Today I said to my BF, “Look! My chair is cleared off!” [br] His response was to look over, make a 'hmmff' noise, and go back to playing with his cell phone. [br] “Oh…. that's not the reaction I was hoping for….” I said, feeling deflated. [br]”Well, it all just got moved to that shelf. It's hard to be happy about something I don't like.” [br] [br]So some back story: A little over a year ago, my ocd gradually made me terrified that everything in my home was contaminated and could not be un-contaminated. And contamination spread by touch. I ended up with one kitchen chair that I was ok with as far as furniture on the main level of our home (kitchen, dining room, and livingroom). Almost everything I used was kept on that chair, except what was in the kitchen. I even kept all my wearable clothes on it (which at that point was about 5 outfits).[br] [br] Over this year, I have been doing exposure therapy with stuff in the house. So now I have a little table along with the chair, and I'm more comfy in the kitchen and lots and lots of other progress. But I still kept most of my stuff on that chair. And it was still the only place I would sit. [br] [br] I convinced my BF to allow a small shelving unit along the wall of the dining room, so I could put my things there and not on the chair and so I could have a safe place to put a winter coat (cuz it's cold in Minnesota). Yes, I know it's accomodating my ocd, but my closets are still “contaminated” and other things are higher priority to do exposures with so far. It's meant to be temporary. So I got the shelving and have been moving everything to it gradually, trying to organize the piles of papers that build up over a year, etc.[br] [br] At one point, I had a setback when I “contaminated” part of the shelving by accident, so I did exposures with that until I was ok enough to use that shelf. And FINALLY today my chair is empty for the first time in months! Yes, the stuff is on the shelf, but I've tried to keep it as nice as possible. I know it's not ideal and that my BF hates it, but I thought he hated my chair pile more. I thought it would please him that our livingroom looks more normal. I thought he'd at least be happy for me that I can be a little more comfortable as I continue to work on my exposure stuff thru out the house. I was wrong. [br] [br] Writing this blogs makes me feel like WOAH people will see how crazy you were! They'll say you shouldn't have the shelf. But shouldn't we be allowed some level of comfort? I'm not brave enough to go from 98% contaminated to 0% overnight. I struggle to expand my livable space. It's slow progress sometimes, but I'm doing my best without stressing myself out. It makes my life so much better to have this little expansion of usable space. And yes I continue to work on getting things back to more normal! I don't want to stay this way! And things are better! [br] [br] I guess I just wished he'd been a little happy about it.