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Is it socially acceptable to wear black shoes with white soles to your father's funeral?


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Hi @Lost_in_a_Dark_Maze - I'm so sorry to hear about your loss.  I'm afraid I have no idea on the social mores around funerals in the UK, I know here in Japan the rules are generally pretty prescribed, but I feel like Western countries are less strict in general.  I have a feeling that what shoes you wear will not be as important as you think, and people will be focused on other things.  That said, and even with the OCD in mind, I don't think it would be a problem to buy a reasonable priced pair of all black shoes.  This is a one off situation, and if it helps you feel less stressed dealing with your loss, its not an unreasonable action to take.

When you say that its because of OCD you haven't bought new shoes, is that in general you avoid buying new shoes because of OCD, or specifically in this instance you think OCD might be involved?

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7 minutes ago, Lost_in_a_Dark_Maze said:

Thank you Dksea. I have contamination fears, so buying new shoes is a problem for me. I originally decided to wear the shoes I have, but now I'm worried people will judge me and also I don't want to stand out as I have social anxiety.

I see, I can imagine how frustrating this all must be then.  You are kind of caught between competing anxieties, and it looks like no matter what you decide you'll have OCD trouble with some aspect of it.  Under ordinary circumstances my recommendation would be to just wear the shoes you have and try to deal with the anxiety of peoples judgement, after all what people think/don't think is not something we have direct control over anyway.  But as this is a funeral situation I can imagine you are already dealing with other stresses and anxiety.  In this instance, I would say to do what you think will cause you the least stress and anxiety.  Its a one off situation and the most important thing right now is to take care of yourself in your time of loss.

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Oh I'm so sorry to hear your Dad passed away Lost. Sending hugs! 

I think that you should do what you think you can cope with at the moment- so if that means wearing black shoes with white soles then that's fine- they must be mostly black anyway?

Alternatively you could either face this as a ERP challenge and just buy and wear new black shoes; or and I'm not sure this is a good idea because you have been so good with ERP that I don't want this to start a new compulsion for you but I wear disposable gloves to open packages and to handle shoes; if you really want to wear all-black shoes but would struggle with the contamination aspect then perhaps that's one way around it?  

Thinking of you! 

Edited by BelAnna
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