No Shirt, No Shoes, No Socks, No Service

I don't know whether it is down to my OCD or my depression or something else all together but I constantly feel guilty for anything that I may enjoy. Buying clothes for an example is a struggle. Between my own body issues and feeling completely undeserving of something nice and new I end up not only leaving the shops empty handed with despair written all over my face but I never actually make it to the shops at all.

The few times that I have made it to the shops my husband always argues that if I like it that I should have it and even though part of me wants it I would rather put it back on the rack and leave it since I can't justify spending that £13 on that top or that £20 pair of shoes. Instead of me spending money on these two things my husband instead argues that hes buying it because he can justify the purchase. I have these two items and it has been weeks since the purchase. The top I have worn twice. Twice I have felt guilt with it on and every time I see it hanging up in my closet I think about how lovely it is but within seconds I go back to feeling like money could of and should have been better spent on someone else. As for the shoes I am still to wear them. They aren't my typical converse shoes, these have heels. They made me feel good when I tried them on in the shop but every time I tried them on in the house, attempting to break them in I quickly take them off and put them back in the box.

It bothers me to the extent of tears of these purchases. I don't understand why I should feel guilty but I just do. I hardly spend money on anything except for bills and the food shop and I don't think twice about spending money on anyone else, as long as it isn't on myself.

Gobble Gobble

I just wanted to wish all of my fellow Canadian bloggers a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

This year is the first that I am not sitting down to a Thanksgiving meal. I am giving my outdated kitchen a break as I am so thankful for all of the past meals that I have made without my oven giving up on me!

Hello Fluoxetine, My Name is Margaret - Can we be friends?

Last night after my usual bedtime routine I sat down on my side of the bed. Glass of water on my night table and the box of 30 capsules. Slowly I took one of the pills out of the packet and even though it took me a few minutes of staring at the red and yellow capsule and thinking to myself 'is this really what I want to do?' I did it. I just did it, I had to do it. My OCD is relentless and it has given me no other choice. I am not longer going to look at the medication as a 'happy pill'

With nothing but my thankfulness to another blogger for her kind words, her view of the medication and I quote off of the comments page
''I will tell you one thing though... in my experience my meds are not happy pills. They are "help me move the thoughts along pills." I still feel depressed, sad, happy, silly-- everything I used to feel. The only difference is that instead of an OCD episode knocking me out for a few weeks, I only suffer for a few days and I can handle and identify the symptoms better to help myself more during those few days''

I don't think anyone has said anything as frank as this about the pills. It gave me a different way to look at them and without it I don't know how much longer it would have taken me to get there. I don't care what my past therapists think when it comes to their disapproval of OCD sufferers speaking to each other, without those other sufferers I would be in a much worse place then I already am. No one knows your OCD like another sufferer.

So here I am, glass held up with another pill to take tonight ''here is to good mental health and a way forward'' It is all gradual steps and this is one step that was gradually taken but better late then never. I am in no hurry to get back into treatment. I want to try this approach with the medication first and to at least find a way to help myself before I ask others to help me. Treatment is hard. I wouldn't put anyone off of going for treatment but I think that I just wasn't strong enough to cope with the demands but when I am strong enough to cope with the demands of treatment then I can see it being successful. Until then, I have a book called 'Brain Lock' by Jeffrey M. Schwartz that may be helpful. It is also a second hand copy and that alone is something that I have trouble handling and breathing once I open the pages are not only difficulty from a panic attack but I become too frightened to breathe in case I breathe in the germs off of the pages. I have not been to a library in over 2 years. 2 years of books that I could have borrowed wasted. I would have had to move on to another library to get my fix.

The Sludge is Very Hard to Wash Out of My Hair!

Before I upload the next set of photos I wanted to take some time to write.

I know that compared to how much I usually write, the month of September looks appalling! As much as I enjoy writing I just could not face writing much of what I have been going through. I didn't have writers block. When it comes to writing about a life with OCD writers block is impossible to have. Time can be impossible to find some days but writers block is just non existent in the world of my OCD.

I have been in an awful place over the last few weeks. I have gone back to feeling even less myself than usual. Like a dark cloud stalking me over head and when it rained it poured and what it poured felt like sludge seeping into my mind and I just become unable to think for myself. As if someone else is doing all of the thinking and I am the string puppet in the most depressing puppet theatre show in the history of puppet theatre! Instead of being beaten with a wooden stick I am being beaten with my OCD and it feels like it is winning. Always one step in front of me. Its behind the curtain! No, wait! It is behind me! Now its on the other side of the stage! I really just cannot get away from it. My mind generally doesn't feel like my own and no matter what I do or try to do I just can't. I end up doing everything that I don't want to do and when I want to just simply sit down and read I feel guilt for trying to take care of me.

I have decided to try the medication. I plan on getting my prescription filled and start taking them tonight. My fears of medication may be irrational but it is even more irrational to live like this. This is not living, not even in the slightest. I want to live but I don't want to live off of a happy pill. You know that saying, damned if you do, damned if you don't. That is exactly what it feels like BUT I could very well not be overall damned if I do. I just need to give it a try and then wait and see where this goes.

Part Deux - It ends in a bit of a rant

Somehow in the past I have managed to travel where as at the moment I can't even manage leaving my home. When I think about travelling again I think of going back to Paris and I have all of these great memories and even the one bad memory of a strange man grabbing onto my arm wouldn't even put me off of going back there. That hardly seems scary compared to the thoughts that are put into my head from my own illness, I work myself up in a worse state then I had been in from the incident itself!

My brain is just too complex for me to think about. It is a stranger place than an ocean floor with all of the undiscovered creatures lurking around in the sands and rock. If my ocd was one of these alien like creatures then surely I wouldn't even be afraid of it or in a state of panic and tears but I cannot see my ocd. I can feel it in my head, moving around. I can 'hear' it every time it tells me to do something that I don't want to do but I do want to do and I can 'feel' it every time I have to run my hands across the stove to check that its off even though it was never used prior to the checking.

Today, I did something awful but I don't regret it. I failed to attend my treatment. I might regret it but at the moment I feel so angry inside at my new therapist. 'Treatment' has not been going well at all. 'Treatment' seems to be telling me what to say and telling me how I 'should' feel and telling me that when I enter her office I have to keep all negativity outside of the door. The world, let alone my mind is not a place of lolly pops and gumdrops and yummy vegan gummy bears. Without being able to say the negative things I am unable to fully express how I have been and currently still feeling. How can I answer truthfully to any questions asked?

I almost feel like a barbie, just without the figure and the perfect hair. I am there being controlled during a make believe game of cbt. Being discouraged of speaking to other sufferers and writing about my life with ocd. If it wasn't for the other sufferers that I speak to I would only have my husband and a few family members to speak to. It sounds pathetic and it feels pathetic and somehow in the last few months I started to feel something that I have never felt before and feeling lonely feels even more pathetic than lacking in the friendship department.

Either I am just extremely unlucky with the therapists that I have been given or I am just not ready to deal with what is on my plate. I think that at the moment I will say both and then have a think about it and speak to the doc on Friday, after my husband speaks to her first about my behaviour. He feels that I have a problem with my moods. They change without reason and they change constantly. I never noticed it before and I never noticed it the other two times it was brought up. I am too old for this. Life is passing me by and I am such a failure.

OCD Still Tagged Along For This Trip - But it didn't stop us from seeing everything we wanted to see!

 It is really really hard to choose the photos to post! I have gone through the album on my computer over and over again but this was the final amount. I got there eventually. A little hungry, thirsty and maybe time for an early night. Okay, that is an exaggeration of some proportion!

These photos are from a trip to Paris from just over 2 years ago. It was our second wedding anniversary and it was wonderful. We were there in November and I think it made it that much nicer. I love Autumn, the colours and the crisp air and it is the perfect temperature, in my opinion. I love looking back on the photos because it is such great memories and also because Paris is such a beautiful place to visit!

Apparently the french are rude but I have to admit, I never came across that once on our trip. I think saying that they are rude is even more of an exaggeration than the first!

Can anyone tell me what this is supposed to mean?? I just don't get it!