This experience is strange, as for the first time how I act appears in line with everyone else:

• Taking items from the back of the shelf
• Using gloves to touch the self-service machine
• Dodging and freezing in place to avoid getting too close to another human being
• All round jumpiness

For me this feels wrong, somehow my OCD behaviour is so bad it can’t ever be treated as something to accept, but the world has changed to the point that it is acceptable.

Having a real threat to avoid makes it hard to justify not taking something off a shelf if I just saw someone else handle it. I can’t refute the logic that using a clean carrier bag is safer than reusing a shopping basket, or that taking two carrier bags, one to hold your shopping, and the second to put it after scanning; so your shopping never hits the surfaces on the self-checkout is excessive.

The sheer strangeness of a world where dodging contamination so overtly that others around you can’t help but notice is treated as “normal” isn’t something I’ll ever get used to.

Although despite the efforts of “normal” people to avoid contamination, their behaviour has so many holes in the avoidance, that it isn’t as effective as it seems it should be. My favourite examples are using gloves in a supermarket. I’ve seen people use disposable gloves, winter gloves and the cuffs of their sleeves to supposedly avoid contamination. As they try to shop their gloves/cuffs hit so many things, including themselves in the process – contamination avoidance isn’t a natural habit – that I’d probably experience a lot of distress if I reacted like them. My view still isn’t “normal”, but it’s closer than it has ever been 😛

It does seems like the world should be ending, as everyone has been thrown in a form of contamination hell, terrified that something bad could happen if they mess up and get contaminated (Covid-19).

P.S. Still in hospital, its possible this will persist until the lockdown ends. Finally felt safe enough to ask the staff for what I needed to eat food on the ward, so I’m eating on the ward now. The routine is that mine is served first, and I’m allowed to eat it in my room. Its works.