My therapist is getting on top of the way I wash my hands. Its really challenging. I am struggling with bad contamination OCD. It really takes up so much brain space. I would love to hear from other people how their journey is going.

Stick with it! It will be so worth it! I know exactly what you mean about it taking up brain space. I had very little brain space left when I started therapy 😅 and I didn’t feel safe or comfortable even in my own home 😞 or really anywhere due to contamination fears. I’m doing so much better now and able to tackle lots of things that I’d been avoiding (cleaning and laundry) and do things that I just didn’t have room for in my brain before (knitting and organizing my closet). I’m doing great at home but the “outside world” still freaks me out big time. My therapist wants me to go outside in our next session (and ERP means no decontamination when I come back inside 😭) and I’m SO not ready for that next step 😩 but I am super pumped to be able to freely do things and touch things in my own home, that has been HUGE for me!

I wanted to add that I do still wash my hands quite a bit, but now I’m not as frantic/anxiety-ridden while I do it, and usually I can just do it once pretty quickly whereas before I would do it over and over for like 10 minutes :( My therapist didn’t specifically work on handwashing with me but I think it just kind of happened as a byproduct? We did ERPs where I would touch something I felt was “contaminated” and not wash at all 😱 and she sat with me until I felt less anxious. Once I wasn’t as afraid of the contamination the handwashing started to diminish a bit on its own.

My hands are so dry from the hand washing. It’s honestly so hard so I understand.

Wow you sound so strong. I would also spend about 10-15 minutes washing my hands. My hands got so bad that my therapist sent me to the dermatologist for it because she was worried that I would get an infection

Good luck for your next exposure