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December 20th
I thought that the telephone would never stop ringing today. Or that I would ever have five minutes peace from having to make a difficult telephone call for some reason or another. I find talking on the telephone enormously difficult with my social phobia, far more difficult than speaking to someone face to face, perhaps it is because one has to keep the conversation going. Often in our house the phone rings and rings and rings the insistent ring jarring my nerves, turning my legs to jelly and my heart to jump to my throat. My son feeling much the same as I hopes either my husband or I will answer.

Sometimes all I want is a bit of peace, just a few days without some worry, some pressure to do something, to be somewhere, to face another commitment or make another decision which invariably I will regret. But no when the phone rings I find that any modicum of peace dissipates in an instant and once again the pressure is there followed by ruminating over and over about the conversation: what I said, what the caller said, did I say something that could cause harm or did I say something unkind?

I cannot think fast enough on the telephone were decisions have to be made quickly. Should I have made the appointment with the CPN this week when she asked me this afternoon over the telephone ? She wanted to see me this week but I just couldn’t face having to be well with regard to headaches and the stress of getting my home just OCD right to receive a visitor. She was supposed to call to see me last week but did not turn up, there had been a misunderstanding about dates. Not my mistake - at least I hope not, but I worry, did I get the day wrong did she turn up another time and I was not there? My husband made the call for the appointment as I couldn’t cope with using the telephone at that moment having been traumatised by the previous influx of messages that needed a response. But he suddenly handed the phone over to me as he couldn’t make the decision so I was even less able to cope than usual. I was offered no explanation about what happened last week so I ruminate now that it was my fault and now wish I had arranged to see her this week. I now worry: what will she think, why had I not phoned myself? She will think I am crazy !

However if I had agreed an appointment for this week I would feel depressed as I really do not feel up to making my home extra clean the way I do if a visitor comes, having to make sure the cups are really clean rinsing them over and over with boiling water, filled with fear that I will contaminate my visitor causing harm, food poisoning even death!. And conversely worrying about what kind of contamination the visitor would themselves bring in. No I could not face it a second week in a row and postponed until after Christmas.

I think all I want is a bit of quiet time but no the world intrudes mostly with the best of intentions but nonetheless there is the fear of who will be on the other end of the phone Will it be something I can't deal with? It was my son’s birthday and we had gone out and on our return there were three messages on the answering machine. There was a message from my pen-pal in Australia. How I felt so guilty! l have lost her phone number and cannot telephone her. I have looked for days to find it but I live in this state of utter confusion and my memory is poor. Yes I can get it together to create a web site but organise more mundane things like phone numbers, addresses or sorting the washing or making a shopping list is impossible just now.

I worry she may think I do not want to telephone her and yes my anxieties make this a tremendous ordeal. We have corresponded for over ten years but have only recently spoken to one another on the telephone and it is therefore an ordeal due to my social phobia. Nevertheless if I have to telephone someone I will albeit with a thumping heart and a lump in my throat. I worry that she will not understand how I can be so disorganised to have lost her phone number; I worry that people think that if I can create a website than I cannot be that ill or disorganised or that my thinking can be so muddled . But it does not work like that, although in my experience people think it should. Many people expect those of us with anxiety disorders to present with ones respective illness in a stereotypical fashion. For instance the OCD sufferer is always scrubbing and cleaning and his or her home and person is immaculate, clean and shinning like a new pin, the kitchen and bathroom resembling a hospital. I recall years ago shortly after coming out of a psychiatric hospital after spending three months receiving treatment for my OCD that the visiting CPN had written in her report that there were signs that I was continuing to retain my improvement, as I had discarded a used tea bag on the work top. Such sloppy behaviour had never been a part of my contamination OCD, I had never considered such as harmful or in anyway associated with spreading contamination or in any remote sense a problem and this incident was therefore no indication I was getting better or otherwise. Yet this had been assumed without even asking me if this assumption was correct!

Also now when the phone rings it could mean bad news about my brother-in-law. He is in hospital again and I simply can’t cope with making the journey to Leicester this Christmas; neither can my husband or son both of whom are not at all well with stress and depression and a general inability to cope. Yet I am overwhelmed by guilt and my heart aches with sadness for his plight. He was in hospital last year and remained there for eight months, this is his third stay in one year. He has had two brain operations after falling, hitting his head and having to have a blood clot removed. He is all alone now in the world except for my family and I. He is my late sister’s husband and he has suffered so much from her loss eighteen months ago, and than only three months after this awful tragedy he has this terrible accident. My heart breaks with the sadness of it all and I feel the pain acutely as I sit here and type, the memories and the pain flooding back filling my heart with sadness and a keen sense of loss. We have been to Leicester six times including last Christmas. I am exhausted tired and overwhelmed by the whole situation. My fear of travelling adding an extra dimension of misery to the tragic situation. He lives 170 miles away yet I have borne this fear and have gone but now I am so ill and exhausted, yet I am so riddled with guilt even though the decision not to go to see him is not entirely mine; if the others agreed I would probably drag my frightened, tired and sorry self over this long distance to see him.

There is one phone call however that I desperately await and that is one that will tell me that there is a place for my brother-in-law in a sheltered accommodation near to where we live so we are able to keep an eye on him and somehow or other help him to find some happiness or at the very least some relief from his loneliness.

December 21st
Today we (my husband, son and I) have decided to celebrate the winter solstice. No I am not a pagan but my religious philosophy now tends towards the pick and mix concept found in New Age thinking . Therefore if something appeals to me from any religion and I find it comforting and uplifting I use it in my everyday life, I like a lot of the pagan festivals celebrating as they do the change of the seasons; and besides it’s simply seems a pleasurable and satisfying thing to do, a break from the commercialism of Christmas. Also I think that those of us who suffer with obsessive-compulsive illnesses need ritual within our lives as it can bring some modicum of comfort as long as it is not negative and becomes enmeshed in destructive compulsory behaviours. After all are not many of our compulsive behaviours ritualistic.

Christmas has of course taken many of its ceremonies and practices from paganism, such as the Christmas tree, wreaths, the lighting of candles and getting together with relations. For me personally Christmas has always been a stressful time, as a child I worried that I would die at this time of year and later during severe OCD Christmas once again found me terrified and incapacitated with many obsessive thoughts and accompanying compulsions concerning death. In 1989 the birth of my stillborn daughter at Christmas finally determined that I would no longer celebrate this time of year. I am a very rebellious person and will not allow social pressures to compel me to spending time and money participating in something that is anxiety provoking filled as it is with memories of unhappiness, and more recently with the problems concerning my brother-in-law’s continuing illness and my own unhappiness of being too ill to visit him this Christmas. For over ten years now I tend to ignore this time of year as much as possible with the odd exception but this year I simply cannot cope with it at all and will be glad when it is all over.

I can’t use the word enjoy as I find so little joy in my life but I will say it was pleasant to go into the woods and collect a few branches of greenery to bring into my home: A pagan custom indicating that life continues and is everlasting and things continue to grow and soon the season turns and new life will come forth. (I had to collect fallen branches from the ground as it is difficult for me to break a branch from a tree or uproot a plant or cause harm in anyway. I cannot convince myself that plants are not sentient and do not feel pain. I do not know if this is my OCD or I am simply hypersensitive.) It was a bitterly cold day and it was indeed comforting to return home after a walk through the forest to cook a special meal and  light candles following the pagan tradition to celebrate the return of the sun on this the shortest day. The burning of incense added a peaceful feeling to the evening as we tried to make this celebration a special  respite from the difficult lives we lead.. The winter solstice does bring with it a sense of hope for us as the long dark days of winter add feelings of despondency to those who suffer from depression and I am no exception. This is the turning point to which I look forward heralding as it does an end to the bleakest part of winter and the sense of gloomy despair that accompanies it..

December 24th
Well Christmas eve soon it will be over for yet another year. My brother-in-law is still in hospital were he will spend Christmas alone and I will spend Christmas day feeling guilty. Christmas is a time when ones sorrow becomes more acute and when one is more ware of the sufferings of not only oneself but that of others. It is a time when loved ones are missed and feelings of emptiness settle over me . This was particularly so during the times in my life when I have celebrated this festival and I have felt empty and sad when finally it has arrived and all my plans for a happy and magical Christmas suddenly seem very silly, empty and superficial.

Today I feel very gloomy. You know I even dread having to ring the hospital feeling anxious about asking the nurse if I may speak to my brother-in-law because my social phobia has become such a problem now that even such a simple phone call is anxiety provoking. And than having to think of something interesting and positive to say to him whilst resisting the urge to keep apologising for not be able to go and see him, as I know that all I am doing is trying to salve my troubled conscience. Lately I seem more effected by my social phobia, it adds an extra burden to my OCD, not all sufferers of OCD naturally suffer with social phobia. I am beginning now as I get older to feel more awkward in the company of others even close friends because of my social phobia. I am finding it increasingly difficult to form close relationships. Since coming here to live I have formed only one really close friendship and this is with a fellow sufferer.  All my conversations seem contrived, carefully chosen with no spontaneity and filled with embarrassing pauses.

I have led a very lonely life and have had few close friends; people always sensing my awkwardness become distant and aloof. I lost a job many years ago, my co-workers actually conspiring to get me sacked. Unbelievable I had done nothing to hurt them I simply did not know what to say to them and how to join in with their conversations. It was not that I did not like them, no it was simply that I was tongue tied.  In my life I have had few close friends; I could probably count them on one hand and have some fingers left. Most of my life I have been alone. I  had no one with whom to share the pleasures of my youth. At school mostly except for a few occasions I stood alone in the playground at break times.  Both my sister and I felt as though we were outcasts: neither she nor I could mix with our peers and if we had not had each other our lives would have been lonely indeed.

We were both lucky to find husbands who seemed to understand our shyness otherwise we would have been alone for most of our lives. Sadly my sister has now gone and I miss her; she and I could tell each other things we could share with no one else.  I long to have friends and to be able to have light-hearted spontaneous conversations, to laugh and lark around and be myself and not afraid to open my mouth should it all come out wrong and muddled as it so often does leaving the person I am attempting conversation with feeling awkward and often giving me an odd look. Somehow now I know this will never be.

I dread the necessity from time to time to become involved in social situations. Although I make the effort I arrive with a fluttering in my heart and a lump in my throat and all my attempts at conversation fail as the words seem not to come out the way that I had intended. Often I blush! Yes at late middle age I blush1  Such is so embarrassing when one is older.

December 25th

Well finally its Christmas day, but still so early in the morning. I managed to remain in bed until 5 am, most mornings I am awake at 3 or 4 am and have to get up as the negative obsessive-compulsive thoughts and my aches and pains, particularly my stiff neck and headache, make it impossible to lie in bed. So not even on this day when one should be able to relax can I lie in bed.

There was one thing I have looked forward to this Christmas: The factory in the village would be closed for about ten days. It is a much awaited respite from the 24/7 low frequency noise that I have to endure now.

I have complained and they have been really helpful and have done their best to find the cause of the noise spending over £4000 conducting tests to try and stop the noise but all to no avail. The local council will do nothing and although the firm in question have done their utmost there is a point to which they will not go and that is to turn off the machine. I of course understand their situation however where does that leave me! My health has deteriorated and it may be the reason now why I cannot sleep beyond 3 or 4 am The sound is not loud but it is monotonous like the continuous playing of one note of music. During the hours of the late evening early morning when all other noises die down it is dead quite except for this unremitting and continuous hum. It is torture, pure torture.

I had hoped for a respite over the holidays when the machine is turned off , the only time of year that it is. But no I can hear something another noise of a similar nature, along with a low thumping noise I have no idea what it is or where it is coming from, perhaps its a neighbour, perhaps it all in my head having now become very hypersensitive to noise.

I have always been sensitive to noise and as a child I would scream in the street and have to be medicated with sedatives. Now however this problem seems to have returned ignited perhaps by this noise nuisance from across the road. I never get a moment when I can hear the silence, not one moment. I feel desperate for some peace and quiet. These days everywhere you go there is noise, even in my GP's surgery there is a radio rumbling away in the background its barely audible sometimes but nonetheless the irritating drone drives me crazy, there is even a TV! I cannot even go to the toilet in peace now as in many public buildings very often there is piped music in the ladies room agitating my already taunt nerves. Mostly it is the type of music that is loud and blaring which frays my nerves making me feel like a child once again when all I want to do is scream and never stop.

I now rarely play my own music anymore and worry about making noise myself and disturbing my neighbours. My husband and son have the TV on so loud sometimes; I sit tense not only because the noise is distressful for me but I start worrying about the people next door as we live in an end terrace and have party walls. My son has all kinds of thumping music - at least to me it sound like thump thump thump thump. At least that is how it sounds through the walls. When one is in the same room of course the music is completely different but still loud jarring my nerves making me feel as though I want to scream. However the problem feels less threatening when my son or husband or even myself are making the noise. I do my best to endure it as long as I do not have a severe headache, but at least I know that if it gets to much they will turn it off. The problem arises when I have no control and I am left at the mercy of an unremitting and continuous noise, such as that which is emanated from the factory, when I have no recourse to stop it and simply have to endure it.

Furthermore concerning the factory the manager is a most amicable person, always polite never getting irate, not even after receiving one of my hypergraphical letters of several pages. And the firm has tried its best and it makes me feel just too awful  to take the matter further and this has put me in an awkward situation. I am too ill to have the stress of moving so here I remain at least for now.

This morning also finds me in the throes of an OCD washing decontaminating session in the bathroom: bleaching the sink, the toilet and the taps, rinsing them over and over, than rinsing my hair again and again not satisfied that all the shampoo is out. Its my second shower this morning and it is only 8.30. My hands are dry and smell of bleach which means I will need to rinse them again and again until the smell goes for fear of poisoning someone accidentally with a molecule of bleach!. I guess OCD does not take a holiday, although some non sufferers assume it does and that because its Christmas or whatever the occasion one suddenly has to behave normally. Funny isn’t it, if I could be normal to order to make life easier for others on special occasions do they not realise I would so all the time!

The forecast today is for some snow. Well I just love the snow so fingers crossed. Selfish I know as many do not like it but ones does so cling to any small happiness in one’s life. And happiness is a matter of perspective as indeed is unhappiness and our fears.

December 26th
Well here I am once again sitting at my computer in the wee small hours of the morning yet again forced from my bed by insomnia, aches and pains and OCD. I am awake early but procrastinate for hours before facing the trauma of having to wash  and shower dreading the OCD rituals to come. Its dark, cold and lonely first thing in the morning.  It is a time when I am most vulnerable to the intrusion of unwanted thoughts of a morbid or depressing nature, its a time when the thoughts of past traumas replay a never ending loop tape taking me back to my former unhappiness, it is a time when the regrets that I feel for my wasted life play upon my mind and feelings of existential terror, fears for the future and unremitting guilt torment my weary soul. Although the distraction of my website and other activates on the computer help mitigate the intrusive thoughts and lessen to some extent the effect of many of the other maladies from which I now suffer, I still have to contend with such thoughts which make me exhausted long before anyone else is even awake.

However migraine will not be mitigated or relieved in any way other than by my medication. While I am writing this I am getting another headache. I am going through a bad patch with migraine or so its seems as this is maybe the third one in a matter of four or five days. I live in an absolute state of utter dread should for some reason or other my medication cease to function. I only had an attack last night and now the pain is here again - at least some kind of headache is. I suffer with two types of headaches and sometimes it is not easy to tell which is which and I have to wait, sometimes for hours, before taking my medication which only alleviates my migraine it will do nothing for my tension headaches. I have chronic daily headaches CDH meaning that everyday I have some sort of headache, mostly upon waking but they can turn up at any time. They can last from half an hour to many many hours. When they first started I had no respite whatsoever it was a nightmare! Now I live in fear that once again this will happen. And when I get migraine after migraine I become very very afraid indeed. My life is very much affected by these daily headaches; sometimes after the initial waking the headache has eased off and I can go for most of the day headache free or with only a slight niggle but other days they can last for hours transforming into migraine.

I had wanted to go out today but my headache seems quite nasty and I need to be sure that it is not a migraine. I do go out of course if my headache is not too bad even to the cinema but I am always so afraid they will get worse turning any trip out into a nightmare. It is bad enough with the OCD, but these headaches add another dimension of misery and in themselves become part of my OCD as I am tormented by worrying scenarios of what might happen to me and the pain I will suffer if I am out and cannot get home quickly or take my medication. I take my medication with me but check and check all the time that I have it; over and over I will check to see I have not lost it.  Worrying I never let go of my handbag, not even to let anyone else hold it for a moment in case somehow my medication gets lost. I will not even leave it in the car with my husband; I have the ridiculous thought that he will drive away with it and my medication and leave me alone and in pain miles from anywhere. He would of course never do such a thing but who can rationalise their OCD particularly when one is in pain. I take out with me several doses, far more then necessary for one attack as I worry that if I do not and the house burns down or someone breaks in and steals them I will be left in unbearable pain. Once a psychologist upon hearing this concern suggested that if indeed my house did burn down that migraine would be the least of my worries - he has never had a migraine!

Well its 8 am finally I have to face washing and showering and all the compulsions that go with it.

After exhaustive checking  and rechecking I hope to update my website today. I have checked these pages countless times, it is so exhausting but I feel that if it helps someone to feel less alone or for non suffers to gain a little insight into what it is like to have OCD, numerous other anxiety disorders and depression than it is well worth it. I do obsess rather that my hypergraphical type ramblings will never be read or may make others feel hopeless or have other detrimental effects far too numerous to mention: such worries torment my mind in an unremitting series of possible negative scenarios. Sometimes I feel as though its better to give in to such doubts but I do not want to and even though it can take hours even days to click the publish button and update my website, fighting the urge to check just once more, somehow I manage to do this - at least for now.

December 27th
This morning when I came to get dressed looking down at the pile of clutter and clothing at the bottom of my wardrobe I felt that old and very familiar feeling, the kind I had when my contamination OCD first became severe. Now my OCD is classified as severe right now but in those days my condition was even more severe and at the time if it were not for my insight and the support from my family I would have been well on the road towards becoming totally incapacitated.

Just lately my contamination OCD is becoming worse and this morning gazing down at this pile of discarded cloths I felt as though I could wear nothing and I had to remove the entire pile for washing! (Now in addition to OCD I have ADD. Some believe that the two conditions cannot exist co morbidly. After all ADD sufferers are disorganized, and consequently appear to be untidy whilst OCD sufferers are perfectionists often concerned with symmetry; they are forever straightening crooked pictures, having everything neat and organized to extreme levels. Notwithstanding this seemingly incongruous co-existence of the two disorders the conditions can and do present in the same person. The two conditions are indeed incompatible and this co existence is a most difficult one indeed. Yes most certainly my OCD tends towards wanting some organization and the need to have everything just right and such opposing tendencies cause a split in my personality with the disorganized ADD. So for me the combination presents an added dimension to the battle which rages in my mind.)

Suffice it to say that although I am on occasions an untidy disorganised slob, most likely as a result of my ADD, who simply throws her cloths in the bottom of the wardrobe, the cloths are nonetheless OCD clean. Well at least they were until yesterday when I opened the door to select some clothing, a difficult task each morning anyway yet again to OCD type thinking, I had that overwhelming feeling of anxiety of which all sufferers are familiar that something in the pile had become contaminated and as a consequence the rest of my cloths could not be warn should the contaminated garment contaminate others: Its rather like a chain reaction one item touches another which than touches another, I than touch the item and touch something else this too becomes contaminated and so on in a theoretically never ending chain. Before such can happen, fear of this overwhelming possibility compels me to wash everything in the bottom of the wardrobe. After moving some of the cloths to rewash I can now no longer feel free to throw my cloths in this untidy heap as this area in my wardrobe has become a no go zone.  I do not feel that removing and washing the cloths was sufficient to allay my fears concerning contamination. Maybe a minor incident in a day filled with similar incidents but it did have for reasons not easy to describe an ominous feel to it and I need to be mindful to try not to give in quite so readily to my fears.

A problem often occurs that makes matters worse when I make an effort: such as in this instance and I put an already warn item back onto the pile attempting to be normal, more rational  - it had been warn only two hours. On many occasions such attempts to be normal backfire, and I am later unable to cope: although I was more positive in the first instance later on I am simply too afraid for the reasons stated above to carry it through and as a consequence end up making things worse, and instead of washing one item I end up washing a whole pile and rendering the bottom of my wardrobe a contaminated area. So unless I feel confident that I can carry any attempts to behave normally right through to the end I tend not to try this self help desensitisation if I feel that I am simply too ill to carry it forward. But again there is a dilemma as there always is with OCD: if I give in and not try than the compulsions simply escalate as they are doing now. Yet again as so often happens with OCD I am dammed if I do dammed if I do not. I really need a bit of extra support if I am not I not to slip once again into that dark abyss of overwhelming OCD. Also upon many occasions now my poor old worn out brain simply forgets itself and I absent mindedly contaminate my own stuff. As in this instance by throwing in a pair of previously worn trousers into my wardrobe.

It may not have been such a problem but I was going out to the cinema and needed to be extra clean should I contaminate the seats that others will sit on. Whenever I go out I have to put on clean cloths and be that bit extra clean, my hair freshly washed, also my curlers and comb.

Later that day I noticed one of my succulent plants really did not look well at all. It appeared to be dying, its leaves crumbling and it had developed an odd chalk like substance. Now I may be a really a very sensitive person, its either that or such is a manifestation of my OCD. I have no idea which. Sometimes in this kind of situation it is not clear when actions are not generally speaking normal for most people, what is caused by OCD thinking and what is a result of my personality. After all some people do feel this way otherwise why would there be fruitarians, such people will eat nothing that causes the death of the plant. Why? Do they too have similar feelings as I?  Although I am not a fruitarian I cannot kill a plant and feel very upset if one dies. I hate the thought of trees being felled it turns my stomach, and I would never be responsible for having a tree cut down even if it were to undermine the very foundations of my house.

I was very upset by this indeed, feeling extremely guilty that I had not noticed that there was something wrong with this plant. I hate it when anything dies. Many people believe that it does not matter if a plant dies, it is non sentient. If indeed people consider the situation in one way or another, for most it simply appears to be no big deal. However I find it hurts for me to lose anything living particularly if I feel in any way responsible. I cannot harm anything, I can’t pick weeds from the garden even. I will not simply throw away a plant because it’s going brown and doesn’t look so attractive anymore or it is getting just too big for my small home. We have four very large plants in our home including a banana tree, which produces new leaves, huge new leaves. It is getting rapidly much bigger than when we first bought it only a year ago now. Soon our sitting room will resemble the Amazon jungle! We have so many other smaller plants, all of course capable of growing quite large including a fig tree!  These grow enormous.

I was nearly in tears as we took it to the garden centre where they recommend repotting and giving it some feed and one or two other recommendations which appear to be working, for with in an hour or so it picked up considerably. All of these recommendations were simply maintenance tasks and I consequently felt so awful. Most people think that I am crazy! If I buy a potted herb plant to have fresh herbs for my cooking, when I arrive home with it I simply can’t cut off the leaves to use; I feel so distressed and it actually causes me some kind of pain and anxiety to do so, so they just grow. I have often wandered if this tendency is an OCD symptom; an exaggerated kind of OCD scrupulosity. I knew someone else rather like this who would not even remove a huge plant from the house even though it was clearly dead.  

December3Oth 
I telephoned my Australian pen pal this morning, she told me that in Queensland land they have a thunderstorm every other day. These storms are indeed very violent with loud crashes of thunder and vivid lightening illuminating the sky quite dramatically. I actually enjoy thunderstorms - at least the more modest kind which we have here in the UK, which occur very infrequently, perhaps only once or twice each year. This conversation got me thinking: What must it be like if you have a phobia about thunderstorms as my mother had during her life. Her fear was so intense she would have to sit on the stairs in the dark until the storm had passed, nothing would induce her to come out from this dark sanctuary; at such times my father was left to look after the shop alone. Perhaps the fact that residents of areas affected by these annual storms, which occur for the duration of two or three months, become desensitised by this enforced exposure. It would be interesting to know the statistics if such exists for the occurrence of this quite common phobia amongst the residents of Queensland. This made me consider such exposure in these situations:  Under continual exposure to ones fears, in time does ones fear completely dissipate and we recover. Exposure for my obsessive fears and phobias has never worked for me for long but would it if I was continually confronted with my fears in a very intensive way with no avenue for escape.

Today we to cleaned out the water feature. Believe it or not this has not been cleaned for months. Fear of the decontamination rituals and the prospects of the major OCD episode this will cause has been the main factor behind this procrastination. Most people think that those of us who suffer with OCD are constantly cleaning, disinfecting and sterilizing, our homes reeking of bleach and disinfectant. Yes at one time in my life this was very much the case and now also to some extent but not as people imagine. Eventually all the washing and disinfecting becomes futile as one is overwhelmed by the forever increasing need to compulsively wash and the fear of contamination becomes increasingly more difficult to quell: the more we wash and clean the more we feel we have to do so never satisfied that our environment is safe for ourselves and for others. One becomes exhausted as the symptoms spiral increasing at an alarming rate.

For me personally another way of coping exists along side the decontamination compulsions, which alleviates the exhaustive rituals to some extent: And this is voidance.  Eventually exhausted both mentally and physically there are now instances that when I feel threatened with contamination fears that I will avoid the source of contamination instead of trying to clean away the results. In the case of the water feature it and the surrounding area became a no go zone. I avoided touching it or touching anything that had been close to it. So there was this little corner of the room in which stoods this water feature festooned with cobwebs untouched, avoided and never used. I dare not turn on the water should it splash and contaminate items close by. The water became murky and developed a scum and I worried about legionaries’ disease. Such anxieties grow, eventually it had to be confronted as fears of the possibility of contracting legionnaires disease increasingly tormented my mind, or even worse the fear that a family member or visitor may become infected as a result of my inability to clean the water feature.

I had to empty the container into the bath, the easiest and the least anxious way of doing this Yes the cleaning was a nightmare requiring a bottle of extra strength concentrated disinfectant, bleach and scouring cream, however not all together I hasten to add, as mixtures of such chemicals are dangerous and as a sufferer of OCD I am of course very mindful of this fearing possible harm to myself but more importantly to others. Now writing such things worries me: Have I made an ambiguous statement which may cause harm?  So now I have to write that again in bold letters otherwise I will ruminate that someone may mix together cleaning products if I do not write the following: (It is dangerous to mix together cleaning products). This is what its like for me all the time when I need to write something which others will read, although I may not write in quite this obviously obsessive manner. From the copious amounts of writing on my website you may get the impression it all flows easily and you most likely do not to realise the torture of doubt about causing harm that will induce me to check that nothing I write is misleading and my cause harm.

Throughout the duration of the frenetic cleaning and efforts to contain the contamination to avoid even more frantic cleaning came scenes of frustration and anger, snapping at my husband, as he of course had to help.  I could never do it alone I would be consumed by fear and panic and would wash myself and my environment far more if left alone with this task. However I can’t leave him to do this on his own, which would probably, you may think, be the most sensible cause of action. No I have to watch his every move: what he touches, what happens to the dirty water and so on. I have to watch that he does not spread the contamination. He must not empty the container and than touch anything else without washing his hands, than he needs to rinse the taps and anything else involved in the cleaning process. After completion I had to scrub the bath and the floor spraying it with bleach. I had to complete this task in my nightclothes, which were immediately put into the washing basket before showering and dressing.  .

December 31
I felt really depressed last night. I am always depressed in varying degrees but just lately every night it seems so overwhelming. I am not the best of people to live with; I can’t hide the fact I am depressed and often lament my wasted life, loudly expressing my morbid ruminative thoughts concerning the futility of my life, my rapidly aging body, my aches and pains and fears of approaching death. Isn’t it enough that my life has been ruined by OCD why all these aches, pains and other maladies some so bizarre I can tell no one. Such is the nature of these very vocal ruminations.

Yet again I feel more than usually affected by this pervasive and sickening depression, much like an illness with which I cannot contend, it is as though there is nothing more I can do. All my life I have fought it, struggled to live as best a life as possible. I have tried everything to break lose from this depression to rid myself from my OCD But no here I am nearly an old women with my life spent utterly absorbed by this incapacitating malady which for me is not “highly treatable” When I hear that remark, as it appears quite common nowadays in magazine articles and on the net, I feel as though I want to scream. The pain and frustration is just awful my whole life gone. For me personally OCD has not been “highly treatable”. It has consumed my whole life, my whole being.

Amongst other things OCD has destroyed my religion, any religion not just Christianity from which my first problems began. My ability to commit to any religion is utterly impossible with my OCD. I have tired many religions and presently lean towards the new age pick and mix approach to religion because I feel that is what would best suit me at the present time, but no the more I struggle the more OCD religions obsessions and compulsions make such extremely difficult and in any real sense possible. Blasphemous thoughts once solely cantered upon Christianity soon metamorphose to include any religion and intrude even in a Hindu Mandir, as was my experience some time ago, but nonetheless continue to occur in a Christian church. Yes the negative aspect of any religion and the threat of some kind of ill fortune because I have had a bad thought concerning whatever gods the religion adheres to can leave me feeling anxious. Nonetheless the worst thoughts continue to present in a Christian context. Even now while visiting many of the medieval churches in my locality from a view of historical interest I can only remain for a short while before intrusive blasphemous and other religious OCD type thoughts invade my mind. My Christian upbringing and the original obsessions make it difficult to convert to another religion anyway; fears of some kind of retribution if I change religion bring torment to my thoughts even though in any real sense I am no longer a Christian. I am  more an agonistic searching for some meaning to life.  I would imagine such also occurs if one is a sufferer of OCD religious /scrupulosity and is an Hindu wanting to convert to Sikhism or a Pagan wishing to become a Christian for instance.

My thoughts are constantly drawn to religion and philosophy yet I cannot fully involve myself with any belief system in any real sense as such is always spoiled by fearful OCD thoughts. The French called OCD folie de doute the doubting disease and such is part and parcel of the OCD sufferers miserable lot in life; the terrible doubting, whether it’s : Have I locked the door, did I write something harmful or is there a god, is there an afterlife and can I really believe in such. This makes any real commitment to religion virtually impossible at least that is my own experience. I know that other OCD sufferers are not affected this way. This is one of the things that makes OCD so lonely and that is that we are all so different and we all present with many and varied manifestations of OCD. 

In addition OCD contamination has destroyed my relationships with others and my relationships with animals I would love to have a dog or a cat but cannot for fear of contamination with rabies. I would love to walk in the country without dreadful apprehension should a dog suddenly appear jumping all over me contaminating me. Even if there is no dog in sight the fear that at any moment one may appear is at times even more anxiety provoking. I am ever watchful, alert never relaxed turning to look jumping at the least sound. I would love simply to be part of life socialising, happy, carefree, not concerned about germs or if I have left the gas on or locked the door; I long to be free from care untroubled by a blasphemous thoughts or other perceived harmful thoughts fearing as a consequence harm to a love one or even a stranger. Fear of hurting anyone is a fear for me that is most terrible. It would be wonderful to be free of worrying anxious concerns which intrude in all sorts of everyday actions: did I write something harmful in my letter, my e-mail or on my website. The list is endless.

Yes I have struggled to create a website but oh the anguish. I want people to know what it is like to have this illness but the fear and apprehension writing for the whole world to see with my obsessions is so anxiety provoking, and the compulsive urge for it all to be perfect, the grammar, the composition, the graphics is so inhibiting time consuming and frustrating. The graphics! Oh am I obsessing about my lousy graphics, those huge pixels. Another website has my awful graphics of my artwork I do not know why but they have not turned out well at all. I know nothing of computer graphics merely scanning them in and reducing to a low resolution so the files are not much bigger than 30 KBs but I must be doing something wrong. I tried to edit them but they look even worse and I have ruminated and have become frustrated the thoughts troubling me as I lie awake at night. I can’t seem to find a way to edit my graphics properly and do not have an up to date program that I can use having spent so much on hosting the website and buying the software to complete it that I cannot afford a graphics editing programme. 

So you see OCD ruins ones life, every single aspect from the sublime to the ridiculous from ruminating and worrying about computer graphic pixels to the meaning of life.  There is no place within the realms of my mental existence that it does not effect and there is no part of my life that is does not spoil.

Today I cannot motivate myself and nothing much seems of interest. The only actions undertaken are those driven by fearful compulsions: During even the deepest depression I will wash my hands and perform my decontaminating obsessions. It’s New Year’s Eve and it finds me announcing that it’s not worth celebrating: what is there to celebrate just another year of misery. Nothing ever seems to go right, nothing nice ever happens, its just more of the same or even worse. My son’s life is ruined because we moved away.  He “hates” it here.  He cannot get a job and its difficult trying to sell his artwork Although he is making an effort he battles with depression and severe anxiety and I suspect some form of OC behaviour not to mention he most likely has ADD. Sometimes when I think about the decision we made to come to live here I feel sick inside filled with remorse made worse by knowing that there is nothing I can do to rectify it.  Nothing!  What will become of him? He is a young man and tonight he has no friends with whom to celebrate the New Year, no job and no home of his own. If he did have somewhere to go he is now to depressed to go anyway. I do not know if he would have been like this had we not moved and I will never know but he was not this way at least not to this degree before we move here.

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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.

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