19 Dedications

[Ashley]

Taken from: http://www.ride4ocd.org/19-dedications

Do you know somebody who is having a difficult time with OCD? Are you having a difficult time with OCD?

Next month, Professor Salkovskis, Lisa and I will be cycling 1200 miles over 19 days to raise awareness about OCD and to fundraise for our charity. Each of those 19 days will be a challenge, both a physical and mental challenge to just keep going. Although we have cycled before, it does not get any easier with age and waking up day-after-day knowing we have 70+ miles of burning legs to endure is part of the mental challenge that awaits us.

But we will do it because we know only too well that for people suffering with OCD that their challenge is far greater and far more draining than what we will have to endure! Our challenge will end after about 70 miles and after 19 days, for people with OCD their challenge is surviving the entire day and the torment of the mental torture that OCD brings only ends when they close their eyes and drift off to sleep, well until they wake and go through the repetitiveness all over again. That is the kind of strength and bravery we simply must do justice for and complete our challenge.

Although we are riding for everyone with OCD, we intend to dedicate each day of our 19-day journey to 19 individuals with OCD who perhaps deserve our support, for us when the pain begins, knowing we are riding for those 19 individuals will spur us on to our daily goal.

So if you know somebody who is having a difficult time with OCD, or if you are having a difficult time with OCD yourself, please post on this topic or do shoot us an email at office@ocduk.org before the end of July and Paul, Lisa and I will choose 19 names to Ride4OCD.

[daisy]

Hi Ashley,what a lovely idea thank you.I will email you at the office.

Thank you all for doing this for those of us with OCD,i really appreciate it as i am sure all of us do on here.x

[gingerbreadgirl]

I agree Daisy, it's really amazing xx

[Binxy]

Yup, cracking idea!

[Ashley]

Thank you all,

We have two people who have kindly accepted our invitation to allow us to ride for them, one from the forum one outside of the forum. Both have experienced significant OCD problems (including needing an operation because of an OCD compulsion that went wrong), both are still struggling with OCD but both are an inspiration in how they are working at getting better. So we will be honoured to ride a day in each of their names.

Although as mentioned in the post, we will be riding for everyone with OCD, every pedal stroke will be for another person

[Gemma7]

This is a lovely idea Ashley and I think what you, Paul, and Lisa are doing is amazing. Will be following your progress and wish you all lots of luck :original:

[PolarBear]

My vote is that one day you ride for all the people who suffer but don't even know they have OCD. They are nameless. They suffer alone, in silence.

[Gemma7]

My vote is that one day you ride for all the people who suffer but don't even know they have OCD. They are nameless. They suffer alone, in silence.

So true

[gingerbreadgirl]

My vote is that one day you ride for all the people who suffer but don't even know they have OCD. They are nameless. They suffer alone, in silence.

Great idea, Polar

[Ashley]

My vote is that one day you ride for all the people who suffer but don't even know they have OCD. They are nameless. They suffer alone, in silence.

That's exactly what we are doing too the awareness aspect of the ride with the radio and hopefully newspaper interviews will be to reach those suffering in silence.

[SaraJane]

This is a fab idea.

I agree with Polar Bear's suggestion.

Best of luck

[Guest Liz whiz]

You're doing an amazing thing. Lots of luck to you all!

[snowbear]

Hi Ashley,

I believe you're on day 9 of your ride at the moment and I hope it's going well. :original: You've undoubtedly already dedicated 19 names for each day of riding, but maybe you can 'pedal for me' at the end of each day while the bicycle tyres are cooling.

Knowing your legs are burning after hours of pushing pedals will help me endure the pain in my legs and back caused by years of standing 16 hours a day. Thinking of you planning the day ahead on the map will help me focus on surviving when I long to give up on the challenge that is life-in-the-grip-of-OCD.

This year the universe has sent me a series of extra challenges to test my endurance, one after another. The sort of stuff that would stress a normal person without OCD. August's challenge is an invasion of flying ants, hundreds of them in my living room over the last three weeks. Of course they land on me, or hit me while flying, and I have to clean my skin from the contamination. My eyes sting and my tongue is numb from the effects of inhaling an entire can of insect killer spray each day. The skin on my feet has peeled off in sheets after standing in dettol soaked boots and the raw surface left behind drives me mad with itch from a reaction to the boot dye. I use alcohol based dettol to clean my skin, but it hurts like crazy when sprayed onto the open wound of my leg ulcer. Wouldn't be so bad if I could open a window or leave the house to escape the ants for a bit, but as you know I'm housebound so they pester me 24/7. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. This is the reality of my life and needs must. But I'm physically and mentally exhausted, emotionally running on empty, with nothing but willpower to get me through each day. Guess you'll know how that feels as you're cycling along. Good job we ocd'ers have plenty of willpower and keep going when less determined individuals would long since have quit, right? Just thought I'd remind you of that tenacity streak in case things get tough on the trip.

All I want is to have a toilet I can sit on, a bed, a chair, a shower; the everyday luxuries normal people take for granted. A hot shower - imagine! Tonight you'll enjoy a well-deserved shower. You'll feel warm water cascade down your tired muscles and be refreshed by it. Last time I felt hot water on my skin was September 2002. Tonight, have a relaxing hot shower for me!

I promised myself I'd get a bed and a chair this year as I'm getting too old to stand all day and sleep on the concrete floor at night. (Well, on my plastic sheets.) But it's been one set-back after another and now it looks like the earliest I'll get sorted is next year. Hey - what's another year? I've held on, one year at a time, for the last 15 years. Nearly as many years as you'll be riding in days.

I'm not looking for sympathy in telling you this, just saying thank you for doing the ride on behalf of people like me. And hopefully making you even more appreciative of the comfortable bed and hot shower which await you at the end of each day of your trip. You're pedaling for me at the end of each day when you stop, and rest, and take care of your body. When you regroup and prepare for the challenge of the next day.

'One day at a time, one hour at a time, one heartbeat at a time if needs be.' That's the mantra I say to myself when things get tough. (I say it so often I sometimes get tired of hearing it.) But I'm determined to get through whatever lies ahead, however difficult, so I know you will make it to the end of your journey too, one push of the pedals at a time.Good luck! I'll think of the three of you sitting on your bikes over the next ten days. Bet you're saddle sore. Standing all day long makes my feet and back hurt, but at least my bum is pain-free. Something to be thankful for. Ooh, that's cheered me up no end! See? There's always a positive if you look hard enough to find it.

ps. I've recently updated my will and increased the small sum I'm leaving to OCD-UK. It's not a fortune, but should help to keep the forums going for a bit. That said, I'm a fighter and I don't give up easily so hopefully you'll have to wait a few years yet to get your hands on the cash. Sorry! :original:

snowbear

(Who, probably like you, is having a tough day, but getting through it because it's the journey as a whole that's important.)

Do it for all of us! Woo-hoo! Go, Ashley and co. :cheer: Get those wheels-a-turning.

[taurean]

What a story snowbear - how you have suffered; and how appreciative you are of what the charity does for us.

The team are certainly cycling for you as well as all sufferers - and raising awareness is so so important, given that - to my reckoning - around one in 112 people have OCD significantly impacting on their lives - and many of them have other debilitating mental and physical health issues to contend with too.

I am currently engaged with my wife in - and have been for some time - decluttering the flat of my mother-in-law - a compulsive hoarder for many years !!! (So is my sister, and her best friend too).

So for you here and all other sufferers - all of whom are in the thoughts of the team as they cycle - here is my bicycling emoticon.

:bicycle:

[Ashley]

Snowbear, sorry I missed your dedication in the thread, until Roy pointed it out. With your permission we will dedicate yesterday's ride through North Wales for you? I will add your words to the ride website?

[snowbear]

I'm honoured, Ashley to have the day you rode in North Wales dedicated to me. Thank you. :original:

After I posted I wished for an edit button to delete all the 'personal stuff', but unfortunately there isn't one. When I wrote it I just wanted you to know I was able to empathise with the physical hardships you'll be enduring these three weeks, but I should have just sent good wishes and left it at that. If you share some of my words, please make it just the positive ones, not the private stuff about how I live my life. 'Going public' invariably brings on another round of well-meaning people saying I can't be allowed to live like I do and that I'm clearly not coping etc.and then I have to live with the shame of how I survive as well as my other ocd failings. I shouldn't come onto the forums when I'm stressed, I always say too much.

This is all I should have said:

''Thinking of you planning the day ahead on the map will help me focus when I long to give up on the challenge that is life-in-the-grip-of-OCD. One day at a time, one hour at a time, one heartbeat at a time if needs be. That's the mantra I say to myself when things get tough.''

By all means share that with the world beyond this private forum. And good luck for the rest of your trip. I hope it raises money as well as awareness.

snowbear

[whitebeam]

Bless you, snowbear. I'm not too sure what was put on what forums and so on.

Whatever has been put where - we all wish you all the best. OCD makes all of us vulnerable in how we are, what we say, how we behave.

These guys are amazingly brave - cycling, day in day out, in these conditions - but you are brave too, living, day in day out, with OCD. So many people here are brave beyond words....we put up with terrible anxiety and drag ourselves through day after day.....

Hopefully the work Ashley, Paul and Ruth are putting in will help us to strive that little bit further.

Take care

whitebeam xx