a step in the right direction...

Despite how horrendously late I am for everything, I am a meticulous planner. So last night I decided that as part of my get fit routine I was going to walk to Tillie's swimming lesson this morning. A half an hour walk, cutting through the lake. Sounds simple, doesn't it? Only I could manage to get lost on this fairly straight forward route. End up walking through waste land (with various bits of rubbish scattered around including used condoms and cans of beer, yum!). To add to this massively anxiety inducing situation, I was in my new barefoot freet shoes. 

Why is this so anxiety inducing? Because for the last 11 years my OCD has mainly been about contamination. In particular, needles. Does that sound bonkers? I think it probably does, but hey ho, it is the truth. There are of course other aspects to my OCD but this one has been the most life altering. So here I am, lost, walking through waste land, surrounded by rubbish. At this point I'm pretty sweaty (good job I'm going swimming, eh?). I have been known to walk out of the house 10 metres and walk back again to check I hadn't 'stepped on anything', so walking around in barefoot shoes, surrounded by other people's rubbish was pretty much my worst nightmare. However, I had Tillie with me in the pushchair and so rather than have a compete meltdown/panic attack/whatever you'd like to call it, I had to keep on going. So I did. And we got there, 5 minutes late. 

So what's the point of all this jibber jabber?

Although I clearly have been ruminating about today a fair amount in order to write it down here, and I did mention it to a few people (unfortunately part of my reassurance needs relating to the OCD), I haven't let it get to me as much as I would have done 2 years ago. Even the fact that I decided to walk there in the first place was a pretty big deal, especially that I did so in barefoot shoes. Just goes to show that sometimes when you struggle with something that causes anxiety, going head first into it can often help. I have avoided situations for the past 20 or so years due to fear and anxieties and trying to not over think these situations and instead just DOING it seems to be healing me.

In other news...

Me and Jack decided to try out being as zero waste as we can possibly get. I think our reasons for this were slightly different- I think Jack may have thought by being zero waste I just wouldn't be spending money anymore. How wrong was he! I've just bought us all new toothbrushes- made from bamboo! These are really pretty little brushes, but best of all they are biodegradable which is SO important when a shocking 3.6 billion plastic toothbrushes are made every year- mainly ending up in landfills and our oceans. If we all tried to make little changes like this, the difference we would make would be HUGE. Please consider it!

*I got ours from Holland & Barrett, but they are available here! If you need any more convincing, for every brush sold they give a child in need oral care.*