Writing About Your Experience

I received an email two weeks ago from a grad student at Arizona State assisting on a professor's book of first person accounts of mental illness. It will be a supplemental textbook, with an intended audience of future mental health professionals.

They want to share people's accounts of living with mental illness, as a way to help practitioners understand what their patients are dealing with. I like the idea, since I know that a lot of people have less than ideal experiences with mental health professionals.

The guidelines are pretty simple:
* Submissions should be a personal account of your personal experience with mental illness;
* Personal accounts can be written on any aspect of your experience that is significant to you (i.e. your relationships with family, your experience with healing and seeking help etc);
* Narratives are preferred although poetry and other formats will also be considered;
* Submission does not guarantee that your work will be published.

If you're interested in this, send me an email, and I have some more information about the people putting this together.

The timeline is pretty short, with the manuscript to be finished by June.

Second Scary Social Event!

Today I went to an organic gardening group I joined last year. It was nice, and I'm glad I went. I even ate a cookie despite feeling like my hands were "dirty." As always, I'll do a lot for sugar.

For good or bad, the meeting was held very close to where my sister's new house is going up. I've been avoiding the site, since the whole process sends me into OCD fits. But today I drove by. It looks lovely, and only scared me a small, well, medium, amount.

I'm thrilled with my "scary social event" progress, though. After months with zero or maybe one event, I've got six scheduled for February already, and it would have been more had my knitting class not been canceled at the last minute.

At six to ten a month, I'll be at 52 in no time!

No Rest for the Weary

My reward for hanging tough yesterday? Another day of exposures. I get on the bus, and the woman across the aisle looks like she wants to die, with her head practically between her knees. My brain thinks "stomach flu." I get off the bus at my stop and immediately walk by a garbage truck emptying a dumpster, complete with a cloud of crud.

Get to work and find my computer has a virus. IT guy types away on my keyboard for over an hour (germs! on MY keyboard!) Killing time while this happens, my coworker regales me with stories of her week long stomach flu.

Ride the bus to therapy because it's pouring. Bus is full and smells of too many people and wet dog (he's sitting right in front of me). As the bus pulls into my stop, the guy two rows back sneezes. For some reason I turn to look and he sneezes again. Oops. Touched a lot of handrails (and didn't sanitize anything).

I get home (stopping to pick up the mail!), and decide a run would be relaxing. I nearly trip over a DEAD DOG! (I feel terrible for the dog and I wonder what happened- stray dogs are very rare around here. But, not relaxing.)

So, not the best day. Freaked out over all of these things less than expected, although my therapist did have to talk me down a little.

Tough Day But I Won

Today I spent two hours in a meeting next to a guy who was coughing and blowing his nose. Then I walked home from work and had a minor (very minor) incident with a drunk homeless man. Got home, let the cat out, and it started sprinkling. Cat came back in with wet and dirty feet, then jumped on the bed.

But, I have not taken a shower, and have no plans to do so tonight. My OCD tried to convince me that I would be warmer after a shower, but I didn't cave, just turned the heat up.

Looking Back on This Week and Ahead to Next

As always, there were some ups and some downs.

I did get the mail most days (I'm not used to it anymore, so I forgot a few times), and I'm doing very well at not washing my hands at work, including after a few vending machine purchases, which is especially tough for me.

I had a great encounter with a friend downtown, and we went to lunch.

What I really need to work on now is my hands. My therapist has noted on numerous occasions that I'm very particular with my hands, and it's not a surprise to hear it. Especially when I'm not washing them every time I'd like to, I'm really careful not to touch my face, or sometimes much of anything else. I know most people don't pay attention to this.

I'm unlikely to start rubbing my eyes or scratching my nose while riding public transit. But, for instance, I used to have a nervous habit of tucking my hair behind my ear, and now I rarely do, simply because I hate to touch my hair out in public. I would like to react more naturally to the world around me.

This is My Brain on OCD

So, for nearly a year I've been freaking about colds and flu, due to a fear of causing illness in people around me who are undergoing chemo. Currently that's my boss. On Friday, at the very end of the day, she came into my office with a tissue in hand, blew her nose, and then set some paperwork on my desk, right on top of what I was currently working on.

Of course I freaked out. She might have a cold, I could get that cold, and then I could pass it on to my boss... hey, wait a minute!

OCD brain knows no logic. I still felt anxious all evening.

This Should be Interesting

Our work travel budget is really tight this year. I'm one of the "lucky" ones chosen to go to the national conference in June. In Atlanta. Ack. I haven't been on a plane since 2006, I hate hotels, and I hate leaving my house and cats in others' hands. It's the perfect exposure, and I know that, but I'm just going to ignore it for a while.