So What is My Civic Duty When Sick, Anyway?

Woman pretending to
contemplate mask.

Hello Friends:

So okay, after my last post I kinda feel like the universe is having a bit of a joke with me.  I am now the sicky.  And I'm back on the train.  Yep.  No, I'm not wearing a mask, but I swear I know how to use a tissue, and I also use handiwipes constantly.  Still, I would not be offended at all if you chose to sit next to someone else.

In fact, I sort of wish the woman who would not get off her cell phone had done just that, instead of smiling, sitting next to me in the quiet car, and then proceeding to chatter away.

Anyway, in my last post I was talking about how everyone on the train was sick but me, and now there is some turn around for that.  I am sick, and feeling guilty that I am out in the world.  But for the moment, it seems to be a mild cold, and I can't justify not getting on the train and getting back home, as scheduled.  Nobody wants to sit around hundreds of miles from home in a different city.  That's what I'm telling myself, anyway.

So the ride is this strange combination of good and bad.  On one hand, I don't feel that same fear of all the other sick passengers, because, well, now I am one of them.  I caught a bug and now it is sort of like there is nothing to fear.  But on the other hand, I'm feeling guilty that I'm here at all, and not in fact wearing a mask.  I guarantee I'm not coughing or sneezing all over, really, but is that an excuse?

This obsessive thinking about this ... well, I know it is just another aspect of the OCD and anxiety disorders.  I ended last week saying I needed to learn to be more compassionate.  I know I need to learn that compassion for myself.  It seems to be the hardest person to feel compassionate towards.

Okay, except for the ladies on the cell phones in the quiet car.  I'm having serious trouble with compassion for that.  But I'm even making a go at it, because, well, people are people and we are all in this together.  (I mean, who isn't doing their civic duty, here, me or them?  What is the more anti-social thing, no mask or constant chatter in a quiet space?  Why sit in the quiet car if ... wait, I'm ranting again.)

So I'm not sure what the point of this post was.  First, I guess, to express that strange feeling of being sick, and so not having to be afraid of getting sick anymore.  And then to talk about that guilty feeling and sense of social duty.  Am I making the people around me as anxious as they were making me last week?  I'd feel rotten about that.  And where is the line of civic responsibility, anyway?  Masks aren't common in the US, but aren't a bad idea.  Of course OCD wants a definitive answer.  A final ruling about exactly how I should act when I'm sick.  There is no such thing.

How about I just keep up with the good use of tissues and handiwipes?  And maybe try some more compassion for myself, and for the others on the train.  Even ... ahem ... cell phone users in the freaking quiet car.

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info: Woman with Mask, Photoxpress.

Please Use Tissues, Thank You

Stock photo of perfectly well
person pretending to be sick.
Note proper use of tissue.

Hello Friends:

So everyone on my train is sick but me.  Okay, that's not literally true.  This is just that OCD feeling one gets when one travels.  Every sniffle, sneeze, and cough is a sign of impending plague.  I don't want the plague.

To back up a little - I'm on a train because I hate flying.  I still fly, as you know, but when traveling up and down the east coast corridor, I make use of the much less terrifying train system.  I also make use of trains if my ears are being finicky, since if they are the least bit stuffed they will not pop on flights.  I imagine that a lot of people feel that way, and so they will take the train not just because they don't want to fly, but because they are congested and can't fly.

Thus we have the present situation.  Constant coughing, sneezing, hacking, etc.  People who need to travel but can't fly.  People who shouldn't be traveling but think the train is easier so it will be okay.  Plus the usual random people who have non-flu related coughs from smoking or asthma or whatever.

Sigh.

It not only brings on feelings of fear, but also of another OCD kind of guilt.

Since I have needle trauma from the past, as well as contamination fears, I have yet to be able to make myself get a flu shot, ever.  This is one of those OCD quandries we are all too familiar with.  Do the scary thing to avoid the scary thing, maybe?  Or just deal with that first scary thing head on?  Neither sounds good.  Sometimes we choose to do the one, sometimes the other.

I look on vaccination, for example, as a civic duty, and so feel somewhat similarly about the flu shot.  Which means I feel like my OCDs are keeping me from doing my social duty.  I hate that.  But as you know, OCD is a powerful beast.  No matter how hard I try, I can't make myself get that flu shot.

So here on am on the train, feeling scared and wondering why people who are that sick are on this train after all.  I am a firm believer that sick people should not work or travel.  They should rest and get better.  But I'm also a realist, so I understand that this isn't always, or even often, possible.  Real life is what it is, and sometimes that means not being able to take a break even when we are ill.

Given my lack of flu shot I sort of feel like I don't have a right to gripe about sick travelers, anyway.  Then I feel the other way about it, and figure that is a whole 'nuther animal.  Maybe they could at least wear those mask things so they don't cough their germs all over amtrak?

Perhaps I just need to learn more compassion and acceptance, for them and for myself.  We are all doing the best we can, and my (possibly) getting sick or not is not a comment on them or me, and/or if we are following our civic duty.  Sometimes sick just happens.

It would be nice if it happened later ... much later.

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info:  Girl Health Frame, Photoexpress.

Normal People Go Camping, Right?

Yeah, looks like a nice horse, doesn't it?  Don't be fooled ...

Hello Friends: 

So this is a sort of rhetorical question, because I've already done a lot of camping, myself.  So I know that there are plenty of people who consider camping to be a normal, wholesome activity.  It was something I really enjoyed as a kid, and I still want to be able to camp as an adult.  I want to do what the normals do.

Of course, when I was a kid, the water didn't have Giardia, the mosquitoes didn't have West Nile, and the ticks didn't have Lyme.  Ah, those heady by-gone days ...

Continuing my overall plan and lifestyle of Doing Things Even If I Think They Are Going To Kill Me, I went camping with a group of friends last week.  Problem number one is the need to protect oneself from the previously mentioned mosquitoes and ticks.  The best way to do this is to spray oneself all over with DEET.  Which is, ahem, poisonous.  This is really part of my problem with a lot of things - I am afraid of condition A, but condition B, required to fix condition A, also scares the crap out of me.

So, I weighed my fear of bug diseases against my fear of spray poison - ended up deciding I'd rather be covered in DEET than in ticks, if only from the aesthetic perspective.  The problem (as if there is just the one) is that there is no guarantee.  Never a guarantee, and as you know, if there is one thing OCD really, really wants it is a guarantee.  If you use the DEET, then you don't get Lyme disease - but it is just not that easy.

Still, I sprayed down my shoes, socks, pants and a bit of other territory, and made sure I was wearing light colored clothing and a white hat.  That's supposed to be so that you can find the ticks easier, but I have to say I was trying really hard at first not to see any bugs at all.  Not productive, I know, but it is what it is.

Things went generally okay, with us doing some nice hikes, lunch, side stop at a brewery, etc.  I was struggling a little, but hanging in there.  And then we made our way to the campsite.

We were camping in a place I'd only heard about, but never seen.  I'd always wanted to go there, ever since I was a little kid and all my friends were reading "Misty of Chincoteague" and "Misty of Assateague."  I was amazed to realize that there were wild horses really living on an island on the East Coast.  At that age I'd hardly even learned about mustangs in the West.

It has always been an evocative image ... wild horses roaming about the beach sands.  We arrived, pitched our tents amidst about a bazillion other campers, and I wondered if we'd be lucky enough to see a horse.  We'd only be there one night.  I imagined these majestic ponies, shy, timid, startling at the least sound, running in small groups in the distance, backlit by the sun as they passed by the sea grasses.

OMG.  Have you been there?  Wrong.  Wrong wrong wrong.

The horses travel in gangs.  They travel in gangs of five to ten, right up the road of the camp, plodding away, $h!ting and pissing as they go.  They have utterly no fear of humans, and waltz right up to tents and cars, looking for goodies.  They have learned how to open coolers, and tear open bags of chips.  I know this because one of our group was forced to fend off an invasion as the rest of us went to see the sun over the ocean.  Fortunately she had actually helped raise horses as a child, and had some idea of how to get them out of the camp.  In the end, she actually had to push one out of the food.

That was the point at which the rest of us came back, and saw horse poop all over the place, torn bags, and the ruins of blue corn chips all over the ground.  And my friend there, telling us the story and PICKING TICKS OFF OF HER SHIRT.  Yes.  She wasn't even surprised.  She said, "Oh, yeah.  The horses are covered with ticks.  I had to put my hand on one and the ticks jumped on me, instead."

I sort of lost it at this point.  I was capable of dealing (marginally) with relatively known risks.  The ground has bugs, so use a tarp under the tent.  Mosquitoes fly, so use some bug spray.  The outside world is gross and dirty, so use lots of handiwipes.  Whatever.  But the horses added a dimension I was not prepared to cope with - a moving, changing dimension.  So, you've checked to make sure there is no horse poop behind you?  Well, that's going to change.  Was that a good place to put the tent?  Not anymore, because there is a horse standing on the tarp.  That kind of thing.

So I had the choice of taking some Ativan, drinking a bunch of wine, or leaping into the car and not coming out.  I chose the wine.  I steadied myself with about 2/3 of a bottle while making dinner and also making sure I had someone watching my back.  It was getting dark and the %@*&% horses can actually SNEAK up on you.  I mean it. 

For the rest of the night, gangs of horses would make circuits around the campsites.  Morons (i.e. people who had just shown up, i.e. my group two hours previously) would gush and take pictures until they realized the horses were in their coolers and pulling food right out of their children's hands.  Then they started swearing like us and trying to put up moats and other defensive fortifications.  Eventually, we were in our tent, and yes, every few hours you could hear the gangs go by.  One of them came right up to the tent, farted loudly, and whinnied in what I can only assume was appreciation.  All I could think was, "Please don't piss on the tent."

That morning I couldn't get out of the place fast enough.  I felt badly about it.  After all, these were indeed the 'wild' horses of the islands, and there is something pretty cool about it.  The coast was lovely and sunrise and sunset over the beach was glorious.  But my general appreciation for the place could not stand up to the need to LEAVE.

The trip was capped, in a way, by me really spotting my first tick up close - on the inside of the car, hanging from the ceiling, right over my head.  I fought a brief battle with myself, since normally touching one would be out of the question, but I could hardly just let the sucker roam around.  So I managed to corral it into an extra ziploc bag.  So I got a really good look at it.  Deer tick.  Yep.  No question. 

Needless to say, I am really @#&*% nervous.  Really nervous.  Sometimes this whole "doing what the normals do" is really ... well.  Hard.  Stupid.  Scary.  But, well, makes for a good story, anyway.

Your Hostess With Neuroses
 
Image credit/info:  From our trip to Assateague State Park.

Traveling when the Props and Flexibility Theory Don't Work

Headphones - Not A Perfect Solution

Hello Friends:

Gearing up for more travel, I found some writing I had intended to post a few months ago.  I had cruised through two flights using my Fun, Flexibility, and Props.  And in one moment, panic.  Oh yeah.

----------

I think this is sort of the sink or swim aspect of travel.  Sometimes you can't make a situation feel better.  Sometimes you can't adapt, adjust, block it with headphones, or wipe it with a handiwipe.  Sometimes it just sucks.

I got my first real "hit" for the trip.  It's amazing it took that long, and I ought to be patting myself on the back.  Third flight of the day.  Third.  Airplane is filling up, and we are getting ready to go.

And the person behind me coughs.  Very loudly.

Before I can "insert a contrary and positive cognition" I am seized with a jolt of fear.  I am contaminated, and will spend a five hour flight sitting three feet away from this person.  I am doomed.

That all goes through my head in a flash.  I can feel the heat in my skin like a burn, and my hands are clammy.  I try not to show my reaction on my face, but by the time I realize what I'm doing, I have my head bowed and am rocking in my seat.  Spouse notices, of course.  And since he knows me, he also knows exactly why his 'normal' wife has just gone semi-catatonic.  Terror is a good one word answer.

He leans in and says, "There are lots of reasons for someone to have a cough and not have something communicable."

I almost smile, as I see him trying to put in the positive cognitions that I am failing to generate.  Instead I think - pandemic.  Here I am right at the start.  I should be honored.  There are a ton of international people on this flight, and it's going start right here.  Some SARS spread kinda thing.  I am f#ck*d.

I have the presence of mind to realize as I think this just how incredibly self-centered fear can be.  How cold it can make you.  A cough does not bring up feelings of compassion, it brings up a desire to get away from the person as fast as possible.  A strange war of nonsense and actual good reason.  Cognitive dissonance, my good friend, nice to see you again.

As it turns out, the plane is not full.  The entire row across from us is empty.  My husband points, "We can move over."

I think hard, then look at him, "If you say it is rational to remain here, if you say that it is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, then let's stay.  There are too many times when you can't get away.  And if this isn't actually something you are worried about, let's stay."

And we did.  Are.  I'm typing this still sitting in the row in front of coughing lady.  I've been working on lots of cognitions that say she has some kind of chronic cough or allergy, and isn't sick at all.  And then I turned to the travel props.  Bose headphones, with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers cranked up.  Can't hear a d@mn thing, now. 

----------------

Well, nothing like a dose of real life.  Prepare and then just deal.  Guess you can't do any better than that when traveling.  I'll note that I did not get sick on that trip.  Not that I expect logic to work on me next time ...

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info: Kevin Lawver, My Headphones, on Flikr via Creative Commons, CC 2.0

Taking on Travel Anxiety With Some Props

Let's see, got the toiletries, pants, shirts, trashy novel, the cat ... um, wait a minute.

Hello Friends:

I've just come out of a long spate of travel, and soon will be headed into another one.  Now, that's good.  I love being in new places, but I'm not terribly keen on getting to those places.  Back in September I blogged about using both Fun and Flexibility to ease travel anxiety, this time it's about props.

Props for me are any physical items one uses on a trip to make the experience less freaky.  I have a few key props that I never travel without.  Well, I *almost* never travel without.  I am absent minded by nature, and often suffer Celexa-head on top of that, so one never knows (note previous post on flexibility).

#1 Ativan.  Holy, holy cow.  This stuff has changed my life.  I am terrified to fly.  I used to drink alcohol to deal, which does not work well as a fear-remover, and then leaves you feeling absolutely wretched the day after.  Since I'm often traveling for work, the option of being hung over the day after a flight is not a good one.  Enter Ativan (Lorezepam).  I am very sensitive to the stuff, and so have some side effects where I get groggy and cranky the next day.  But that's usually how I am in the morning, anyway.  During the flights, if I get the dose right, I actually can SLEEP.  Sleep on a plane.  Wow.  Wow.   The best is when I am not so drowsy that I have to sleep, but instead can actually do some work or have some fun.  Fun.  On an airplane.  Mind blowing.

#2 Bose Noise Canceling Head Phones.  Absolutely critical.  If you are sensitive to noise, crowds, or just want to create some personal space in the middle of the airport terminal, these headphones are a must.

#3 Earplugs.  When head phones are too bulky or obvious, earplugs can be such a blessing.  I carry them now mostly so that I can still go into bars.  I enjoy getting a drink now and then and listening to whatever live music is going.  But the crowds and the chaos are hard for me to deal with.  Add the noise on top, and I can't do it.  With good earplugs, I can often handle the bar and not leave feeling like I've been beaten about the head and neck with a sack of limes.  I'll admit, sometimes when I'm really freaked out, like in a mobbed train station, I'll use both the earplugs and the headphones.  Yep.

#4 Eye Mask.  See a theme, here?  Yes, sensory overload is something I try to avoid when traveling.  I have enough to think about without worrying over each and every piece of sense data, and wondering if it carries some threat.  I find it a lot easier to fall asleep on planes with one, and even just to relax sitting on a bench in some terminal.  When life is just too much, cutting off half the sense information makes processing the rest a lot easier.

#5 Ichiro.  No, not the baseball player.  This is a small stuffed armadillo.  You may recall that I use a stuffed animal as a source of comfort when visiting the doctor.  Well now my spouse and I travel with an armadillo I found several years ago in the Dallas airport.  Ichiro is a travel freak.  He's already been to Italy, Spain, Japan, multiple cruises and a plethora of US states.

#6 Sun Props.  I am very fair and have had several suspicious moles removed.  I lived in the desert southwest for 14 years.  So I have some reasons to be concerned about sun exposure.  Well, my OCD's have made it more than a 'concern.'  So to feel comfortable, I have to be sun protected.  My favorite prop is a "Sunbrella" that is basically a high-tech parasol.  Then there is my one and only sunscreen that I can stand the feel of and does not make my eyes sting.  Throw in a hat, and I'm feeling a lot better about things.

#6 Gloves.  Even if it isn't cold, I usually have a pair of tight cotton stretchy gloves with me.  When the OCD's get tough, and that's often on public transportation, I have my gloves so I don't have to touch the papers left behind, the chrome bars, or ubiquitous elevator buttons.  I see this as a concession, since I'm trying to live life without needing gloves, but I keep them along since sometimes it makes the difference between being able to participate, or not.

#7 Handiwipes.  Gobs and gobs of handiwipes in single packages.  I have them everywhere.  This is definitely an OCD concession but I have never gotten a strange comment from someone when they watch me wipe down the armrests on the train, or the tray tables on an airplane.  If anyone says anything, they usually ask for one so they can do the same.  I try to use them sparingly, but again, when travel gets tough, these can really help me feel more secure.

So what are your favorite travel-happy props?  What gets you through the tough spots and on to the fun stuff?

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info: Neta in suitcase by Shockingly Tasty, on Flikr, via Creative Commons CC 2.0

Spring Beauty Right Out The Front Door

Flowers growing in my own
postage-stamp of a front lawn.
Not sure how they got there.

Hello Friends:

I want to say "thank you" again to everyone who read and especially those who commented on my last blog post. It is amazing to get that kind of support, and I appreciate it more than I can say. First of all I just feel better for myself, feeling more understood, and secondly I feel a little better for those people who were directly affected by that tragedy, since there are now more people who are aware of it and can hope/pray for them (or whatever it is you do).

I am finally getting out of the darkness of this winter - and it is such a wonderful thing. I'm feeling better emotionally, I'm over my nasty ear infection, I've had some processing time on those other tough issues I've mentioned, and I have some plans for travel coming up that really are exciting.

Of course, to travel, one needs to be able to leave the house.  These days, just leaving the front door is a real coup. But I am working hard to focus on the positive.  The air was so perfect today that even I felt compelled to take a tiny walk around the complex, braving all the things I dislike about the outdoors.  (Like, why do there have to be dirt, insects, and rodents out there?)  In light of that, and in light of the arrival of spring, and in light of the literal increase in the amount of light at my latitude, I offer some pictures of flowers from my modest jaunt.

It amazes me sometimes how much beauty can be so very close. I took all of these pictures myself, and each subject is not more than a thirty second walk from my front steps. I live in a simple, very cookie-cutter townhouse complex in typical suburbia. You'd think there would be nothing so special to look at here, but I was wrong about that.  It is a good lesson for me, to focus in closer and see what is right under my nose. It's so easy to think you need to go someplace else to find what you need.

If you know more about these flowers than I do (which isn't hard) do please enlighten me!

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info: All mine! Wanna use? Link to this blog and credit Blue Morpho.

Um, some pink stuff.  Sort of like Mountain Laurel,
but I think this is something else.

Daffodils!  These are some of my very favorite flowers.

I don't know much about the kinds of
flowers that grow on trees. Is this a
kind of faux cherry?

More flowers on trees.  Dogwood, maybe?  Nice and fluffy.

This purple stuff is literally thick on the ground out here.
Not bluebells, so I'm out of ideas.

Someone has some great tulips out here, mixed in with
some red spiky flowers that I have no clue about.

Okay, this is that ground cover stuff that is all over, but I
really think it is pretty.

So this is what I think of when I think of blue bells, but I
know that's not quite right.  Still pretty.

One perfect dandelion.  I love dandelions.  People who care
about their lawns think of these as weeds. Given that I don't
really have the mindset to deal with my lawn, I think of
these as free yard ornaments.

Dealing with Dark Waters

Hello Friends:

I mentioned in my last post that I had a whole dang list of things to write about and what with one thing and another, I hadn't manged to get my act together.  Far be it from me to suggest my act is actually coalescing, yet here is a post.

One of the reasons this winter has been so tough is something that happened early on, in December.  I'm feeling a little better about it, now, having had some time and some tdoc sessions to deal with it.  But I still feel a touch haunted, literally and figuratively.

We went on a cruise for the holidays, and overall it was a great experience.  We left on Christmas Eve, had dinner, did some partying, then went to bed.  We were not asleep.  I remember the moment when I felt something shift in the movement of the ship.  It was just after midnight, Christmas Day.  Then we heard an announcement in the hall using some kind of code.  The feeling was like a tingle of static energy, subtle, but my hands felt cold.  My feet numb.  Part of my mind recognized it immediately as a shock or panic reaction.  The other part said, clearly, to the rest of my mind, "Someone is overboard."

About ten minutes later, there was another announcement in the hall.  I know now that people who were asleep at the time didn't hear it at all.  But we were awake.  I was wide awake, in fact.  This announcement said clearly that there was a "man overboard situation" and the ship had moved into a search pattern.

We got up.  I went out onto the balcony, not because I thought I could see anything from ten stories up in a massive cruise ship at night.  I went out because I felt compelled.  The sea wasn't high, but neither was it calm.  We could see the lights of the coast maybe fifteen miles off, and another cruise ship searching in a wide circle, as we were.  It was hard to get your mind around.  Inside my head it said, "Someone is in that water."  I felt in my heart that the person had jumped intentionally.  It would have happened just at midnight.  The ship was not lurching.  I didn't think they had fallen by accident, although I had no proof or evidence either way.

I was so, so sad.  Am sad.  No matter how suicidal I have ever been, jumping into the sea has never been one of my options for offing myself.  Incredibly despairing and sad, to see a dark, yawning ocean and wonder at the mind of someone who leaped right into it.  I was in pain for that person, and for myself, knowing that feeling of empty grief.  All night long, the ship moved in a large circle.  It made the boat sway in a fashion I had not yet felt on a ship.  For the rest of the cruise, whenever the boat turned, it brought the feelings back up in an instant.

Nine hours later, there was another announcement.  It was at breakfast, and this was how most people learned that someone had gone over.  The Captain claimed that a staff member jumped overboard, and after nine hours, the Coast Guard had released the cruise ships from the search.  You could see helicopters still circling, but the ships were now moving away.  The Captain said that three orange life rings had been thrown over, and all three had been recovered.  But not the person in question.  And that was about it.

The way the incident was ignored on board for the rest of the trip was disturbing.  I was more disturbed by how hard it was to learn anything about it at all, even after we got back.  I ended up on some cruise watchdog sites before I even found the press releases about the incident.  I also found posts from family members of the woman who was lost.  Her family was absolutely certain she would not have jumped - she had a one year old child, was married, her husband was also a staff member on the same ship, they had just been shopping for presents, etc.  Her family was outraged at the 'accusation' that the woman had jumped.  The company was saying they had an 'eye witness.'  But no witness had come forth, and the company was apparently not releasing the tapes they have of everything that goes on everywhere on a ship.  I'm pretty convinced they must have caught it on tape.  The company would want it to be a suicide, since that would absolve them of any responsibility.  The family would want it to be an accident, for a million reasons, of course.

This was the point at which I was finally able to get together with my tdoc (recall I was really sick with a combined ear/sinus infection for weeks).  I still do not know what has come of this situation.  My tdoc helped me to see that obsessing over it, when it was unlikely to ever come to a resolution, was not a really good use of my time, or of my sanity.  But I remain distressed.  First, by the idea that a person drowned on Christmas Day.  Second, and more tangled, is this idea that justice has not been done.  Or found.  Or achieved.  Or something.  Why can't the family get some kind of closure from the cruise company, one way or another?  Why can't I?  How frustrating.

Frustrating that the chance we will ever know what happened is about zero.  And still haunting, that sight of an ocean - dark, abyssal, open caverns of arching waves.  It's another in so many kinds of incidents that ask me to accept and move on.  No answers.  No formula.  No meaning or reason. 

I am really tired of these sorts of lessons.

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info: Waves by Mados on Flikr via Creative Commons, CC 2.0

Bitch Slapped by the Universe, Again - Part II

Hello Friends:

I apologize for the cliff hanger, especially since the story might not have the earth shaking climax expected in this modern world of high energy entertainment.  I can say I certainly didn't find the whole experience to be entertaining.  Other words come to mind, but not the sort I can write out online without a lot of $*#!% in them.

So, ah, okay.  There I was wondering how my kitchen would ever be tenable again, and feeling really rotten.  We ditched all the food, took out all the trash, and then I went back upstairs to try to get a few hours of sleep.  It was rough, knowing there was a mouse running around down there and knowing I couldn't do anything until my spouse went to work, came back, and then we went out to Home Depot to get some accoutrements for varmint warfare.

I tossed and turned, managed a few hours of sleep, and then got dressed.  I couldn't eat anything, not that there was much left.  But I couldn't bring myself to eat.  It was a strange feeling, though.  It didn't seem just a simple "this place is contaminated and I'm scared."  It felt more like it just wasn't right to eat.  It didn't feel right.  I couldn't figure it out.  Finally spouse came home and we went out, got some materials for fighting varmints, and then returned.

I bought two voltage traps, feeling bad about it all the while.  Ideally, I'd use catch and release traps, but there is no way I'd be able to handle a live mouse, thinking all the time I'd make a mistake and it would bite me.  And where could I release it around here?  Still, I felt as though this was another case of OCD making my choices for me, and I didn't like it.  Felt guilty.

In spite of all this, I got the batteries in the traps, got them baited, and put into place on the kitchen floor.  My plan was to try to catch the mouse over night, and then either way, to plug in the set of sonic rodent repellers all over the house the next morning, and hope that would discourage future visitors.  Not the best plan, and it sort of hinged on catching said mouse (since there is no concrete evidence that the sonic things work) but it was the best I could do.  I'd spent plenty of time figuring out what I could and couldn't use, like no poison obviously, and this was the best plan I could come up with.  We were going to be flying out the next day, after all.

And somehow at that point I started to feel better.  I sat down on the couch and tried to figure out why.  Mouse had not been caught, and I had no idea what would or would not work.  My husband suggested we go get dinner, and suddenly I felt like I could eat.  It took a while, but eventually it hit me that part of my problem was merely feeling totally out of control.  Once I had made a plan and put it in motion, I felt a lot better.  Even if it wasn't a great plan, I was clearly happy to be doing something, or at least doing the best I could.

My T doc is always reminding me that I don't always have to be doing something, or anything.  Sometimes the best or most functional response in a situation is to acknowledge it and then do nothing.  This really goes against my grain.  I always, always want to do something.  Sitting and abiding is the hardest.  And at least in this case, with a mouse in the house, one really did have to do something about it.  Maybe that's why I felt better, I'm not sure.  I'm not even sure that analyzing it is going to help, but you can't take the science out of the scientist.

Next morning ... there was a former mouse in one of the traps.  I was happy and sad.  Cognitive dissonance overload.  I had my spouse dispose of the entire trap, mouse included.  It's supposed to be good for 50 zaps, but I can't imagine reusing something that has had a dead mouse in it.  Ewww.

I plugged in the sonic repellers, and spouse and I left the house.  I'll have to put an update in sometime about if more of the critters show up or not.  For the moment, anyway, we seem to have success.

As for the kitchen, a good cleaning, and then putting food in glass jars, and the place is tenable again.  I have this strong sense of certainty that the place is okay.  I can't believe it.  I was expecting to be unable to use the kitchen for weeks, but I don't feel that way anymore.  Maybe this is a sign of general increasing mental health.  That'd be pretty nice. 

Your Hostess With Neuroses


Image credit/info:  Mindy Mouse by Wednesday Elf - Mountainside Crochet, on flikr via Creative Commons, CC 2.0

Bitch Slapped by the Universe, Again - Part I

Hello Friends:

You know how it feels when you are cruising along, and things seem ok (or at least meta-stable) and you think you are handling it ... and then suddenly from out of nowhere ... POW - bitch slap.  You are on the ropes, hoping you don't pass out and end up TKO'd.  You don't just get a jolt, or any kind of new manageable challenge.  Instead, you get handed something about three orders of magnitude above whatever it was you were just coping with.

I've been doing a lot of travel.  A lot.  When possible, I've been posting some of my so called insights here to share with y'all.  It's been rough, but I've been having some good times, and am grateful for the chance to have these experiences.  But we are running ragged around here, not even bothering to put suitcases away before the next trip.  They just sit out on the floor and clothes cycle through them as we come and go.

So two days before having to get on a plane for an international flight ... I'm in the kitchen at 3:00am, 'cause of course I can't sleep, and figure I might as well try to get something useful accomplished.  I stop a moment, standing by the trash, and gaze out the dark, foggy window.  It is in fact trash day, which is why the bag is there, so it can be taken out in the morning.

It seems it did not get taken out quite quickly enough.

Rustle.  Crinkle.  Munch.  Scratch.

I back up and stare at the bag, my mind simply refusing to process this.  We've lived in this townhouse for six years, and although the centipedes are big enough to cart off small children, we've never had to deal with uninvited mammals.  Yet somehow the rustling is unmistakable.  I grew up in an old colonial house that was often visited by small grey mice.  The cats (and the dog, actually) kept the population at bay.  I didn't like them, but was used to the fact that they would occasionally pop up.

That was before my contamination OCD's hit, of course.

Anyway, I knew immediately what it had to be in that bag, there.  I stood for a moment, trying to talk myself out of it, when the perpetrator suddenly emerged and scampered at high speed to disappear under my sink.

I squealed in an octave I didn't know I could reach.  Probably would have jumped on a chair if there had been one handy.  Instead I tore up the stairs and woke my poor spouse, who was trying to get some much needed sleep.

It took a while to get the story out, since he was groggy and I was panicking.  A mouse (or a small rat, possibly, for God's sake) was in our house.  The KITCHEN.  As if the kitchen wasn't hard enough, fraught as it is with all my food OCD issues.  Now there's a mouse.  In the kitchen.  Holy f*#k.  I had no idea what to do, what with it being 3am and all that.  All I could think about was plague and rabies and fleas and worms and ticks and all sorts of things that somehow I never worried about as a kid.  This ... this furry thing ... was in my kitchen and spreading its whatever all over whatever.

And the floor had just been mopped, too.

Spouse got up and took the trash out, of course, and we resigned ourselves to just dealing with the fact that it was down there until morning, when we could actually be proactive in getting rid of the sucker.  I couldn't sleep.  (What a shock.)  I was still up at 6am, and went down to make tea.

And heard ... heard ... munch.  Chew.  Rustle.

From MY PANTRY.

OMFG.  My pantry.  All the FOOD IS IN THERE.

This was finally a bit too much for me, and I sort of looned.  I didn't have a panic attack, and I didn't run around screaming, but I decided that all the food that was not in the fridge, freezer, or in metal/glass containers was no longer viable.  All of it.

Poor, poor spouse.  I woke him up and said, basically, that he had to empty the pantry.  All of it.  And haul it out with the rest of the trash.  Fortunately for us, all this travel meant we didn't have too much food on hand.  Still, the guy dragged himself downstairs, tore out everything, bagged it, and took it all away.  There was no sign of the mouse, and so I was wondering if my spouse thought I'd imagined all of this.  But I certainly had not.

I spent most of the time he was doing this trying to hide the fact that I was crying.  What had me most upset was that I had to get him to help me.  I knew he was beat, that he had to have some sleep, but I couldn't do this myself.  It was all contaminated beyond reprieve, and beyond the point I could even touch it.  I sat on the stairs, and watched him a while, wondering how, HOW, my kitchen would ever be a place I could eat again.

And I'm sorry to leave the story there (cliff hangers suck), but I am so tired, I just gotta go to bed.  To be continued!

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info:  Mindy Mouse by Wednesday Elf - Mountainside Crochet, on flikr via Creative Commons, CC 2.0

Taking on Travel Anxiety with some Fun

Hello Friends:

So last time I talked about flexibility.  This time I want to talk about fun.  Turning a strange circumstance into a party is definitely a skill worth learning.  Wish I could do it more often.

Anyway, after being at home a week, we were pounded by another storm.  Three days of rain, and the Susquehanna valley up to the north suffered the kinds of floods it hasn't seen since '72.  For the first time in years, we lost power ourselves.  That's odd for us since all our power lines are buried.  But, never say never.

Certainly not the night before another trip.

So there I was, packing, doing laundry, getting some things folded, then with the small, wailing blip of a surge protector, all the lights are gone.  I stand a few seconds, feeling totally disoriented, and then bravely start calling out for my spouse.  We are on different levels of the house, and are both fine.

I calm down and my mind starts to move again.  No flashlights, since they all got bought out during Hurricane Irene and ours are old and dead.  But I have more candles than you can probably light in one home and still meet the fire codes.  I wait a few minutes for my eyes to adjust, and find there is plenty of weak, filtered moonlight to be had.  I start lighting candles and distributing them around the house.

It's fun.  Like a spooky party, and I am such a fan of Halloween.  It's actually fun.

I start thinking we should find some ghost stories to read to each other.

Then I reconsider, since tomorrow (it was tomorrow at the time I wrote this, anyway ... my verb tenses are all over the place) I will be doing one of the most terrifying things I can think of - flying.  No horror for me tonight.  It does not, however, take the shine off of the novelty of packing suitcases by candlelight.  I can't even be sure if the clothes all match.  Normally this would be the sort of thing that would have me freaking out.  But somehow knowing there is absolutely nothing I can do about it has absolved me of the responsibility of matching my colors.  Packing actually took me less time than usual.

Then taking a shower by candlelight.  Very fun.  Really.  I think about all those people out of power for weeks and weeks from Irene and other storms.  No doubt this post would seem utterly silly to them.  How many showers have they had in the dark?  I can't help it, it is still fun.  I have candles on the sink, flickering away, and it's kind of romantic.

So another entry into the book of travel: Don't assume you are going to be able to pack with adequate light.  Be prepared to shower in the dark.  (Or skip it if the water is cold.  No one will notice, since by the time you get to the airport you will be drenched by the torrential rains, anyway.)

I realize that having things shaken up like this has actually made things better.  I always do the same things before I travel, all the same way.  Just doing them makes me jumpy, because it means *travel.*  The power going out made me alter the pattern, and it felt like a party.  I could have allowed myself to get even more worked up than usual, but instead I let it become something fun.  Not sure this will work again, this idea of 'altering the pattern,' but I'm going to see if there are other ways I can make travel surprises fun, instead of frightful.

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info: Floating lights by ToastyKen on flikr via Creative Commons, CC 2.0

Taking on Travel Anxiety with Some Flexibility

Hello Friends:

Not that I'm an expert on the subject.  I do travel a great deal.  I do have plenty of anxieties, OCDs, phobias, and the like.  I do have my own ideas about how to make it easier.  And then I go right ahead and get all worked up anyway.  Still, I've had a lot of success creating a strategy and support structure for dealing with doctor's visits, it's time to do the same for travel.

I am, in fact, writing this blog post on an Amtrak train.  I'm headed from Boston to Washington on the Acela, the first day after hurricane Irene when the tracks near Trenton were clear enough to get all the way through to Maryland.  I thought long and hard about what would be a good opening topic for travel, and in the end, it was pretty obvious.  And it's a no-brainer to see how all of this ought to apply daily to that great journey called life.

Topic of the moment - Flexibility.

I had to change my trip three times because of the hurricane.  This is not a complaint.  I think that would be ungrateful since I didn't have any property or personal damage to anything other than my nerves.  Others didn't fare so well.  So I'm not complaining.  Just a fact, the trip changed three times, and seeing how I'm still well north of NYC, getting through to DC still remains a theoretical construct.

Changing plans is something that is very hard for me. Travel is tough enough.  Not knowing when it is going to happen makes it all quite a bit worse.  And yet travel delays, cancellations, rescheduling, and all the rest are so commonplace that you can't travel if you can't deal with them.  Or you can go ahead and travel and NOT deal, but you'll be pretty miserable.

I'll go so far as to say that travel is *defined* by unpredictability.  It's not the exception, but the rule.  If you can accurately predict some set of events from beginning to end, I'll bet you are not traveling. 

So how do the anxious ones (i.e. us) maximize our travel enjoyment?  It is hard to just start being 'flexible" about travel issues overnight.  If I could generate flexibility on a whim, I"d be less OCD and much more yoga.  But if you break down "flexibility" into a few other concepts, it seems like something different.  It seems to include an acceptance of how situations can change, a willingness to change with them, and an ability to make the most of it when you do.  So here are a few thoughts as I consider the nexus of flexibility, adaptability, compromise, and resourcefulness.

Being flexible is understanding that plans are guidelines, not a script.  The plans you made before the trip might not be the best (or even possible) when new data comes to light.  So we end up having to accept the change, and then find creative ways to deal with the situation.  Never assume a change in plans inevitably means your trip will suffer.  You could end up with a better trip in the end.  One year we were stranded by a snow storm up north.  I'm not a fan of snow, so wasn't too pleased.  Instead of brooding, however, we all ended up at a local ski resort, and I had a facial at the spa there.  It was the perfect cap off to the trip.

Being flexible is being willing to tolerate some level of discomfort.  This might be physical (sitting on hard benches) or mental (dealing with a crowd of people).  Those of us with MIs have a host of constraints and discomforts that others do not have.  Imagining that they won't crop up during travel is totally unrealistic.  So we have to find ways to deal.  The more creative and resourceful I am with my responses to discomfort, the more likely I am to find something I can tolerate, and occasionally something better than I would have had in the first place. My husband and I were walking through NYC one time, and I said we should get a taxi back to the hotel because I was getting a blister.  Next thing I know we are taking a pedicab through Times Square.  Thought we were gonna get mowed down by a real taxi, but still, it was some wild fun with a view I don't think I'll ever duplicate.

That was also an example of compromise, since I never would have gotten into that pedicab unless my spouse had really wanted the ride.  I was able to keep a handle on my anxieties, and take advantage of the little adventure.

Compromise isn't just with others, of course, it is with ourselves.  Sometimes I can't keep a handle on my fears, and end up missing out.  When a group of friends went on a guided tour of a volcano, I couldn't make myself go because I was (am) afraid of the poisonous gasses.  Hikes that include gas masks are generally not in my repertoire.  I do regret not having had the experience though.

So this takes more acceptance.  I need to focus on what I can do, not what I can't.

I like to think of it as evolution - adapting to become the organism that is best fit to the situation and environment.  The person on the train next to me wants to talk, and I want to write.  Well, I can put my headphones on, or I can choose to chat.  This time I'm choosing to chat a little.  Scary for me, but worth the discomfort to have the experience. 

Especially since now that we are south of Philly, I know I'll actually be getting home tonight :)  Well.  Probably.

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info:

Public Transportation and What Coping Means

Hello Friends:

I've been thinking about the differences between dysfunctional-enabling behavior and supporting-coping behavior. These thoughts have been coming to me as I've been taking public transportation more than usual this week.  And public transport gives me the willies (in other words it's chock full of OCD fodder.) So there have been plenty of moments where I could consider if what I was doing was helping me in a positive way, or just allowing me to avoid dealing with the tough realities of a gritty world.

Look at that nice piece of art. All the nice people being nice. A nice, uncrowded car. Nice and calm. Yeah, right. I've never seen a metro car like that unless it was the middle of the night. But this is idealized americana folk art, here. Check out how clean that floor is. No one is coughing or spitting.  And I'll bet there aren't any rats in the station, either. Oh, what a fantasy.

Anyway, I can't touch the bars or rails in a subway car unless I am wearing gloves. I wonder, do the gloves allow me to go about my day in relative peace, or do they enable my mental illness by allowing me to avoid the natural exposure of touching things other people touch? Or both? How about people sneezing on a subway car? I stop breathing for as long as possible. I don't look at anything dirty, since when I'm worked up, looking at something dirty can actually make me think that I am dirty. Let's not talk about what is on the floor. I do not look there or I'd have to throw my shoes out when I got home.  (I take them off right at the door as it is.) So forget about setting a heavy bag down on that tacky surface of dread, I'd rather pull my back out.

Then as soon as I get off of the train, I pull out one of those handi-wipes and scrub my hands. Which have been in gloves, remember? I also wipe off the handles of anything I'm carrying. And then I try really hard to say 'enough' and go about my day. But any day I've been on the subway or metro or T or whatever you call it, isn't going to be one of the days I feel at my best.

This all reminds me of my first therapist telling me that I didn't have to do things that gave me panic attacks. I was having severe attacks after eating canned food. He said I should stop eating it. I was appalled, since I thought that was 'giving in'. I was afraid that if I stopped I'd never start again. I was afraid I'd end up cutting out anything that bothered me, and end up stuck in bed all day in fear of leaving.

It took him a long, long time to get it through my head that I was re-traumatizing myself every time I opened a can. I had to stop. I'm sure you know this stuff yourself - but I had to stop doing the thing that was causing me to panic, give it a rest for a while, and then approach it slowly and methodically. That's the idea of increasing exposures that we've all heard about with regards to phobias and such.  And some OCDs.  Of course, if you have some CPTSD issues on top of it all, it isn't quite so straightforward, but you get the idea.

I don't know if he would have given the same advice to everyone, or if it was just me. But I ended up stopping a lot of activities that caused me high anxiety. I stopped eating anything that made me nervous. I stopped touching things that scared me. I stopped going places that triggered panic attacks. At the same time I started doing really intense CBT, added a lot of walking to my day, continued talk therapy, and against my therapist's advice I refused meds. Looking back, that might not have been the best plan, since I am on them now and am very glad about that. Whatever.

As I felt better, I started trying new things or adding them back into my life. He had been right. I didn't take his words as carte blanche to just drop everything and stop fighting. I kept struggling to do things. Kept challenging myself. I just got smarter about what I could handle on a given day and what I couldn't. For many years I could tell how well I was doing if I had the nerve to eat shrimp or any meat that wasn't cooked to the state of a hockey puck. And now I can touch door handles in almost any place but a hospital or doctor's office. I don't like it, but I can do it.

Life is easier, but still, OCD is disabling. I'm not likely to be able to take a job in a city where riding public transportation is required. The idea of doing that twice a day, and being forced to do it on days when my resources are low, is horrifying. I wish it wasn't. I don't like having my options curtailed by OCD, but I've come to more of an understanding of what I can handle and what I can't. So maybe it just isn't in the cards right now. Maybe in the future, as all my mental illnesses get more and more under control, as my meds stabilize, as I do more exercise, eat better, do my meditation and get good sleep, maybe public transportation will become as simple as eating frozen food. Which I had given up for two years, and now can do without a problem.

BTW, you probably know I still don't open cans. I haven't missed that at all.

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info: Subway, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Flying, Phobias, and Fears - Oh, My

Hello Friends:

Thanks for sticking with me through this little blogging dry spell. I'm going through another rough spot, here, with anxiety and depression making computer use a challenge. But as always, this blog, and the knowledge that there are people out there actually reading (wow, and thanks again) brings me back in spite of it. Good therapy.

And I'm in the middle of an anxious scenario that was perfectly ripe for posting. I'm at the airport, awaiting the arrival of a family member who is now 3.5 hours late. Airplanes make our lives easier (snort).

I really, really do not like flying. In fact, it scares the f#@k!ng$h!% out of me. It has for more than twenty years. And airports, by way of association, now feel like hospitals. These are creepy places where painful things happen. In spite of this, I fly a lot. An average of seven round trips a year, down from nine or ten five years ago. I do this by using Ativan to get my anxiety to a level I can manage. It is almost the only time I use the Ativan, since I want it to remain potent. When I fly, the stuff has to work. It has to. So I try not to use it for any other purpose. That way I don't run the risk of developing a tolerance.

I have been working on this flying phobia for a long, long time. I've tried all the usual methods to deal with it - like gradually increasing exposures, booze, meditation, and all the rest. Booze does not work at all, by the way. You can be drunk and still terrified, so I gave up on that. Now, I have had some success over the years in with the before-trip anxiety, and the after-trip triage.  I've been able to reduce my overall fear so that I start getting worked up only about a day before a trip. Used to be I was hanging from the ceiling by my nails for a full week. And I can calm myself at an airport with deep breathing and meditation. But when I am actually on an airplane that is in the air, only the Ativan can beat the anxiety to the point that I don't spend every waking second thinking "I'm going to die right now. Wait. Still alive. I'm going to die right now."  Over and over. I mean it. I am not exaggerating. Every single second.

I find this fear really irritating for a whole host of reasons. First and foremost, I am a scientist who does a lot of statistics. I know perfectly well how it is planes take off, fly, stay in the air, and land. And I know how much safer it is, mile for mile, than driving. Does not matter. When I am in a plane my education becomes useless and I wonder how it is the whole thing doesn't drop like a brick out of the sky. I certainly feel like dropping a brick.

And I love travel.  Well - I love being new places, I just don't like getting there. And my job (when I'm actually well enough to work) requires plenty of travel. So this fear is a real pain.

So to the point, sort of.  Here I am, sitting in the airport observation deck, typing away, having thought ahead and brought my computer. I've never really just sat in one of these places and watched the planes do what it is they do. The place is freaky. I am watching planes take off and land, over and over. Hour after hour. It is businesslike and appears as precise as clockwork. Which it patently isn't since I wouldn't be sitting around for an extra 3.5 hours watching it, if it were. The planes take off, which has my mind spinning with the cognitive dissonance of thinking both "that's impossible" and "that's perfectly explainable" at the same time. Then they land. And I'm holding my breath for each one. The lack of air is no doubt contributing to that head-spinning feeling.

I thought that would be the sum of my 3.5 hour experience here. But, interestingly, even though I've spent hours and hours in airports waiting for flights and stuck on layovers, just sitting here watching is sort of ... interesting. Different. Still scary and creepy. Yet after all this time I am actually starting to look up at the planes less and less. It is just what is happening in the background while I finish a post. Then I look up, see a plane land, and inhale suddenly. I've forgotten for a moment to worry about them, and yet they went ahead and landed without me.

Very interesting. What is flying like for you? Does watching it calm you down?

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image "Blue Sky" from flikr via Creative Commons by Ack Ook, CC Share Alike 2.0

"Getting Bitch-Slapped By The World" or "Don't Get Cocky, Kid"

Hello Friends:

Fair warning, this is a pretty 'triggering' post for those with sickness related OCDs, hypochondria, fear of V*, and such. I'm not sick, myself, but witnessed it and it has me pretty rattled. So if you don't want to read my somewhat graphic rant, you better stop right now.

The end of the cruise went great. No serious problems, and then we even found a half day excursion around Puerto Rico to fill in time before going to the airport. I was liberally patting myself on the back for making it through all the hard parts while only freaking out a few times during the entire week.

Never, never say that.

I was doing a good job of keeping my mind off of the upcoming flight. But eventually we got to the airport, and through aggie inspection (called USDA of course, but that just makes me think they are scanning for steak). And then into the excruciatingly but not totally unexpectedly long line to get through security.

I have a very tough time with lines. People get antsy. Stand too close to me. Fail to control their children. Cough or sneeze on me. Try to jump in front. You name it. A lot of people simply don't leave enough time to deal with airport issues. This is San Juan airport, not someplace really on the ball. You have to expect you can run into an hour long line. I didn't want to, but there it was. Not surprisingly, after an already stressful week, I was totally on edge. Shaking, rocking, and working hard not to dissociate. As the hour wore on, it got hotter in the line, and tougher to stay mentally present. But I kept it together, if only just, until we got into the area that was roped like Disneyland. Normally, I don't like the roped off lines, but at least they do let you know exactly where to go and do stop the line jumpers, for the most part. If you don't mind the trapped feeling ....

Now what is it that makes someone sick, and I mean really sick, try to fly? Nothing, and I mean nothing, is going to be worth not only the risk to your health, but that of everyone around you. These people are morons. Did they get the whole flu season and H1N1 epidemic news? Do they enjoy endangering other people? I suppose I should say I have sympathy for the sick person who is sick and all that, but I don't have any sympathy for needlessly being put in a position where I'll be in OCD hell for the next two weeks, waiting to come down with the incredible wretched crud that had infected the woman two people away from me.

Because right there in line - three people away from the boarding pass screening - she puked all over the floor. You know that sound of that splatter? She had barely bent, and so it cascaded everywhere. People were bolting. We were forced against the ropes as far as we could get from her, but couldn't get out of line.

After about two seconds I dissociated almost completely. Feeling terrified and numb, staring around and seeing almost nothing. Except hyper sensitive to this new, horrifying contagious threat. Of course I have no idea if she had anything catching, or simply couldn't hold on to her hamburgers. Or whatever.

But she didn't stop. One puke. Then two.  And then she stood there. And then puked some more. And would you calmly be standing in line casually puking your guts out, showering the nearby patrons with viruses? She didn't try to leave the line or run for a restroom or anything. Just stood there and puked yet a fourth time. By then, my spouse and I had made it around the situation, more or less, and gotten to the main entrance to the security screening. I was so out of it I had tunnel vision, was shaking, and could only fixate on one thing at a time. All I could think of was that statistically speaking, I and my luggage were now covered in micro-droplets of God only knew what. Simple food poisoning? Bird Flu? Who even f*cking knows.

I was too far gone to hear the exchange behind me, and only put it together from conversation with spouse afterward. Believe it or not, puker and her SO were going to try to get in line behind me and spouse to go through scanning. My spouse blocked them and said, 'No'. And she tried two more times, and he simply pointed to the other line, 'You go there. You will not go here.'

Fortunately by then the idiots at San Juan airport stepped in and put puker and SO through a special line. But I can't believe they let them through security at all. There was a woman on a flight to Hawaii taken off just because the crew had an idea she might be sick. And there this woman threw up four times in line, and they let her through security. I do not f*cking get it.

So not only did I get to fly for 4.5 hours with possibly puked on shoes, I got to spend that time doing every cognitive trick in the book trying to get myself to keep from having a full blown panic attack. And trying to reassociate my mind and body so I wouldn't build up any more new trauma from this than necessary.

And now here I am. Finally, finally at home. But scarred. I'm scared. The world is so scary. Everyone on the plane was coughing and sneezing and I'd been nearly barfed on. Probably had been in a microscopic fashion. It'll be two weeks before I can be sure I didn't pick anything up from that unbelievable episode. And it might be a lot longer than that before the terrible backlash from this finally works its way through depressive rebound and all the rest.

I'm throwing out my suitcase.  By the way.

Any advice?  Kind words?  Whatever ... I could use it.

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image credit/info:  

http://www.flickr.com/photos/krystynana/ / CC BY 2.0

More Fun Cruising With OCDs

Hello Friends:

Ah, the glories of travel. I love being in new places, I just hate getting there. Which makes one wonder why I yet again chose to go on a cruise. A cruise is like “all getting there and never being there.” You never stop moving, and there is a strange, new port every day. And for some inexplicable reason, I get seasick more easily than I used to. So the cruise is a little bit more of a challenge than I thought it would be.

Included in the downside of cruising is the general fear of the dreaded tummy flu. These viruses have, in the past, run rampant on a few cruises. But oddly enough, the fear of H1N1 may actually drive the chance of getting sick way down. For the first time, I’m seeing people actually take the “wash your hands” advice seriously. And by my estimation, at least 70 percent of the passengers are using the instant hand sanitizers that are all over the place. Hopefully they don’t think they work in place of hand washing. But people can be right stupid, so who knows.

I, of course, came prepared for my usual “room decontamination ritual.” I bring my own rubber gloves and a huge stash of Lysol wipes. And then I proceed to wipe down every single surface in the cabin that gets touched. All tables, the phone, all switches, the hair dryer, facets, door handles, drawers, all of it. I use up the whole canister, making sure that everything stays wet for the requisite ten minutes for decontamination. Yes, those are my hands cleaning my stateroom phone in the picture there.

I also keep a canister of more skin-friendly handi-wipes by the door, and wipe my hands on the way in or out. I wash my hands all the time, which is nothing new so that’s easy. And I keep a stash of handi-wipes on me to use before and after eating, to clean off any surfaces I put my computer on, etc. I do not touch elevator buttons – I have a spouse for that.

And that’s where I have to cut myself off. Once I’ve performed these rituals and allowed myself some concessions, then no more worrying, (if possible, heh). I know that unless I draw a line, I’d be looking for a million different ways to ensure my illness-free state, which we all know is impossible. And since I don’t want to go any crazier than I am now, that’s how I handle my illness fears. I do the stuff I said above, and then that’s it. It basically works. I get twinges when I hear someone cough or sneeze nearby, but that’s also nothing new.

Pluses for cruising include being able to go to new places and not have to break in new hotel rooms. One room. It gets the decontamination ritual, and then I’m done for the trip. And the stateroom attendants tend to be religious about cleaning. They don’t want a flu outbreak, either. Probably less than the passengers do since they live on these boats for months.

Also, no new restaurants to learn about. For food and eating related anxieties, there is nothing like having the exact same table with the exact same servers every night. You learn the routine, and then meals are really stress free after that. And, since all the food is prepaid, you can send anything back that does not work for whatever reason. Chicken look underdone? Send it back and get the lasagna. No problem. They’ll bring you both right from the get go, if you want.

Oh, another downside of cruising. Internet rates are like 37 cents a minute, minimum. So you end up typing out your whole post before jumping on line quickly and posting it, hoping you don’t have too many typos.

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Another Virus in Anxietyland

Hello Friends:

Well, it has been several weeks since I’ve posted, mostly due to back-to-back flu viruses. Yeehaw. First a week with the coughing kind, then almost two weeks of the achy-congested kind. It always catches me off guard – every year I get to March or so and think "Ah hah! I managed to get through the winter without getting sick". Then I get hammered.

Speaking of the flu – right now we have the kind of thing in the news that makes me totally freak out. In this case, the big name plague of the first decade of the twenty first century appears to be a new variant of the Swine Flu. I thought it was going to be Bird Flu, but no, they changed the animal on us. But only time will tell which one gets the honors for most scary.

When any virus or other illness is highlighted in the news, I get it. That is to say, I get so worried about contracting it that I actually start to get the symptoms. I ‘got’ Lime disease, West Nile Virus and Hauntavirus. Although I haven’t actually ‘gotten’ the Black Plague yet, which is saying something since there is still Plague out in the southwest in places I’ve spent plenty of time. My penchant for getting sick from diseases I haven’t actually contracted is one of the reasons my husband and I have eliminated my intentional exposure to the news. I don’t watch TV, read papers, or check any internet news sites. Ever. And for the most part it works to keep me from ‘developing’ every single illness that gets mentioned on page 24, let alone the front page.

Anyway, the point is that if Anthrax or Swine Flu is in the news, I find it so terrifying I’m likely to end up walled up in the house trying to wait it out, pretending the outside world doesn’t exist like some bad Poe story. I’ve been working very hard over the years to get a more realistic view of life, to accept that some illnesses are a part of being in the world. But I’m so afraid of the small chance I’ll get one of the kind that takes me out of the world altogether that sometimes it becomes absolutely debilitating. When SARS went around, I was instantly afraid to travel to Canada. Which you can imagine isn’t really so bad, except it really is the same fear that makes it hard for me to go into the backyard because the Lime disease monster will get me.

It seems different to someone who has a properly developed sense of risk assessment. Someone who can look at the world and be more realistic about what they are really likely to be exposed to, and what they are not. Lime disease is a real possibility, and SARS is pretty damn low on the list. But I can be afraid of both. Especially something like SARS, which can kill me dead, even though I’ll never get it. Lime disease is super scary, but I do know people who have contracted it and gotten it treated before it became a problem.

For someone with my illness fears, any illness is a mental death. There is no ‘other side’ to getting sick. There is getting sick and then a black wall with nothingness beyond. So this Swine Flu thing is super duper scary. You know, I think I was even vaccinated for the last strain that went around in the mid seventies. I remember my mom taking me to some kind of mass inoculation clinic with big long lines. That’s when they were using that spray gun that shot the medicine right through your skin and left a mark reminiscent of a Star Trek salt sucking alien. And now they know that many people who got that vaccine became quite ill from it. Damned if you do …

Boy I’d sure love to stay ‘safe’ in my house and never get anywhere near that Swine Flu. (That, by the way, is sarcasm. I hate the fact that I’m trapped in the house by my disorders and I know perfectly well I’m not safe there. Anyway …) But I have a new policy for my life, which is trying like hell to actually live before you die. And so you know what I saw this morning? I couldn’t miss it given how just yesterday I arrived in Granada, Spain and the local papers are all over the hotel's front reception counter. Couldn’t miss seeing a picture on the front page of people from Mexico City wearing masks in the Madrid airport – which is where I was twelve hours ago. Yep. Flipping Madrid Aeropuerto. Cripes.

Is this funny or isn’t it? I mean, I can see the humor but I’m scared out of my mind. Freaking ‘Gripe Porcine’. Between the Bird Flu and now this, I’m beginning to think that the food is fighting back for real this time.

Your Hostess With Neuroses

Image is Surgery by Chrissy Teena via Creative Commons

Buying Cruise Tickets and Banging Your Head

Hello Friends:

He's on his computer buying the cruise tickets right now. I'm having trouble breathing. Cruise tickets for our 10th anniversary. Remember I said I really wanted to go on a cruise? I'm shaking my head at myself, doing deep breathing to try to calm down. Everything's gotta be a drama with me.

Just listening to him as he fills out the form is making my palms sweat. He's happy we've made a decision on a line, a boat, and even a room category, and is making it official today. As he types, he keeps talking. And asking questions ... I'm not good with questions when I'm worked up. I'm fighting the urge to just walk out of the room as he says, "Oh yeah, which seating for dinner?" I don't know what seating for dinner, I've never been on a cruise, duh. I sort of stare at him and say, "Well, we don't have kids. Let's assume the kids come out for the early seating." He types away as I wonder if I just doomed our cruise in some way. He gives me another look, "You want the room on the port or starboard?" My chest is constricting, "How should I know ... ah, well, they said most of the smoking decks were on the starboard, right? And we don't smoke so how about port?" He smiles and keeps typing. Can't he do this himself? Well I'd know that by now after 10 years and the answer is certainly 'no'. He grins at me, "Ok, now they are asking for our anniversary date, but it's just before we cruise, do we make something up?" I roll my eyes, "I don't care - let's 'celebrate' on the first full day at sea. Does not matter if it's official with them or not, honestly."

He types for a while and I sip my tea and work on this blog, hoping he is done. No ... wishful thinking. He looks confused a moment and says, "So for the travel insurance ... I know you want some, and we can get that here." This is the part I'm having real trouble getting him to understand. I need insurance so I can cancel for ANY reason. I need to know that if I freak out we don't lose this huge investment. And since insurance companies still don't see debilitating anxiety as a real illness, I have to be able to fit into the 'canceling because I've got my panties in a wad' category. I say pointedly, AGAIN, "I have to be able to cancel for ANY reason. Assume that will be the most expensive option for insurance."

He still looks confused, and keeps typing. Then stops, tipping his head, "You know, there are a lot of questions here we don't know. I think I'll call AmEx directly." I practically drop my head on the table as he goes for the phone. And maybe we could have started that way, and saved the third degree on your wife's questionable nerves? But after all these years, bless the poor man, he seems to start every conversation forgetting I'm a lunatic. Then he sort of remembers as I act weird. No idea why he puts up with this, really.

He's on the phone now, and this is not great, but an improvement. Going through it all again, but this time he's definitely happier that he has someone real on the other end for reality checks. Works out fine, with my blood pressure down to slow simmer, until insurance comes up again. I can hear her voice, saying that it will cover pre-existing medical conditions. I shake my head and he sees it, and says to the woman, "My wife has a chronic illness, and we travel a lot, but sometimes have to cancel late in the game." I can hear her words, "No problem, you'll just need a note from your doctor saying ..." Now I'm actually moving from anxiety to anger, which I've recognized is a more positive response sometimes, "That does not make me feel better. I don't want to have to document, because not everyone agrees that anxiety is a covered chronic illness. This won't work. We've been through issues where we've had just this problem, don't you remember? I need to be able to cancel for ANY reason."

Some more talking with the person on the phone, and I'm trying not to listen. Now I have to figure out how to make this work, clearly we are going to need insurance from a third party, and will probably end up with insurance from two places, and I'm pretty rattled at the moment. I hate hate hate this sh*t.

Will blog more later when I've calmed down, and focused on the good stuff. Right. The good stuff. Yeah.

Your Hostess With Neuroses