Just ate three bites of a sandwich and noticed the cheese in it was smelling odd and now I'm paranoid thinking I'm going to have a food poisoning or v0mit and I have emetophobia so...
Maybe you will, maybe you won’t.
You woke up and choose hard truth 👏
I have ,very severe ocd of contamination and other, but trying to do a ERP. It is very very hard , small steps . The best thing which I realised and it is helping me to fight ocd is . I tell my self do I want to live my life in a fear and worrying about things and have really bad life and at the end die. Or I want enjoy my life , do things peple do every day and do not worry about every single stain ,some dirt on my hand and other things and at the end will die anyway like all people. So I decided to live my life and enjoy. It is very hard to do not response to compulsions, feels very real, but when you resist the urge dissapears eventually…
@EdGrig I totally understand your struggle. I’ve cried and had sweat from anxiety to not give into OCD. Then I noticed through the struggle after about 10 months things weren’t bothering me as much. I’m still having bad hours but it has gotten easier. I know it will for you too. You can say “No” to OCD 👍.
@LowellT The worst is when , I know that everything is clean and I have clean hands havent touched or expised my self to anything contaminated , BUT! There is that feeling something isnt right 🧐 and it is very difficult to ignore that takes hours sometimes to get rid of that feeling
@EdGrig This link may help: https://www.shalanicely.com/aha-moments/shoulders-back-the-man-in-the-park/ The man in the park is telling you something is wrong
@EdGrig I know exactly what you mean and I still have things like that come up. I have hit and run OCD. Before I started with NOCD I would always go back if I hit a bump to see if I hit someone. But when I started doing my ERP if I thought I hit someone I was not to go back. I was to think “Yep. Someone is flipping around in the road needing medical help”. I remember one time it happened and I had so much anxiety I thought it would last a long, long time. It lasted a few hours then mellowed out. On this app we all have the same issue in the end. It is we can’t handle doubt in certain areas of our life and to not give into those compulsions to bring about certainty. I understand your struggle. I know something and that is I know you can say “No” to OCD. It’s just one step at a time. I know you can do it 👍.
Check out this resource for when eating is difficult and you have OCD:https://www.treatmyocd.com/blog/what-can-i-do-when-ocd-makes-me-afraid-to-eat please know you are not alone and this is very treatable! You can do hard things. Eat the smelly cheese, LOL.
I'm just stupid and the cheese wasn't spoiled it was just a different kind of cheese...
@calicocookie You’re not stupid - OCD makes us jump to certain conclusions. I still remember when my now retired ERP therapist asked me what I thought something looked like on the bathroom floor- my mind went to the worst. He had me look again and consider other options - it was torn flooring that showed a sliver of the black underside - that really helped me realize how quickly OCD goes to what I worry about when other people would have seen the reality instead. 🤪
@Erin P I have a fake spider where I can see during the day to remind me is the false alarm OCD really is.
@LowellT I love it. I used to think insects were a bad omen now I take them as a reminder that I can do what I need to.
@LowellT Lowell that’s a creative idea! Erin, I’m glad you realized why the cheese smelled different, I’m sorry OCD jumped to conclusions, it is often a false alarm like Lowell said, which is why sitting with the feelings of anxiety and not reacting is so important.
This happens to me too. Have you tried watching a comfort show or movie while eating tobget your mind off of the meal or snack you're eating?
I have a lot of OCD obsessions and compulsions around food contamination, so I can definitely relate. I am in ERP (exposure and response prevention) therapy for my OCD. I’ve done both in session ERPs and homeworks around this theme. With time and practice ERP has been a huge help for me.
This has recently developed into something much bigger than it originally was. When this past winter season started, i noticed more people were getting the stomach bug than usual. I was fine at first, until I was noticing almost one person in every class was saying they recently had it. I researched about it, and I found what I was looking for unfortunately. Norovirus cases were surging across the U.S because of a new strain of NoV that recently had been spreading. This immediately altered my way of thinking. Everywhere I went, I would be overly cautious of what’s around me and whose around me. The first obsessive compulsive problem I had was that I couldn’t eat at lunch anymore unless I washed my hands. One time, I didn’t have an option to wash my hands, so I didn’t eat lunch. That’s when I knew it was interfering with my daily life, and it was becoming a serious issue. There was another time where some guy threw up near me in the hallway trash can. My mind was spiraling. all. day. long. It felt like it was consuming me alive. Not a minute would go by where I wouldn’t think about it, and the high possibility of me catching this virus. There’s been so many other scenarios where I feel myself losing it. I’m not the best of explaining in detail how my mind feels when it spirals, but the best thing I could say is that I could feel myself slowly losing my mind. It takes over my life. I HAVE to act on my compulsive acts, if not, i’ll have these obsessive thoughts until it consumes me whole. I’ve had nervous breakdowns, panic attacks, anxiety attacks, insomnia, and it almost feels like it’s causing me to have an eating disorder. Most recently, I went to use the bathroom and saw what looked like puke on the toilet seat. I was already using it, so I just finished my buisness and rushed out there asap. I figured, if I fasted for two days, what’s there to puke if I do catch NoV? So, I did. I missed school because on the second day of fasting, I became very dehydrated. I was weak, and couldn’t move. I realized what this all rooted back to. That’s when I knew I needed help.
This is a long one lol but basically, a couple of weeks ago I went to the toilet (#2, sorry for the tmi). Let's just say it was messy. I remember that a speck of.. #2.. Fell off the piece of toilet paper. This was probably the worst thing that could ever happen. I can't remember clearly but I'm pretty sure my jeans were on the floor underneath near where the speck could have fallen. There was also a towel. I don't know exactly where it fell as it was so small, but I made sure both the towel and the jeans went in the laundry basket and I cleaned the floor near there. Fast forward to like the next day. My mum does most of the laundry, so she will have picked up all the towels and clothes from the laundry basket and taken them to the wash. The problem is the speck. I don't know where it went but if it was on the towel and she picked it up.... Thus, contaminated mum. And she also puts clothes away that are dry. I remember that day she put my hoodie in my wardrobe, and I haven't worn it since because I feel it is contaminated. I haven't worn the clothes that have touched the hoodie. This leaves me with not a lot of clothes. And today I finally snapped and picked up a sweatshirt that had maybe touched the hoodie. And now I'm just sat here spiralling, wearing it. What if it touched the speck? What if the speck touched my mum and then touched the hoodie which then touched the sweatshirt I'm wearing? Please I'm so scared.
contamination ocd has really been messing with me the last couple of days. usually i only struggle when i can connect something to possibly throwing up, but this time it doesn’t matter. so earlier, i took a shower and i also use a wash cloth to wash my body. after i showered i cleaned up my dirty clothes and towels. then when i came back to grab my phone, there was a soap speck on my phone so without thinking i just wiped it on the back of my crewneck i was wearing. well that then spiraled into me thinking what if the soap was from my dirty wash cloth. i know most of you are probably thinking it’s clean since you use soap to clean ur body. well i clean every inch of my body, including my bottom so that’s where my anxiety is gravitating towards. this sounds so ridiculous saying it out loud, but i just have so much anxiety over it. i tried my hardest not to change but i did. at first i just changed my crewneck, but then i had to change my shorts cause my crewneck touches my shorts. but then i changed my shorts. and now i feel like my shirt is contaminated cause i was wearing it with my other shorts before changing. moral of the story, i just have so much anxiety over it and i feel like i shouldn’t because it’s really not a big deal. and i don’t want to change again because that seems ridiculous to me. plus now i’m connecting the contamination to my bed since i was laying on my bed before i changed. i hate life, this sucks.
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