PENNING HONOUR......

 Since the XDRTB regimen started I had to stop my OCD medication as I would throw up the TB drugs also and I cudnt risk to miss the tb medication. Amidst covid when hospital visits and any monitoring is hard I have very little control of my anxiety and it worsened my ocd. And what is more triggering is seeing posts everyday about ocd, especially what is not ocd. 

Ever thought how  people who suffer from ocd feel when you belittle their life interrupting ocd rituals, compulsions, obsessions, intrusive thoughts and everything with your temperory doubts, orderliness, cleanliness or whatsoever which you apparently term as ocd because you think somebody else's experience is easy to imagine and you saw on the internet that cleanliness means ocd.

It could be different for individuals I agree, but you want things organized doesn't mean you have ocd, instead of just saving ocd memes, one can go through testimonies, texts, booklets, experiences of people with ocd. It's disappointing to see jokes on the same. It's distressing to live with it and when you sidestep our experiences with the silly comments like; 'I am little ocd when it comes to this or that' , doesn't help, it's not an adjective nor its a quirky thing or a trend. 

Some things I can remember as of now that's preventing me to have a so called normal life style are :

- Sugar, I am afraid the way it looks and I fear its texture and if ever someone in the house spills sugar on the table I cannot function, I will have to leave, take a shower and come back when I am sure the place doesn't have any more sugar granules or dust or whatever, it also looks like broken glass and I am scared it could kill me, I feel; it could somehow stay in the body and worms would contaminate that's somehow I think about it. Yup and I know it's irrational but powerless about it. 

- Biscuit crumbs or any edibles, I cannot unwrap a biscuit cover without help, I am afraid the crumbs would come to me and I will have to take a shower then. 

- having water. I throw away the water in the mug three times before drinking the water, however clean it was before. 

- Intrusive thoughts, Also I constantly check on everyone I fear they might have died, I stay in toxic relations coz of the that coz I feel I shudnt leave, what if they die after , or I shudnt block this person even if they are dangerous, what if the person dies tomorrow and I am guilty. 

- Then picturing funerals. I think about writing obituaries and I have to force myself to not think about it but I picture someones funeral, anyone whom I know, and I think I would be the only one alone, everyone dies and I see it. 

- Washing Plates; I cannot stop washing plates, I have cried while doing it coz I don't want to and yet I cannot stop. If I start washing in one basin, my family would go somewhere else to wash as they know mine would take time and also they don't want to do anything wrong by spilling water or they don't know what could go wrong. 

-When it comes to dressing/clothing and changing . I have one dress to wear when I sit on chairs or anywhere else other than my bed. And I change again and again and again, taking showers also, and I am not rich. 

-Showers: All the time. I cannot count how many times I shower a day. 

- I close my mouth all the time thinking something would get in and kill me 

When someone Coughs (this was there always its not a covid thing or a TB thing or anything) I feel there are droplets everywhere and even if I wear a mask its already in my body now. 

- I want reassurance for everything , like literally everything, suppose I hold a kitten, I need to call someone and ask them what if the way I hold the kitten was wrong, what if they die and I want them to check, internet search also about it and check and tell me, I want to hear its going to be okay: but all the time. I have to be constantly reminded that it's going to be okay. And it would look like a easy thing to do and hear from others but no, it's tiring. I think hours and days over a dust or dirt, thinking about where it could have come from. Excessive reassurance seeking For almost anything. 

- And excessive researching over something very small, I take screenshots again and again searching for  little teeny tiny part of anything I want to know and not everytime that's what I want to do, it's exhausting and suffocating as these are things I do not want to but cannot stop and it's disheartening to hear oh I would not have a problem to do that it's not that hard from someone else, coz its more than one without ocd could imagine. 

- I wash hands repeatedly, soaps don't last, not even a week and I came to know it's not normal with others since others in the family use one bar of soap for a long time and mine doesn't last a week. A week is long. 

I carry dettol, cleansers everywhere I go. (to school, college it was always like that) 

- If something happens to someone in any other corner of the world I think about it for hours and cry for hours I cannot function I stay out of social media and mourn like something happened to me and it's hard coz sometimes I don't want to do it but is powerless to stop.  

- Loud noise means someone fell from the building and dies, or someone is in danger and I cannot stand loud noise. 

- Touch, I will wash when someone touches and it's not coz I am a bad person, I thought too that maybe I am a bad person. But I don't want to do this, I want to understand, enjoy  touch too, but I cannot.

-I cannot be around medicines , someone else should unwrap them from the pack an place it in a clean container so that I can take, thats one thing that other tb  patients also have told me though. So considering that could be some aversion about the meds I don't know. 

Only now I have started sharing this with others, also with the support groups and trying to confront things, trying to not enabling these. And I am well aware of this. But these are  just 'some' things I can think of right now that races my anxiety, ocd and it's distressing, it's not wanting to have a clean bathroom, , afraid of germs from animals, or having a clean room,  a trend inspired from the character Monica from F. R. I. E. N.D.S, or eating with a golden spoon, it's not. My goodness.

2019. Image.