New to Nocd

Hiii! This is my first post. I found NOCD through a tiktok ad that spoke to me. It was titled signs you didnt know were OCD or something like that, and one of the slides was “checking my pulse throughout the day to make sure i was okay”. This is something ive done for i dont even know how long. atleast 10 years, im 24 now. Ive always known Ive had OCD. Light Sanitation OCD runs in my family. But over the years ive started to realize i had way more than the “family trait”. Checking my pulse 40+ times a day is something i refer to as my “OCD tick”. Its to the point where people who dont know about my “tick” often ask if i am okay when they see me do it. Maybe this post is me putting it on paper for the first time so i myself can analyze but some other stuff i struggle with are: Often having thoughts of if i dont do A, B will happen. An example that is common for me is “if i dont refold this shirt me and my boyfriend will get into an argument” or if im out to dinner with a friend, “if i dont pick up this cup and place it back down, i will get into a car accident on the way home”. This is one i struggle with almost everyday, especially when im around people (work or outings). This compulsion happens multiple times a day. Now in my life i try to practice exposure therapy, even getting annoyed i feel the compulsion and think to myself “oh my god this is so stupid no!” but if i dont follow through i feel guilty. often when i get my next compulsion shortly after i tell myself “okay doing this will make up for not doing the previous one”. I definitely dont have a number based OCD, but i would have to pick up and put down the cup until it feels “right” or “correct”- same with checking my pulse. I have to check my pulse until the feeling is “just right”. With sanitation as i said before, i have a very clean and sanitary family, although mine is more severe than their feelings. I avoid touching certain surfaces after i have washed my hands, such as the front door knob, or living room tv remote, etc. If i need to touch or use these things, i have to immediately wash my hands again. Even if someone comes home and asks me to go and lock the front door ill often respond with “i cant i just washed my hands, if i lock the door ill have to rewash my hands”. thankfully my family is very understanding. I often feel like certain things are contaminated. For example when i come home i sanitize my phone immediately as it is contaminated from being outside of my house. I often have a feeling of something having to feel “just right”. If i go out to dinner i have to be the first to pick what seat or side of the booth im sitting on before the rest of my family sits down or i will feel anxious the whole dinner. Sometimes when im typing i have to back space and retype the same word over and over until i feel i typed it “just right”- even if i didnt make a typo. sometimes when i am driving and space out i often think “oh my god did i just hit someone” when there is no evidence that i have. it worries me. I think oh my god i mightve done a hit and run. But tell myself it can not be possible, theres no police chasing me, no honking, or anything. It is scary. this one is very rare. once in a blue moon i get a false memory. A main one ive felt since i was a kid is if someone or some object touches any part of my body, for example my left arm, i have to have them or atleast my self touch my right arm in the exact same way or i feel uneasy. this isnt with every single touch, but mainly when i feel triggered- although i never know what triggers a moment where i need the symmetry. I guess ive always known, i am very honest with my family, friends, and boyfriend about it. But i didnt start to realize how neurodivergent i was until asking some friends “you never randomly feel *insert compulsion*?” and they say never in their life have they felt like that. Im very self aware and have come to an acceptance with all these things, although it is debilitating. Periodically i think, wow it must be nice to not live life with these feelings but oh well. To be honest, downloading this app is the first step ive ever taken to find out more about OCD. Ive always kind of just been like “yeah i definitely have OCD but okay” more or less.

sorry this is super long i just wanna know if anyone else has been thru something similar bc i feel super alone 🩷 i have super bad contamination ocd. it was bad already but my house was like my safe space until a few months ago someone brought something into my house that i considered ‘contaminated’. and so then i felt like that part of the house was contaminated, then it spread to everything outside my room (since family is moving around touching stuff) and then somehow i got convinced everything in my room except my bed is contaminated and i need to wash my hands after touching it. in my mind its like the contamination just infinitely spreads to things after the tiniest bit of touch. idek what im afraid of anymore or even what the original thing was but i can’t let it go. when i have to wash off contamination i have to wash at least 4 times or until it feels right, or sometimes take rlly long showers and wipe down all my stuff. i even throw away food and clothes or just whole items sometimes because they feel so contaminated i don’t want them in my space. i can’t be super near people or have anyone touch me, and i also can’t bring anything new into my room since it had to go through the entry of my house which feels contaminated. i feel like all i do is lay in bed and then wash my hands and do compulsions so i can go eat or do other stuff around the house. also i never go out because i’m bc people outside make me feel dirty, and i hate thinking about how many people have touched stuff in stores or in public and stuff. so im just in my room worrying all day. i feel so trapped and the contamination/avoiding it is all i think about anymore i barely have time for anything else and im never present when i talk to people because im worrying about if i accidentally got contaminated. im starting erp next week and knowing that im going to have to expose myself to things is really freaking me out. does anyone else have this kind of ocd ? im exhaustedddd 🥲🥲💔

TW: mice/rodents; contamination/virus; feeling unsafe in my home Hello, I'm new to the community, and new to OCD at 42 years old. My OCD is about contagion but specifically around mice and a virus some of them carry (hantavirus). For background, my husband and I have been in our house for a little over 10 years, and in all that time, there have been mice coming in and out through what we've discovered are chew-holes in the sill plate where the house frame sits on the foundation. Mice are gross, but we never saw evidence of them in the actual living spaces (only attics and cellar), and I was okay knowing they were there. I was a new mom when COVID hit, and the anxiety over that ratcheted up my general anxiety, which was never awful but definitely had me thinking more about contamination and contagion in a big way. Two years ago, I found mouse poop in the upstairs where the bedrooms are, got some traps, never caught anything, and then ended up actually SEEING a mouse come out from behind the toilet. It went back into the wall before we could catch it. After that, I got steel wool and expanding foam and plugged up EVERY hole in the house--mostly pipe holes for the radiators, toilets, sinks, etc. And I was still OK. Then, two months ago, I was in the cellar doing laundry and I saw a larger-than-usual dropping, bigger than mouse OR rat droppings, I thought, sitting on top of the dryer. I was like...hm, that's strange. I mentioned it to my Discord writing group, most of whom live in the Midwest (this will become relevant), and one of them said "oh, you have to be careful with mice, they carry Hantavirus. My husband had it a couple of years ago and it was really scary." I didn't know what hantavirus is, so I looked it up and found out you can contract it through breathing/contact with mouse poop, urine and saliva. The sickness that results from hantavirus has a 40% mortality rate, which scares the heck out of me b/c that's really high. Further research told me that the CDC started tracking Hantavirus in 1993. Between then and 2022, the latest of their available data, there have been fewer than 900 cases in the entire US; 96% of those cases were west of the Mississippi, and there has been in that time only ONE confirmed case in the state where I live. So, objectively, the risk of me or my family contracting this virus from our local mice is low. And I wouldn't think about it at all, except that there are still mice in the house. We've had a pest company setting and managing traps this whole time; recently they also came to plug the existing holes in the foundation, but they keep finding mice in their traps and they found a new chew hole near one of the cellar windows this week. We're working on a more aggressive solution (1/4" hardware cloth over the places where they're getting in), but it's slow going and in the meantime, there's still the risk of coming into contact with mouse stuff. But my brain has ballooned this into something so much bigger than that. I'm washing my hands so much that they're starting to crack and bleed and the skin feels tight. I'm afraid to go in the cellar to do laundry, because that's where the mice are. My husband has no problem going down in the cellar, which means I'm afraid to touch things around the house because what if he touched something with mouse virus on his hands? And even though I've plugged up all the holes where mice could get into the living spaces, I'm still obsessively afraid of every single surface--what if a mouse touched it? Ran across it? Peed on it? Even though I don't see mouse droppings in any of our living spaces, nor evidence of them chewing anything, I'm still losing my mind with fear. And although I've heard that folks with contamination OCD typically clean a LOT, I'm afraid to clean because what if I move the mess (we both have full time jobs and a 6 year old, so cleaning isn't always top priority) and I find mouse poop under there? This is an absolute nightmare. I hate not feeling safe in my own home. And I'm frustrated because I was FINE for so long...I don't know where this OCD suddenly came from, but it went 0 to 100 almost overnight. My loved ones are concerned and want to be supportive, but they're also not afraid and have never experienced anxiety nor OCD, so their "helpful" advice is usually along the lines of "can't you just decide to be afraid and do it anyway" or "have you tried not feeling this way"? I know this is a weirdly specific OCD but that's my story. I've been working with a therapist now for a few weeks but her breathing techniques, while somewhat helpful, aren't enough, so I need to have a talk with her about what comes next for treatment. Thanks to OCD, my world feels like it keeps getting smaller and smaller. I want to just find a tiny chair where I can sit and not move and not touch anything until all the bad stuff goes away...but I know that's not realistic, nor is is healthy. I'm just...exhausted, and frustrated, and scared, and really hopeful that I can find a way through this.