Long haired tabby combed down, bathed, blown dry and combed again? Done.
Dog bathed, toweled dry? Check and check.
Human bathed? Nope. Still waiting on the towels to dry. Poor kitties peed on the bath mats from anxiety while being dried. Let that be a lesson to us all, Spoonies included: flea prevention takes more than pills.
I've been so &@$? Tired lately that I stopped cleaning the porches, and can't remember when I last vacuumed. I've let shoes and jackets be tossed around and left wherever, and now we have had some fleas. I know we tracked them in, and without my rules in place, they stayed and found hosts on the cats. What's so sad is I didn't notice the cats were uncomfortable, because I've been falling asleep as soon as I get home from work. Mom noticed one on Charlie.
There's nothing as disgusting feeling as an animal caregiver than to let fleas or other parasites in. It's moments like these that my compulsions work me past reason, because it know I will not sleep tonight, even though I worked a full day, and will work another full day tomorrow. I must clean until I feel better. Bleach and essential oils will come out, the cat trees will be flea bombed, every cloth thing I can wash will be run through the washer on hot with bleach or bleach alternative. The tub will be scrubbed with comet, even though it sets off my asthma, because my brain will itch, telling me that the fleas will breed somehow.
All because I stopped my compulsions and over zealousness in favor of rest.
I drive myself and my husband crazy. I'm always moving everything he owns, because I don't want shoes tracking in dirt, bacteria or parasites in to the carpets. I change as soon as I get home, and toss my clothes in the wash, because I've been exposed to all sorts of things during the day. One of the most disgusting things I can think of is sliding in to bed in the same clothing you've worn in the outside world. Socks especially. And laying down for a nap? You better be napping on the couch, not in or on the bed! That's just on a normal day.
Things have been so far beneath my level of comfortable and clean this month that I haven't been making myself food. When I eat at home, it's on disposable stuff because I don't know that the dishes are cleaned to my level of okay. That makes me uncomfortable too, because I'm killing the planet in favor of phobia.
OCD isn't cute, or a turn of phrase for liking things your way. It's a beast that commands you past your limits, berating you and scaring you the whole way. It tells you things like "you will end up on tv for how you live, as an example of how life falls apart unless you fix this!", "you missed a spot. You didn't leave the cleaner on there long enough. You will make everyone sick unless you clean it right!", "give up. You can't do it right! Why are you even trying to fix this? You'll die because you can't clean it. It will be your fault your cat dies from not cleaning this up. If you leave those dishes, you will never get them clean enough. You will die of ecoli. Throw your plates away. You can never bleach off what you left on there." And other horrible things.
Most days I feel in control of my impulses, and I don't see the sense in trying to get help for it because compared to my physical problems, who has time to talk about this stuff and address it as real? I know I don't have money for psych visits! But then there's days like today, where finding a flea on the dog and then seeing the cats scratch sends me over the edge, and I will keep plugging along like a machine, or empty shell of desperation to try and make myself feel clean enough, and my world "okay".
I know as long as I live with my husband I will never ever have a home that is clean enough for me. If left to my own devices in times like tonight, it's "normal" to see me scrubbing a counter for 3 hours with bleach. I will physically hurt myself with exhaustion and repetitive actions for cleaning/fixing, just to "feel better" mentally.
...and tonight it's all because of a flea.
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