You can simulate but as hard as you try

(Statues – Remedy Drive)

 

This lyric really felt right for what is going on these days.

 

People are trying to make life “normal” by using video-conferencing technology or phone calls or whatever else, but as much as you want to tell yourself otherwise, virtual reality is not actually reality. Seeing someone via the computer or hearing someone over the phone or listening to someone via text messaging is still a disconnection from community. It will never fill the social hole in our lives. That hole can only be filled by real people.

 

On a related subject, the OCD I was dealing with a couple weeks ago has pretty much gone away. I am so thankful for that. There is some residual – mostly in avoiding any prepared food that wasn’t prepared by me or someone I trust so like no restaurant food and no cafeteria food, but right now I am okay with that…to be honest, while there are some restaurants where I love the food, I have always felt like restaurant food was a risk, even when there was not really an inkling of OCD around, so I am okay with avoiding that potential risk for a while at this time. I do not want to avoid that kind of thing forever, because like I’ve said before *can* you live life in fear of germs, yes, but should you, no, because that is an awful way to live…and one thing leads to the next and the more certainty you crave the more uncertainty you will feel. So at some point I will need to make sure I am intentionally eating food that doesn’t feel safe, but for a week or two while there are a lot of other changes going on around me I feel like having the familiarity of my own food is probably also something that is better for me, so it isn’t really the right time to push that.

 

Today so far I have gotten zero minutes of studying in…and to be honest I probably will not get any studying in the rest of today. I had really good intentions, but to make a long story short, all the things that were supposed to be really easy things to accomplish to get some things off the to do list first were things that I ran into barriers and got frustrated with…and then I saw that there was another IOCDF Town Hall on coronavirus and I wanted to watch that…it is so helpful to hear about other people having the same thoughts I am having and having to make a lot of the same choices as I am having to make and basically just having the same types of things coming up. Our circumstances might not be totally identical, but so many of the things brought up are so relatable. I’m not the only one who felt like the pandemic was my fault. I’m not the only one who felt angry that I had let the OCD come back (when in reality I didn’t really have any control over that). I am so thankful that there are there are people making content that reinforces the facts while validating and normalizing a lot of the things people like me are dealing with at a time like this. I appreciated that they acknowledged that life doesn’t happen in a bubble – while there are coronavirus related issues coming up, there are also things that would have happened either way that might have felt nearly insurmountable on their own, but dealing with them in addition to this just feels impossible. Also, this video really focused a lot of attention on realizing that a lot of what we might be interpreting as anger, fear, or sadness might actually be covering up our grief. There are a lot of losses.

 

For someone like me, I have never been very good at having friends outside of scheduled activities so I depend on things like church and other activities throughout the week to have a social connection. I’d been working really hard on trying to have friends outside of scheduled activities, but then everything was cancelled and most people don’t want to do anything anymore. It is hard. I live by myself so I am completely isolated. Virtual hangouts are great, but they don’t fill my social bucket the way that actual social interaction would. They are a band-aid over a broken bone. Maybe it kinda feels good for a few minutes, but it really doesn’t solve the problem. I desperately need real life people in my real life.

 

Kind of jumping to another topic, on Thursday I read the actual text of the governor’s most recent executive order. It was actually rather informative. People act like what the governor said means we can’t do anything, but there is actually quite a bit we are still allowed to do. You can still have playdates in public places (pretty sure they aren’t supposed to be called playdates once you are an adult, but I don’t really know what the word for adult playdates is). You can still go to restaurants (but not sit inside to eat) and stores (at least the ones that haven’t voluntarily closed). You can still go to residences including hotels, apartments, beach homes, houses, or other locations providing shelter. People can go to faith establishments (which I guess is the inclusive way of saying churches?) but only the minimum number of people required should be there. You can go outside (but the order does clarify that this does not mean you can trespass – you can only be outside in areas you would otherwise have been allowed to be). You can drive, walk, hunt, fish. You can buy a bike or a car. You can check in on your family, neighbors, or friends to provide care, support, or supplies. If your job is open you can still go to work…just in case anyone gave us a hard time my employer has a form letter on the website that just says if someone has this letter and a nametag it verifies that this person is an employee and should be allowed to continue to work. Seems kinda silly since anyone can print it and have an old tag or someone else’s tag or just not be scheduled for work…but I think they did it because there were some people anxious that what if someone stops me and thinks I shouldn’t be where I am?! So I guess a letter that probably took about 1 minute to whip up to ease some people’s anxiety is probably a good idea.

 

A lot of what is going on right now is also realizing that I can only control what I am doing. I might be angry about decisions other people are making and frustrated about the impact of those decisions on me and struggling with some of those things, but no matter how dumb or frustrating someone’s decision is and no matter how much that person doesn’t actually understand reality, if I am not in charge my job is to follow the rules and hope they change. No amount of frustration and anger is going to make things change.

 

I was reading a blog post recently that described someone who took her family kayaking only to realize she didn’t know how to swim and had never kayaked before and while it made sense for her 7-year-old son to ride with her husband that left her alone in a single kayak and she was struggling and afraid. She fell behind and then there was rougher water and she felt overwhelmed and alone like she was trying so hard but the trying was for nothing…but then the tour guide came to here and said it’s going to be okay and hooked her boat to his. She felt safe and secure. While it was briefly painful to hear a story of someone experiencing a together-ness that I am separated from, it was also a good reminder that sometimes I won’t be able to do life on my own. Sometimes I will need help…and while it feels like right now in my real life that most people don’t want to physically be with me and help me right now that God will never abandon me. Even if I got the Roni, God wouldn’t be afraid of me and he would be right there with me the whole time. He does say that it is not good for man to be alone…but he also promises to be with us even if people in the world do leave us alone.

 

There is a lot of uncertainty in life, but I have to keep believing that someday it will be better even if I have to wait for heaven for that. Maybe God lets life be hard so the goodness of heaven is just that much more sweet.

 

That isn’t to say I don’t want together right now. I do. Last week when there was still some OCD going on I felt like since I am in a high risk group that I didn’t want to spend any more time than necessary with other people in high risk groups because I felt like then if one person went down we’d all go down and…now I have gotten past the unrealistic OCD version of infectious disease where getting sick is basically inevitable because “proper” containment and sanitation is basically impossible so I realize that as long as I am not having symptoms nor am I visiting with someone with symptoms that it really is okay to still have friends. I am also getting so incredibly lonely that if the only person willing to hang with me had COVID19 I would consider whether quarantine and potentially getting sick was worth having some social contact. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There is a power in “with” that is impossible to re-create in the virtual realm. That power is so important and healing and life without it sucks. Pardon my foul language, but sometimes you just gotta say it like it is.

All that I see is that I’m constantly failing

(Stellar Kart – Procrastinating)

 

I feel frustrated.

 

For a lot of reasons.

 

One of them is that I struggle to focus on anything without a lot of people around on a regular basis…and so when I have no activities outside of my apartment where I live alone and I can’t just go to the mall or something to study I am not getting much studying done…and I’m not getting much else done either. And it feels like everyone thinks suddenly I have more time and wants pieces of it, but in reality I have less time partly because my anxiety is eating some of my time and partly because being without people makes it hard for me to effectively use the time I have…and then add on all the extra things I am suddenly supposed to have time for and all the millions of emails that I get every day…

 

And at work on Tuesday they measured our spots and determined each spot was far enough apart that we could use each workstation as long as we didn’t scoot closer to each other for long periods of time. And then Wednesday they decided only a certain number of people could sit in the pharmacy and everyone else had to go to the computer lab. The computer lab is the worst place ever to work. Unlike my apartment, it is not comfortable and unlike my apartment, it does not feel safe. Unlike the pharmacy, there is no activity going on so I can’t concentrate there and feel isolated so my skype location says solitary confinement because that is what it feels like. And add to that the computer lab has no lock on the door and we know that there has been a theft problem at the hospital and we have another problem – you have to bring your stuff with you wherever you go if you want to ensure you still own your stuff later…not an effective way to work. Wednesday morning I almost cried when they said I had to work there. No one saw, but it obvi didn’t set my day up for success.

 

And I’m just about ready to just quit now. For one thing, they just reiterated today that we are not allowed to talk about Covid outside of work. I am not cool with that. I feel like it is reasonable to limit what I do or do not talk about at work or even within the confines of the building but I do not feel it is reasonable to limit what I talk about on my own time outside of work. And then they discussed that all new requests for PTO are going to be denied until at least July. I do not feel it is fair to throw that at us without notice. If I’d known I would have requested lots of PTO to make sure I had days when I needed them. I was specifically told like a week or so ago there would be a lot of flexibility with PTO so just let people know when I need time – and now I am finding out that JK no new PTO. And then we were told a mandate policy is being created for open shifts and there will be severe consequences if you don’t answer your phone and not hearing your phone even if it is because you were asleep. That is absolutely not okay with me. I have really only had two full nights of sleep in the past 8 months. If I do finally feel like I am able to sleep I am not going to try to keep myself up to make sure I can answer my phone. I do not feel that is an appropriate ask. You want a healthy workforce? Then consider that sleep is essential to a healthy immune system AND to healthy decision making. If someone *intentionally* doesn’t answer their phone without a good reason then absolutely there should be consequences, but not answering because you are asleep should be considered an important form of self-care. Additionally, I don’t feel that their approach of forcing someone to work a shift during which they already have commitments or otherwise feel uncomfortable working is a good management decision, particularly when you consider that our department has already been flagged for low morale. You don’t increase morale by forcing people to do things against their will.

 

I want to be a good employee. I want to support my team…but with everything going on right now, I feel like I might need to quit earlier than expected just to take care of myself.

 

There are some things that management is doing that I think are good ideas, but a lot if what is happening I really feel is going to push me out of this job. I feel like this confirmed that they don’t see us as people but as pegs to put in holes. Pegs don’t have feelings and emotions, but people do.

 

And I feel frustrated because I have a lot of money stuck in my reimbursement account that I lose if I don’t use before I leave this job, but with how things are going, everything is closed so I don’t have any way to even try to spend that money. I kinda get that dentists are closing since PPE is in short supply, but you don’t need PPE for ophthalmology so it is dumb that my eye doctor put out notice that they will most likely be closing…and if I want a physical to be covered it has to be through my employer but they aren’t doing any of that right now. I don’t know why I bother paying for insurance I am not allowed to use. (I mean besides the whole to be in compliance with the law thing you have to have at least basic insurance)…

 

And there are lots of other things I want to write about, but I feel like I need to stop writing and at least *try* to get some studying in.

She feels so alone

(Hero – Superchick)

Even when I did 99% of my communication in writing and body language and the other 1% was primarily sitting in classes at school, I acknowledged that there was a power in “with” that is impossible to replicate in the online realm. I mean, I did also claim that I didn’t really *need* real life people because I had the internet where it was easier to communicate anyway…but…I also was saying that while still engaged in real life community…and still acknowledging the power of “with”…so clearly I didn’t know what I was talking about.

 

Back then though, people kind of thought I was crazy to think internet communication was good enough…and now people are trying to say we are more connected than ever because people are making more effort to communicate online than they ever tried to connect in person. I disagree. The internet connection for me now that I do not have the in real life people is more like hey, I think we should remind you what you don’t have. The idea is great, but it hurts.

 

And when everyone else is on the internet too, eventually you hit a point where the connection stops. That happened during “church” yesterday and I was already so fed up with this dumb thing…and then I was like girl this thing is recorded. Close the computer, go skate, and then come back when everyone else is done and then there’ll be enough internet to go around. I would have told myself to study, but no internet also means I can’t access my study materials…so there’s that. So I got dressed in real clothes and went skating…but my anxiety wouldn’t let me bring my water bottle so I figured it was really only safe to go as far as the parking lot across from my building…it was kind of fun once I figured out that the areas that were super sandy weren’t going to be good places to skate. There were lots of fun treasures to explore in the parking lot now that the snow is melting (but I’m trying to move soon so the only one I took home was a penny). I was proud that I remembered to stay way away from cars considering parking lots do not have a lot of things to grab to stop or places that are very safe to fall to stop and running into a car to stop is a bad plan…doesn’t necessarily mean I noticed every car…I did almost skate right into one a couple times, but I noticed in time…but I was skating to drown out the outside world so my whole world was the area right in front of my face and I was listening to a book AND singing to myself and it was windy outside so I wasn’t necessarily going to see, hear, or sense a car coming…I figure it might not be super safe, but if I get hurt probably the hospital won’t release me without a ride home which means I actually earn a few minutes of social time so it almost would be worth it to get just a little bit hurt.

 

Plus, my ability to study when there are zero people around is not that great. My mail person doesn’t even knock anymore when she drops off my mail…not sure if she just got tired of me wanting to have a conversation every single time or if I got a new mail person who just doesn’t knock because none of the substitutes ever knocked, but it gets really lonely over here. Someone on Instagram, she has been on quarantine for a potential exposure and is going super stir crazy and now her city is going on a 14 day shelter in place and she is annoyed but is looking forward to tomorrow when her quarantine ends because she already has plans with a bunch of her other single friends to all hang out together during this time. I feel jealous because I don’t have that. I just live by myself.

 

I have this idea that since gatherings of 10 or fewer are still allowed to do like a progressive dinner kind of thing for events that would usually be larger than that so like have a few meeting spots and then people rotate sites so you still see all the people during that time just not all at once and the hosts would have to change each week so that there weren’t any people who never got to see each other…I have no idea how to organize that or anything and I know nothing about video chatting platforms so I’m not sure how that part would work either, but if I could figure it out, that would be awesome, because this extravert needs some real live people in her life.

 

Yes, I know once in a while I’ve called myself an introvert. See, it isn’t a lie because some people consider introvert/extravert to be based on how much you talk, and I am mostly quiet in most situations…and so I do that sometimes because it is so much easier to just go with introvert than try to explain that I’m an extravert that really struggles to communicate. Lol, on the topic of things I hate, I also hate how hard I have to work to communicate. I hate that I will accept people’s words for me that I don’t have anything specific to share when the truth is that there is something that I really really want to say that my mouth is refusing to share or that there probably is something I will want to share in a minute or two when the pressure is off, but when everyone is looking at me waiting for my answer my brain just feels like all the words have been squished out and I have no idea what I’m supposed to say. It’s like the fact that it is my turn to talk just puts too much pressure on me and I literally can’t. It isn’t that I am disengaged or hiding or being stand-offish…paradoxically if I don’t care as much the words are more likely to come easily. It isn’t a chosen refusal to participate – oh how I *want* to join in. It literally is an I can’t and while I do look thrilled when I agree that I have nothing to say, that is really the relief that my turn is finally over and what you don’t see is the anger and shame that I failed again that closely follows that relief.

 

The other thing this social isolation has done is taken away the daily contact I had with other people. Sometimes that comes out as me talking non-stop when I am in the presence of another person, but other times it comes out as losing a lot of ground in my ability to participate in conversation…and I suspect the longer this goes on the more it will lean towards that option. It is frustrating when I have had to work so hard to get where I am today for that to be taken away.

 

On the positive side, slowly the OCD is improving. It definitely is still here, but it doesn’t feel like it has taken over my whole life anymore at least for now. It is becoming less of a belief that I caused the pandemic to start and closer to just a thought, as in I can now not only acknowledge that it is irrational, but I can now also acknowledge that it is somewhere between maybe and probably not true. So yeah, the world feels less hard from that perspective, but as soon as the OCD came down enough for me to want other people in my life again I fell hard into the deep desperate loneliness…so yeah. This might be the most random ramble-y post I’ve ever written…

I don’t wanna…I refuse

(WakeUpWakeUp – Everyday Sunday)

 

That lyric is very how I’ve been feeling.

 

It is incredibly hard to get anything done when I am running on little to no sleep and it is also incredibly hard to get anything done when my brain is fighting OCD and it is also incredibly hard to get anything done with all the things going on in the world like taking away every single thing I care about.

 

They say that joy comes in the morning. False. Y’know what came in the morning? A muscle cramp that I did absolutely nothing but whimper about because I was too tired to get out of bed to do anything about it.

 

…but I feel like a lot of my posts lately have been highly emotionally driven and so I’m gonna try to keep it lighter today…because that isn’t the person I want to be.

 

But now it is a few minutes shy of 11 and I’ve showered, just finished some cheerios for breakfast that I poured probably in January for breakfast on the go…those cheerios have been to the cities a few times and to a few other states including on multiple planes, but we aren’t going to think about that, because gross (but they were sealed in a container that was not opened on the plane so they shouldn’t be that dirty)…and then got eaten on my bed (which is where my meals get eaten if my clothes are clean enough to be on the bed – if they aren’t I usually eat on the floor next to the tiny wall in my apartment…I don’t really ever eat at the table).

 

Yesterday one of my coworkers said I was in her dream. Apparently, I was with her and she had a code blue and I was panicking and a bunch of pharmacists came running in (but no doctors) and then a tech supervisor came in and was like y’all need to get back to work and then she woke up. It was hilarious, because lately I have had a lot of anxiety…so that was accurate…and the tech supervisor who told her to get back to work while she was potentially dying – also totally her personality…so I was laughing, but felt like a jerk for being useless in the imaginary situation.

 

Someone on a video I was watching on youtube today described how a made bed is like a closed door keeping you out of your own home – uninviting. I was like YES!! Someone who gets it!! I will make my bed sometimes if people are coming over, but mostly I leave it however I got out of it…it feels inviting and cozy that way…it is kind of like how I don’t *want* my apartment to be messy, but if everything is put away and there is nothing on the floors and counters, it kind of makes me feel empty, too…

 

Just some thoughts…

 

…and now it is well past 11 and I have done absolutely nothing of real value today so I should really get some lunch figured out and then do some studying or something…

 

Actually, that isn’t true. In between writing that and actually hitting the publish button I got off my lazy bottom and got all the dirty dishes from my bedroom into the dishwasher. People have been talking about the people/animals in their home as if they were coworkers…so…my coworker has been too tired over the past week for some of the bowls and spoons to make it any further than the entertainment center next to my bed that is falling apart but still functions as a bedside table. Probably tomorrow or Monday morning I’ll press start on the dishwasher, because I didn’t necessarily use good geometry to put the dishes in there so the top rack is already pretty full (and a lot of the times the top rack and utensil spot is all that gets used because plastic dishes are life).

Things Change

(Jesus will still be there – Point of Grace)

 

So true…

 

Until recently it really bothered me when people complained about the government…

 

Then this social distancing junk started. And all of my safety nets were taken away.

 

People are all like let’s flatten the curve…have you ever looked at that graph? Not flattening the curve means this is done and over with relatively quickly – the more you flatten the curve, the longer this lasts. In most graphs anyway, the same amount of people get sick either way or maybe even more people get sick if we flatten the dumb curve, so I vote we cut the c**p and just get on with our lives. It is a new strain, yes, but it is just the coronavirus, AKA one of the types of viruses causing the common cold. Is this one bad, sure, but it isn’t any less bad if we wait for a while to get it, but we can make life less bad later by getting this over with. It is an obvious vote for me. I mean, if you can choose getting sick today or getting sick two months from now but if you get sick two months from now you aren’t allowed to be happy or have friends for two months either, which one would you pick?

 

So yeah, today I broke out my immature words and decided that I hate the fr*c**n government. Then that made me think of the book Song Lee and the I Hate You Notes and I felt bad for like less than a second and then yep, back to hating the government.

 

The constitution says I have the RIGHT to life, liberty, AND the pursuit of happiness. How am I supposed to pursue happiness if I can’t go to church three days a week and go to clinic and stuff? How am I supposed to pursue happiness if y’all close all the things.

 

So yeah, I had a change of heart. I am all for complaining about the government.

 

Also there are all the things that would make me feel frustrated at any time – like constant changes, many of which that I think are dumb. Y’all, we have an attendance policy *because* without it people have no incentive to show up to work…and now you took away the attendance policy because it is great publicity to show you care about your employees when what it really means is that the honest employees are now going to have to pull the weight of all the people who just want a penalty-free day off. Not fair. I don’t buy it. And one day you say no community food. Less than 48 hours later you *provide* community food. Not that I am complaining about food, but to be honest change is hard enough for me that yeah, I was complaining about food because you just took it away and I hadn’t finished being frustrated about that yet. And today they announced that they might be changing our schedules again. They’ve changed it a lot of times over the past year or so and each time it makes things worse. Quit touching my schedule.

 

I got back from lunch today and almost started crying because I was just so done with this. To be fair, I also was running on 6 hours of sleep in the past 7 days and my anxiety is still running at like a 4 to 6 with a lot of intrusive thoughts, so I’m not in the greatest mental space to begin with, and this job was never something I loved, but still. I can’t keep going like this indefinitely. I don’t wanna talk more about the OCD today. We’ll just leave it at 0 stars would not recommend. So yeah…

 

I am working on focusing on things I can change vs things I can’t change…but it’s hard when most of the things bothering me are on the can’t change side.

 

But working on the OCD is getting closer to the can change side…so that is what I am doing…for the moment anyway, I am thinking I will intentionally not clean the floor/kitchen/sink that originally would have been on my to do list this weekend and just sit with the discomfort…it’s not like I eat off of the floor or the countertops, so it shouldn’t be a true safety concern.

 

Wanna know something else that makes me mad? A youtuber that I used to like but now I hate her because she advertised in one of her videos that people should buy masks if it makes you feel good. That is SO not okay. Wearing a mask out and about has actually been found to increase (not decrease) your risk of infection. Additionally, buying the masks when you don’t need them keeps them from people who do need them. In the pharmacy we can’t safely make IV medication without masks. The board of pharmacy and our professional associations have acknowledged that if we run out we might have to just do our best to minimize risk without them for non-hazardous products (but for our own safety really shouldn’t do hazardous without a mask), but we all know that is not the best for our patients. Giving a med via the IV route is already risky because it is bypassing the barriers to infection present when giving via the GI tract, so giving it via that route without the ability to properly protect the product from contamination during compounding is scary, especially for potentially immunosuppressed patients.

 

Also apparently people are stealing from the hospital – that is also not okay. One of the environmental services workers was telling me yesterday that a visitor stole not just some stuff from on top of the welcome desk, but stuff that was in drawers underneath…and we got an email a couple days ago about how it is against policy to steal supplies from the hospitals and clinics, which tells me that there must also have been employees contributing to theft…so now we have to be really careful to not leave anything out where someone could take it. Like seriously? Who thinks it is okay to steal from a hospital?

 

Yesterday my location comments on my skype said solitary confinement. I live by myself and then I went to work and there weren’t any computers open in the pharmacy so I had to go sit in the basement by myself…y’all, every time I saw another human in real life you would never have guessed that I ever struggled with social anxiety/selective mutism, because I was a motor mouth who literally could not stop talking. It probably kind of annoyed people around me that I wouldn’t stop talking, but take away all my social outlets and what is this extravert supposed to do with herself.

 

I might be moving out in June, but I am just about ready to put out a notice that I am looking for a roommate effective immediately or a new place to live that already has roommies. I have a twin bed, a toddler mattress on the floor, a sleeping bag, a couch, and a hammock (in addition to a pack’n’play and two bassinets) so there are lots of options if someone wants to come live with me…you just have to not come with too much luggage because my apartment is a little bit full…

 

So yeah. Writing about it helped me finally calm down enough that I think I could come up with some dinner, so I should do that and then decide if I am 1. Brave enough to join a prayer phone call and 2. Willing to stay up late to join said call…and it would be a good idea to get going on figuring out getting licensed…but I kind of feel like maybe today I am just going to give myself a break because it isn’t like my brain is functioning that great anyway.

 

And I feel frustrated because I should be excited about my residency but instead I am fighting OCD and struggling with all the other things going on.

Lookin’ out for a threat in my own land

(Welcome to America – LeCrae)

 

I’m still struggling, but I am doing a lot better today. Today I have been hovering around 6 to 8 out of 10. A few spikes higher, but mostly a lot lower than the past two days. It is a lot higher than I want to be and feels like it is way higher than it *should* be, but today I was watching the video I found yesterday that I definitely couldn’t watch at work.

 

https://www.ocdkidsmovie.com/coronavirus It’s the first video on this page (titled JUST, Ethan: OCD/Coronavirus Town Hall). It was super helpful in normalizing a lot of what I am dealing with. Sometimes I forget there are other people with OCD dealing with similar issues. I have never been to an OCD support group (ironically, it was primarily anxiety that kept me from ever attending when there was a free group near me when I was in school and now I both don’t know of any free groups and until recently didn’t really have OCD anymore…), but this video made me really wish I had been involved. It helps to realize I am not the only compulsive researcher, not the only one struggling with where the line is between letting OCD get a stronger hold and actually legitimately protecting myself, not the only one worried about hurting someone else. It helped to hear that it is common for OCD to think that it has its own MD and was a much better student than the actual experts. It helped to be reminded that while we are freaking out, the CDC isn’t actually recommending any washing beyond what we already should be doing – not easy, but good…because I want to be told that it is okay to spend all day washing my hands, but knowing that right now all that is recommended is washing your hands like normal is good to know. Based on the questions it kind of sounds like I might not be dealing as well as other people…but…they also addressed how people with OCD tend to be all or nothing thinkers – either I am in remission or I am in a relapse with no room for I am just having some fear…I honestly think I am beyond the point of “just some fear” but it is very true that I am an all or nothing thinker. Grey is super hard for me. Even though I love the song Grey (grey’s my favorite color; black and white have never been my thing…). Maybe one of the most encouraging pieces of advice was that people who are fighting OCD are some of the people most equipped for a time like this because we have experience with coping with fear and uncertainty.

 

I’m not out of the woods and I’m still struggling, but I am thankful that the anxiety has at least decreased.

 

JK. My apartment manager knocked on my door and just having to interact with someone increased my anxiety, and then she invited herself into my apartment and besides the fact that my apartment looks like a small bomb went off, I really really do not want other people in my apartment, and especially not other people that are wearing shoes. As soon as she left I was crying again and then I used one of my last two cleaning wipes to wipe my face and the floor.

 

I know that isn’t the right way to deal with this stuff, but I also know that I am doing my best.

 

So yeah. I don’t know how I am going to get through the next few months or more if this fear continues…I know now that I need help, especially because tomorrow I go back to work and the position of my current employer is that everything is business as usual, and I know from my coworkers’ experiences that even with doctor recommendations for accommodations there is no guarantee even if I asked for accommodations that I would get them…yeah, I know I said before I never saw accommodations as something that would benefit me in the long run, but I feel  like right now my anxiety is so high that working is hard and I might actually be more productive and make better decisions if I could work from home or if I could at least work exclusively in the cancer center where I have a lot less contact with other people. I feel like right now the more immediate problem than beating the OCD is getting the anxiety under control even if it does let the OCD itself get worse.

 

They want us to be a direct patient care department, but honestly the reason even when it was suggested I was never interested in even considering becoming a doctor is because I have zero desire to be in a direct patient care role. Pharmacy is for me because I want to directly impact patients while having zero contact with them…but they are pushing for patient contact and that is why they aren’t even considering work from home at this time. They’ve said they’ll consider it if we reach crisis level staffing due to quarantines and illness – I think by that point it is way too late. I want to work from home right now. I have always hated med rec partly because I hated talking to the patients, and also because I was terrified of the germs…and a big problem in my opinion is that probably at least once per time I have a med rec shift there is a patient that doesn’t have precautions when I go in the room but when I go out and back to my computer suddenly the patient is on precautions…it always makes me mad because especially when it is that quick, clearly you were thinking about it by the time I went in and could have at least warned me that there might be a risk…but really my opinion is that even people without infectious symptoms are a risk and I know we are supposed to be conserving PPE because it is on shortage and we already are getting sub-products just to have *something* to use, but I would much prefer to wear a mask and gloves and hospital-issued scrubs whenever I had to have contact with a patient. And I don’t necessarily want contact with my coworkers either. I am really glad things are being cancelled because I at least don’t feel pressure to go places while my anxiety is making it nearly impossible to get out of bed for anything but showering and washing my hands (and going to the bathroom)…

 

If I didn’t know it was a super irresponsible decision, I would just put in my notice and quit…but I know that is a bad choice. I really really don’t want to go to work tomorrow though. I mean, today I really had to work hard to walk the few feet down the hall to my mailbox…going back to work is just a huge hurdle. I know these things aren’t my decision and I have to respect that, but this is definitely one of those times I wish I wasn’t a pharmacist. If I’d given up on my dream and become a social worker instead I could do telecounseling. I mean, a lot of people wouldn’t want to come see me anyway, so it would help ease my fear and my clients’ fear. Would it be avoidance which is usually not a good choice – probably, but I think with where my anxiety levels have been that it is probably better to find a way to bring the anxiety levels down than to directly work on the OCD at this point. I am going to keep doing my best.

 

Someone on the internet said that he thinks the best approach would be for a group of people most likely to recover from the infection to intentionally get infected and then there would at least be some herd immunity in the population. I was angry at that suggestion. First, there is no way to know for sure if someone is going to survive the infection or not, so even if you are willing to go first (which the guy wasn’t – he felt like he should be the part of the population that got to hide away while the rest of us were thrown to the wolves). Second, evidence from China made it unclear whether this was a virus that people developed immunity to after recovery, plus even if they did it doesn’t mean they would be immune to other strains and we already know that there are variations in the genetic make-up of this virus which means that it could very well become different enough that immunity (if it is possible) to one strain wouldn’t protect you from the next strain, just like if you get influenza A it does not impact your potential for getting influenza B just as badly because they are different enough that immunity from one doesn’t impact the course of the other much if at all.

 

And I am angry that there is even a potential that I or anyone I know could get this disease. I think as soon as the virus was discovered in China that people shouldn’t have been allowed out of China. I know this is my OCD speaking, because there is a tiny part of my brain that says you can’t force people to stay inside even a large country, but it is hard to stay in the real when it feels like there is such a threat. There are confirmed positives in the county I live in now. That is really really not okay. That means to me that probably every single person in the county is infected. That means no one and no where are safe. I want to move to Antarctica which is the only continent without Covid-19. I am scared. I have only had maybe 16oz of water today which I know means I am getting progressively more dehydrated which is dangerous, but it is hard when the fear is so high to get anything in my body. I had some time this morning where I was at like a 6 and happily ate the chocolate bar I bought at Ikea in October…and I probably should have tried to get some fluids in too, but I was thinking more along the lines of making sure calories were getting in. I haven’t seen the pounds drop off my body yet, but I know that is a risk if I can’t get my anxiety under control, so yeah. I don’t know how I am going to get through this. I should really be using time like my day off today to start studying for the law exam and stuff, but instead I have just been trying to survive, which is all well and good and all, but is not going to help if I lose my position because of failing the exam. Then I’d have no job at all which would be an even bigger problem probably. I would really like God to come back and end the world. That feels like the only solution right now. So yeah, I still need a lot of prayer and I am still trying to figure out if there are other ways people could help without terrifying me. I want to say please drop off bleach and Clorox wipes, but for one I don’t want to impose on anyone, and for two I am afraid even if I got the industrial size that I would feel like since it was dropped off to help me feel better that it would be okay to use the whole thing that day…which might or might not help for a few hours, but then could potentially make it worse when I couldn’t do the same thing the next time…or when I destroyed something that I later felt was important enough to me that I shouldn’t have destroyed it…so yeah…basically I am fighting for my life over here and don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel.

It’s tough to fight the fear when you’re feeling scared

Let’s Go – Debra Lynn La Lima)

 

OCD thrives on uncertainty, and there is a lot of uncertainty in the world. Yesterday I read some recommendations from OCD experts on managing OCD during this time…and they don’t even all agree. Some say let people have their obsessions and compulsions as much as they want because of the liability if you told them otherwise and they got sick or died. Others say carry on as if nothing changed. Others are in the middle saying follow CDC recommendations to the T and consider life an exposure at this point. And of course everything in between…so there isn’t even a good guideline on what the right response to this thing is.

 

I know it is my OCD speaking, but I don’t think the CDC recommendations are good enough. There is a lot I don’t think is good enough right now. I will admit that when my OCD takes over, germs become almost magical in their ability to infect the entire world…and the severity of every possible infection basically increases exponentially…I don’t want anybody to die but it feels like everyone is going to die.

 

I saw somewhere that being a pharmacist right now if like being a musician on the titanic – they played as if everything was absolutely normal as the ship went down. That is pretty much how they want us to respond. We are still supposed to carry on as if nothing changed except make sure the code orange list is up to date in case we need to call extra people in. In Italy, they closed everything, even parks…but not pharmacies. So yeah, I thought that was an apt comparison…and then…I realized that every single one of the musicians on the titanic died (because they were busy making sure everything stayed absolutely normal instead of trying to save everyone)…umm, yeah, not happy…I know legally there are a lot of barriers to working from home, but I would say the vast majority if not all of my job could theoretically be done from home if I had the programs and a couple cameras in place…but instead they make me go to the germ-infested hospital and sit next to my coworkers all day.

 

It doesn’t help for them to claim that the hospital is a safe place for patients/visitors/staff. You might as well be telling me the sun is black for all I am going to believe you. And I know that being with people is healing…but it feel incredibly scary…

 

Nothing feels safe. I don’t even feel safe in my apartment. My door opens into the hallway – a shared space with minimal cross-ventilation. And air can get in from under/around my door, so really my entire apartment is incredibly contaminated and not safe either. I mean, I guess it is safer than some other places, but it just doesn’t feel safe and I don’t know what to do.

 

I thought I could just create a set of rules and follow them with no exceptions and I’d make it through this…I know that over time I will get through this and I know that in the past creating rules has been helpful for me…but right now I am in so deep that just making the rules was too hard. I know that the right answer to the maximum number of daily showers should be 1 unless there is some type of extenuating circumstance, but it feels like a minimum of 2-3 would be much more appropriate and I can’t make myself agree. Right now I am sticking with just one, but it is a huge battle of wills to do so. And like I am trying to convince myself that just laying on my bed in front of the computer doesn’t require getting up to get hand sanitizer and washing my hands…but that, too, is a struggle…if I weren’t so tired I might not be winning that battle, but between about maybe 2 hours of sleep last night and zero the night before and all the fighting I have done in the past to not let the OCD win, I am moderating…for now…but to be honest I am willing right now to give myself some grace if that’s what it takes to get through the days, because at this point the anxiety is a major problem and if I thought it would get me sleep and would get sufficient food and water in my body with less fight I would do pretty much anything right now. The problem is, the fear is so bad that even washing my hands doesn’t really bring any relief. While I am doing it I am still worrying that it isn’t working and as soon as I make myself stop I feel like the germs are rushing back onto my hands. It feels hopeless.

 

To be honest, I am a huge extravert. You wouldn’t necessarily guess it since my anxiety tends to keep me alone on the fringes, but I am an extravert, and that makes this even harder, because I live a lot of life incredibly lonely, but now the idea of being with anyone is terrifying – what if I get them sick and what if they get me sick…

 

And then there is the whole I really should be preparing for residency now (getting licensed, getting somewhere to live, etc) but that whole thing that would be really hard even without anything else going on (I’ve never really moved all at once before and I’ve never done a back and forth and back and forth move without my daddy before)…and I don’t really know how to pack and I don’t know how to find somewhere to live and my executive function is still struggle-bussing so organizing all the things that need to be done in order to get licensed and the studying for the test were going to be challenging. Then you add the anxiety on top. I don’t want anyone to help me move because they will add germs to my stuff…but my car definitely can’t tow a moving truck and my car can’t fit any real furniture, so not having any help at all is not an option. And what if the testing centers close and there is no way to take the exam? And what if the board of pharmacy closes and whether I take the test or not I can’t get licensed…and I’m pretty sure Missouri’s board of pharmacy require finger printing which first requires a finger printing center to be open and second requires that my fingers touch surfaces that gazillions of other fingers have touched…

 

…and a teen in a school in an area I frequent was I think a confirmed positive (maybe a presumed positive but the only difference is whether the patient tested positive on just a regular test or on the CDC test)…and that is another big problem because the only people that count as true positives in our case counts are the ones tested by the CDC which is not that many. And that obviously means there are zillions of people who are positive but not in our case counts. And there is a presumed positive who was at a high school in my area on Wednesday and another potential positive I heard through hearsay right next to one of the hospitals I work at and another one or more near the hospital I mostly work at…okay, one of those ones closer to me I haven’t got a clue where it actually is located and another is a quarantine of an exposed person not an actual case (yet) and the other parts of the more were basically invented in my mind…but yeah, I am scared.

 

I wanna end with lyrics that I think are from a Michael Card song, but I’m not sure which one “sleep while you can now so wandering and torn for outside this world is a terrible storm. Soon you’ll discover the taste of your tears as the maker so silently fashions your form.” Actually I think it is from Lullaby of the Unborn by Michael Card…yep…I’ve definitely discovered the taste of my tears lately…the internet says lots of previously healthy people my age who seemed like they had little risk of being infected much less of dying have died…one of the stories I probably shouldn’t have read, the woman was 29 and she’d been wearing a mask and washing her hands and all that stuff but one day she felt nauseous and then a few days later she was in the hospital and then it seemed like she was getting better but then a few days later her heart stopped and within I think it was a week later she died but her husband is still telling their children that mommy is at work and every time the phone rings they ask for mommy because they don’t know she is dead…and that was scary because I don’t want to die and I don’t want my mom to die and I don’t want anyone to die and I don’t want that person to be dead but she already is and it is too late and the world is a scary place to live and I was super angry both on my way to work and on my way home. On my way to work because someone was outside and coughing and on my way home because someone was spitting in the street. People being disgusting and spitting in the street makes me mad all the time because by the time you are maybe 3-5 years old you should definitely know better than to spit, so by the time you are a grown adult you really have no excuse for not having learned that…but when I am fighting the OCD it makes even more angry because it feels like a direct threat to my safety.

 

Like it says in I’ll Find You by LeCrae, death’s knockin’ on the front door, pain’s creepin’ through the back. Fear’s crawlin’ through the windows waitin’ for ‘em to attack. They say don’t get bitter get better, I’m working on switchin’ them letters,  but tell God I’mma need a whole lotta hope keepin’ it together. I’m smilin’ in everyone’s face. I’m cryin’ whenever they leave the room. They don’t understand what I face. They don’t know a thing that I’m goin’ through.

 

I am mostly just trying to survive, but I do want to get better. And I have to hope that I will get better. Maybe it will be in the next week. Maybe I will be fighting every single day until Covid-19 is contained, but either way I’m struggling now and need hope now. I am not doing well, but I refuse to accept this as my fate for the rest of my life. One day I will beat this. I have to, because I can’t keep living like this. I want to go home to heaven, but I can’t. Not today.

 

Maybe I could learn to skype or something so I could decrease the anxiety around social time but still have a way to connect. Maybe that is too much for me right now. I have no idea. I’m just exhausted and drained and have a whole day in front of my tomorrow…but luckily one in which I do not have to go to work and right now I’m thinking I’ll give myself permission to just change into a clean pair of pajamas instead of trying to fight the fear of the germs that might be on my real clothes…because doing laundry does decrease the germ load by washing some of the germs away, but it doesn’t kill germs and like just one item contaminated with a microscopic load of norovirus can infect 95% of the items washed with that item…and at times like this, that is terrifying. And I’m going to actually stop writing now and see if I can actually finish dinner. That would be an awesome accomplishment.

Whatever I did tell me so I can do it more I’m so afraid of losing more

(What did I do – Stephanie Pauline)

 

The original title of this post was going to be “was it worth it, the hurting, the pain” (No regrets  Lecrae) and obviously like the chorus of that song says, the answer was going to be I’d do it again in a heartbeat…I really wanted my next post to be a super victory announcement…the first sentence of this title is I guess my victory – I don’t know how I finally got someone to want me, but I am so relieved that I did…or at least I was relieved…

 

…but I’m in crisis right now.

 

…which probably shouldn’t come as such a surprise given the current media focus on mass hysteria and my history. People with OCD or a history thereof are told over and over that you don’t need to keep washing your hands. The world is safe. You are okay…but then the CDC and the WHO say wash your hands all the time. And the media says apparently some kinds of bleach are better than others and I didn’t even know there *were* different kinds of bleach (and I also so far have never allowed myself to purchase bleach because I know with my OCD it is not a safe thing for me to own). But now more than ever I want it…which probably means I definitely shouldn’t buy it, because I know myself and if I had bleach right now I could absolutely not be responsible with it…which is why even when I am doing well I don’t buy bleach even to try to remove stains, because it isn’t worth it for the risk it brings. Even just having it there to make me feel safe and having me promise I wouldn’t open the bottle isn’t really the greatest idea because, for one, I’m sure I’d find an excuse to open it for what felt like but wasn’t a good reason and for two because to beat the OCD it is best to actually try to learn safety rather than trying to create backup plans.

 

…but anyway, surprise or not I am fighting, and I know I need to eat dinner, and I know that probably if I can eat dinner it will actually make me feel better because one symptom of low blood sugar is anxiety, and I know that fueling my body is important, but right now my anxiety is too high to force myself to eat, so I am hoping writing will maybe help…maybe it won’t, but it is worth a try.

 

I am trying to focus on the positive. I made it multiple weeks of being okay before I came crashing down.

 

It started innocently enough. For the past week or two there has been a truck with the logo of the company my dad used to work for parked somewhere that I see on my way home from work. Not always in the exact same spot, but always on my way home. And I want to call my dad and tell him about it, but I can’t. That creates an emotional not feel good each time. Due to stimulus generalization, that emotional not feel good turned into washing my hands. Even in people without OCD, extra hand-washing has been associated with increased levels of health-related anxiety, so as you can imagine, in someone with a history of OCD I was at even higher risk…but with all the news saying wash your hands it didn’t seem *that* out of place to do a little extra washing, and it honestly wasn’t really overly excessive. More than necessary, yes, but not nearly as bad as it could be.

 

Then I got the residency match results. I finally matched!! I am thrilled!! But you know what one of the emotions most physiologically related to excitement is? Anxiety. I didn’t notice my anxiety levels creeping up at first. I mean, I was totally distractible, but I mean I’ve been more distractable than usual since my dad died and add excitement to that and it made sense…and also, I am very much aware that I am due for a period and a lot of my period symptoms overlap with the anxiety symptoms, so it still didn’t click. When I didn’t really particularly *want* to eat dinner that should have been a big clue, but I mean my body was adjusting from evening shift so I had a late breakfast and lunch and it made sense to some extent that at 4-something I might not be particularly hungry, especially because I had been snacking.

 

I went to my church’s St. Patrick’s Day talent show and participated and by the end I was definitely fighting the fear, but I was doing okayish…but by the time I arrived at home my anxiety was, simply put, bad. I got ready for bed, but my anxiety was extreme. I was very much awake the entire night. At one point I finally was like I’m not sleeping anyway so I might as well go on facebook and ask for help. I was still awake the rest of the night, but somewhere in the early morning hours my anxiety finally fell to a 7 out of 10. A seven is still severe, still a number at which I am going to be working hard to do anything including getting food and water in my body, but I spent most of the night at around a 9.5, so it was a definite improvement. I have always prided myself on being able to mostly keep up normal appearances despite my anxiety, but at a 9.5 I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it to work.

 

As it was, on my way to work I was singing to myself (to the tune of row row row your boat) wash wash wash your hands wash until they bleed, nothing goes near your mouth until the blood flows out.

 

I do know that when your hands become bloody you are now at increased risk of infection, but it is really hard to not keep washing your hands when your anxiety is high, and if the washing gets really bad, lotions/creams/ointments stop working for two reasons. First, because they don’t have time to sit on the skin long enough to do anything before they are washed off again and second because eventually there isn’t really much skin left for them to soak into to protect or heal.

 

As much as I know the power of with, at the high levels of anxiety I am facing I don’t want to leave my apartment and I don’t want anyone else to leave their homes either. I want bleach to rain out of the sky and flood everything. The anxiety sucks and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. A few weeks ago when I said that you can’t live your life in fear…and then backtracked and was like well you can, but it is an awful existence…well, at the point I am right now, leaving in fear is awful, but fighting the fear makes it even worse…but I know not fighting it really isn’t a choice. I do know that right now all it takes is claiming I feel sick and no questions asked I will have the day off…but…I also know that creates a lot more work and puts a lot more stress on my coworkers and that isn’t fair to them, so my sense of honesty will not let me do that if I am not really sick…even though OCD is definitely an illness it isn’t an illness that is contagious.

 

People have different reactions to my fear. One of my coworkers thought it’d be funny to lick his hand and touch a bin. I did not find that funny. He did put hand sanitizer on the bin after he saw my reaction, but when I was running on zero sleep *because of OCD* I was definitely not in a place of mind where that was even marginally funny. Another coworker was like but that doesn’t make sense because you are young and even if you got it you’d be fine…and while the logical part of my brain knows she is probably right, most of my brain is still not okay and running the worst case scenarios of getting really sick and or dying and or my family or someone else I know getting really sick and or dying. And those worst case scenarios that my logic center knows are just that, worst case scenarios, other parts of my brain see them as the totally logical next step of life. And that makes it really hard to even care that I am going to have a residency and to start working on plans for that…and I know there are about a million plans that need to be set in place for all that to happen…and then she was talking about how her daughter’s friend had been to Italy before the ban and now her daughter is worried that she might be exposed and might expose other people who are at higher risk…and I definitely didn’t need her to spell that out for me because as soon as she got as far as friend and Italy I had already made the rest of the leaps and was afraid. While I was at work there were times my anxiety went as low as like a 6, but upon leaving, my anxiety quickly started rising again.

 

There are a lot of ways that my OCD is a vicious cycle. One of them is that my anxiety sometimes induces nausea to the point that I have thrown up solely from fear before. (The way I diagnose that it must have been fear is really partly restrospective and when my anxiety is high I don’t actually fully believe the episode was fear-based even though I know it was, but my criteria is basically that I felt physically fine before anxiety started ramping up then I felt nauseous and threw up, then almost immediately I started replacing fluids and didn’t throw up again. It is terrifying (and honestly the actual vomiting part hasn’t ever happened with OCD-related anxiety probably because that is the worst part of the fear and what I am trying hardest to avoid…but I still have the GI issues that feed into the fear and then that fear increases the GI issues which increase the fear…so yeah, I am fighting so hard and not feeling like I am winning.

 

I guess one more positive is that I know based on the calendar and on symptoms that I should be having a period right now, but except for such minimal spotting it could have easily been missed if I hadn’t been watching for it, I haven’t had bleeding or the awful pain that sometimes accompanies it. So either my anxiety has suppressed that (which definitely is possible) or I just have a little longer than I expected for it to get going, but either way I will take what I can get. After all this writing I still don’t want to eat, but I am going to get some food ready and at least try to eat it, and then I’m going to at least try to get some sleep tonight. I don’t know if it is going to happen but I really want it to. I can’t keep going like this.

 

I should probably clarify that even before my anxiety started really kicking in I had said to myself that probably suicide rates were going to go up as people become afraid of being around other people and increase social isolation, but currently I do not feel suicidal. It is hard to describe, but there is this huge pressure I often feel when the OCD is attacking that I have to stay alive and continue fighting. I don’t understand it, but I just wanted to clarify that at this time I am in crisis and not doing well at all, but I am safe from suicide. I tried to research suicide and coronavirus using google recently, but apparently google doesn’t recognize the difference between dead and suicide so all that got me was big warning about the dangers or coronavirus and I knew better than to try to read those articles.

 

Please pray for health for me and for everyone I know and for everyone I don’t know. Health physically, and health emotionally. And that I can stop crying and get some food in my body, not necessarily in that order – either order is just fine if I can have both. Basically I need help and since people are currently terrifying, prayer is the only thing I can really ask for.

I might be safe but I’m all alone

(Heart of Stone – Britt Nicole)

I’ve gotta write something because in the next 45 minutes I should know about residency and so my brain is on fire…so…why not jump on the trend and talk about Covid-19.

 

My personal opinion: An average cold lasts 7-10 days, but I am not average. I either get it for barely a day or it holds on for months…so I really don’t want to get this one.

 

My professional opinion: From what we know right now it appears that a person with Covid-19 will likely only infect about 2 people…and norovirus kills about 10x as many people every day than Covid-19. The number of deaths from the flu makes Covid-19 look like vending machine deaths. I recently saw an infographic comparing media coverage of covid-19, ebola, sars, and things that are much more likely to kill you like bacterial pneumonia, uncontrolled hypertension, seasonal flu. Counting all the media references in the past (I don’t remember how many) years, Covid-19 had probably at least 90% of the media references…so why are people panicking – because it is like the only thing you are going to see on the news right now.

 

On I think it was Instagram I saw a post that to keep your mental health stable in crisis to keep I mind things you can control and try to let go of things you can’t…that is a lot easier said than done. It is a lot more natural for me to feel anger at people making decisions I do not agree with (Whether related to this situation or totally unrelated) than to realize it is not in my wheelhouse and let go. Sometimes it helps to laugh…my whole department had a good laugh yesterday…upper management said we couldn’t have our committee meetings in the meeting rooms – so somehow it is okay for us to sit/stand and discuss things all looking over each other’s shoulders at a single computer screen but it is not okay for us to spread out in a bigger room to view and discuss the same things on a screen…lol…that one doesn’t really bother me that much though because not having meetings means I don’t feel obligated to attend meetings…it was just a really good opportunity to laugh at really weird decisions people make out of fear.

 

I think the most informative social media thing I saw was a post by an infectious disease specialist explaining that rarely has he felt scared about infections, and covid-19 is not something that scares or worries him – what worries him the most is that our current response is teaching kids that the answer to fear is panic, social isolation/shaming, and a focus on self. Instead, we should be teaching kids to reach out.

 

I so agree. Social isolation is incredibly damaging. As God said, it is not good for man to be alone. God created us for COMMUNITY. I don’t know how we can make it any more clear that people need other people. A child who has all of their other needs met (food/drink, shelter, clean clothes, etc) yet is not held will not thrive. Physical comfort is more important than food – looking back at the rhesus monkey experiment, infant monkeys were more attracted to the mother that provided physical comfort than the mother that provided food. Not saying people are monkeys, but if it is important for animals, just think how much more important it is for people. This isn’t just about warm fuzzies (and even if it was, I don’t know about you, but I certainly care about warm fuzzies). There have been studies showing that if people have more physical contact with other people (in particular with hugs) that they are less likely to get sick if exposed to viruses. God wasn’t kidding when he said it is not good for man to be alone.

 

In the book I finished yesterday, a child heard about the power of hugs and questioned the teacher, but how can my brother who has no arms have these benefits, and the teacher taught the boys how they could still hug. It was such a powerful image for me of a kid who has witnessed the benefits wanting to be sure everyone had access.

 

Also, last night on my way home from work, I was thinking about some stuff…I used to have OCD, and while I am fairly certain I no longer meet criteria, I will be the first to admit that I still probably have a lot more rules about cleaning than “normal people.” And I was thinking about that and I realized that honestly it is kind of self-exalting. Do my rules potentially kick more germs’ butts? I’m inclined to say yes…but…if it were really important to kill all those germs probably everyone else who doesn’t clean like that would have been negatively selected through the power of survival of the fittest over the years…but they weren’t…so it is kind of prideful even though it doesn’t feel that way to me to think that the way other people clean isn’t good enough. Obviously I am sure there are people who are just lucky and suck at cleaning but somehow stay healthy anyway, but maybe there is more safety than the sliver I can see…

 

And totally unrelated, but sometimes I have to remind myself of things that should be obvious like you can’t go to a party in the cities that ends at 10 if you don’t want to be exhausted when you have to be at work at 7 the next morning…I mean, I was so excited about packing up some snacks and games to share that I was okay with people I didn’t know being there…but luckily before I RSVP’d I had a stroke of logic to realize that a party that ends at 10 might not actually end until later than that which means I could expect to not be home until after midnight and two out of the past three night I finally slept through the night which might have more to do with coming off of night shift than actual progress, but I do feel better when I’ve gotten closer to enough sleep…so it probably isn’t my best idea to stay out late for not a great reason…especially since my alarm hasn’t woken me up the past few mornings…

I will fight against the voice that says to quit

(I can do this – Plumb)

I love that lyric…”I will fight against the voice that says to quit; shout it from my lips that I can do this. I can do this.”

Today is one of those days that could be classed as a bad day, but compared to yesterday is so much better.

For one, I got more than four hours of sleep. True, that sleep ended with an oh crap I have just barely enough time to shower get dressed shove food in my lunchbox and shoes on my feet and go to work…but sleep is good…and maybe someday sleep will be done consecutively, but for now getting some hours after the wake up is so super helpful. Sleep is great also for giving me a better perspective on life. Like okay, I’m ready to try again.

So yeah, I definitely had no time for breakfast and didn’t pack anything for that…for that matter, breakfast didn’t even cross my mind until my tech was like as long as I have time to walk up to the cafeteria for breakfast it’ll be okay…and I was like c**p! breakfast! I forgot…too late.

Then it was a busy day where people kept having problems…which sometimes feels good to be needed, but sometimes just feels like everyone wants a piece of me and there aren’t enough pieces to go around and the second is more what it felt like. And it was getting to be 11 and becoming very clear it was not going to be a lunch at 11 day…and I tried really hard to wait for an actual break on my schedule to go eat, but eventually it was close to 1 and they were still like 5 more minutes 5 more minutes and I was like I can’t wait much longer and just passed off my responsibilities to someone else and left.

And as soon as I got back there was definitely already a pile of things to be done. Because why wouldn’t there be a million add-ons (slight exaggeration) when I already want to pull out my hair and throw in the towel…

In chemo I can’t have my water bottle. And I had a new tech who had a lot of questions. Which also adds up to not having time to step out and get a drink at all except during my lunch break.

And so I came home and had dinner early. And even though worship team is one of my favorite parts of the week I almost didn’t go because the idea of going back to church was hard and scary.

But I went. A few minutes late, but I showed up. And I went back to the same spot I was when it was announced that dying on a motorcycle would be a good idea. And it was hard, but it was so important to go back and see that I survived…and by the end of the night I was already having a so much better time and am ready to go back whenever my next opportunity is.

And now I just finished eating breakfast…because it occurred to me that I never actually had breakfast today so why not have it at 7:45pm…

And now the song on spotify playing is “don’t say everything’s alright if you’re just gonna say goodbye.” Lol, yep. Like the song Truth be Told, I say “I’m fine yeah I’m fine oh I’m fine hey I’m fine, but I’m not.” And I can’t let a hard day keep me from trying again. Avoidance just makes it harder.

Also today on the way home from work I was listening to a book about how EMDR was discovered/developed and it was super interesting. It was discovered because this person realized that when she went on a walk the hard thoughts seemed to go away and so she paid attention to that and realized that it was something that happened when her eyes moved a certain direction, so she tested it with 70 friends (where she found 70 friends she knew well enough to try that on is the biggest mystery of how this happened to me…but is totally irrelevant…) and found that it was a success. Over time she also figured out it didn’t have to be just the eyes moving, but feet or hands could also be moving. It was the slightly diagonal physical back and forth that was helpful…and then something clicked. The game I’ve been repetitively playing since August because it makes me feel less bad: Spider solitaire, which makes me constantly look back and forth across my computer screen and to some extent my fingers get involved as well since I almost exclusively use my fingers as my mouse (Asus’s mouse mechanism is awful…I miss when my Fujitsu computer was still my primary laptop. It was dying so it was definitely a better choice to switch before rather than after it totally stopped working, but next time I am probably going to spend a little more for the Fujitsu quality…apparently sometimes you get what you pay for).