Post OCD-treatment Musings

i ended the program at the end of august. i have been planning this post in my head ever since. the program was very helpful. am i cured? no. will i handle the next round of stomach flu without issue? probably not. but do i have a better understanding of why i am the way i am? definitely. i am a control freak. i do not take kindly to being in situations that i cannot control. the past few years have been the ultimate challenge to maintaining control. we underwent infertility treatments. we sold our house in an awful market. i have a three year old. but the biggest slap in the face was ryan's birth. i had no control over when i was going to bleed, how much, where, etc. i had no control over keeping my son safe. and that is what pushed me over the OCD-edge from a phobia to full on OCD. how do those differences present? i'm not just scared when someone is going to get sick. i'm constantly thinking about it. questioning. worrying. i can't read a facebook status update about a sick kid without getting anxious. and it was beginning to take over my life. ryan gets annoyed with me for asking too many questions. given how many questions that kid asks, that's saying something. so about halfway through, we realized something (which makes me thing of knuffle bunny when "TRIXIE REALIZED SOMETHING"). the reason the exposures weren't causing me any anxiety was that the vomiting itself wasn't the problem - it was the loss of control that came along with it. i don't know when, where, how long, who, and to what extent the stomach bug will take over our family. sound familiar? i thought so. we changed my exposures to include situations where i wouldn't have any control - michael blacked out the expiration date on the milk. i didn't ask where we were going. i didn't double check the diaper bag. and it caused anxiety. brilliant. next up - anxiety. does it suck - definitely. will it hurt me - nope. it's just uncomfortable. like running. it's uncomfortable, but in the end run it will be good for me. each time i do it, it will get easier, to the point that someday it won't hurt. how does this help? it is a lot easier to reason with yourself when you know why you're freaked out in the first place. i believe the revelations we made during treatment, combined with the mindset that anxiety is just uncomfortable, plus the ability for me to take my "emergency pill" (clomazaphan - which is not at all spelled correctly) will make the next bug a bit easier. only time will tell.