question, than sometimes only minutes later to forget that you have done so and you ask again as you have completely forgotten ever asking it. And the most distressing in recent weeks is to go to complete a task, such as putting away the dishes, only to find that you have already done so and have completely forgotten that you had done this; even than when reminded in this obvious way you still can’t recall having done this task. Very worrying. I have either forgotten or I was so spaced out I was actually not mentally present, if you understand what I mean. This is a difficult one to explain but sometimes I can be so lost in my own world, in my own thoughts that I can perform a task automatically.

Does such absentmindedness really matter? What causes this, is it simply the way our individual brains are wired. Is it the result of stress or depression? People with AS find multitasking difficult, consequently whilst engaged in intensive thinking and the mind is distracted whilst performing tasks your brain is using all its resources in one area and if you try to do too much rather like the computer it shuts down, perhaps in the region of the brain responsible for memory. In Buddhist meditation a practice called mindfulness teaches us to meditate or become aware of the moment, of bring in the moment. We are purposely aware of what we are doing, our focus of attention is deliberately centred on the task at hand; it you are washing the dishes you are mindful of the warmth of the water, you are aware of the individual pieces of crockery as you wash them. If you are out walking you are aware of your surroundings; the breath of a breeze on your face or the warmth of the sun all help to keep one in the moment.

Perhaps the brain was not meant to absorb and process the enormous amount of information required nowadays to go about ones day to day life. Yes of course the brain is capable in itself of multitasking, but subconsciously, such as the control of physiological functions such as the circulation, digestion and so on. However when it comes to our consciously putting too much pressure on our brain to do too much I think that this is when problems arise, particularly for those of us with anxiety disorders as our brains are often intensely occupied processing all the intrusive thoughts, trying to reason them out or trying to comply with them, worry, ruminating, obsessing ,coping with anxiety, outright fear and battle depression or plain and simply just trying to get through the day. No wonder we feel exhausted and our memory fails us.

 

November 22nd

Haven't they had this segment before on breakfast TV? Not another interview and commentary on cyber diagnosing. Yes I know I said I would stop watching breakfast TV because there is so much negativity particularly at a time of the day when I am at my worst, more anxious more depressed. Well old habits die hard. It has got to be a habit for my son and I to sit with a cup of coffee and breakfast and watch breakfast TV with me exploding with anger shouting at the TV over social injustices, which are invariably reported day in and day out. Yes indeed not a calm tranquil start to the day as of course I do take personally the suffering of the world and particularly that which is brought about by social injustice and mans inhumanity to man and other creatures. On some level I feel the pain of suffering even for a person I do not know and for animals, I feel it in my heart so to speak, in that place where we all experience emotion and it like personal emotions it is just as real. What I am trying to say is, I take the suffering of the world to heart.

But there are I have to admit breaks from the outright negativity in such morning programmes, however these breaks are usually not that interesting and I would not describe them as particularly positive, inasmuch as they focus on ordinary people achieving something good to help others but rather the focus is on celebrities, or an upcoming film or show. Wouldn’t it be such a refreshing change to have a segment on such a TV program concerning the accomplishments of a particular neighbourhood, or a charity, surely there are ordinary people who work hard to improve life for all but never get a mention. All you hear about is crime, binge drinking and other antisocial behaviours and after a time you no longer feel your neighbourhood is safe and we begin to trust no one, not even our neighbours.

Also often the same tired and well worn subjects appear time and time again such as the growing tendency for people to seek a diagnosis on-line. It is however a worrying trend particularly for those of us who have hypochondria but also a worry for anyone, as of course a good number of people can easily at least develop hyphochondrical tendencies by going on line searching for a diagnosis and misinterpreting, for instance a sore throat as throat cancer. This is just so easily done and the fear and anxiety as a result can become significant. In fact many doctors whilst studying for their doctorate do become for a time hyphochondrical as a result of the study of disease, this however passes with time. But for those of us more vulnerable, more susceptible, reading and often mistreating an online diagnosis can be disastrous.

On-line searches for worrying illnesses can be of detriment to me as a hypochondriac, and I mean a real hypochondriac; I am not someone who has a fleeting anxiety about illnesses as everyone does from time to time. You know the kind of thing, a headache is a brain tumour, but soon the person after taking a couple of pain killers than forgets this momentary feeling about the possibility of a serious disease. I am a fully fledged hypochondriac and have been so to some degree all my life, it is not my primary condition but it did herald the onset of OCD and was at that time a very serious problem and still now it can present to a good degree which in addition to OCD and other conditions cause an increase in anxiety and my overall misery. Previously prior to the Internet my fear was fed solely by my imagination. If someone mentioned a disease I immediately thought that I was suffering from the condition regardless of the fact that such was unlikely, such as hardening of the arteries at twenty two. At that time I had no idea of the symptoms and therefore my imagination ran wild; at one time I imagined that veins had disappeared in my wrist. So even without access to medical information one can still sufferer the torment of  hypochondriasis. However access to medical information, not all of which is valid, can lead to not only confirming ones suspicions, and for the most part erroneously,  but adding further problems as one is made aware of conditions that previously did not cause concern.

Sometimes even looking up relevant information for existing medical problems can be scary. Recently trying to ascertain if a small daily dose of aspirin prescribed by an ophthalmic doctor would set off  rebound headaches set of a whole chain reaction of added anxiety and in the finish I had to ask a pharmacist. The aspirin had been prescribed to see if my visual distortion problems, mentioned in a previous entry in October, are due to circulatory problems. Indecently I was assured that at this low does this will not cause rebound headaches. Nevertheless in the more anxious moments I remain unconvinced. However whilst looking up on the net to try and find information concerning this consideration I learnt that Aspirin taken as a small dose can have a wide range of undesirable symptoms which I will not relate here, not wishing to feed anyone’s obsessions but at the same time feeling I have now some responsibility to relay these side effects to you. This is scrupulosity /over responsibility OCD, and incidentally you can see how by this example how OCD and other conditions can clash and OCD than adds more problems to your original hypochondria concerns or vice versa. The interaction of co morbid conditions with one another again is another discussion for another time  and one which I intend to write about at length

In the long run it is best to consult a doctor over anything which concerns you rather than self diagnose. The temptation though to do so is very powerful, like all our anxious concerns and torment all we want is relief and we feel that looking up conditions which are worrying  us will bring about this relief when in fact more times than not this is not the case and you can find yourself feeling even more concerned that you suffer with this or that or you find yourself new fears to worry about.
 

November 27th

During one of our trips out last week my husband and I went for a brisk walk in the Yorkshire dales. It was the first walk of any real length of time or distance that I have done for many years and it did help to relieve the heaviness of depression that I am accompanied with for most, if indeed all the time. Yes I would sadly have to say there is some degree of depression all the time; as soon as I open my eyes in the morning there is that dreadful heaviness of heart, I do not remember now what it feels like to actually enjoy something, experience peace of mind, feel excitement, anticipation, enthusiasm, to feel carefree or even mildly content. Yes a long list,  and no I am not feeling sorry for myself or trying to solicit sympathy, it is merely a statement of fact. This is the way many of us spend our entire lives. I do not exaggerate or dramatise.

It appears that the less active I am the more depressed I became. When we arrived, the burden of depression was just awful. I felt lethargic, heavy, as though weighted down, like a sickness it hung over me, I felt as though I was incapable of moving. Yes indeed depression does make one feel this way as though you are unable to move. Simply getting up out of my seat in the car required enormous effort and determination, putting on my rather heavy coat, a requirement as here in the Dales it is always a degree or two cooler than down in the valley, seemed more than I could bear to manage. I have come to loath this coat associating it with the weariness of my soul, the coat feels as though it weighs a ton, as do heavy walking shoes which I avoid wearing if at all possible. The day was dull with the occasional breaks of blue sky but the windy was strong. It was not the sort of day that generally lifts ones mood; although the wind in moderation does have a positive effect on my mood, however the dullness certainly saps my motivation. But today I was bloody determined I would get out of the car and walk not simply sit and read, supposedly admiring the scenery but in reality sinking deeper into depression despite the glories of this landscape of natural beauty of which I feel privileged to visit now and again. Most people living in towns or cities far away from such wild unspoilt countryside rarely have such opportunities. Often I feel guilty that I do not appreciate it, but this of course is a result of depression which renders life with a taint of dullness and blandness masking the beauty of such scenes .

I should be enjoying the countryside watching the sheep grazing, the pheasants dashing hither and dither, listening to the wind and the silence on still days, silence difficult to come by nowadays. But no so many worrying melancholic thoughts, OCD intrusions and ruminations and plain and simply pervasive free floating depression.

I am not sure if I can describe depression as free floating, the term usually used for anxiety which seem not to have any focus and which is simply feelings of anxiety not related to any particular circumstance or thought. Depression can be rather similar existing without any apparent reason, rather like when one for instance feels sick suddenly; depression is in many ways rather like a sickness, hanging heavy cloying. I guess my background depression is rather like that, free floating but becoming more pronounced when depressing thoughts or circumstances arise. And these thoughts or circumstances need not now be anything at all significant. I think there comes a time in ones life when you become so sensitive to any negativity and unsatisfactory occurrence that you immediately become depressed or more depressed, and this is the case now for me. Despite having this insight into what is occurring, and how my thoughts effect my already chronically depressed mood increasing it further, I have no way of mitigating or preventing this from happening. Although if I feel that something will increase my depression and I can avoid it happening I try to do so, such as not watch a TV programme which will bring about depression. Increasingly now however because I am now so sensitive to such as this, it is getting difficult. Even events and occurrences of which I have no control bring about depression, events both past and present bring much sadness, even fictitious scenarios can profoundly effect my mood, bring a sense of loss, unhappiness, an increase in depression. . I recall crying bitterly over a
novel - which now I rarely read feeling as though they are a waste of time unless they concern the subject of my perserverations (positive obsessions) - concerning the hardship of the Long march. Although this historical event was real the circumstance and characters in this fictionalisation where not.

It breaks my heart the suffering of the world and all creatures in it, universal suffering enhances my own misery. In fact the circumstances of crime, violence, illnesses, social injustice, mans inhumanity to man, cruelty to animals, including the mass slaughter day after day of millions of these sentient beings, brings a heaviness to my heart and makes me feel as though I live in some kind of hell realm as though I am already dead and have gone to hell.  The increase in paranoia towards people one meets everyday, where you feel you can trust no one as everyone seems to have an agenda to in someway take advantage, fills one with loneliness as it appears you can trust no one. Also the lack of compassion and caring in todays self centred society makes one feels as though there is little goodness in the world, where few appear to do a good deed solely because he or she wishes to help another but rather in order to help themselves in some way. 

It was not until recently after correspondence with a fellow OCD suffer that I now realise that for the most part people do not get depressed over such occurrences which are not personal to them or are beyond their control, which is the case for the events that take place in the world in general either past, present, future  or for that matter fictitious. I have to say though that I really do not worry about future generations which do not exist and may never exist, after all there will come a time when life on his planet will be no more. Having said that however the situation with global warming and the blatant disregard for the obvious solution makes me angry. It is of little use our not taking the car out and walking while China builds a new power station every week spewing pollution from fossil fuels far and wide, increasing the already significant damage that we in the west also continue to cause at an alarming rate and all for the sake of profit and personal gain. I get so angry and such anger breeds depression as one feels so helpless. Living in a world surrounded in a sea of suffering is at times for me overwhelming to bear and such effects my mood. I cannot easily distract myself from this.

The other morning I become so angry that the NHS are considering cutting out a type of... I don't know how to describe it except to refer to it as tubing which is inserted into arteries which are clogged. Apparently it is not cost effective. What the hell does that mean! The NHS is not a profiteering corporation, cost effective whatever next. The NHS is  about caring for the sick in our society not about making or saving money, there is plenty of money in this country to meet everyone's health needs the problem is the government spend it inappropriately.

I now realise that this kind of thinking, at least in this excessive way with the result of an increase in depression, is either related to OCD, depression or a facet of Asperger syndrome. I have read the accounts on forums and elsewhere of many Aspie's having similar experiences with this kind of thing and also with the depression which arises from this.

I try to avoid too much focus on negative issues, although such is unavoidable, either concentrating on something else or removing myself from the situation, such as doing something else while the TV is on. However when it comes to thoughts it is of course not possible as thoughts enter my mind so quickly in rapid succession that it is impossible to anticipate them to divert them quickly enough. Sometimes it can happen that the battle to prevent my depression from increasing can become so wearisome that this in turn detrimentally effects my mood. Failures to beat my depression also increase my depression, yes! bizarre as it may seem giving in to depressive episodes increases depression and feelings of failure, which in turn generate still more depression.

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Concerning blogs : Although I have initially looked through the recommended blogs in my blog roll I have not read every single entry and have selected each on its overall merit: interesting regular entries . However the comments and opinions of the respective blog owners do not necessarily reflect my own opinions.

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I will endeavour to reply to all e-mail, however please bear in mind that I have a number of quite debilitating illnesses and there may be times when there will be considerable delay. Also I will not publish anyone's comments, as appears to be the procedure with blogs, without permission of the author : If you would like me to publish your comments please indicate clearly at the end of your e-mail.

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.

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