Parenting with OCD

Last week I didn't have time to blog. I didn't have time for much Momtography (and am embarrassed to report it took me all week to edit photos for the sweet lady I took pictures for on Monday). Much of the housework laid half-done and my girls were running around without pants on the majority of the time. Last week I was lost in the mire that is parenting with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

While only recently diagnosed I have been unknowingly struggling with OCD my entire life; the all-night long racing thoughts, the anxiety, the thoughts I couldn't consciously stop despite my desperate desire to end them and the inability to sleep. These things have made up much of my memory since I was nine or ten years old and have only increased sharply in intensity since having E and K. The objects of my obsession have gone from random things that caught my attention throughout the day to things that could happen to my children, to the ways another mother would be doing better or be doing more in that moment with E and K, about everything I do for my family that still isn't enough. About the fact that I am not enough.

This past week I was especially lost in all of these thoughts and in my desire for perfection I accomplished almost nothing. That's the problem with being an OCD mom in the age of the Pinterest parent- other moms can see perfectly decorated, clean homes of their counterparts and roll their eyes, can enjoy photos of crafts and activities without feeling as thought they should be doing them with their children, can see a friends child excel and not be stricken with fear that their personal failings are suffering their own children. Everyone seems to be able to slough these things off but you (and that in and of itself becomes another way in which you are defective). So I worried about E developing regressive autism for hours this week. I worried K is going to be speech delayed because she wasn't attempting monosyllabic babbling by her six month appointment. I obsessed about a photographic concept that I want to do for E's second birthday (but only if I can do it right, or what's the point?) without actually getting anywhere with it. I've been frustrated with every picture I've taken since Kate's "Purple" session because they aren't as perfect. I agonized for hours over where to buy E's fall long sleeve tops to get the best longevity out of them. All these trivial things kept dishes in my sink, laundry in the hampers and fun crafts undone by me and E.

Today I'm struggling a little less, though the fact that I haven't vacuumed the living room yet today is making my eye twitch, and trying to remember that nothing is truly perfect anywhere. Going forward I'm trying to minimize my extensive to-do lists to one manageable task a day. I am trying to see the beauty in the everyday things that make me angry with their imperfection and trying to see the forest for the trees when it comes to what actually is perfect.

I am an OCD mom, and while I'll never stop wanting to be better, to be more, I think that's okay. Keeping it in perspective is the new name of the game for me...because E and K deserve a mom who is perfectly invested in giving them as much as possible, always.