Without getting into great detail, I just want to share something that I've learned over the past two weeks.
A couple of days ago there was a death in my grandparents church. This woman was extremely respected among the members, and truly was a woman of God. She had changed many lives for the better, through the church and through missionary work.
Anyways, she suffered a stroke, and about a week and a half later, she passed away. It really struck a chord with me, not only because I had known her my whole life, and many people I knew were very close to her, but because I had just shaken her hand and exchanged "Nice to see you's" with her about 2 week prior.
It just got me thinking about how we don't necessarily think to much into what we say, when we say it. When we say "Oh it's good to see you, glad you are doing well" we most definitely mean it, but we don't really MEAN it mean it. What I'm trying to say is, we don't really consider the possibility of them not being well, of us not seeing them. It is good to see them, but on a week-week basis, it becomes a given, sort of like a right, not a privilege.
From this I've learned that maybe we really do need to consider how blessed we are to see and talk to those we love when we wake up, or at some point. You can be extremely healthy, and your next breath still isn't a given.
Personally, I'm not afraid of death. I do not fear death as much as I fear it coming to those I love and care for. With that, I'll be trying my best from now on not to take the small things for granted.
I'm not saying I did before, and I'm not saying I won't ever again, but I think we need to try our best to seize every second of every day, because any second could be our last.
Peace & God Bless,
Chris.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Dealing with OCD/Germaphobia
I don't use blogger consistently, I'm not always on here updating people about my life and struggles. In fact, my life has been good lately, as I've stated in past posts. I've been playing tennis, I'll be getting my high school equivalency soon, and within 2 months I'll be playing golf and baseball again, along with tennis. Despite that though, there are still underlying issues which I need to address.
As you know, a lot of my anxiety is based around the fear of getting stomach issues. Whether it be food poisoning, Norovirus (stomach bug), etc. I greatly fear it. In fact, around this time last year was when my anxiety really began, and that fear actually grew into a fear of the anxiety in itself. I feared going into this "dark hole" as I've described it, overcome with shaking and sweating, not being able to control my thoughts, basically panic attacks.
Since then though, but more so recently, I've been developing in some ways, a worse issue. I have become an all out Germaphobe!
I've always been a pretty big hand washer/sanitizer user, even before this, but started in around the beginning of January, things greatly started to escalate.
It started one night when I was picking my sisters up from their church group. My mom had gotten talking to another mother while we were waiting, that mother mentioned about how her son was in the hospital because of some bacteria or really bad stomach bug. While that was going on, a bunch of kids come rushing from the bathroom (they're girls, they always go together) saying one of the other children (My sister's bestfriend actually) wasn't feeling well in the bathroom. Obviously, as I'm standing there listening to this my eyes probably grew wider and wider, this was a complete nightmare for me!
So we leave the church and before we get in we got my sisters to use this hand sanitizer we keep in the car, then when they got home they washed their hands and faces with soap. Now, having a fear of these things, I'd already done enough previous research to know how they are spread and how long they take to show, so I feared my sisters had already touched their eyes or nose or mouth and were already infected. This lead me to (for the next 48 hours) being a total freak about touching things. I'd turn off lights with my elbows, use kleenex to dry my hands after washing them, and just not touch a single thing I thought they could have possibly touched.
At the time I was like, alright, do this for 48 hours (then I'm in the clear) and I'll stop..and I did stop after 48 hours. But then things continued. I was constantly from then on up until now thrown into situations where I was with someone who had just been sick, I was with someone who suddenly a few days later got sick. I basically walked through this guys cough cloud at the doctors after he said he was sick all that night.
Anyways, I didn't think it was a big deal at first, but I've seen now that it really is. I have become a full fledged germaphobe. If I go out, whenever I come in I instantly put either soap or an anti bacterial cloth over my phone/iPod if I touched it while out. I constantly think about a chain of events which could have lead someone to touch something, then another thing, all leading to whatever I just touched and myself now being infected. I now ALWAYS turn off lights with my elbows, use my shirts to close doors, and if I touch something like a remote or the computer I am currently using to type this, I'll end up washing my hands before touching my phone or anything else again.
This has taken over my life!! I cannot go a second without fearing someone could have touched something who was infected, and passed it onto me. I make these webs in my head of chains leading to it. I'm constantly washing my hands, which doesn't help with my already dry and cut up hands from my eczema, most of all, it is a HUGE weight on my shoulders.
I never imagined it getting to this point, but it is wearing me down. I fear if it continues to worsen I'll never be able to go out, I'll be trapped inside my home because my fear is that strong; or if I do go out, I won't enjoy myself because of the constant over thinking I'll be doing.
Fact is, I really don't know what to do about this either. I feel I've been going no where fast with my therapist. It's basically become a "How are you? tennis good? School good? oh what's that, you're worried you might get sick? Well hopefully you don't" sort of deal. Nothing more than that, basically just a "you aren't suicidal so we don't have much to talk about here" sort of thing.
And I just feel ridiculously trapped inside myself. I've had people say to me "well just face your fear, don't wash your hands, etc" but I can't!! It's really not that easy, at least I don't think it is.
To give you insight into how much I fear these things, let me tell you this - one of the initial questions my therapist had to ask me when we first met was "Do you fear death?". Being a Christian, and a full believer in eternal life, I said no. In fact, I fear these issues more than I fear death. It is crazy, but true. It's gone from a "Well, I'm worried I might get sick" issue to a "Nobody is sick in my house, but I'm gonna do these no matter what issue". I almost feel as if I cannot enjoy anything I do anymore.
I don't believe there are any problems with being cautious, washing your hands, using hand sanitizer sometimes, hey I'm all for it! But when it has gotten to the point of almost ruining everyday for me, as it has, it's gotten out of hand.
So I don't really know what to do about it. Do I see a behavioral therapist? Do I go on meds (which I still don't want to do)? I don't know. If you know anything regarding this though, please help me out! Get @ me on twitter or leave a comment on the post. Share your experiences too! If you deal with OCD or germaphobia, please share! I feel so strongly towards people helping people, using our knowledge acquired from past or current struggles to help others deal with and avoid the same things.
Thanks, and as always,
Peace, and God bless,
Chris.
As you know, a lot of my anxiety is based around the fear of getting stomach issues. Whether it be food poisoning, Norovirus (stomach bug), etc. I greatly fear it. In fact, around this time last year was when my anxiety really began, and that fear actually grew into a fear of the anxiety in itself. I feared going into this "dark hole" as I've described it, overcome with shaking and sweating, not being able to control my thoughts, basically panic attacks.
Since then though, but more so recently, I've been developing in some ways, a worse issue. I have become an all out Germaphobe!
I've always been a pretty big hand washer/sanitizer user, even before this, but started in around the beginning of January, things greatly started to escalate.
It started one night when I was picking my sisters up from their church group. My mom had gotten talking to another mother while we were waiting, that mother mentioned about how her son was in the hospital because of some bacteria or really bad stomach bug. While that was going on, a bunch of kids come rushing from the bathroom (they're girls, they always go together) saying one of the other children (My sister's bestfriend actually) wasn't feeling well in the bathroom. Obviously, as I'm standing there listening to this my eyes probably grew wider and wider, this was a complete nightmare for me!
So we leave the church and before we get in we got my sisters to use this hand sanitizer we keep in the car, then when they got home they washed their hands and faces with soap. Now, having a fear of these things, I'd already done enough previous research to know how they are spread and how long they take to show, so I feared my sisters had already touched their eyes or nose or mouth and were already infected. This lead me to (for the next 48 hours) being a total freak about touching things. I'd turn off lights with my elbows, use kleenex to dry my hands after washing them, and just not touch a single thing I thought they could have possibly touched.
At the time I was like, alright, do this for 48 hours (then I'm in the clear) and I'll stop..and I did stop after 48 hours. But then things continued. I was constantly from then on up until now thrown into situations where I was with someone who had just been sick, I was with someone who suddenly a few days later got sick. I basically walked through this guys cough cloud at the doctors after he said he was sick all that night.
Anyways, I didn't think it was a big deal at first, but I've seen now that it really is. I have become a full fledged germaphobe. If I go out, whenever I come in I instantly put either soap or an anti bacterial cloth over my phone/iPod if I touched it while out. I constantly think about a chain of events which could have lead someone to touch something, then another thing, all leading to whatever I just touched and myself now being infected. I now ALWAYS turn off lights with my elbows, use my shirts to close doors, and if I touch something like a remote or the computer I am currently using to type this, I'll end up washing my hands before touching my phone or anything else again.
This has taken over my life!! I cannot go a second without fearing someone could have touched something who was infected, and passed it onto me. I make these webs in my head of chains leading to it. I'm constantly washing my hands, which doesn't help with my already dry and cut up hands from my eczema, most of all, it is a HUGE weight on my shoulders.
I never imagined it getting to this point, but it is wearing me down. I fear if it continues to worsen I'll never be able to go out, I'll be trapped inside my home because my fear is that strong; or if I do go out, I won't enjoy myself because of the constant over thinking I'll be doing.
Fact is, I really don't know what to do about this either. I feel I've been going no where fast with my therapist. It's basically become a "How are you? tennis good? School good? oh what's that, you're worried you might get sick? Well hopefully you don't" sort of deal. Nothing more than that, basically just a "you aren't suicidal so we don't have much to talk about here" sort of thing.
And I just feel ridiculously trapped inside myself. I've had people say to me "well just face your fear, don't wash your hands, etc" but I can't!! It's really not that easy, at least I don't think it is.
To give you insight into how much I fear these things, let me tell you this - one of the initial questions my therapist had to ask me when we first met was "Do you fear death?". Being a Christian, and a full believer in eternal life, I said no. In fact, I fear these issues more than I fear death. It is crazy, but true. It's gone from a "Well, I'm worried I might get sick" issue to a "Nobody is sick in my house, but I'm gonna do these no matter what issue". I almost feel as if I cannot enjoy anything I do anymore.
I don't believe there are any problems with being cautious, washing your hands, using hand sanitizer sometimes, hey I'm all for it! But when it has gotten to the point of almost ruining everyday for me, as it has, it's gotten out of hand.
So I don't really know what to do about it. Do I see a behavioral therapist? Do I go on meds (which I still don't want to do)? I don't know. If you know anything regarding this though, please help me out! Get @ me on twitter or leave a comment on the post. Share your experiences too! If you deal with OCD or germaphobia, please share! I feel so strongly towards people helping people, using our knowledge acquired from past or current struggles to help others deal with and avoid the same things.
Thanks, and as always,
Peace, and God bless,
Chris.
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