🫧🩷🪷

Date posted: 2y

I HATEEE roaches

When I was like 14 I was sleeping over at somebody else’s house and in the middle of the night I felt and saw a big bug crawl across my face. My mom told me it was a “water bug” which imo is basically just a sugarcoated word for ROACH. Then a year ago when we moved I slept on the closet floor and a couple of nights later I realized that the closet had roaches from the field nearby. WHYYYYY 😭 I still cringe to this day like please. And I’m so scared of seeing one come up the drain. I don’t care where I’m at, even if it’s work, if I see a roach or a rodent I’m screaming running and not coming back. How do you deal with this kind of stress pleaseee like how because the only thing I anna do when I’m in the shower thinking “what if a roach came up the drain” is I’m never gonna take a shower again. Like I’ll really avoid doing things I have to when it comes to vermin. I’m sure it makes anyone upset but like I’ll freeze and be shocked after running away and I can’t take my mind off it at all

Erin P

Date posted: 2y

ERP therapy can help you make this manageable. It has helped me with so much of my OCD.

Erin P

Date posted: 2y

Are you working with an ERP therapist because just “not avoid” won’t get you there. I used to be worried about cold, flu etc. germs and do all sorts of compulsions. By actively taking risks like touching doorknobs or ATM machines without decontaminating in any way and feeling the anxiety until it went down. Now I do these things all the time without worry - I am not getting sick more often. But as you indicated it has to be worth the risk to you in order to do it.

Erin P

Date posted: 2y

@Erin P Meant for Anon - sorry.

Anoymous

Date posted: 2y

@Erin P Yes, I’ve worked with 3 different ones. With the bug phobia for example, I don’t have compulsions other than I do avoid walking by discarded furniture, and avoid keeping cardboard inside the house. I don’t like staying in hotels for this reason and when I do I am careful where I set my suitcase. I occasionally will have false alarms and become very very distressed. And it’s in those instances that OCD shows up. The only guidance was to not avoid things such as the cardboard inside the house.

Anoymous

Date posted: 2y

@Erin P With the virus phobias, it’s both feeling disgust/dirty and fear of infection. So there is a lot of avoidance and uncertainty after normal cleaning which can lead to repeating cleaning. When engaging without compulsions the feeling dirty/gross is the main feeling I’m fighting or at least that feels front and center. It doesn’t peak and go down, it sticks in my memory. I recently read more about different types of contamination ocd and it explained that often it’s keeping tabs of what’s contaminated that keeps the cycle going for when fear of contamination is what is feared vs fear or getting sick. And I see that…but how to begin to break that down into doable parts? B/c the alarm and feeling is strong it gets well recorded in memory. It feels that I need to accept the reality of life but how to get one to want to. Sometimes the longer I don’t give in to the compulsion the sticker it gets…that if I do later give into the compulsion than it doesn’t work anymore b/c mind was not able to forget. And I’ll want to clean it again! Perfectionism/just right plays out here. I have applied ERP in these cases and with these it’s doable, but you see, it’s after cleaning it. I just spent 4 days feeling contaminated I can endure it but the feeling persists until I need to change clothes or shower due to normal conduct. Is this how you have or currently experience it?

Erin P

Date posted: 2y

@Aanoymous Yes, I am extremely familiar with disgust/ dirty driven compulsions. Yes, I’ve experienced keeping track of what is contaminated. Yes, I’ve felt contaminated until I have gotten clean due to normal contact reasons for doing so. I’m not an ERP therapist but I know that if I just resist cleaning but don’t take the additional step of accepting the risk and uncertainty I stay on a state of dirty vs. clean and the anxiety is there and the memory of what’s dirty. What has helped me is going towards the dirty actively as an exposure. You asked about breaking down into doable parts. I’ll follow up on that part in a moment.

Erin P

Date posted: 2y

@Aanoymous I’m not a therapist but here’s my thoughts re: doable parts- let’s say you cleaned a table because you were afraid of germs and you just don’t feel like you cleaned it enough. You might start by looking at the table and saying it’s contaminated with viruses. If after say 10 minutes if this your anxiety is the same you could say to yourself maybe it’s clean enough maybe it’s not and feel the anxiety and accept that there is a risk that it’s not clean enough. Whether or not that decreases your anxiety you would then put both hands on the least scary part of the table and accept the risk that you could be getting contaminated and that you aren’t going to clean your hands. Your anxiety should go down if you don’t let your brain switch to reassurance (you can counteract it with “but maybe it is really contaminated”). Once your anxiety goes down, eating something with your bare hands may be a good exposure. Or maybe you touch food to your contaminated clothes or touch your nose and lips to your clothes as an exposure. Basically actually accepting and taking the risk instead of mentally waiting it out until you change your clothes. It sucks but it works.

Anoymous

Date posted: 2y

@Erin P Thank you Erin for taking the time with these last two comments - I feel heard, and it is helpful to hear the process based on your experience as a sufferer - there is some weight/trust to that. The 1st and 2nd steps are really triggering for me, if I say it’s contaminated I immediately feel intolerance and that I have to take action. And I can’t get to the 3rd step. If I skip those steps I can return to normal use…but it seems those steps are necessary in many instances - I’ll need to try it out with more variety of instances to observe what happens.

Erin P

Date posted: 2y

@Aanoymous Does you current therapist do exposures with you - as in touching the contaminated item as well? That can make the difference between being able to do the first steps without compulsions.

Anoymous

Date posted: 2y

@Erin P We did once, and it didn’t go well. I’m not sure I was doing it right. I was asked to touch it and keep my hand there and observe the thoughts, of course the longer I did that the more thoughts came up and eventually one that was really sticky and the concern rose up from level 3 to level 8. And I wasn’t able to not give into compulsions, and additionally felt I needed to clean the surface which I hadn’t felt the need to prior. I really don’t know how this works for others.

Erin P

Date posted: 2y

@Aanoymous You weren’t doing it wrong. But it sounds like observing the thoughts was not the right method for you. I’m not an ERP therapist but it seems like there could have been a better way for them to help you through this - like when you needed to clean the surface they should have touched it and maybe had you touch their hands after yours were clean. Or they could have had you try going back to that surface another time and not observing the thoughts. I would suggest a different therapist but since you’ve been through 3 I’m not sure what to suggest.

Anoymous

Date posted: 2y

@Erin P Erin you’re a gem, you give me hope. I also think observing the thoughts was too much…but was feeling like I’m going to set myself up for failure if I try to circumvent that. But the ideas you’ve shared give me hope that there is a way to further adjust and maybe it won’t be the most direct way to build tolerance to uncertainty but will be a way for me to start moving forward.

Erin P

Date posted: 2y

That makes sense. But I’m surprised they didn’t have you do a hierarchy as well. Like looking at pictures of bugs etc. to help you actively habituate to them.

Erin P

Date posted: 2y

@Aanoymous It makes sense to concentrate in the priorities. Not all ERP therapists use a hierarchy, but NOCD and higher level treatment does. Sorry pictures don’t help - for me it’s varied based on the fear.

Anoymous

Date posted: 2y

@Erin P I see, good to know. Thanks again for sharing your experience. ❤️

Erin P

Date posted: 2y

@Aanoymous Any time 😀

Erin P

Date posted: 2y

For the shower you could try doing ERP scripting: https://www.shalanicely.com/aha-moments/erp-scripting-for-ocd/

Erin P

Date posted: 2y

@Erin P For you feelslikeionlygobackwards

Erin P

Date posted: 2y

How are you doing feelslikeonlygobackwards? I’ve gotten into a side conversation with aanoymous but was wondering how you are holding up and if the ERP script was helpful.

nk33

Date posted: 22w

An old enemy returns

I was home for a couple of weeks with my family and two days ago my sister found small blood stains in her bed in a separate room. Our exterminator came and looked hard. he did not find any bugs or other signs in her room or in mine. Despite this, he did believe that the stains were from bedbugs and treated her room. there were no visible signs of bed bugs other than a couple of blood stains on her bedsheets. Nobody has seen any bugs or gotten bit…. Yet. The exterminator said Its fine for me to go home normally, but if I’m worried to wash my clothes when I get home tonight. Our dryer is not very hot and given my previous trauma with bedbugs I am in a state of complete panic. I am no stranger to these as when I was in high school my dorm building had them. This dominated my every thought. I’d shake my clothes whenever i took them off, obsessively checking, feeling itchy/things crawling on me without existing avoid people in “that” part of the dorm and obsessing constantly. I never had them but it dominated my life for a long time. Now its back. I am freaking out. I had to pack my bag and leave that day. I got home, bagged the clothes i was wearing, put everything in the basement, took a shower then washed and dried all of my clothes. In my two days home, i barely slept the first night and today was better but im not doing anything tonight and im ruminating/obsessing heavily. Checking everything i can, feel itchy/something is crawling on me. It’s all i think about and given how long it can take for bbs to appear after introduction, I fear it will be until I have something more extreme/pressing to fixate on.

SMS719

Date posted: 12w

Feeling hopeless 💔

My ocd has been at an extreme all time high the past 2 weeks and I am in dire need of some relief. I’m not sleeping right anymore. for context: I live in the south and found a springtail on my sheets about 2 weeks ago. This was like 2 days before our bug guy came and sprayed (it’s a normal maintenance thing here) so it’s a common bug down here and I’ve found them all over different areas of the house before. Finding it in my bed sent me on a bit of a spiral bc I started to doubt if it even was a springtail and that i was wrong and that it was a bed bug, not trusting my brain. It was a bad, sleepless night and carried over continuing feelings. Typical ocd stuff. Well two days later, I’m a nurse and I had a patient that actually had bed bugs. This wasn’t the first day they were here and I did not see any myself but it still freaked me out. There had one 2 founds after visitors came the day before. Of course I wore PPE in the room (coveralls shoe covers and hair net) going in and took everything off before exiting the room. When I came home I stripped in my garage and bagged everything down to my shoes. Threw everything in the wash and did multiple cycles. There were no other steps I could take but I still had a terrible night. Hours of ruminating and going back and forth about tracing my tracks, thinking of new ways I could’ve taken one home with me. Just checking everything. I was already on a spiral from the springtail. Having two such back to back triggering events for me so closely related has made me deteriorate significantly. I was already doing bad with my normal OCD and starting therapy here. I obsess over the thought of having bedbugs constantly and haven’t been able to sleep. I am constantly checking my bed while in it and can’t settle down. My bed is heavy too and I keep hurting myself lifting my mattress to check. But I need to check. I’ve become obsessed. I check everything and go down Reddit rabbit holes looking for new things. And of course, I talk myself into it every time. I can’t take it anymore, it’s bleeding off into other parts of my life like friendship and marriage because I am so high anxiety right now. I need relief so bad. I’ve never felt this unstable to be honest. I feel like even someone without ocd would be really struggling with this topic, nevermind me, with ocd to a point where I just started treatment. These aren’t even my normal intrusive thoughts and compulsive acts. It’s just taken on a life in the last week and I can’t find any sign that it’s going to slow down. when I think rationally I know I did everything right to prevent but I can’t shake it. 💔

GuiltyGrapes

Date posted: 6w

I feel so filthy

So Im staying at my uncles house until Saturday or Sunday and I feel like I’m filthy and making his house infected and idk what to do so when I first got here his house had grass I walked through to get to the door so I made sure to wipe my feet at the door and leave my shoes close to the door but I still feel,like I’m infecting his house he gave me and my little brother a room to sleep in and the first think I think of is how I need to wash the sheets when I leave. The first day was hard because I couldn’t shower and I felt so dirty because we had to go on a walk and I was sweating and we also had to water the grass outside and I had the same socks on as I did yesterday and I just felt like they were filthy and I was walking with those socks around the house so now his carpet is filthy and the bed I was laying in is now filthy. And I couldn’t shower because I didn’t have any cleaning supplies to clean it after I was done because I didn’t want to wash in their shower and now clean it afterwards. But I got someone at the store and took a shower and changed clothes and I felt weird about where to put my dirty clothes I hung them on the shower curtain rod but I feel like I just infected the rod. And afterwards I tried to spray off the shower with some Clorox foam cleaner but I feel like I didn’t clean it good and even feel bad about cleaning it because I was afraid the chemicals I tried rinsing off the shower and the bottles I was using in the shower but still feel like it’s infected. And don’t get me started on how I feel about the bags I’m keeping my clean clothes in and also the other bag I’m keeping my dirty clothes the bags are laying on the floor and I feel like my clean clothes are getting dirty from the floor and my dirty clothes are dirtying the floor and the towel I was using I used to dry the bathroom floor and asked where to put my towel he said on the dryer but there was stuff on it so I put it on a box above the dryer but I feel like I just infected everything and also Ik he touched the towel WHST if he gets THISE germs on his kids . Also the covers me and my little brother were using fell on the ground and his kids were playing in them and stuff like that but my little brother said it was fine and still used them but idk and his cover he brought touched my dirty clothes and the floor and he still used them and I just feel kinda ill about that. And today me feeling filthy just multiplied because I can’t SHOWER again today because someone’s toys are in the shower and idk how to get clean becuase we leave soon and idk what to do do I just change clothes? Idk about wipes because I can’t just ask for baby wipes and now I’m walking around with no socks because I only brought one pair and my others ones were put in my dirty clothes bag and now I have to go places no socks just in my flip flops. And last night I went to the restroom because I didn’t want to have an accident in the night because I’m always anxious about that stuff and I went but I feel like I just infected their toilet and I washed my hands after but I went back into bed but my feet touched the bathroom floor so now the bed is hay I feel actually infected and since I’m laying in it I’m infected too. Idk why I woke up so depressed and feel so filthy and guilty idk if it was the pose I was sleeping in or if I think I had an accident idk but we a lot of places to go today and idk what to do I was going to get Lysol at the store today to spray stuff but I don’t think I can get everything and I feel so sick he has kids what if I give them bad germs I can’t live with that

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I HATEEE roaches

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