3 Ways OCD Wrecked Our Greek Holiday!

3 Ways OCD Wrecked Our Greek Holiday!

You'd think that OCD would at least give us a break on holiday, wouldn't you?

Nope.

It got on the plane with us and continued to wreak havoc even on holiday.

In addition to the obligatory scanning of people and places to gauge for any possible 'contamination' risks...

It also created mayhem in other ways too, including.

1. Restaurant drama

This involved OCD creating a family divide and wasting our money by getting us to leave two beautiful Greek meals half-eaten after convincing my daughter that she risked becoming contaminated by staying in the restaurant.

Picture the scene...

You're sitting having a rare calm evening, enjoying a beautiful, freshly made plate of Greek food while being serenaded by calming Greek music when you get the 'look' from your daughter.

The teary-eyed, panicked look that you immediately know is a signal to leave before OCD hits a complete meltdown.

Despite my pleas to at least eat the rest of my meal, I know not to argue and to leave quietly.

Another family evening ruined.

And yet more strain is put on my marriage as my husband endeavours to make the best of what's left of the evening for my other daughter while I quietly try to calm the latest OCD outburst away from prying eyes.

OCD meltdown tackled, we try to restart the evening, but it's too late.

Everyone is on edge and in no mood for being entertained, so an early night is had instead.

Another victory for OCD.

2. What's the Greek for hand sanitiser?

Next on the list is the day that we ran out of hand sanitiser on the beach and had to quickly traipse around the streets in the baking midday sun in search of some.

We thought it would be straightforward enough.

Apparently not.

Not only was there the language barrier of now knowing what hand sanitiser was in Greek...

But there was the problem that nobody seemed to have any.

You can imagine how relieved we felt when, after lots of hand gesturing to explain what we needed and lots of drawing a blank, we eventually found a shop that sold them.

It goes without saying that we purchased a few bottles to save us from having to go through this again.

And noted what hand sanitiser is in Greek...just in case.

I was told it's called 'Apolymantikó cherión'.

3. Neutralising 'contaminated' items

This can be a real pain, especially when you're on holiday.

Contamination OCD has a very clever way of convincing the most rational and logical thinker that items have become contaminated.

Sometimes by even being in the same street!

It will then deliver the order to your terrified child that they, and anyone close to them, need to thoroughly wash and wipe down any items at risk of becoming contaminated.

And that's not all.

It also has the knack of creating a hierarchy list too in that it convinces your child that only a particular brand is to be trusted, e.g. Dettol.

No amount of convincing with change their mind.

Only that trusted brand can then be used.

This creates a whole new panic of having to find those wipes abroad, which again can be challenging.

In the process, it also manages to cause falling out in families as the strain and panic of trying to source these brands of wipes in blistering heat take its toll.

Then there's the added pressure of everyone having to rigorously wipe all items with the said brand of wipes under the watchful eye of OCD (or Hank, as I call him).

Thankfully since freeing ourselves of OCD, breaks away are now much calmer.

We get the odd blip here and there, but we now know how to nip it in the bud quite quickly before OCD manages to ruin our holiday.

I published a blog on my website this week that shares a bit more insight into my life and struggles when parenting OCD.

I titled it:

10 Words To Describe Parenting OCD in Teens and Tweens

Here's the link to check it out.

10 Words To Describe Parenting OCD in Teens and Tweens

I'd really appreciate your feedback on it:)

#holidays #ocdawareness #ocdrecovery #ocdhelp #parentingsupport