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Still At War

(44 posts) (10 voices)

Started 2 years ago by
Latest reply from stevieb
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We are still at war with the field mice. It's a difficult battle, because the only ammunition I am willing to use is proving inadequate. (My husband never mentioned the anticoagulant poison again, don't think he can face doing it, either) However, a part of me wishes I could just fight 'dirty' and say to hell with the consequences.

Most of the mice have been living in the front room (as well as under the house) and they have found their way into cupboards with treasured possessions, some from my childhood.

The fear is constant and the pain of the destruction very distressing. Not sure which is worse. I still maintain that the theory 'if everything is contaminated, nothing is' does not work, at least not for me.

I don't know whether I'll be online much in the coming weeks. I'm still hoping I'll break down altogether and be hospitalized. Anything to escape this torture.

Thu Nov 5 2009 14:38:37 #
Parvez Choudhry
Member

Dear Tricia

I am extremely sorry your torture is continuing. I feel for you deeply as I try to imagine how dreadful it is for you. I send you all my morale support and urge you not to despair.

It sounds as if the mice are growing bolder and increasing in numbers? Do you think it may be time to take a radically different approach before your house becomes overrun? I know you are very compassionate towards the mice and don't want them to suffer the pain of being poisoned to death, but you seem to be putting the mice before yourself. Is a mouse more important than a human being? As horrible as it must be for a mouse to be posioned and die a lingering death, I would imagine your current distress is even worse. A poisoned mouse would suffer for only a week whereas your suffering is unremitting. Could you perhaps work intensively with your psychiatrist to try to normalise your extreme sense of guilt about hurting animals? Pain and death are intrinsic parts of life, and although your conscientiousness and compassion towards animals is highly admirable, I think it is unreasonable and unrealistic.

You do so much good on this forum, Tricia, and I'm sure you are a highly valued friend & support to many people off the forum too. Having a breakdown and being hospitalised would prevent you from continuing to help & encourage your friends. You would be sorely missed. For their sakes, if not for your own, I hope you will heed that part of you that wants to fight 'dirty'. Could the consequences be any worse than what you are currently going through?

With warmest good wishes .... Parvez

Fri Nov 6 2009 12:03:37 #
Unregistered

Dear Parvez, Would you believe I have not been permitted to see a psychologist for almost twenty years (locally that is) and the last psychiatrist I saw announced that I am resistant to all medication, he added there is nothing he can do for me. I paid to see a psychologist privately (the same one I saw twenty years ago on the NHS) and he actually said the psychiatrist was talking nonsense (I've only been prescribed three drugs in all these years). Anyway, that's a long answer to your question about seeing my psychiatrist!!

You are right, I know you are. Putting it into practise is another matter!

Thank you for all the support you have given me, Parvez. You have helped me so much.

Tricia x

Fri Nov 6 2009 15:14:29 #
Parvez Choudhry
Member

Hi again Tricia

Today at lunchtime I was talking with a colleague who happened to mention that mice invaded her house recently. I asked her what she did to remove them and she said she used a type of trap that doesn't hurt the mice at all. She bought the traps through the post from a company called Penlon Ltd. in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. She said the traps are expensive but very effective. When she left some food in the trap the mice were lured inside and were then unable to get out. Each time she caught a mouse she took it by car a couple of miles away to a wood where she released it with a small supply of food. Have you been releasing your captured mice back into your garden or do you take them far away?

The company website is http://www.penlon.com/contact.html . They don't mention mouse traps on their website but several other articles on the internet associate their name with mammal traps (for example see [url=http://www.jncc.gov.uk/pdf/Small%20Mammal%20Monitoring%202006.pdf:2xcoxmcf]this[/url:2xcoxmcf]), so I don't think my colleague gave me a bum steer!

I hope that's useful.
Cordially .... Parvez

Fri Nov 6 2009 16:02:28 #
swan
Member

Hi,
Thinking of you re this, sorry its short but im not sure what to suggest as to how to sort out your situation.
Love
Teresa

Sat Nov 7 2009 9:33:28 #
Wombat140
Member

So sorry to hear that this is still going on. If there are things you particularly don't want damaged, you could try getting one of those big plastic boxes, you know the ones that are about two feet long with a clip-on lid. If you don't know, here are some on the Argos site - whoops, didn't think it would be that long!

Parvez's post reminds me - you said that the mice wouldn't go in most of the traps you'd tried. What are you baiting them with exactly? Apparently mice don't actually like cheese, at least no more than they like everything. The best thing is peanut butter!

Have you got any sense out of the neighbours about the holes in their wall?

Best wishes,
Wombat140

Sat Nov 7 2009 20:09:40 #
OCDLONELY
Member

Dear Tricia,

I'm so sorry that this is happening to you! You have so much to deal with in life and I know at the moment this is the worse of them all? I know also because of the person you are you cannot deal with this situation if any harm or suffering is caused to the mice by your actions? So you are stuck in a situation with no course of action and you are suffering so much!! I have looked for solutions that you might feel you could cope with but it usually just comes down to common sense which doesn't help as you have far more sense than most people and poison which you won't use? I hope something will change soon as I really feel for you and want you to be able to get past all of this? Take care my friend!

Daniel

Sun Nov 8 2009 16:37:40 #
Truddles
Member

Hi Tricia,
Sorry to hear about the problems you're having with the field mice.
Have you tried using a plug in ultrasonic device to repel the little critters. A friend used one and said that it actually worked, she said that she got hers from http://www.goodideas.uk.com and it was called Pest-A-Way.
Hope this is of help.
Good luck
Truddles

Sat Nov 14 2009 19:50:52 #
stevieb
Member

Yes Tricia, I've heard about those ultrasonic devices which Truddles mentioned, and I was going to suggest it to you. Apparently, you have to plug it into the mains, and in produces a sound which the mice can't stand. I can only gather that we can't hear it, as our hearing is different from that of mice.

I've noticed something with my mouse along those lines; it doesn't appear to like the sound of my alarm clock going off. Its an electric clock which emits that rapid, high- noted 'beep,beep,beep,beep.'

My mouse was scrabbling around behind the skirting board in the bedroom at 4 am. I had to be up at 5 anyway, but I set my alarm clock for 4:20, and leave it on snooze. The mouse went quiet after the first alarm. Then it was there again the other night, so I took this old battery operated clock I have, set it off, and put it up against the skirting board by where I could hear the mouse. The mouse didn't go immediately, but it moved, then buggered off afterwards.

So maybe that ultrasonic device will work for you, Tricia, and you won't be killing them, either. Let us know what you do, and what happens.

Best wishes,

Steve x

Sun Nov 15 2009 12:41:33 #
Unregistered

Thanks everyone for your replies, I’m sorry it has seemed as if I’ve been ignoring you, but I had been unable to write on the site. The problem appears to have been rectified.

Parvez, thanks for the information. I will look into that, but the wooden traps my husband made do work well and we can release the mice when caught. The problem with me is twofold. My contamination fears restrict when I can travel a few miles to release them, and letting them out in the garden, which I often do, means they can quickly find their way ‘home’. The second problem, and I’m even more reluctant to admit to this, is that I will not release a single mouse away from the garden, because it would not have a companion in a strange environment. The traps the mice are very reluctant to enter are the electronic ones, which kill them instantly. They seem to sense the danger.

Wombat, did you have a good holiday? Yes, I knew mice are not partial to cheese. Peanut butter and other things work better. Plastic boxes are a good idea to protect things (although the little blighters will even chew through them given time!) No, as far as I am aware the neighbours haven’t done anything to their walls. However, we don’t talk much, they find my OCD amusing and we have had little contact for years. It’s possible they have filled in gaps and not said. Of course, even then mice could be under the floor, despite being trapped.

Truddles, I’ve tried every kind of ultrasonic and electromagnetic device available, even had several going at once,, but the mice aren’t bothered by them. I’ve read reviews on Amazon for the same devices. It’s strange how some people say they work and others say they are useless. I read on an American government site that they are all totally ineffective, and that’s certainly been my experience, but it doesn’t explain how they seem to work for some people.

Steve, do you think you still have just that one mouse and has it not been near the trap at all?

Teresa and Daniel, I hope that you are both feeling a little better.

Love, Tricia.

Mon Nov 16 2009 13:56:35 #
Unregistered

P.S. Parvez, when I said I won’t release a single mouse (other than in the garden). I meant I only release them away from home if I catch two at the same time, which doesn’t always happen. I have a feeling those I let out in the garden are back indoors before I am.
Tricia x

Mon Nov 16 2009 14:00:38 #
Wombat140
Member

Had a lovely holiday Tricia, thanks for asking.
I don't reckon you need to worry about the mice being lonely. Those kind of mice seem to be everywhere! The odd thing is that the non-"house mice" seem to be more common indoors than "house mice"!
We had an ultrasonic thing once that was supposed to repel cats, but it didn't work. Mind you, our local cats all seem to be particularly thick, so perhaps they couldn't make out where the noise was coming from!
Sorry to hear your neighbours are so unhelpful. Some people just seem to be like that about OCD, there's nothing you can do about it.
Are you feeling any better about it all yet? If not, I do hope you soon are.
Wombat140

Mon Nov 16 2009 18:59:49 #
Unregistered

Hello everyone, I am a new post and I don't understand internet jargon. So I don't understand tags and smilies and signatures. Can anyone enlighten me please?
But I do understand OCD which is why I have difficulty posting because I have to keep reading it again and again and checking the spelling and capital letters to make sure I haven't made a mistake and then reading it again and changing it. I didn't have this trouble before word processing was invented but then OCD always seems to find it's way in.
We live in the country and also have rodent problems, but thankfully never mice in the house yet (fingers crossed). I have dreadful contamination issues and worry about even small amounts of damage to the house, for example if I knock the paintwork, and I know I couldn't cope with the constant knawing and destruction. I too have the same love and compassion for animals as Tricia and I wonder if a lot of people with OCD feel the same way. We have chicken and one day I saw a rat, my husband suggested we use poison bait and I refused to let him but within a few weeks we were overrun by rats and had to call the council who came and put out poisoned bait. They showed us how to do it so that the wild birds could not get into it. I catch bluebottles, spiders, wasps, beetles in fact any insects which get into the house, even those which I really don't like such as crane flies and put them into safety and I am a vegetarian but I have had to accept poisoning the rats or they would overrun our home and take over.
My husband and I now have a small animal sanctuary of our own which is very hard work but it helps me to rationalise my love for all living things and to understand that unless there are enough natural predators then some species have to be controlled. Catching mice in a trap and putting them back in the garden will not work. They will be straight back to their nest and it must be very frightening to be caught in a trap, especially if there are babies in the nest to get back to - and if you take them to the woods any babies would die and there is no guarantee the mice would be safe there. A cat or terrier or encouraging a barn owl into the area will help but again, the mice will die and possibly a worse death than poison. Poison causes internal bleeding which makes the mouse thirsty and then it will die from lack of blood circulation which to the best of my knowledge would not be painful. I believe this to be true as our beautiful dog Tess who we have had since the moment she was born in 1995 has a splenic tumour causing internal bleeding and she is in no pain. We know her time with us is limited but she is still enjoying her food and her life but she is thirsty and does things at her own pace and in her own time. I have seen poisoned rats drinking in the daytimes and they are slow but do not appear to be in pain.
Having a breakdown is not the answer, however appealing it might seem when one gets so low, and yes, I have been there several times so I do understand.
All I can say is hang on in there Tricia, your life and your family's wellbeing has to take priority over the mice, the solution is not nice but it is better than the alternative. The good news is, according to the councils' rat catcher, if you have mice you will not have rats.
Now, what should I do with the Tag below? Help please someone.

Tue Nov 17 2009 11:24:18 #
Truddles
Member

Hi joysal4ne,

Welcome.
You're not alone, I'm a new internet user and self taught at that and I too don't understand all the internet jargon. Sorry don't know what the tag is, but I'm willing to learn. I'm sure some one will be able to enlighten us. But guaranteed it wont be OCD he never helps only hinders. He's a professional Hinderer!
I too have to read things over and over again to ensure that it is correct and that I don't make myself look an even bigger fool than I am already made to feel.
You have no privacy with OCD, he's a bully and if he thinks that it's being excluded he butts in and interferes and before you know it you've got another obsession.
Sorry to waffle but it's great to have people to talk to that understand.
Truddles

Tue Nov 17 2009 12:33:11 #
Nimrod
Key Master

Joysal4ne asked what Tags, Smilies and Signatures are.

These are all things we will be adding to the forum in due course, so far we have had this new forum going for almost a week so we are trying to walk before we run and introduce new features gradually.

A tag is where you can put a marker on a topic that interests you so that you can find it easily and all the relevant information is at the same place.

Smilies are those little round smiling and other icons people sometimes add to the end of a sentence to express feelings and emotions. There are lots available with the most popular being the smiling one, the sad one and the frustrated one. We will be adding some soon.

Signature; this is usually a short piece of text that is added automatically at the end of each post you make. You can add your "signature" to your profile and you can change it or delete it at any time. Again, this is a feature we will be adding soon.

For full information and instructions on any forum feature e-mail info@ocdaction.org.uk

Caps

Tue Nov 17 2009 13:21:48 #
Unregistered

Joy, I have also heard that you won’t find rats and mice together, and on a previous thread about the mice (which became rather long!) I explained how I actually bought pet rats to frighten the mice away. It didn’t work, although mice are said to be afraid of rats. I have a friend who often sees rats and mice in her chicken run, so I guess animals don’t stick to the rules.

When I worked as a veterinary nurse, I saw many animals die in agony from anticoagulant poison (taken accidentally) and my vet agreed it’s a terrible way to die (I phoned him to discuss the mice problem). Years ago, my husband did put poison down and we found a field mouse writhing in agony. It isn’t just me who is opposed to the poison, my daughter would never forgive me if I used it.

You are right about releasing mice in the countryside. We can’t be sure babies have not been left behind. I released two mice, several years ago, and returned feeling quite happy that they were free and well and not going to return to my house. Half way home I panicked and felt physically sick when the thought came to me that babies could have been left behind to die. There is no ideal solution to any of this and I am finding the whole problem unbearable; the guilt for the suffering I have caused, the constant fear of contamination. I am finding it intolerable.

I realized the plastic traps you can by, which are termed humane, caused great distress to the mice, but the wooden ones my husband made are large and contain food and water and the mice seem perfectly OK when released. That doesn’t eliminate the problem of babies being abandoned, and naturally if released in the garden they will come back. Some have been in the trap many times and have become partly tame and used to the procedure.

I was thinking about Parvez’s first message here and wondering whether I do in fact have an extreme sense of guilt about hurting animals. Certainly I have a sense of guilt, but I am not sure it’s extreme. I have three friends (who don’t have OCD) who would be unable to use anticoagulant poison and then there’s the vet I mentioned. I no longer eat dairy produce, because of the cruelty involved. Some would say that my reaction is extreme, maybe all vegans are extreme, but there is no doubt that dairy cows suffer tremendously and I’m not sure how much of my behaviour is OCD and extreme and how much is my personality, which over these issues is no different from the behaviour of any other vegan (including my daughter, who doesn’t suffer with OCD).

Wombat, I’m pleased you had a good holiday. A friend also found the ultrasonic devices failed to deter cats.

I can’t honestly say I’m feeling any better about the situation. I wish this experience in ‘exposure’ was easing the fear, but it isn’t. I haven’t quite cracked yet, though, so maybe I’ll survive it! However, a mouse ran over my foot last night and that distressed me, we had been a week without a sighting and I was becoming optimistic.

Tricia x

Tue Nov 17 2009 14:29:05 #
Parvez Choudhry
Member

Dear Tricia

I am very pleased to hear that you have had only one sighting in the last week. Perhaps the mice are going to disappear of their own accord without you having to do anything. I really hope so for your sake. I think you have shown tremendous courage and stamina to survive this far. Bravo you!

I think you are a very compassionate person and I admire you for your sensitivity towards animals and your concern to prevent them suffering. My perception that your sense of guilt about hurting animals was extreme is not due to you being a vegan or to you being unwilling to use an anticoagulant poison on the mice, but rather it seems to me you care more about the mice than you care about yourself. I am very sorry if I have got the wrong impression and I hope you weren't upset by my comment.

If my house were overrun with mice and if the situation was driving me towards a mental breakdown and destroying my marriage, I would do whatever it takes to get rid of the mice, even if that meant catching them and releasing them 2 miles away with the risk of separating them from the their babies. It's not a nice thing to do but in an emergency situation I am prepared to take drastic action. I think my family's suffering takes priority over the mice's suffering. If I saw a pit bull terrier mauling a little child I would be willing to go so far as to kill the dog if that was the only way I could save the child, even though I am a vegetarian and I don't eat Mars bars because they contain battery eggs.

Bona fortuna!
Parvez

Tue Nov 17 2009 16:17:36 #
Unregistered

Hello everyone
Thank you for your welcome and for explaining the internet jargon. How interesting that we share this compassion for animal suffering. I feel really ashamed that I can't seem to feel the same way about humans as I do about animals. If I see terrible human suffering on TV or reports of dreadful crimes against children I feel bad but if I see an animal about to be harmed or killed, even when I know it is only a film and not real I get nauseous and have even been known to faint on occasions - yet I can help out at a road accident and deal with horrible injuries to humans. I don't know if this is just my personality or my OCD.
I have also noticed that many people with OCD have a high level of intelligence and have wondered if this is significant. Is the ability to think and memorise very rapidly a factor in OCD? Time will tell.
Back to the animal issue - when we moved to the country we brought a small colony of free flying white doves and the buzzards and sparrowhawks used to come and take them, sometimes they just left them badly injured in our garden. At first I thought I would never be able to cope with nature in the raw but I think I have slowly become hardened to it all by constant exposure.
I used to try to save all the unwanted cockerels until one day one of them killed my little tame bantam cockerel and crowed over his body. I also gave up saving end of lay commercial hens after taking a batch of two dozen filthy infested hens intending to give them some months, maybe years of healthy happy life and having at least one die every week. We took one sick bird to the vet and did every mortal thing to save it but it still died and the PM showed the entire egg laying department was full of cancers. Every hen died within a few months and I ended up very depressed, yet we have a little bantam hen we reared ourselves who is now about 14 years old. I came to the conclusion that I am unable to take on personal responsibility for all the cruelty in this world and I have learned my limitations. If I allow the OCD to push me beyond my limits I know I will become ill and my marriage and husband will suffer.
I'm pleased to hear your mice are less evident Tricia. I think you are very strong to be able to live with the problem and stick to your principles but we all have our limits and if you push yourself too hard your OCD will get the better of you because that is the nature of the beast we live with. In nature mice are meals for others higher up the food chain which is why they breed so rapidly. When push comes to shove you and your family are much more important.

Tue Nov 17 2009 19:41:38 #
Unregistered

Parvez, I was worried that my reference to your previous post might have sounded as if I were upset (later on after I had written it). I wasn’t in the slightest, and I’m sorry that it did seem that way. I am simply unsure if I am extreme. Naturally if you took a group of people my behaviour would seem extreme, and yet I do have many friends without OCD who share my views. Michael, many years ago, asked me on the forum whether I considered my vegetarianism to be a feature of my OCD. I answered ‘no’ because I know many vegetarians who do not have OCD . However, I have often considered his words (he, too, is a vegetarian) and when writing my book I reflected on my abhorrence of meat from the age of three. I think I was probably unusual, because to eat a piece of meat seemed as disgusting and criminal as eating a part of a human. Of course, my parents were totally perplexed by my behaviour. Whatever is the cause of my guilt, my daughter shares it, and the decision not to poison the mice is not solely mine, as you know.

I don’t believe I am putting the mice before my family. My daughter would be prepared to live with them. My husband is not experiencing fear in the way in which I am. However, I am putting the mice before my own welfare. I was considering this morning whether I believe the mice to be as important as myself. The answer is definitely ‘yes’. Would I shoot a dog that was attacking a child ?‘ Yes’, in an instant, because the dog is the aggressor in that situation. If my family were in the same state I am in over the mice then my actions would be very different. I have been banging my head on a wall in desperation when the mice were running around, screaming until I lost my voice. If either my husband or daughter were in that state, they would certainly come before the mice. I'd have to live with the guilt, because I would poison them.

As beautiful, and incredible, as nature is, I find it also abhorrent. I will never accept that the sparrowhawk in our garden is killing the blue tits (and mice!). I want every creature to be a herbivore, despite my veterinary knowledge arguing that even if that were possible it would be to the detriment of the carnivorous and omnivorous creatures in the world.

Joy, I am also moved by animal suffering in a way that I am not moved by that of humans. I do feel sorrow for human suffering, but, like you, I am affected so much more deeply when I hear of the pain an animal is enduring. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it is part of who I am. So, extreme or not, I don’t think therapy will change me, and, if I’m honest, I wouldn’t want it to. As painful as my predicament is, I would not take medication (for example) which would make me less concerned about the welfare of the mice, in order to end this nightmare. Joy, like you, I don’t know if this is my OCD or my personality. Sometimes I feel the two are inextricably linked.

From the age of three, with the discovery of what was on my plate, and at the same age, rushing out in tears to rescue a worm from a bird, life has been excruciatingly painful and I realize this is how the rest of my life will be.

Tricia x

Wed Nov 18 2009 15:35:05 #
Unregistered

Wed Nov 18 2009 15:35:05 #
Truddles
Member

Hi Tricia,
Have you lost your voice? Nothing appeared on your last post.
Truddles

Wed Nov 18 2009 16:22:30 #
Parvez Choudhry
Member

Dear Tricia

Thank you for your detailed clarification which has now helped me understand you better. I note what you say and I accept you the way you are - I would never condemn or disparage anyone.

I would like to clarify my use of the word 'extreme'. All I meant was that your sensitivity towards animals is very unusual and rare. I don't think many animal lovers are as conscientious as you. Whilst I admire and respect you for being this way, it seems to me an unrealistic approach to life in a world where many animals exist by killing and eating other animals and where we human beings can't avoid killing living organisms every time we wash our hands.

I wasn't thinking about the effect the mice were having directly on your family but the effect your reaction to the mice was having on your family. In previous posts you have mentioned the strain on your family arising from your agitation and OCD rituals (just as my own OCD impacts the people I live with).

Sorry again if I have misunderstood your situation. I do know what it's like to feel desperate with anxiety and I do care very much about your dreadful suffering.

Best wishes .... Parvez

Wed Nov 18 2009 17:02:54 #
stevieb
Member

Hello Tricia

I'm not sure if I only have one mouse or not, but someone has been around to my flat, and found evidence that the mouse (or mice) are taking refuge beneath the kitchen cupboards. And the mouse has actually taken food offthe trap without setting it off!

I know this, because I've seen that the chocolate has gone, and that the trap has moved slightly. The crafty little s*d!

However, I've bought a couple of new, more sophisticated traps, ready baited, but not used them yet.

And I would also hate to make even a pesky mouse suffer with poison like that, I'd feel so wicked and awful.

So are the mice in your house becoming less, Tricia?

Hope things get better.

Best wishes,

Steve x

Wed Nov 18 2009 23:48:30 #
Unregistered

Truddles, when I clicked on ‘send’ my message appeared twice. I deleted the second one, but of course my name remained!

Parvez, I often find it difficult to convey true feelings and meanings in messages. Again, I want to stress that I have never been upset or offended by anything you’ve written. I don’t mind being called ‘extreme’ anyway, and you are not the first to say it. Either way, whether I am or not, it doesn’t distress me what label is attached to my emotions/behaviour.

To be honest, I don’t feel I belong here, I don‘t mean the forum, but the world. I don’t really fit in, even with others with OCD. As I said yesterday, although I see beauty in nature, for me it’s overshadowed by a darker side, which I do find abhorrent. I don’t think I’ll change now. My daughter may have copied my behaviour somewhat, however my son could not be more different. I think most of our personality traits are there from birth.

I had a quote on my wall at the age of eight. “The more I see of man, the more I like my dog.” This saying is more true for me the more encounters I have with humans.

No animal has ever harmed me, those around me have sought to comfort me, with unconditional love and patience. I actually believe most animals to be better than people. I’m not sure that I believe many humans experience unconditional love. My mother wouldn’t tolerate me, couldn’t as a child, my OCD was too much. I know my husband would leave if I didn’t control my OCD to some degree. I don’t believe any family member or friend loves me unconditionally. My dogs, my bird and even my rats did. I feel that makes animals our superior. They ask little from life, are not abusing the planet and are not driven by greed.

My animals also had patience and understanding over my OCD, even when I became afraid of contamination from them.

As for my family suffering because of me, don’t forget my daughter was very upset with me for not putting up a fight when her dad was threatening to use the poison. Neither she nor my husband has any clue as to the extent of my suffering. I think people on the forum have a better understanding, because apart from the occasional outburst, I keep my fear from my family. They only believe I am distressed for short periods of time, when they see me crying etc (which isn’t often).

Steve, I do hope you catch the mouse soon. Yes, they are incredibly crafty. Sometimes I believe mine are more intelligent than me. We don’t have many now, but I still dread the numbers increasing, and with my contamination fears one is almost as bad as twenty. I say ‘almost’, don’t want to tempt fate!

Tricia x

Thu Nov 19 2009 15:45:59 #
Unregistered

Message was double again and I was so careful when I clicked 'send'

Tricia x

Thu Nov 19 2009 15:45:59 #
Parvez Choudhry
Member

Dear Tricia

I am very pleased you weren't upset or offended by anything I said. But I still feel I haven't conveyed to you what I really meant by using the word extreme. I am anxious to make myself clearly understood (it's part of my OCD!) and so I want to try to explain it again. In calling you extreme I simply meant that you think & feel about animals the same way as other animal lovers do - only a bit more so. I was not implying there is anything quirky or weird or bizarre about you. I think everyone is positioned somewhere along a spectrum in their attitude towards animals. You and I are located towards the 'compassionate' end of the spectrum, with you being a little higher up than I am. In my opinion it is a compliment to be called an extreme animal lover and that's how I meant it in relation to you. My suggestion to try to desensitize yourself to animal suffering was not because it is a good thing to be less compassionate but because sometimes we have to compromise our ideals in order to cope with life. For example, I wish I could live in a world where everything was squeaky clean but I have to accept there are microscopic traces of dog poo just about everywhere on everything I touch. Unless I compromise with my ideals I would have to live the whole of my life inside a sterile plastic bubble.

I am hugely sorry for you that your anxiety over the mice has driven you to hit your head against a wall and to scream for so long you lost your voice. I really wish I could end this nightmare for you. And I am very sorry that you no longer have the faithful companionship of your pet animals to console you. Please continue with the forum because there are people here who sincerely care and who understand your anxiety to some degree, even if no-one can put themselves exactly in your shoes.

Hope to be in touch next week,
Parvez

Fri Nov 20 2009 16:58:35 #
lambertsimnel
Member

Hi Tricia

On a wider point re: Pyschiatrists, the one I saw who diagnosed OCD worked at a Quaker hospital, the Retreat in York. He was brilliant and I know they are often proud of success rates with patients other hospitals have struggled to treat.

Is there anything like that near you?

Good luck,

Lambert

Sat Nov 21 2009 13:35:04 #
Unregistered

Dear Parvez, The need to make oneself clear, is something else I share with you, so don’t worry, I understand that perfectly! I once spent two weeks exchanging messages with a lady on a forum, who was obviously not understanding me at all (to make matters worse she was angry with what she believed I was saying). I tried all kinds of ways of expressing my meaning. Others on the forum kept out of it, but a few did send me PMs to say they understood me perfectly, the other person just wasn’t going to get it! I gave up, but it still made me feel uncomfortable, I still felt I hadn’t explained myself well enough.

I do take your comments in a complimentary way.

However, I realize that you and I do differ in some ways (other than being at slightly different positions on the spectrum of animal compassion!!). You, despite the great desire to have everything squeaky clean, can somehow accept that there are microscopic traces of dog poo everywhere. For some reason I cannot. Which is why I spent the weekend in my underwear struggling to decontaminate clothes outside with a container and hose, in the cold and the rain, and why I am too frightened to sit down while I write this.

A fellow sufferer, who was severe enough to be an inpatient at the Bethlem, once used the word ‘extreme’ in a very derogatory way (something I always knew you weren’t doing). He told me I am too extreme for anyone to tolerate. He once asked me how I felt when ‘contamination’ was on me (a letter which had been posted to me was the example of contamination at the time). I said that if I couldn’t quickly shower and change, the feeling became so intolerable that I would rather die than remain like that. This was how I felt during my weeks of exposure therapy. At no point did I feel I could accept those microscopic traces and death always seemed preferable. Please don’t tell me the microscopic traces are everywhere despite my zealous behaviour. They may well be, but I feel I am doing everything in my power to avoid them, and by doing so life had been just about bearable (before the mice).

I have never responded to desensitization over contamination (at least not since I’ve been an adult) and I really don’t believe I would with animals. Besides, as my daughter is as opposed to poison, even if I responded to therapy of some kind and was then prepared to use the anticoagulant poison, she wouldn’t be prepared to do so!

Lambert, I’m not sure whether there are any such hospitals near me, but the Bethlem isn’t far and I have been accepted there. My family remains opposed, so treatment of any kind is no longer an option. Maybe they do know me better than I know myself. I wanted to give exposure another try, they are convinced it would be the final straw. To be honest, I don’t think I can cope with the constant fear much longer, the invasion of the mice has made life intolerable, so I don’t see I have much to lose. I have a lot of pain in my chest and my ankles are becoming very swollen. I do wonder if my heart is suffering under the strain. Too frightened to face the contamination in a GP’s surgery, so what will be will be. Even if I do survive another ten years or so like this, there is really no point in enduring constant fear and depression. I’m praying for a swift exist, to be honest. 50 years of hell is enough.

Tricia x

Mon Nov 23 2009 14:15:45 #
Truddles
Member

Hi Tricia,
Sorry to butt in - I too am on the point of giving up, I know where you're coming from.
If you've got chest pains and swollen ankles you should see your doctor and if you can't face the surgery get the GP to make a house call given the circumstances you are entitled to that. And if you're still worried about contamination get them to wipe the stethoscope with a wet wipe first.
It's you that is ultimately suffering and if you've been accepted by the Bethlem and you think that you would benefit then seize the opportunity. It is your decision not theirs You are an adult not a child and so the choice is yours and nobody elses. Or do they like the fact that you are reliant on them? Surely they want you to get some independence back.
I'm desperately hanging on please do the same.
Thinking of you
Truddles

Mon Nov 23 2009 14:30:16 #
Unregistered

Thank you, Truddles.

I don’t really have time to reply properly, but I am even more afraid to allow a doctor into my house. I nearly died of pneumonia, years ago, because of that. Eventually, my husband helped me to the surgery and the doctors were alarmed by the state of me. I was told I might die and I started to cry (but not for the reason they thought). I begged them to be as concerned about my OCD as they were a mere virus. Told the doctors I was frightened of living, not dying.

Bethlem and family’s reaction, not what you might think. They truly believe it will kill me.

Don’t worry I am not contemplating suicide.

Wish I could be more help to you. I know you’re going through hell, too.

Love, Tricia.

Mon Nov 23 2009 14:52:47 #

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