Common Sense & OCD

I don't know how old you are, but things in general have gone sour. I blame it all on Andy Warhol. 🤣😁. Just kidding. 😁. I do blame him for stopping the art from being beautiful, majestic, soulful and turning it into a joke, but it's not his fault. He just managed to convince a great amount of people to believe in the worth of something completely meaningless and worthless. He was able to sell snow to the Eskimos. Amazing. I hope scarecrows come back in fashion soon. I know my responses are long and I know people hate that. But I honestly care. It means the world to me when I have a problem and post it here and people actually take the time to respond, share their opinions, advice, show support. I have never had that in my life, so even though we are all strangers, I feel I have a caring and understanding family out there who make sure I pull through when life is pulling me only downwards. And it is my pleasure to give back as much as I can. I will admit, that there have been times, when your and Wolfram's responses were the light on the other side of the tunnel and literally saved my life. Whenever I am expressing what I am thankful for in my life, you, Wolfram and the OCD community are always mentioned. When I meditate /pray,... I always put your wellbeing and the well-being of others and my hubby and cats before my own. And that is just the way it should be. Without you people and my little family (hubby. 4x😻, and me) I would be gone. Life is much easier to cope with when you are not felling all alone and you have someone who cares in your life. Close by or far away. How are you and your wife doing? It takes a lot of persistence and determination and not giving up to find the feeling of true love. It's easy to live with someone because of all you find good in them, but it is accepting the faults and learning to live happily with them that makes good marriages, relationships,.. = true love. Well, love is not always full of challenges and hurt, but if you care enough to push through the bad stuff, that love is sealed =forever. Takes two. 😊 Sorry, I have sailed away again into my long posts. Have a great evening. My best wishes and regards for you, your wife, cat and anyone dear to you. Hugs! 🤗😊

@NODA 4 cats 🐱, I only knew of 3 , LOL 😂!

@777Q I was wondering if you would notice. There is a new man in my life. A silver shadow. Had no home since very very little. He is 10 months now. We are trying to get him acquainted with our 3 cats if everything goes well, we keep him. If not, we will find him a great family. A vet and his wife who do not have any kids or pets. He is so special. Beautiful. Large for his age. Thinks he is a tiger or a lion and not a kitty. Fast and super active. He fetches toys, he runs and jumps like I have never seen a cat do it before. If he is hungry and you dont give him the food right away or you are not at home, he takes it himself. Takes a bag of Sheba, for instance, chews through it gor as long as the bag looks unrecognizable, one whole next to another, and he sucks out the juice and food. The only thing is, that he takes the bag and goes to a couch, bed, somewhere comfy to attack it. 🤣😊. I hope he gets used to our 3 cats. They are the best cats ever. They do not understand his energy, agility and independence, but have welcomed him and share everything with him. If he calms down and learns that we are family and that we don't eat or kill family members, he is at home. 🥴😁😻

@NODA 🐱🐱🐱🐱!!!!

@777Q My one cat is a handful at times . I feel she would like a pet of her own ! Years ago when I adopted her I also adopted her best friend a male cat , both from the same shelter. He has since passed away . I don’t have the resources presently to have more than one pet though 😊.

@777Q I am sorry you and your cat lost her best friend even if years ago. It was very nice of you to adopt both of them. You have a big heart. We live in a quite small rented apartment/flat. I have been out of work since just about the start of Covid at the end of 2019/beginning of 2020. Although I used Covid as an excuse to close my company down, it was really a result of a 3 years of extreme problems OCD was causing me in every single day. I am sure, hadn't I given up that time, OCD would have killed me. It was a nightmare every day, all day long. Since than I spent 2 years more or less in chaos, nothing was secure or stable back then. I isolated myself totally from everyone. I wasn't able to function in my own home. After we moved to the opposite side of the country, I claimed my life back. It takes like a year or more to see a psychiatrist for the first time here. I reached out and told them I really needed help. They called me within a few days to come there. I got prescription for Zoloft. But I was reluctant to start taking it again. It took me like 2 months from when I brought Zoloft home till I took the first pill. I was scared of the side effects. I was on it for a few years before and there were some side effects which would have been totally bearable if my then psychiatrist was a bit more on the case and supportive. Then something happened that shook me to the core and made my OCD freak out like never before. I spent over 10 hours on compulsions that day. After that, the first thing I did was I took the first pill of Zoloft. I have been through a hell of side effects that affected my physical health and emotional well-being, and that is why I couldn't take or even look for a job, but it was all worth it. I got my life back. OCD is still present, but now it is in the background and not consuming my whole life. What I wanted to say, actually, was that we live on my husband's income which is nothing special, average amount and we also shouldn't be taking in a new rescue. But it was either us or shelter and we just couldn't let him go there where he might get put to sleep if no one takes him. My husband works far away from here and there he met this little baby kitten. He spent every day for close to two months trying to get the kitten to trust him. And then it was the start of autumn and cold weather and he was in danger to get run over by trucks and cars that come on daily basis for 8 hours to the company my husband works for. My husband's salary is barely enough. We have to be careful with every single cent. We can't afford to have 4 cats, but we took him anyway. My husband arranged everything necessary with the vet here where we now live and since the vet kind of admires when people responsibly rescue an animal, he only charges for the material (like vaccines, medications,...), but not for his work. For our all 4 cats. If he did, this would not be possible for us. And as far as the food and cat trees, and toys and whatnot goes, food is quite an expense, it is getting more and more expensive, everything else we had more than enough from out 3 original cats. We have decided that we will rather not spend some money on our food or clothes (and we are modest and couldn't spend a lot even before) and use the money to provide food for him as well. It wasn't easy. I was super scared. But now, the only person I would give him to if it became truly impossible for us to keep him is the vet who takes care of our cats. All this looong esseic writing is to tell you I understand that you see that more than one pet is not doable for you at present and I think it is very responsible. And to tell you how warm at heart I felt when I read that you also adopted your cat's best friend those years ago. Proud of you. Honored to know you. 😻👍😸😻

Hello. I haven't seen any activity from you lately and was wondering how you were doing? I hope you are doing well. I am pretty ok. Have you seen anything from Wolfram lately? I haven't and am starting to feel a bit worried about him. I hope he is fine and focusing on his book. I have a feeling it's only the 3 of us left from the people who were here when I joined NOCD community. Wishing you and your cat all the best 😻

@NODA Thanks for checking in on me! I have been ok overall . I haven’t seen you or Wolfram in a quite a while.

@777Q I am glad you have been ok. I will keep in touch when I am on here and see your post. At least a couple of times a week I check what is going on here. It is nice to know how people you care about are? I hope we hear from Wolfram. Till next time, take care. 😻

Yeap. As nuts as the new one is, he is even sweeter. If I had to go to work away from home every day, it would be quite impossible to take care of so many cats. This way, it sort of works for me and them. The new one "helps" with everything I do. 😸. It can be like in a burlesque. I had never thought I would have 4 cats. But then again I had never thought I would have any. 4 is my limit. The very last limit. 😁😻

@NODA I say this only for humor . What is it they say about a limit for “ crazy cat lady limit is it 5 or 7 , only joking around 🙃, LOL ! My one little cat sometimes does go through a separation anxiety if I am away from her more than a few hours at times . She is a medium maintenance little cat 🐱!

I am so sorry about your cat suffering. And I am sorry for the amount the vet charged you. It is a lot. Did they at least help her? Is she better now? I am sending so much love and good wishes towards you and your cat. I hope it will help somehow. It is heartbreaking to see your pet suffer. You are a good loving cat daddy. Hug to you both. I don't know how you feel about not being close to your two adult children. If it causes you pain or regret, then I am sorry and hope you somehow again find a way to one another. If you are OK with the way things are, good for you. I any case, I want you to be happy. Each of us has wishes and plans and dreams about how their life should turn out. A lot of times our plans and dreams get stuck because life itself goes in a different direction, takes a different road. Whatever happens in life, it is important that a person accepts it and finds peace. Especially when there is nothing one can do about it. I hope ocd was not the cause for your kids and you to drift apart. As you probably know, I lost everybody and everything because of it when I was in my middle teens. I had to run away from home just to stay alive. Not in touch with anyone from my previous family for almost 30 years. I wasn't important enough for my parents to try and understand what was happening to me. It was easier to attack, insult, betray, stab in the back, and some way sadder things to do to me than finding out about ocd and the ways they could support me. Once when I sad to my now late father that it would make a big difference in our family if he drank a little less, he jumped of his bed, came to the other side of the bed, pushed me down and tried to strangle me. I thought I was a goner. He stopped just a millisecond before I would have lost my consciousness. When it was all over, I knew there was no other way for me but to run away as far as possible. I had noone and nothing. Hard work and a lot of distress, penury, hunger and survival anxiety somehow helped me to survive. It took me many years, many many years to finally find the peace in me about the way my family treated me. I would soul-search often to see what I did wrong so that they hated me so much. I felt unworthy of love since my parents were supposed to love me and protect me and they not only didn't give a damn, they were molesting me. I met a guy I fell in love with and he turned out to be the chosen one to teach me about the exsistance of all the bad characteristics of peoole that I naively believed not to exist. He was not physically abusive, but emotionally definitely yes. Lying, cheating, belittling, gossiping,... a narcissist. When we broke up after a little less than a year, I had already lost all the trust in people. I was disillusioned about people and instead of looking for good in people, I didn't give them a chance to hurt me. Well, it happened anyway from time to time. When I thought I could never be accepted and loved by anyone, I met my husband. There were good times and there were bad times. He stood by me through it all. There were times he hated me because of me giving in to ocd, but he was always there. Now he understands ocd a looot better and knows I can't just turn it off somehow. We agree on many things in life. I like doing stuff with him or traveling together, but I often get the feeling that I am somehow limited by him. I do depend on him financially now and I only have him and the cats in life, so I guess I should accept it and be fine with it. For example, there were two concerts tonight close to where we live. There was one at 19h P. M. about 18 km from our home. There was this 79 years old rock legend playing at the opening of a lounge at a vinery. We don't drink, but we bought the tickets, only 9€ each, and went. Music was ok, but the crowd. Of about 200 people, I guess only we came there for music. The rest all came there to get drunk. I managed to shake hands with the singer and thank him for all the beautiful music throughout his career at the first break, and then we just left. I was standing 10 meters from the stage and I was not able to see him at all because of the crowd. Well, we were both happy we saw him, but it was not at all what we had expected. We left there at 9 p.m. Just across the border on the Croatian side, about 45 km away, there was a concert, free entrance, lovely town, and a very good rock, hard rock, metal band from ex-yugoslavia. They are really good. My husband knows and likes them even more than me. They were supposed to start at 10 p. m. More than enough time to get there. I was all ready to go, was eager to go, but my husband sad, we were not going to go there now. No way. And we didn't. I didn't make a big deal out of it, but I felt like a little girl inside, who has no right to say anything and has to obey adults. I wanted to go and nostalgically travel back in time with beautiful music from my younger years, but he just wanted to go home. Examples like this happen quite often. But as I said, ocd screwed my life and now I have to live my life by the rules of others. I have ocd, it's my fault for everything in life because I have ocd so my wishes don't matter. There are good times, but things like that happen and leave me disappointed. I would give anything to get rid of the ocd for good and to have enough means and independence to make my own decisions and live my own life the way that would make me happy. Were you and your wife always like fire and ice? Are you OK with being married but living two separate lives basically? Do you two still love each other? Is there a deeper connection between you two? If you are OK with the way things are in your marriage, good. But if you have regrets and are lonely or unhappy, then it breaks my heart. In any case, I wish I could just hug you for a while. I honestly believe that you are a good person and you deserve love, care, connection, appreciation in your life. I hope things work out for you the way you want them to. I just hope you to be happy. And your cat healthy and you two happy together. Hugs, my sweet, dear friend. 😻

@NODA Cat was given a anti - nausea shot by the veterinarian helped a great deal . 🐈 She is returning 🫂 hugs to you . Through this ordeal she lost 1/4 of a pound , may not seem like much but she is very small in stature to start with 6 pounds ! I almost wish I had health insurance for her. I reintroduced her foods and her treats gradually, she seems content. She is not a fan of dogs . Her doctor is an excellent female veterinarian that sees many different animals , I would say she sees 2 dogs 🐶 for every 1 cat . My little one had concerns about the dogs in the waiting room . With the 2 kids not any particular reason not close just a drifting apart . I do a little better with the daughter. My son not so much with him though, difficult personality at times .

@NODA Hugs 🤗!

@NODA I understand what you mean. My cat in spite of all the attention, toys and personal interaction still gets bored 🥱 being only one cat and resorts to significant playing with her tail for further enjoyment and excitement!

@NODA Little different topic I really wish I had the resources to go to England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 to give Ozzy Osbourne a proper send off on 7/5/25 for his very last performance, 🎭 should be excellent!

By the way, the Lp at the end of my previous post does not mean anything. It got in by mistake. It is short for Lep Pozdrav, which would in English be: Kind regards.

No, way souther. I live between Italy and Croatia. The country where your first Lady is from. It is 11 past midnight here.

Yeah, both Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, each would be a dream come true. And there would be the problem with getting the tickets and having the means to go to England,... A few years ago I saw Plant in Croatia. He was quite late, but all was forgiven once he came on stage and really gave his best. In comparison to Axel Rose or even Mr. Bob Dylan, Plant's voice is still the same as it was when he was young. But it would be awesome to see the whole group together. Pages guitar is the wind beneath Plant's voice. Wow, 3 attempts to Europe and no go. Well, it's either not meant for you to go to Europe or, better option, like you said, just up and go. I love traveling as well. I used to travel every chance I got. Now I can't anymore, except a daily trip near by. I have visited England, Italy (Verona, Trieste, Venice,...), all of Croatia several times, Turkey (Alanya, Pamukkale=amazing, Anatolia,...), München in Germany, Graz, Villach, Salzburg, Vienna 3x and some other towns and lakes in Austria, Balaton2x and Budapest2x in Hungary, Belgrade in Serbia, 5 towns in Bosnia,.... As a woman, it is sometimes hard to travel a lot. But 20 years ago, at least to Croatia, I would go alone if I had no one to join me. Or if I just wanted to go alone. I made it all the way to Zadar alone a few times, been to Salzburg on my own, and even the first times to Vienna, Balaton and Budapest. I loved traveling on my own. But a lot has changed since. I met my husband, got married, we travelled together to the other above-mentioned places (my travelling solo was over), then I wasted 6 years working non stop for others and 11 for myself - regret it all, then Covid came, OCD flared up every now and then, mostly severe, then the 4 cats, no one except my husband in my life, so.... No one to take care of my feline kids when away and no money for traveling, since our life got turned upside down with the start of Covid. But.... I would so much like to travel again. I would love to go to Portugal, Spain, France, Netherlands - Delft to visit Vermeer's gallery, Canary Islands, basically all Europe at least. I dare not even dream of visiting the USA it Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Africa,.... I admire that you travel solo. I suppose your wife does not enjoy traveling that much. It would be a shame if you didn't do it because she doesn't want to. Whenever you can, go. We have this one life and I truly believe that one of the purposes of our lives is to travel and see as much of our planet as possible. From nature, architecture, art, history, music, different cultures,... there is so much to see and meet. Do you and your wife have any other kids than the 4 legged kitty baby? We only have our feline kids. This autumn it will be our 20th wedding anniversary. We have been together 24 years. Maybe one day on your way to Italy or the beautiful Prague or holy Lourdes, our paths will cross. That would be awesome beyond words. 😀