Dakagraphics-David

Hi there... What could be on the clothes? We don't know... It is all part of our natural environment, much as the stuff we purchase in a supermarket... It all gets handled by the till operator... Who has always handled absolutely everything... Including cash... Everything is cross-contaminated, and always has been... Always... When we were children we would retie our shoe laces when wet... pick up pens and pencils from the ground on the way home... The thing is... If we ever did get sick, it would just be our natural immunity defences strengthening... We never noticed... And kids from the poorest backgrounds became adults with more resilience to illness. We didn't have all these antibacterials then... We just survived... So, with that evidence in mind, and it is evidence... We will be okay... All of us... Including our friends and the people we care most about... The tricky bit with all this, is actually succeeding in caring just a bit less. In HG Wells story, the war of the worlds, it is the bacteria in our own environment, that wiped out the martians... David

Contaminated with what? Is it dangerous? Has it ever caused physical harm before? What evidence is there to back up the thoughts... Maybe there is none... If someone tries to sue us, we have a defence solicitor... We will always be okay... Maybe it is time to... Just let it all go, and let it be so... David

Hi there, I agree. Thoughts are just thoughts... I know that sounds awfully easy to say, but I've struggled with this too... I can be sat in church, and imagine other people in the room without clothes on... Do those married couples have sex together? Do they physically love each other? It's wierd, when I'm supposed to be listening to the sermon!!!! Our brains can really scare us... I think it is worse if you happen to be gifted with an active imagination... I tried to channel this into writing stories... Clean ones! But that use up that imagination energy... Just get that typing programme out on your computer, and get writing... Clean stuff... Fiction... Encrypt it all, and keep it all to yourself to start with... You could one day be the next best selling author! At the very least, you could have a lot of fun! David

Well... It has been some time, and guess what? Everything is okay so far... I had some time at a house looking after two shelter dogs and cats... They were lovely... To the point where, they all slept on my bed... Anyone get ill? Nope... I then spent a week in a holiday camp... All food supplied... Anyone get ill? Nope... Tomorrow it is church.... Will anyone get ill? Nope... I'll just sit there and listen, then come back home.... I don't have to live up to anyone else's expectations, and they don't have to live up to mine... I'm just an ordinary person seeking happiness... What is on my computer keyboard?, my mobile phone case? The car door handles? Keys? I really don't know... I'm not a scientist. But what I do know, is that whatever it is, or was, it has not harmed me beyond strengthening my natural defences and physical immunity to the world around me... And I aim to be a good person... I am a good person. We have been involved with getting a lot of rubbish to the local recycling centre... Cardboard, paper, wood, scrap metal... And on Monday there will be more... A lot more... But the end result is gonna be great for the people who live in the flat... They have been overrun with junk and rubbish for years... In flats it is difficult to keep getting the bins out for collection, and they don't have many collections where they live, so some of it goes in our bins here... Yesterday it was kebab meat and chips for lunch, without knives and forks, they didn't have any... And we didn't get ill, when using the towels provided to dry our hands after washing... A few days ago, I had the chance to buy an ice cream, from an ice cream van... Ordinary cash, no cards... No gloves, just ice cream cornets the way we did it as kids years ago... Any ill-effects? Well, not so far... And that was a week ago... Today... It was a visit to a shopping centre... A lot of people are still wearing masks, as do I at the mo... We walked the aisles just looking around, then went back to the car. Burger bar for lunch... Anything I should be worrying about? I really don't know... We'll have to wait and see, won't we? David

Hi there... Is it the people at your place of worship? Sometimes they expect too much of us... Want us to be perfect like they are? But are they? We are all supposed to be equal... I just sit there and stop a chair from floating away... I cannot read music, so am not really a contributing musician... Although I can get good stuff out of an electronic organ... By sound... At home... Maybe that is enough... I cannot live up to anyone else's expectations... I'm not responsible for their happiness, they are... I am only responsible for my own... No one has the right to hold me to ransom... I have to believe that everything will turn out okay for me... Otherwise it has all been pointless. All the stress, all the learning, all the struggling... Has it really all been for nothing? I sure hope not... There would be no point going on with everything... But of course, there is... We do have something good to look forward to... The groups we move about in are fraught with tension... We are forever being scrutinised by others... We get caught up in a competitive way of living... It doesn't matter what you have, there is always someone who will insist that theirs is better than ours... Must do better, says the teacher, but omitting to let us know when something is good enough... We make mistakes in order to learn how not to make them over and over again... Let them without sin cast the first stone... I'm on Fluoxetine during the day, Olanzapine at night. It seems to help, although, CBT techniques have been the main help. There are many books available, from online shops as well as high street. A doctor can refer you for CBT, but it seems to have an awfully long waiting list... So, reading in the meantime, is a good proactive approach towards getting better, and beginning to enjoy life once again... David

Hi everyone... I am eating pizza for supper... Garlic bread topped with oily cheese... Mmmm, delicious! It is eaten traditionally with bare fingers... The box it came in was handled by the cashier in the freezer shop... Then by me... It has been kept in the freezer in our shed... Anything on the keys? I don't know... Shed door? I don't know... When unwrapped, on the pizza? I really don't know. But other people do this every day without thought... Do they get ill? If they did, they'd sue, and we'd read about it in the papers, cos bad news sells more papers than good news... I take a bite, place the food back on the plate, wiping the stickiness off onto my clothing surreptitiously. It won't, nor has it ever, made anyone ill... Maybe it will have challenged our natural immune systems, but that is exactly how things should be... The saying, If we don't use it, we'll lose it, comes to mind here. A few days ago, I fed over five pounds worth of 2p coins into those pennyfalls machines we see at the seaside... I only antibacced my hands a few times... Cos the gel dispensers and notices were there. What about the coins? It would be impossible to gel all the coins, those going in, and those coming out... So I just left them... Let them be so... As thousands of other people do every day... We won prize tickets and toys... And amused ourselves for perhaps three hours... All for around a fiver... And as far as we can honestly be certain, we are okay... Before we had bank cards, everything was coins and banknotes... And bank cheques... Anyone remember those? Were they ever clean? Mmmm... I don't think so... After all, I've survived into my mid sixties... Come to think of it... We've all survived, Haven't we? Yes! David

Hi there, I used to worry about perceived mistakes that I thought I'd made many years ago... I would contact the person, apologise and try to get forgiven, for something I probably hadn't done anyway, or that I was taking out of all proportion... I'd then be relaxed, relieved, for maybe a blissful five minutes... Then something else from further back in time would pop into my head, something long forgotten, sliding into view like an old fashioned slide show... Now I'm in my mid sixties, and I'd gone back as far as my childhood... Things totally long forgotten... The only way is to assertively resist the temptation to ask for more forgiveness, it needs to stop right now... That way you jam the succession of horrible thoughts... Defy them... Just like the character Pitkin, in 'the square peg' starring Norman Wisdom... He hold the traffic sign with just enough force to resist it turning... Defy the thoughts... Jam the mechanism. They fight back for a short time, then die away of their own accord, then you've won... It takes practice, but it can be done... Every negative thought will need defying... After a while, they actually stop bothering you so much, so the defiance becomes less too, then you become blissfully free... It sounds really easy... But it takes great strength of will. But it can be done... Start right now...

The solution is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, via a licensed approved therapist. Someone registered by BCAP, or CPCAB, or BACP. Your family doctor can refer you. There are also lots of good books available too, check out Amazon, they have literally thousands of titles. Rob Willson and Rhena Branch are good writers. My CBT therapist would recommend using the antibac gel provided at the entrance of the store, use it just once on your hands, then pick up your chosen fruit, get it home, and, if you wish, rinse it lightly under the cold water tap, dry with ordinary towel, and enjoy! Mind you, my front teeth are capped, so I just use a knife out of the drawer to slice the apple, and then enjoy! It has been okay for years... I know that some crops are sprayed by farmers, but, not as much as years ago, and we are all still here to tell the tale! Ordinary water is sufficient... Anything else would ruin the flavour! Incidentally, a couple of days ago, I visited a motorway service station. Antibacced my hands on the way into the food court area. Wandered into a franchise store to buy a meal deal, a pasta salad, drink and chocolate bar. Wandered back into the main area to sit at table... Then realised, no spoons or forks in with the salad... What to do? Well, there were no outlets offering any sort of eating utensils, so it would have to be bare fingers, but in the privacy of the car... So we did... What a mess! But I'm pretty certain that our hands would be clean enough before we started... I used an ordinary paper tissue to wipe and dry my hands afterwards, after all, I didn't really want to get the remains of my food allover the steering wheel while driving... No antibac in the car... I then ate the chocolate bar, and carried on with the day... That was a couple of days ago, and all is fine... What is on the steering wheel of the car? I really don't know. Is it dangerous? Well, it hasn't been so far, or ever before for that matter. So evidence suggests that it will be fine next time too... Mind you, on the return journey it will probably be a well known burger franchise, that has also been fine, everytime before, and they serve thousands every day... Let's wait and see what happens, shall we?

Hi everyone... My OCD is contamination based... I've had a couple of courses of CBT, and now manage to use supermarket toilets without worry... The thing is that, Before Covid, no one would have had clean hands before touching food and other goods... The trolleys, the baskets... The tinned food, the fruit... The cashier handles everything to scan it, also handling cash occasionally... We never got ill did we? Fast food restaurants... We eat with our fingers... Does anyone get ill? We use the toilets and wash hands... But then... We pull on at least two door handles to return to the main restaurant... We always have done... And not everyone washes their hands before pulling the door handles... It would only take one, and yet... Anyone get ill? If they ever had, the restaurant would have been in the papers, and shut down... They haven't, and we are okay... Always have been... My CBT therapist got me to go into a supermarket, pick up a potato, put it down, then pick up an apple, and put that back also... It took me weeks... Loads of attempts... Even to the point of taking the apple home and rinsing it before eating... But... This the same thing that happens at the tills, and has done for always... Right from when we were babies crawling on the floor as babies before we could walk... Strengthening our immune systems, naturally... they say, wash strawberries before eating... okay, but what with? i can only use ordinary water... And that has always been enough before...

Hi there, 'm new here, but wanted to mention that I once lived across a busy main road from a bus stop. When we first moved there, and Sitting in the lounge, every time a bus pulled away, it seemed that the windows would shake... The weird thing is that, I would be digging the flowerbeds in my front garden, when people would stop me, and ask me if a certain bus had been and left yet... I got to a point where I hadn't actually taken any notice of the buses going by. It took a little while, but eventually The car noise sort of blended into the background. I was placing more emphasis on getting the garden done... Noise cancelling headphones (Cup type), with gentle music playing, can be a distraction, and a relief from the outside noises. There are some brilliant soundtracks available... Comedy clips on youtube. Favourite music to sing to. My first nervous breakdown was due to very loud noise in a factory... We really needed to have ear protection for the whole factory... Unfortunately there were no noise regulations in those days... So nothing was done... That was many years ago now.. Today, and looking back, I'm actually glad it happened when it did... I've survived it... I'm now at a point where I am ready to take on a new career training... Learning how to help people who have been through similar in their lives. Maybe we can all make use of this frightening experience. We've actually been there, done that, and still wear the tee shirt sometimes...