But Isn't That A Good Thing? (Revised)

If I haven't said it before, I'll say it now - I love my therapy sessions.  Every two weeks, I see my wonderful counsellor.  Every four weeks, I visit my psychiatrist.  I should have been doing this years ago.  The trips to the psychiatrist are much shorter in length.  She goes over the standard questions of how am I feeling, eating, sleeping, any side effects and so on.  We do discuss some issues, but the majority of those are saved for my counselling sessions.  It's during therapy that my counsellor and I delve into much deeper, meatier issues.  The further we go, the more things from my past make sense.  But we also look at current frustrations/issues.  The majority of our discussions center around what we now know as my obsessive-compulsive disorder. 

Today, I questioned whether the drugs I'm on could actually stimulate the compulsiveness, rather than eliminate it.  The reason I asked is because my Kitchen Naziness is slowly turning into House Naziness.  But I was quick to point out that it's not because of germs that I'm doing the cleaning...it's just this need to do it.  The kitchen is still, by far, the "worst" of my tendencies.  My counsellor asked what would happen if I went to bed with dishes left out on the counter.  I replied, "That wouldn't happen".  Then the good old, "But how would that make you feel if you had to leave it dirty?".  "Anxious" was my answer.  And my palms started to sweat as I thought about it.  Wow.  Never thought I'd be in this place.  But apparently compulsions take time to develop and I was told today to keep my eye on the whole cleaning thing.  If it starts to interfere with my relationships or if I find that Katelyn is laying in her crib screaming while I'm in the kitchen and I call out to her, "Just a minute sweetie! Mommy is just Boraxing these already clean pots!", then I know I'm in trouble.

The way that I rationalize it, this new "cleaner me" isn't taking time away from the family, I'm still able to get everything else done that needs to be and the family, in general, is benefitting from having a tidier house.  As long as my compulsions don't turn to flicking light switches and counting my steps to make sure I stop walking on an odd number, than I think I'll be all right.

Towards the end of the session, my counsellor talked about what could be done if this cleaning gets out of hand.  She showed me a "Ritual Self-Monitoring" form and pointed out how a person would keep track of how they feel about delaying their ritual and what they could do in the mean time.  She asked, "What are some things you could do to distract yourself from wanting to clean the kitchen?".

Without missing a beat, I replied, "Clean the bathroom".