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Grocery store visit freaked me out today

(8 posts) (6 voices)
  • Started 1 year ago by sarah81
  • Latest reply from LAH71
  • This topic is A support question
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    sarah81
    Member

    Hi friends, I have had a very hard afternoon. I took my little 4 year-old grocery shopping with me today at our usual store, which I generally enjoy. She's a great little helper. While I was packing the groceries into the bags, she started walking toward the exit, passing a garbage can. Being about 3 feet tall, her head is about at the same height as the opening of the garbage can, which was stuffed with trash. I saw her walk quite close to it, but not touching it, and I saw that there was stuff hanging out of the can. When I walked out, I saw that what was hanging out of the garbage can was actually a long piece of bloody tissue.

    This made me extremely nervous, and I started replaying the incident in my mind, did my daughter actually touch the tissue without me seeing it, did we touch it on the way into the store without my noticing it, etc. There was also maybe half a minute when she was putting her mini-shopping cart away and I wasn't paying attention to what she was doing.

    We were grocery shopping because my closest girlfriend, who is a junior doctor, was coming over. When we arrived back from the store, my friend was there and I ended up telling her quite a lot. I had to because I was so upset she would have wondered what was wrong.

    Even though I am pretty sure that what happpened today was ok, seeing something like a big piece of bloody tissue feeds into my need to watch over my children really closely. I feel sort of justified... No mother would let her child touch someone else's bloody tissue if she noticed it. The difference is that the normal mothers aren't looking for blood everywhere, and they all probably walked right by the garbage can without thinking about it.

    My anxiety level is super high today but it was nice to talk to my friend. She is a wonderful person, both as a dr. and a friend. She also told me that one other medical student we both know had something similar, and had a lot of trouble in the dissection rooms (dissecting corpses), and was washing hands 100s of times per day.

    Any comments welcome

    Sat Sep 18 2010 18:03:43 #
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    Unregistered

    Hi Sarah

    This feeling that you (or your child) has touched something when you really know they have not is quite common amongst us contaminationers. If you go back to some of the posts about dog faeces you will find that a few have had fears that they have stood on some when they know they have not. I feel this about toilets when I am having a bad turn. It was particularly bad when my hair was well past my shoulders. Some of us also go as far as measuring distances to ensure we have not touched a contaminated object. I still do this sometimes.
    The point is that the more you mull over it the worse it gets.

    I think you need to try your best not to think about it. It is great that you have a junior doctor to talk with. What a great help.

    Love

    Anne

    Sat Sep 18 2010 18:15:56 #
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    PARTY POISON
    Blocked

    That would freak me out.

    Maybe you didn't see it when you walking in - but you wouldn't have walked close to the garbage can anyway - I never do.

    Your daughter probably never touched it - ok she was close, but she wouldn't have touched it

    Sat Sep 18 2010 18:40:33 #
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    Truddles
    Member

    I'm pleased that you were able to confide in your friend, it must ease the burden being able to share and to know that you're not the only one at medical school with OCD.

    It's not easy to not focus on your fears but being able to discuss today with a friend will help.

    Sat Sep 18 2010 19:53:02 #
  5. Avatar Image

    sarah81
    Member

    Thanks you guys.
    I think that just seeing that there was something bloody sticking out of a garbage can was almost as disturbing to me as the idea of my little girl being close to it. I end up feeling like the world is so dangerous and scary when something like that happens.
    I don't think I have ever seen bloody garbage sticking out of a garbage can before, in my whole life, but seeing it now when I am in this really worried state of mind was just quite bad timing for me.
    Anne, I am going to stop mulling about this, as you suggest. It certainly doesn't help.
    Thanks you guys for all your nice comments.
    Sarah

    Sun Sep 19 2010 9:39:01 #
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    Cuthbert ffoliott
    Moderator

    Hiya Sarah -

    wishing you all the best with this issue. You know: even for non-OCD people this might have been unsettling. I think that seeling a piece of cloth with blood can scare anyone (out of evolutionary dispositions). So for you it must be extra hard.

    Am I right in thinking that no rationale that you are able to apply on the grounds of your study is enough to calm you down entirely?

    Weird - suddenly I recalled an analogy, not HIV related, but about radioactivity. Someone once told me that she'd drunk wine out of a glass thingy that was once used for carrying harmless radioactive tracers (very low concentration, very short halflife) from one room to another. It had, of course, been cleaned to lab standard with detergents, measured with counting machines (standard procedures), the lot.

    Yet I jumped: how could anyone do such a thing? I really needed some time in convincing myself that this must have been the cleanest glass in the whole city, if not the whole country, so to speak - because if it were to be used for further experiments, it had to be absolutely contamination-free. So using it for drinking was as safe as could be determined in any way humanly possible.

    It's the fight between our reason and our fears.

    Ciao, Cuthbert.

    Mon Sep 20 2010 8:18:39 #
  7. Avatar Image

    sarah81
    Member

    Thanks Cuthbert, I am feeling better about it today. I just have to trust my own eyes with what I saw, and not try to re-write my memory and frighten myself.
    That's an interesting story about the radioactive glass. I probably wouldn't want to drink out of it either, even knowing how well it had been cleaned. Maybe it's like how people won't want to buy a house in which someone has been murdered, even though it's all been repainted/redone etc. It's not logical at all, yet it's quite common.
    Three cheers for reason!

    Mon Sep 20 2010 11:29:33 #
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    LAH71
    Member

    Hi Sarah

    Sorry to hear you had a bad experience the other day but great to hear you are feeling better today. I've just had a similar few days with reason and fears but am feeling a bit more positive today. I got your PM thanks, will message you back later.

    Take care
    Laura x

    Mon Sep 20 2010 14:58:45 #

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