What defines me

I remember being in a international relations theory class, I wish I remember what I was reading. At the time I considered myself Catholic, but in no means was it the most important thing in my life. I was at school and I was with my friends, and that was what was important. I don't think I went to church except for holidays. Not that I do alot now, but I don't know for a different reason. Back to the international relations class... I was reading an article that brought me to ask the question how do you define yourself? At the time I had no clue, so I felt I needed to figure that out. How do you define yourself? To get to the point, I figured out because of my childhood religion and how I was raised I defined myself by my Catholic faith. So why was I trying to escape it? I wasn't sure about it for a few years because I was upset with the school I graduated from, which doesn't make sense right now. But I figured out, I can't escape what I am and I made peace with it. That is what drew me further into political theory, Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. This drew me further into my faith. I thank my teachers at Texas State for giving me the material that brought me to this place. Not usual to thank a University for this, but its professors were Catholic and put that material into their classes. They still did have a political slant as well. From there I was brought further into prayer and asked God to bring me someone, I happened to meet my husband the very next day. My faith has grown since then. I've had hiccups with the OCD, but I am certain that being a Catholic defines me and I want it to be the same way for my child and hopefully children.

Obsessions and Compulsions

Things that have been recent obsessions I'm having:

1.  That I can't be forgiven from my sin
2.  That I'm going to do something wrong, just don't know what
3.  That I'm lying about OCD
4.  Images of cutting self (the usual)


Compulsions:

1. Confessing guilt, I feel like I have to say something... Apologizing for being a burden
2.  Avoidance of prayer

Can't think of compulsions. I am doing better and that is what matters.

Scrupulosity?

I am trying to figure out if I have scrupulosity or not? I do spend the day researching my faith. I feel relief thinking that is what it is. It started recently but me trying to be a better Christian started recently as well. I realize I'm not trying to help others or read the bible. Im obsessing over the fact I cant take communion. I fear prayer sometimes and I have inappropriate images come into my head while I do pray. I find myself praying over and over till I got it right. Sometimes I fall asleep. Ive done that for years. I just didnt think that is what it was. I felt ashamed at first, like this itself offended God. But I have some relief now. Goodnight.

Covering of Women's Heads in Mass

I have spent most of my days trying to read up on my faith. To examine things I've had questions on. I got a new rosary bracelet as a reminder of my faith. I just want to be an example for my family. Of course that also means starting to go to mass on Sunday. I have had trouble going to mass on Sundays because of worrying about my daughter and having a broken heal. 

But as shown in the previous post what I have been reading about is head coverings/mantillas/veils in mass. I have been wondering why women have stopped wearing head coverings? My mom stated that it is Vatican II.  It states in Catholic Answers that the Vatican ruled that it is cultural standards and that is why we aren't required to wear head coverings; it does state directly in the bible as I showed previously that women should wear head coverings though. Is it cultural? I know that it is a rarity to see those wearing the veil in mass today and if you did wear  it, you are bound to stand out. The question is does wearing the veil also have to do with modesty? 

I think that it is noticeable that it was dropped during the time of Vatican II as stated by my mom. I think it does have to do with sign of respect and modesty. As it states in the bible as well, women and men should not wear clothing of the other as well (Deuteronomy 22:5). I think it something that shows our submissiveness and differentiates our dress from men. But at the same time I do not wear one. Why? Because no one else does. 

I am contemplating that change, but at first I need to go back to church as I stated. I will let you know how this progresses.

1 Corinthians 11:5

But every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven.

Luke 17:6

He replied, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you.

Changing the blog

For the first time in years I am changing the look of my blog. I had so many broken links and such I needed to update. So you see my new background of pictures and art. I also changed the description of the blog. I keep the history of it, but it describes what I am  now. I am a Catholic mother and wife as I described in the last post, that is mainly what I want of myself and I believe that is what the blog will reflect going forward.

So look forward to the new work and what is to be my updated blog.

What do I want?

I have been off my feet for the  past couple of weeks due to an  accident I had where both of my ankles were injured. I have had time to do nothing but read current events, a little fantasy and watch TV. Before the injury I was in a kinda  daze. I had just traveled to see my parents and then the in laws with  my daughter in tow. The closest thing I come to a vacation is seeing family. But I wasn't doing anything worth while for myself. I don't clean at all. My house from my daughter  and I had become a disaster.I stopped exercising and taking care of myself. I lied about it and I thought every morning... "I'll start the next  day...  Its okay because I'll do it tomorrow." Of coarse it never happened. Does this sound like someone who wants a family? Wants to raise her child to be a good devout woman. I appear selfish and lazy from what I've been doing. Am I depressed? I guess so. I can't think of why else I'm doing this. Its definitely not to please my husband.

So now I hurt myself. I have to call my mom  for help. How else am I going to take care of a three year old? How else am I going to take care of myself? I feel guilty every day since and all of a sudden have tried to push myself. I want to feel better. I want to walk. I can't carry my daughter. I can't get her juice when  she wants it.  I'm lucky. My mom comes happily to save me from having to hire someone to take care of my daughter and try to make it best I can during the day on my own. But this comes with  its own burdens. Not that I can really share... But that isn't the point. I am starting to have a drive for once. I want to get myself out of the situation I'm in. The question is what do I want? I've been asked what do I want and not what others want. Of course I don't see myself actually pleasing anyone in my pathetic state. I guess in my own way I ask what everyone else wants and go along with it. Partially from not wanting to make a decision and from not wanting to upset anyone. So the questions is what do I want of my life. Here is what I have come up with:

1. I want a successful business - It has been Arthur and my dream to work together in a business we run. That business has turned out to be in government contracting. I haven't been working enough on this and when it came down to it, it is one of the top things I want for me and my family. I think my parents think this is me pleasing Arthur maybe, but its not. It is something we've wanted since we were first together and it didn't change when we had my daughter either. I worked on it the day I was in labor with her. I had drive to get our business going then.

2. Raise my child (and hopefully children) to be happy and religious - This should probably be number one, but I'm not paying attention to order. My family is what is most important in my life, and so raising my daughter is number one priority because she is the one in my family that relies on me for everything through the day. What I think of what I want for her, career doesn't matter, what matters to me is happiness. She is already intelligent and I believe she can achieve anything she wants. I believe she can only be happy through knowing her faith and being raised in it. So what I am doing doesn't go with this at all and I am constantly chastising  myself for it. I haven't taught her to say prayers and I haven't  taught her about behaving in church, because I'm too afraid to take her. I don't get up early enough for it too. So what am I doing?

3. I want  to be a religious model for my family - I had trouble thinking of how to describe this one. Before I met Arthur I went through a time I thought of going into the religious life. I didn't pursue it basically because I met Arthur. I was interested in religious studies and wanted to do what God had planned for me. God evidently planned for me to be a mother. From there my love is of philosophy and St. Thomas. I have the entire Summa Theologica at home and I haven't touched it. Basically I want to be more studious  in what I believe in and to live as an example of this for my family. It isn't enough to believe it, you must be able to live  it. This includes being a good mother and wife.  To be  a good religious woman basically. I think that is more important than seeking any selfish aims.

4. I want to be beautiful - Does that seem weird. I have dreams of looking at myself in my early twenties. I want to be that once again. I do see myself as beautiful at that time, though I didn't appreciate myself much at the time. This basically means loosing weight and keeping myself up, my hair and my face. That means trying to be good looking day  by day.  It is good to love the way you look no matter what, but I am not in a good place right now. It is best that I get to that point  of also being healthy.

That is basically it. That is what would make me happy. The list is short, but it shows alot of what I am. I truly am a religious woman who wants to represent herself as such through deeds and work. I haven't done any of it recently. So maybe the fall is what I needed to go back and rethink what I want out of life. Maybe I have been  depressed and in a slump of sorts. But my OCD is better and I use to most of my blame on that. What is there to blame now, but myself.

My OCD

I was invited to write my history of OCD for facebook group. I know I had symptoms of OCD from a young age, but I have to wrack my brain to remember when  it started. I know I had symptoms as early as thirteen, but my real breakdown came from having my daughter. I was fine through the pregnancy; I was really good through the pregnancy. Once I had my daughter I had fear of something happening to her. It consumed me. I kept thinking of when mothers killed their kids and that had me overcome with fear. At the same time my harm OCD started towards myself. I thought I wanted to cut myself, I researched it because I couldn't stop thinking about it. I could only mention it once to my husband, but he didn't understand the extent of it. I didn't explain it to him because I was afraid of what he would say.

This only got worse and I would find myself holding my daughter and crying because of the thoughts. My husband had his own health problems that scared me and I did what I could to hide my own problems. This kept up through moving to Texas from Florida where we had lived since we were married to stay temporarily with my parents. When we ended up in our final place in Virginia, my daughter was almost a year   old. That is when I watched a South Park episode making fun of the movie the Human Centipede. I never watched the movie, but thoughts about it grossed me out so much I felt sick. It made me ill and I would tell those around me I was sick. It took that one to get me to research what this was. I knew very little about OCD at the time. I looked it up and noticed that was the symptoms I had and finally went to a doctor.

That was two years ago. I've had a couple (here and here) of break downs since then. Was almost hospitalized once because of a psychiatrist that didn't seem to understand it very well. I went through a few months through the past two years where my husband had to stay home with me to help take care of my daughter. But now I am   doing okay again. I have an OCD that comes and goes with my moods. I forget what it is called. All that matters is I am in one of the good stages where the OCD is practically not here.

The best thing that happened and why I am writing about getting better is because of  my doctor at John's Hopkins that got me into ERP therapy and got me on the correct meds. This probably isn't the best write up of OCD, but its the best I can do right now.

New Angel Painting

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had our first Thanksgiving with just our little family here in Virginia. We spent most of the day cooking and we had a already prepared meal we thought. I didn't pretend that I could do the cooking of an entire meal like this. Everything turned out great. Best turkey I've had in years! Little girl fell asleep before the meal and spent it asleep on my lap. No fighting in our little group and everyone was happy. Best of all for me I had no OCD bothering me today. All in all a good day. Now I am stuffed and am about ready for bed. Happy Thanksgiving!

Started a group

I've tried to start a meetup group when I was having bad OCD symptoms the first time. I have gone on and off on trying to get it going. It is a group for people with OCD, which is hard to get people to meet about evidentally. I get one person at a time to meet me. I will just keep on trying as I go. The others I've met with have offered to help. But even not that many people are there to meet it is helpful talking to others with the same problem. It is interesting to see the similarities that people have to you. For instance I had a conversation that this other person plays games when they feel stressed out. So we started to talk about computer games. I play computer games, mainly Diablo 3 to help me out when thoughts are bad. I also try Tetris, which works pretty good.

But I keep scheduling these meetings with nobody but the same couple of people signing up when I have about 15 people in the group. I guess I will just keep trying. Meetup is pretty neat other than that. I have used it to meet people in more than one mother group. Those are pretty successful.

Nothing else new. Till next time.

Minnie for Halloween

We bought my baby girl her Halloween costume. We let her pick it for the first time. She chose Minnie Mouse and didn't want to take off the costume when we tried it on her at home. It was beautiful watching her twirl around in it. I had to put her in an old costume to get her out of her new one.

I can't wait to dress her up next week. That's what makes thr holidays fun.

More about my thoughts

My brain is plagued with thoughts and I wonder how I am going to deal with this the next few weeks. My meds were changed up so I have to adjust.

I was able to get out of the house today to do shopping and run errands with my mom and daughter. I wish I knew if that brings my stress level down or not.

I look up eposodic OCD and depression. It does little to aleviate me, but I feel compelled to all the same. Just doing that is related to the illness. What is interesting is some believe it is a neurological even though labelled as psychiatric. I wonder if more attention would be given if it was neurological. I feel like there is so much more research to be done.

Well, I am waiting for my daughter to wake up. Its her nap time. Any minute now...

Sprained Ankle

I went to OCD clinic a couple of days ago. It was a three hour interview. I went through my entire life history and guess what... I'm still OCD. The only difference is I'm eposodic. All that means is they are doing my meds differently.

Then the next day I thought I'd have fun with my mom and daughter at an animal park with a fall festival. My little one chased a pig, played in a bouncy house, and ate fresh apples with cider. Then I went down this big hay slide and hit my foot on the side, and spraining my ankle.

So I have OCD, a cold and a sprained ankle. But, life is good:)

Till next time.