HELP! What’s wrong with me? Is this normal?

[BeWarmPoet]

This is my first time posting. I’ve been struggling for a while and it’s all finally come to a head I think. It’s gonna sound so silly but here goes. I’ve been wanting to have a bath for 4 days now. First night had shower for quickness. Second night thought I can’t have bath because it’s too much effort. Third night I won’t bath because I haven’t put on clean sheets I’ll do them tomorrow and get one. Which leads me to tonight didn’t change the sheets because that’s a job for Thursdays and I can’t have a bath without clean sheets. It’s sounds so silly but it’s been hanging over me for days, I mean it’s a stupid bath and there are bigger problems in the world! Is this some form of OCD, I also realised I’m constantly doing times tables in my head, can’t go out unless everything is clean. I also clean when I’m nervous or anxious. Does any one experience this?
FYI I have been showering 🤣

This is such good advice.

My 16 year old DD has OCD, she was diagnosed at 13, but I first noticed symptoms about 18 months earlier. She was so reluctant to get help, she was really embarrassed by it, but working with a therapist to find out what had triggered it (trauma from me being very ill on life support in ITU, so not a huge surprise!) and what things made it worse/better was incredibly helpful. There are still some things that DD is fastidious about (keeping her room clean, showering at least once a day, hand washing when she comes into the house from outside), but nothing completely 'outside of the norm'. There are times when she's stressed when some of the old behaviours start to show, but we know what to look for, and what to do in order to stop them properly taking hold.

Getting help now before it takes over your life is the absolute best advice you could take @BeWarmPoet, it might feel a bit difficult to start with, but I promise you it's so much less difficult than living with full blown, life altering OCD.

I was going to say the same - I left it too long to get help for postpartum mental health difficulties and my first child definitely suffered for it. If you're aware you've got a lot of issues to work through, they will only start to surface in more troubling ways as your child gets older and you have to actually deal with parenting them whilst struggling yourself, so the sooner you can start to tackle them the better

I don't want to derail OP's thread but, in short, there are seven things that we can all do that will build resilience. When we fail or are unable to do one or more, our resilience lowers. The ironic thing is, when we're busy, we tend to cut them out, which lowers our resilience. Lowering our resilience then means we can't do as much - so we feel busier, so we cut more... and that's how we spiral. People tend to spiral one of two ways - either into depression or anxiety.

Obviously there are trigger events that sometimes happen which can quick-start a chain of events causing mental health issues and having a good resilience routine isn't everything. Some people also have a genetic or social pre-disposition. It's not a magic wand, but it works 99% of the time.

The seven things are:

1. Exercise - at least 30 minutes of exercise per day (i.e. being out of breath) and being generally active throughout the day.
2. Sleep - a minimum of 7 hours sleep per night, more if you're unwell or injured or under strain.
3. Healthy eating - generally, eating a balanced diet, mostly avoiding UPFs, not overthinking food or needing to obsess over anything, staying hydrated, having enough vitamins, minerals and fibre...
4. Socialising with a wide range of people - this just means regularly having conversations with people that aren't transactional or logistical (i.e. going for lunch with friends would count, speaking to a cashier purely to pay for an item would not).
5. Having one strong, close connection - this is usually a partner but it could be a relative, a pet or even a diary/blog. It's someone you can be entirely authentic and share anything you need to without judgement.
6. Avoiding addiction - this could be drink, drugs, smoking, vaping, porn, gambling, mumsnet...
7. Active rest/relaxation - this is giving yourself time to do an activity purely because you enjoy doing it, and not feeling guilty about it.

What people tend to do is have all of these things in balance and be able to work 12 hours a day. Then, they're very busy for a few weeks, so are working 14 hours a day. To compensate, they cut out exercise, healthy eating and don't go to their weekly hobby. That means that their resilience has lowered. They are now working at 90% of the rate they could work at before this all started. So, even though they're back to their usual 12 hour routine, they now can only get 10.8 hours worth of stuff done in those 12 hours - they're slower because their resilience is lower. That means they need to work for 13 hours to do the 12 hours worth of stuff. Because of that, they've permanently cut out exercise and active rest from each day... so their resilience gets continuously worse. A few weeks later, they can only achieve 8 hours worth of stuff in the 12 hours they were originally working - so they're working 16 hours a day on doing things that should only take hours. That leaves them with four hours less sleep/exercise/socialising/resting/etc. It spirals from there.

I think we all have rules for ourselves.
I used to never be able to go out of the house if it was messy. Just couldn’t bear to come home to a messy place. I never ever watched tv in the day time. Now I do both because I realised all these rules were ridiculous and sometimes it’s better to get out of the house with your kids and it’s fine if it’s messy. We’ll just tidy when we get back.
A film or Netflix in the afternoon on my day off - wonderful way to relax.
It’s down to having kids and then realising things change and priorities change.

I'd definitely go to the doctor for a chat, see if you can get some support because this sounds connected to the arrival of baby and could be ppd

(I can't comment on OCD because I once couldn't leave the house for months due to the stress of checking everything repeatedly but my doctor just said it was anxiety and left me to it; I found therapy and am doing much much better, no thanks to them)

That's so helpful thank you 😊 😊