My OCD fear of herpes constantly makes me think my mouth has touched random left behind drinks from stores, lipstick testers, one time I even thought maybe I kissed a homeless man. It makes it so much harder to fight when I could just clean to alleviate some degree of stress. : ( I don't want to accept the risk when I feel like there's something I could have done to prevent it (clean enough) I don't think I could live with the guilt if I infected others.

@lakd I think it's some sort of false memory! It's the weirdest thing and has been one of the hardest struggles for my contamination OCD!!

“90 percent of adults have been exposed to the virus by age 50”. Its very common and most people have it and never show symptoms. If you worry then just dont share anything, your OCD is telling you that you can get it other magical ways. Just be a “normal” state of cautious.

I’m terrified of this too.

@lakd do you do any compulsions for this fear too?

Hand washing/showering and Lysol wiping things

@Lakd Me too. Do you get scared it can spread in ways doctors say it can't like from a doorknob?

@Aela I'm really trying to bring myself back to a state of normal. It's extremely difficult when OCD says I've touched things or shared drinks that wouldn't normally occur. Also I realized even before I had OCD I guess I would do more cleaning than most people it just didn't get in the way of my daily life, which now just feeds my compulsions. I have to learn an entire new way of handling germs in life and it's been pretty difficult. It's been hard to adjust. But I just sort of realized that maybe I always did too much cleaning so hopefully that will be a good breakthrough.

I have contamination OCD so I fully understand. Excess cleaning doesn’t mean something is cleaner the more times you do it. That I needed to realize. Once I stopped cleaning too much I was able to bring it back to my normal. Magical thinking with these issues is hard too. Today I had my keys lanyard in my pocket, I walked past an older homeless looking man. I purposely watched my lanyard to make sure it didnt wack into him. It didnt, but as soon as I walked past my OCD was like IT TOUCHEDDD HIMMM! Even though i visually SAW it go no where near him. I had a brief state of panic before I centered myself and reminded myself that its my OCD making me think something so off the wall, not me. The more you call you OCD out for what it is the easier it gets.

Thanks for responding! It's really helpful to talk to someone that has the same type of OCD and understands! One of my biggest struggles is with contaminated oily or sticky things that I feel do not dry or I can't get off of items or if it got in my mouth. Or I feel I didn't clean every nook and cranny. I'm not totally sure if these are OCD thoughts or not. I mean I know they get in the way of life but I don't know if I want to ignore the thoughts completely. I feel contagious to others if a contaminated oily substance got in my mouth and I didn't properly wash it out. Also when I get the false thought that's something touched something else like you mentioned, I try my hardest to say I'm not 100% sure it happened so I have to ignore it but sometimes my brain says no it's too risky to ignore this one you better clean just in case. I guess maybe other people don't feel if they get something contaminated on them that it's then contagious to others I don't know. My counselor says to just stop cleaning anything more than basic showering and teeth brush but it feels like not enough if I get something oily on me. Sorry I'm rambling now, thank you for your perspective it does help. I need to move my thoughts more in the right direction so having others perspectives actually really helps.

Is the solution really to just stop any extra cleaning beyond the basic no matter what gets on you?

Do you mean oily by food, drinks, etc? I think the solution is using your better realistic judgement. If something like dog poop or urine gets on you that justifies being a little extra clean. But something that others view as normal I would just do what other people do in that situation. For a while I was watching others around me. I got so far into my contamination OCD that I felt my perspective was wayyyyy off. I looked at door knobs like they were bacteria infested. After watching the way other people handled something so simple I became to re center myself. It took a while and im still making progress everyday. Look at one of your bigger triggers and see how people close to you handle it. We get so lost in the “what ifs” that we end up creating false realties.

Mostly lotions, lip balm, sometimes oil residues from food. I feel like I can definitely cut back my cleaning for common everyday contact but right now I'm dealing with my absolute top trigger that wouldn't normally happen and I have no idea how a normal person would react. My fear is herpes and someone else's lip balm that had leaked all over the container bumped my lip. I have absolutely no idea how a normal person would handle this and I tried not to do extra cleaning besides washing my face and brushing teeth as usual and all it's doing is backfiring on me. I have no idea if these are OCD thoughts or not and I can't stop feeling like the lip balm is still on me and can transmit to others if they touch my face.

Did you join the kik group? If you did you can message me - AelaNJ Do you know if the person had herpes? Or is that just your OCD assuming the worst.

No sorry I don't have kik. This person has contact with another person that definitely does and there's been times where I've seen germs get on them so I'm assuming it's in the lip balm. But I also feel like I need to know what I would do in the event that this happens again. Thank you so much for responding my anxiety is totally taking over and it feels like I cannot figure it out.

If this happened with someone who definitely had herpes I assume a normal person would probably at least wipe off their lips. My anxiety is telling me I should have rinsed out my mouth with hydrogen peroxide to remove any traces of lip balm. My anxiety is also telling me since I only brushed my teeth that lip balm is still on my toothbrush and I basically gave it back to myself the next day when I brushed my teeth again. And of course that the lip balm is sort of stuck in my mouth hanging around. As I'm typing this it sounds like overkill but then I just cannot accept it and move on.

OCD makes us want answers and control. Unfortunately we’ll never have the answers to everything and we’ll never be able to control everything, thats life. What happened already happened. A normal person probably wouldn’t even think to clean their mouth. Most people share things and don’t think twice about it. We on the other hand are super sensitive to germ situations and watch everything so we’re a little more worried than others. I think washing your face and brushing your teeth is plenty for someone who has a heightened germ issue. Because look at it realistically, what would extra washing do? Your OCD doesnt feel satisfied so it wants you to keep going and going until you feel right. But dont let it win, you’re strong and you got this!

Oh believe me ive thought those exact series of thoughts but with other things in my theme of contamination. Say what you typed out loud to yourself, youre noticing its overkill already by typing it, thats progress. When I catch myself worrying about something so unrealistic I say it out loud and look in the mirror. You end up being like, is this seriously what im worrying about right now?!

Thank you so much! It's been 8 days and I feel like my fear is only getting worse. : (( you're so kind to talk me through it! I truly truly appreciate it!

If its not this it would/will be something else. Thats what OCD does, picks on anything! A month from now you’ll look back like why did I freak out about this. I look back at things that bothered me just a week ago and ask myself why I even cared lol. I know everything is easier said than done but stay strong!

Lol! That's funny to say it out loud. I'll try that. I seriously could not tell if it was too much or not until I started writing it and felt embarrassed. The fear of what if is soo strong!!

That's the truth! When this happened it felt like everything else that I have ever been worried about was nothing compared to this, which is progress in a way, but then my OCD was like "right so this is the one and only time you actually should do all that extra cleaning and you blew it trying not to listen to me"

When I started therapy and had to say my triggers out loud I was like ??‍♀️. I kept saying to my therapist that I felt so stupid because the things that bothered me sounded so dumb when I said them out loud ?. She actually told me to say what bothers me out loud when I start to feel anxiety from whatever trigger it is. I guess there’s some method to it because it helps me.

Omg I’ve literally used Lysol wipes on face before, that’s when I realized it was getting extreme. Also is that what magical thinking is?? I never knew that omg. Sometimes I’ll watch the whole time to make sure I didn’t touch whatever item was infected but then I’m CONVINCED it touched it. Even if it didn’t I’m like “did it???”

@aela OCD is so weird like that! We know it sounds crazy it's embarrassing to say to other people but then OCD is like yea but what if??? Lol I tried this technique last night and it definitely helped me be calmer and think of overcoming this fear without washing more. Usually my brain can't even think through it, it's just like danger danger. I'm sort of trying to accept that I can't get rid of every single germ so if something is left on me I guess I have to believe my body will handle it! Of course my brain is still stuck on the toothbrush thing because it thinks if you clean your mouth with the toothbrush then all the germs are now on your toothbrush and it gets back on you every time you use the toothbrush again. I'm trying to remind myself it's still a less amount of germs, there's also toothpaste involved and no one does this haha OCD keeps thinking more but I'll leave it at that. I'm trying my hardest to accept the uncertainty of this!!

This probably won't ever be the case but I always think there's no way I could ever be a scientist or a doctor because I would think all my tools or samples were getting contaminated all the time!