Trigger warning… Every time the commercial for hiv medication comes on I get a flood of awful thoughts.. there could be plenty of people with the virus living in my town who I don’t know about going to all the stores and getting trace amounts of blood on things, getting blood on the ground, throwing out bloody products contaminating the local trash trucks and therefore the trash can in my garage etc. I’m literally scared of everything at this point.

I try to tell myself those things but the ocd is too strong and says things like “you don’t know what every single person with the virus has done to contract it maybe someone did get it in the way that you fear” or “if someone without ocd thought there was a chance there could be contaminated blood on it they would clean it too” or “people could have small cuts like paper cuts or dry cracked skin that bleeds without even noticing so not everyone with the virus might be 100% careful all the time.” I don’t go near the trash can in the garage but others in my household need to take the trash out and they know to keep things clean and wash up after they do for my sake but just the fact that the contaminated trash can is there and the whole process every time someone has to take the trash out is so overwhelming for me still.

@J_ All my usual compulsions and fears throughout the day are just exacerbated, and it makes it harder to let things go that I might be able to on an easier day. For example I have huge problems with red specks in the house. On a good day I might’ve been able to dismiss it and say it’s probably just from food or something, or I haven’t left the house in months so it couldn’t be blood from a stranger, but lately dismissing something like that feels way too scary and impossible cause of the fears being exacerbated. On a good day I might be able to touch a food package and think it’s ok but lately since the fear has been worse I’ll think about someone with the virus potentially touching the item in the store before my mom brought it home and have to wash my hands.