It's Been a Bad Day

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Today has been a pretty crummy day. After I got home from my appointment with my therapist, I decided to try to do some housework. Namely, I decided to clean the bathtub, as it was long overdue for a cleaning. I've mentioned before how I suffer from medication anxiety and health anxiety (along with other forms of anxiety.) Unfortunately, this extends to using household cleaners. Until a year ago, I never gave a second thought to using chemical cleaners, but now for some reason they cause me to have panic attacks, especially if I come into contact with the chemicals. While I was scrubbing out the tub, some of the water (which had bathtub cleanser in it) splashed up and got on my lip. Some of the cleanser also got on my hands. This sent me into a downward spiral which lasted all day. I spent a good portion of the day panicking and scrubbing my hands with soap and water. I also ended up calling poison control because I was afraid I would ingest the chemicals if I ate or drank anything, since it had splashed on my lip. I had already washed off my mouth with soap and water, and had already brushed my teeth (twice, in fact.) The lady was very nice and told me that I was fine, that I had already done the things they would have suggested and that I would have noticed already if there was a burn or blister forming on my mouth. So, that calmed me down some, but then there was still the matter of having gotten the cleanser on my hands and not being 100 percent convinced I had managed to wash it all off. THEN there was also some panic over keeping my cat out of the bathroom, which I could easily do by simply keeping the bathroom door shut, but my boyfriend kept leaving it open -- in fact, he purposely kept opening it even though I told him to leave it shut. So then we had a bit of an argument, which added to my feeling of sickness. On days when my panic gets out of control like this, I mentally and physically feel sick. I couldn't eat all day out of fear that I would ingest chemicals that were on my hands if I touched any food, and I was nauseous and my chest and stomach hurt. So, I just went back to bed and slept most the afternoon. Nonstop panic attacks, especially over ridiculous things, are exhausting. And I KNOW, logically, that I am being ridiculous, but something in my brain is broken and I can't stop the panic or the downward spiral that ensues. After all that, my boyfriend and I made a trip to the store this evening and I stepped in a big pile of dog poop in our parking lot, which got all over my right shoe and the bottom of my pants leg. Nobody in our fourplex owns a dog, but a family in the fourplex next to ours owns six or seven chihuahuas, which they turn loose during the day and they are always coming over and crapping all over our yard. Stepping in dog crap sent me over the edge and I ended up having a mini meltdown. I am just fed up with everything. I want to feel normal again, and to be able to clean my apartment without being sent into a blind panic that I'm going to die or my cat is going to die from ingesting bleach. And I want to be able to walk out to our car at night and not worry that I'm going to walk through a pile of dog crap. If I wanted to deal with dog poop all the time, I'd get my own dog!