Can I Make It? I Think I Can, I Think I Can

If all goes well, my house will be sold in just over two weeks. Problem is, during those two weeks some MAJOR repairs are being done in the basement. The good news is that I don't have any choice but to "make it." And that two weeks realistically will fly on by. It's already been more than four since I finished prepping the house for sale.

The bad news is that it could be a fairly stressful two weeks. I feel like I'm actually doing a pretty good job of using healthy techniques for dealing with my anxiety. But it's still there.

Uncomfortable Sigh

A post over on Janet's great ocdtalk blog sent me scanning back through old blog posts. And (not for the first time), I'm reminded about how strong my OCD remains. All those years of dealing with exposures, and yet still spending most of my free time worrying about something.

I'm happy with the progress I've made, sort of, but in realistic terms, I'm still in about the same place I started. So many posts where I'd found the book that was going to change my life. Where I was absolutely determined to beat OCD once and for all. Wash, rinse, repeat (heck, I think I've even posted THAT before).

OCD Around Me

I've posted before about seeing someone out and about with clear OCD. I'm not quite sure why it fascinates me so much. Maybe it's because I go to great lengths to hide my OCD in public, so I think it's interesting when people don't. Are they making a statement, or simply unable to NOT do their compulsions (I think the latter today).

Today I was at the grocery store and not only was a woman in the produce section using a produce bag on her hands so as not to touch the cart handle, she was picking up each piece of produce with a bag, inside out, and them flipping it right-side out onto her selected produce. I guess her own hands were too dirty to touch the produce?

She was also shopping the minute the store opened. I was, too, but only because I was out running another errand and this was the best time to do it. I assume she was trying to minimize the number of people who touched her produce.

It looked so hard. And I can only assume she was kind of embarrassed to know that people probably look at her funny while she's doing this (maybe another reason for the time of day she was shopping).

It makes me grateful for the huge gains I've made on the contamination OCD front. Life is easier, and far less stressful when you can touch stuff!

Time Sure is Weird

While I'm waiting for my house to sell, it feels like time is going so s-l-o-w-l-y, and yet somehow it's been almost a month since my last post. So I guess it's not really slow at all.

I also was just referencing an email that someone had sent me 11 (!) years ago. So, yeah, I guess time is actually flying on by!

The house went on the market last week (oh, and I feel I should add, I did not do either of the projects my OCD wanted me to do before listing it). I got a really great offer mid-week. Strangely, it's almost TOO good an offer. My agent thinks there's a good chance the person will get cold feet and decide they've offered too much (likely true). But either way, it's a sign that the house should sell about where it was listed. I'm very very eager for this all to be done, of course. Some days I do better than others.

Hope everyone's summer is going well, and for those in the U.S., that you're having a great 4th of July.