Legacy

About three or four years before he died, my father started writing down his life story at my request.

He wrote in pencil and filled one wire-bound notebook completely and another partially.

He also talked more about his life during that time, and I asked more questions, about his childhood and his life in general.

I treasure the stories he left behind.

This is a poem based in part on stories he told me. It’s not completely biographical. But I have a little chair that was used similarly to the way it’s depicted in the poem.

I wrote it years ago, but I recently rewrote part of it.

Legacy

By Tina Fariss Barbour

His great-grandmother held him all one winter

by the woodstove fire.

She held him all winter,

pressing his face against her chest

dressed in soft, black cotton,

clasping him gently as if he were

a newborn with a pliant head.

He was three, sick with rheumatic fever,

too fretful for his trundle bed.

She didn’t sit in a rocking chair,

but a straight, low, handmade chair.

She crossed her thin ankles,

rising only for dinner

or water from a wooden bucket.

The hours made an imprint,

Oval sink in the pine,

Smooth as if sanded for splinters.

When the fever left him,

she turned over the chair,

seat’s edge against the floor,

and he crawled, shaking

then walked again,

pushing the chair

until its edges were rounded.

  Do you have a piece of furniture or other item that’s been passed down to you that holds a special meaning?

Public bathrooms and contamination OCD

There are things I don’t want to touch. There are places I don’t want to go. There are things I don’t want to see.

I have contamination OCD.

Over the years, it has morphed from an obsession with germs on my hands that led me to compulsively wash them to an obsession with bathrooms.

That obsession led me to clean my bathroom compulsively for hours at a time.

Over the years, the length of time it takes me to clean the bathroom has become a lot shorter.

But one obsession has remained, and that is one about public bathrooms.

I hate to use them. I hate to even go into them because of what I might see.

I used to wonder what it was that I was so afraid of about public bathrooms. I didn’t have the same fear I used to have about hand washing, that I’d pass along germs to others and make them sick. I wasn’t afraid of getting sick myself. So what was it?

Months ago my therapist mentioned that I could be afraid of feeling disgust. But I didn’t really relate that to OCD.

Then I read what Jonathan Grayson wrote about contamination OCD in his book Freedom from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Personalized Recovery Program for Living with Uncertainty.

Grayson wrote, “Most obsessions have consequences that you are afraid of” (p. 29). Considering contamination OCD involving bodily fluids like saliva sweat and blood, he named “four different feared consequences that can appear singly or in combination: (1) harm to oneself; (2) harm to others; (3) finding the idea of contact with bodily fluids overwhelmingly disgusting; and/or (4) feeling that having thoughts of contamination is too awful to contemplate” (p. 29).

Numbers three and four fit my contamination OCD. I don’t want to touch or see anything disgusting. I don’t want to even think of anything disgusting.

And there can be plenty of disgusting things to see in a public bathroom.

I’m not talking about things that I imagine are contaminated. I’m talking about stains and smears that I can see.

I’m having a problem with the public bathroom in the building where I work. It’s on the first floor of a building that houses several businesses and gets a lot of traffic. The bathroom is not cleaned often enough.

That’s not just my opinion. Other women in my office also find the bathroom unclean.

But sometimes I have to use it. I have to spend hours at work without leaving sometimes.

When I do go into the bathroom, I try not to look directly at anything. I glance around and try to quickly measure which is the cleanest stall. I cover everything in toilet paper and don’t touch anything barehanded except the water faucet to wash my hands.

I dread going to the bathroom. I get anxious about it. I avoid it when I can.

And I sometimes make plans about going somewhere based on whether or not I’ll have to use a public bathroom.

I know I should do some kind of exposure.

At this point, I am not willing to go into a public bathroom and touch a stain or smear that someone else has left behind. It makes me want to throw up just writing it. I’m not going down that exposure road.

But since I’m trying to avoid feeling disgusted, would it help to put myself deliberately in positions of seeing something I find disgusting? To not turn away, but to stare at it?

I’m frustrated with myself and wonder if I’m not willing to do enough to overcome this obsession.

How can I deal with this aspect of contamination OCD? Any suggestions?

OCD and the injury

The doctor warned me that I’d have a scar.

That was the least of my worries.

What worried me the most was how I was going to deal with both obsessive-compulsive disorder and the injury.

What happened

It happened on a Friday five years ago. I was working for the health department as a health educator. That morning, I was creating a database to use in organizing some information, and I decided I wanted something hot to drink.

I picked up a coffee mug and a pack of hot chocolate and headed to another office in the building where hot water was kept on a warmer all day.

I was wearing new shoes that were slip on and sandal-like. The floors had also recently been buffed. Whether it was the shoes, the slightly slippery floors, my own clumsiness, or a combination, I fell down on the floor.

My hand holding the mug struck the floor hard, and the mug broke. A sharp edge scooped out part of my middle finger on my right hand.

My first response was shock, then embarrassment. I stood up, looked down at my hand, and saw the blood starting to pour. I used my left hand to try to catch it, to try to keep it from landing on the floor.

Several co-workers, including some of the nurses, soon surrounded me. They wrapped my hand in paper towels and held it over my head.

They decided that I needed to go across our parking lot to the hospital, to the urgent care center beside the emergency room, to get stitches.

The light bulb

It turned out to be impossible to get stitches. There was nothing to stitch together, the doctor told me. All she could do was cauterize the wound to stop most of the bleeding and wrap it securely enough so that it would be protected while it healed.

A technician came in to wrap it. She took white gauze and wrapped and wrapped and wrapped.

I ended up with a bandage that resembled a big, white light bulb.

OCD

I immediately began thinking of all the things I did and the ways I did them and how not having full use of my right hand for a good six weeks was going to affect things.

How would I take a shower and get clean enough? How could I clean the bathroom?

And how would I keep the bandage clean?

I was supposed to keep the same bandage on until the following Monday, when I was scheduled for a recheck of the wound.

But I kept it on for one day only. I thought I could see dirt on it. Whether or not any dirt was there was not the point. I thought it was there and couldn’t stand having a dirty bandage on.

So I took it off and created my own. It still looked like a light bulb, except it had corners.

Six weeks

For the six weeks I wore the bandage, I learned to adapt. I discovered that I could clean the bathroom with one hand. I could do many things with one hand.

I learned to take a shower with a freezer bag over my bandaged hand. I held it in the air out of the stream of water as much as possible during my shower routine. Afterwards, I changed the bandage.

And I learned ways to raised my middle finger out of the way of food and other things that would get it dirty.

OCD again

What I ended up doing was just figuring out new ways to do my OCD compulsions.

If I had known about exposure and response prevention (ERP) then, I could have used the time to deal head-on with some of those compulsions.

The doctor was right. I do have a scar. I’m still not worried about that.

  Have you ever been in a situation where your routine was drastically changed and you had to find ways to adapt? Did it make you anxious? Or was it a welcome change?

Medication and addiction

I don’t remember a lot of the details of this story.

I remember that the doctor prescribed the medication in the fall of 1986, when I was in graduate school in Ohio.

I first saw the doctor who took me off the medication during the winter of 1989. I know this only because I dated a book that he recommended to me Feb. 20, 1989.

In between, the details aren’t so clear.

I started having bouts of diarrhea in 1986. I could not predict when they would hit me. It seemed not to matter what I ate or didn’t eat. The bouts hit hard and suddenly.

When I decided to take a trip with classmates to New England that would involve about a 14-hour drive, I panicked. What if I got diarrhea on the van and couldn’t make it to a bathroom? I would have to use public bathrooms. What if they weren’t clean?

My obsessive-compulsive disorder had me obsessing over the possibilities.

Finally, I went to student health on campus and a doctor prescribed a drug for me. It worked.

During the trip, I wanted to insure that I wouldn’t have any diarrhea. So I took extra pills. I figured if one would help, more would help more. And I didn’t have any stomach problems on the trip.

I continued to take the medication, and if I was facing a situation where I wanted to be sure not to have to worry about having diarrhea, I took extras.

The pills made me sleepy and dopey, but the side effects were worth it to me not to have to face a potentially embarrassing episode and not to have to worry about it.

At some point, I discovered when I tried to get the medication refilled at student health that I was making the request too soon. In other words, I finished up a prescription before I should have.

The pharmacist expressed concern, I remember, but I revealed nothing to her.

I didn’t reveal that I took more of the medication than I needed. I didn’t reveal to her that I panicked inside when she told me I couldn’t get the medication refilled.

I didn’t want to be without the drug.

I don’t remember how I ended up in the office of the medical director. Isn’t that something, that I don’t remember those details?

I suspect I can’t remember because the medication was blurring my thinking. And I wanted to put the whole episode out of my mind when it was over.

I was in talk therapy at the time with a psychologist on campus. It would be another year before she referred me to a psychiatrist, but perhaps she referred me to the medical doctor for my depression.

Regardless of how I ended up there, I found myself telling the medical director about my depression without sharing any details about it.

I also didn’t share with him my dependence on the medication.

I didn’t even admit to myself that I was addicted to the medication. I told myself I needed it to keep from having diarrhea, and that if I stopped taking it, all my problems would start again.

The medical director told me that he didn’t want to prescribe anything for depression until he knew whether or not I was depressed. The medication could be depressing me, he said. And there was another medication that would help my stomach problems without presenting the same dangers.

He worked out a plan for me to wean myself off the medication and start the new one.

He also talked to me about the importance of exercise and introduced the idea of meditation to me.

And he told me to come back in six weeks.

I didn’t wean myself off the medication. I took it in extra doses until it was all gone. I had no refills left, just the new medication for my stomach.

I didn’t sleep well or much at all in the weeks leading up to my next appointment with the medical director. When I remember that time, I picture myself figuratively “walking on the ceiling.” I couldn’t relax. I never felt sleepy. I felt like I was on high alert all the time.

My body was reacting to the removal of a depressive medication that I had taken for over two years.

My depression didn’t lift. The doping of my physical system and my mind lifted, but the clinical depression remained.

When I went back to see the medical director, we didn’t talk about addiction, and he didn’t prescribe anything for my depression.

But with his encouragement, I did begin to think about starting a running routine, which I eventually did later that year. And I tried meditation for the first time, based on the book The Relaxation Response, by Herbert Benson, MD, with Miriam Z. Clipper.

  I have a different relationship with and a respect for medication today. I don’t want to have another story in my life missing so many details.

First day of autumn



Photos from fall 2010.



“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”

-George Eliot

Thanks to Elizabeth of In My Own for sharing this quote.

Answers to your questions

Wow. You guys know how to ask questions!

I’m usually the one asking questions, whether it’s on the job as a reporter or in my personal life. I have been reminded that it’s not always easy to be the one answering the questions.

This exercise was fun, though. And your questions really made me ponder some things.

Thank you to those who participated in this!

Shannon at She’s Mental

How in the world do you think you were chosen to get the blessing of these illnesses?

  I wish I knew. I don’t know whether or not I was “meant” to have OCD and depression. But I do believe that because I have them, I have had experiences that help me relate to others with mental illnesses.

Amanda at Therapy Addict

Is there anything that folks do not know or understand about OCD, that you wish they did? Has blogging helped you in some way, in terms of dealing with your diagnoses?

  I don’t think everyone without OCD understands how exhausting it is. The anxiety is draining, and the compulsions can take up a lot of time and effort.

  Blogging has been tremendously helpful to me. I have met some incredibly supportive and caring people online who understand what I go through. And blogging provides me with an opportunity to connect with others.

Lisa at Two Bears Farm

I know you’re not supposed to . . . but do you have a favorite cat? (shhh, I won’t tell!)

Do you want to get me in trouble with my kitties?

Seriously, I love all my kitties, including those who are no longer with us.

I did have a special relationship with Waddles. She was my first baby, and we spent a lot of time together.

Nikky at Nikky’s Strength and Weakness

What is one thing you would love to have or achieve in your life, but you know you won't be able to do it, and how can you compensate?

  I couldn’t think of one thing I want to have or achieve that I know I won’t be able to in some way, but I do have a sense of lost opportunities. I know I’ll never be 21 again with all the possibilities that I once had. I try to compensate for that feeling by remembering that all I really have is now, and I can still accomplish a lot.

Yaya at Adventures in Yayaland

Why do you love cats?

  I love dogs and other animals, too, but cats are special to me for many reasons. They are graceful but strong, independent but loving, and funny. So funny. I love to watch them move and eat and bathe and play and sleep. Everything they do is done with great elegance.

Kate at Obviously Completely Deranged

Do you think that it’s ever possible to totally overcome an OCD obsession, or is it always there?

I have to answer I don’t know, but I lean towards thinking no, you can’t ever completely get over an OCD obsession. It fades to the background and can seem forgotten, but then it can reappear for seemingly no reason.

What changes more is my ability to resist the obsession and not give in to the compulsion. For me, that’s what I have more control over.

Jackie at Lights All Around

How does OCD influence your writing life (if it does)? What are you writing right now (for yourself, not for work)?

OCD affects my writing in a couple of ways. Time given to obsessions and compulsions is time that I could be writing. And sometimes an obsession about plagiarism eats away at my creativity.

Right now, I’m working on a memoir about my life with OCD and depression. I’ve also started writing poetry again after many years.

Krystal Lynn at Sprinkle Some Sugar On Me: I Am More Than OCD

What makes you angry? And if I can ask a second one, it would be: If you could be granted a wish and be ride of one obsession/compulsion forever, what would it be?

Many things can make me angry, but what is sure to make me angry is when I witness someone taking advantage of a person or animal. Injustice makes me angry.

If I could be rid of one obsession/compulsion forever, it would be my writing OCD. I hate the anxiety that keeps me from being willing to sit down and write sometimes. I hate worrying about plagiarism and being perfect. Writing OCD affects what I love to do.

Janet at ocdtalk

If you weren’t blogging about mental illness, or cats, what topics would you like to blog about?

  I think I would have a writing/storytelling blog. I would write about my writing life, share pieces for feedback, and tell stories.

Sunny at 71 degrees & Sunny: One Christian’s Odyssey through Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

What is the piece of writing that you are most proud of?

 What came to mind is an essay that I wrote about Waddles. It is about how much she helped to change my life for the better. I wrote it a few years ago, but I still tweak it from time to time. I may publish it on my blog eventually.

   

Reconcile This

Do you write every day or do you keep a particular schedule (apart from the blogging schedule, that is)?

  I write mostly in the evening. I also try to write during the day on the weekends. I am trying to transition to a schedule where I write early in the morning, but that’s not going very well.


Added later: one more question--
Lolly of Lolly's Hope
Can I steal this idea and use it in the future on my blog? Also, what is your favorite food?
  Of course you can use this idea. I got the idea from another blog myself.
  My favorite food is peanut butter. And bread. And caramel.

  And now, dear readers, please leave me a comment and tell me why you started blogging, or, if you don’t blog, why you read blogs.

Ask me a question

Ask me anything.

Ask me a question, and I’ll answer it.

I got this idea from a great blogger, Kim of My Inner Chick, who recently opened her blog to readers’ questions.

I thought this would be fun, plus helpful because it would allow for questions about things that I might not have addressed on my blog but need to.

So ask me anything.

Do you have a question that you’d like to ask about my obsessive-compulsive disorder? Depression? Generalized anxiety disorder?

Would you like to know about my cats? About the place animals have in my life?

Do you have a question about my writing?

Ask me anything.

I will answer the questions in Friday’s post, with a link to your blog, if you have one.

Please ask away!