We recently got back from a “vacation.” I write vacation in quotation marks because my husband was still working, but we went somewhere and did sort of vacation-y things sometimes. At other times, I made the kids sit and read or play quietly on their hotel room beds or watch TV shows or something. Because being with kids all the time is exhausting.
And it’s not just having children that makes traveling exhausting. As mentioned early this week in this post, OCD adds an extra level of stress to a vacation, and at least for me, I end up defaulting in some of my progress in order to simply survive the trip.
Shuffling back…
I had been trying to record my compulsions, habits, temptations, etc. but I fell off that bandwagon pretty soon after arrival. I became more concerned with “cleanliness” and, though I didn’t use hand sanitizer, I had hand wipes that were used frequently to clean and make myself feel better if the kids spit on something, got their hands dirty, or something of that ilk.
While I didn’t sanitize the airplane seat or hotel room (or even bring disinfecting wipes at all), I did buy pump hand soap for the hotel room because I still can’t fully get behind using bars of soap at a bathroom sink. That is just too much for me to handle for an extended period of time—cleaning myself with a piece of soap that probably was last touched with hands that had just wiped someone’s bottom? Call me crazy, but that doesn’t seem like a good idea.
So there’s that.
…but inching forward?
I did try to mostly stay on track, though. My son stepped in something at one point that may or may not have been animal feces, gross rotten fruit, or something else sketchy, and I didn’t totally freak out. I encouraged him to clean his shoes off the best he could, but I didn’t throw them out or spray them with disinfectant spray (even after coming home!). So that’s something.
Now that I’m home, I’m trying to get back with my exposures, or at least compulsion reducing. Because let’s be real, exposures are still difficult for me. Mostly I have to stay on track. I don’t want myself to slide backwards. If I can inch a few steps forward, that’s awesome, but I really don’t want to lose too much ground. Here’s hoping the same for you!