Hi there! Has any of u here struggle this kind of OCD?I always suffer after using bleaches or household cleaners thinking I have left some amount on surfaces after cleaning. How to deal with this?
I have this as well!! I feel like if I’m around grease or touch it, I can’t get clean enough in the shower or washing my hands/self. I am following this thread to see for myself as well. I have hope for us!
Omg why are we like this?.haha. how do you cope with it?.
@jellycakes I have to take a step back and breathe deeply. I’m still struggling so I’m sorry I don’t have the greatest advice lol
I have had this, my sister had a white dress which was washed with a bleach thing to get a stain out and it was hung up after being washed and dried but kind of still smelt like bleach and i walked passed it my arm brushed against it slightly and i was convinced there was somehow bleach all over my hands and had to wash my hands like a million times. It’s all very irritating
Very irritating😵💫
I also thought that. But a while ago I really tried my best not to ruminate whenever I handle bleach. I always have these thoughts that what if at the time that im doing laundry or just disinfecting stuffs, the water with bleach will splash on me or to my other family members. Poisoning then passes in my brain then I get anxious. But you know, i really try hard to accept uncertainty. We dont know everything for sure always. I learned that in order to live life, we must risk.
I have had. ERP helps!!
Hi! What exposures are you doing?
@jellycakes I had a lot of items in my home that I avoided so I began with touching them without washing my hands, step by step. I was afraid of battery acid, cleaning products, chemicals for the car and so on. I learned to gradually use them in a normal way, without extra precautions. I am not happy with all if them, I still have some fears but I have come a long way.
@Estrid So basically if u touch something poisonous such as chemicals, you dont wash your hands? Im always afraid like if I have chemicals in my hands , i can get someone sick or poisoned.
@jellycakes This is best done with the help of a ERP therapist. When we have OCD we exaggerate everything and think that we have poison on our hands but we actually haven't. I have had exactly the same fears. When it comes to poisons its always about the dose and how much. In my head a small drop of dish soap was a BIG risk...
@Estrid Whenever you handle chemicals , such as bleach or household cleaners, do you wash your hands right away? I cant afford to have an erp therapist so I just asked you. Im so sorrry. Hoping that ypu might share what you have learn. :)
@jellycakes It takes 26 seconds for a product to absorb into your skin. I wouldn’t let cleaning chemicals sit on your skin because that affects your overall health becaise they are toxic. But for example, touching a dish sponge or a door knob in your house will be okay, you won’t have to wash your hands immediately bc bacteria enters into the body by mouth, nose and eyes. As long as you don’t shove your hand in any of those places, you should be fine. This is something I am working on. But I do not recommend letting any cleaning chemicals sit on your skin for the purpose of erp therapy. That’s not a good idea
@Anonymous Well, it's a good idea with small drops of chemicals if you have bad OCD. The risk of living in the hell pit of OCD is a bigger risk of wasting your life than if you handle small amounts of cleankng chemicals. We have to fight for freedom. With OCD we have lost the healthy perspective.
@jellycakes If you dont have a therapist I think you should ask a trusted relative or friend to show you how they do and have them like role models. When I clean I don't wash my hands right away, but I use a cloth and wipe things. I dont put my hands into bleach, it would be a silly thing to do. But if one small drop fall on for example my trousers its ok for me to move on. I had a hard time to buy groceries before, because I always looked for spots everywhere, maybe chemicals!? After ERP these spots helped me to accept that chemicals can be everwhere, I have no control. And tiny residues doesn't matter, and even if it shpuld matter on some level, we can't live that way, if we should we have to live in isolation without connection to other people.
@Estrid Is it okay if bleach is mixed with water?like for example your doing laundry then there are times Im afraid i already contaminated some stuffs.
@jellycakes All that "I am afraid" and "what if's" is typical OCD.
Actually, I will tell you both that these kind of obsession is really simple (not easy) to create exposures for. The brain can see what you are doing and "okay, she touched that without washing afterwards, maybe it isn't that dangerous" I did exposures everyday and it was mind blowing how I could do things I was so afraid of earlier on.
@Estrid Do you have any tips on dealing with the anxiety that comes with exposures?
@Abbie<3 It needs practice but it's about anticipate it and accept. It helps me to think of the anxiety as a wave flooding over me, I surrender and let the anxiety be there, I don't try to push back. I also remind myself that I have OCD and that my alarm system is overreacting. I try to "be in my body" and notice what happens, "ok, now I feel nausea", "now I am dry in my mouth". In the beginning I thought I should "sit with the discomfort" just passively sit. Now I know that I can continue with daily living while having the anxiety and thoughts, I show my brain that the anxiety isn't that important.
Does anyone have any tips that helped them? Mine is due to a specific person and I work with them so it’s been really difficult. I’ve started ERP which has been reaaalllllly challenging and I would love to hear from anyone else that has gone through any type of contamination ocd and how they have overcome or are fighting their way through it. Thank you!l
Hello! I’m new here. Unfortunately I’m not able to afford a therapist but I’ve been doing a lot of research and I think a lot of my symptoms/thoughts align with OCD. I want to share some of what I experience and see if anyone else experiences the same and what resources helped you. I think I mostly experience contamination OCD. I’m constantly worried that something I do/touch is going to make me really sick and/or die. Especially with food, I’m constantly worried that I’ll accidentally have something on my hands when I eat, then I’ll touch the food and get that on the food, eat it and get sick. So I’ll wash my hands every time my hands touch any little tiny thing again and again before I eat, same with any forks/spoons, or I’ll even think I touched cleaner a few hours ago and I’ve washed my hands several times since then and I just washed them again but they still feel dirty so even if impractical I’ll use a fork and if my hands touch the part of the fork that touches the food then I can’t eat the food any longer or use that fork. Also at work I have these thoughts that I know are ridiculous but also give me very real anxiety. Like “if I don’t finish this order before that machine beeps its a sign I’m going to die” and then I have to rush to make sure I finish fast and then I’ll be like ok that’s so stressful I’m not going to think like that any more it’s ridiculous but then the thoughts keep coming back so I have to keep rushing. This is just a little tad bit of what I experience and I would love to hear from others as I haven’t met anyone else like me before. Thank you!
Hi all, I’m new here and just recently got diagnosed. I’m trying to make sense of a lot of things and could use some perspective. I feel like I’m the only one who has contamination themes and does not have the compulsion to clean things, but rather to run away from the mess. I would really love to hear from someone who can relate, because right now I feel like I’m making it up. Details which might either be useful or triggering: My kitchen is the best example. I might leave a dish or two in the sink and say “I’ll clean it up soon, it’s no big deal.” But then—because of a combination of factors—it will probably sit there for a couple days. Around day 2 or 3 I develop an aversion to dealing with it. It gives me ick. And the longer it sits, the ickier it becomes—realistically and in my imagination. And because I’ve stopped doing dishes, they really start to pile up, and each day, getting started feels like more work and more confrontation with disgust. I will start thinking about how I need to do dishes, or take out the trash, and then get hit with a horrifying mental image of bugs (I’ll spare you the details) or other really disgusting things happening. That image brings me shame and makes me scared to deal with the mess. When it really piles up, I start getting images of the nastiest hoarders’ houses I’ve ever seen, and I start catastrophizing about the future I’m doomed for. So mostly I just watch tv to get my mind off it. (I swear I’m not just lazy 😔) This is true for food too. I will be unsure if something in my fridge is a little too old, so I decided to hedge my bets and I avoid it. I let a lot of food go to waste this way. The biggest problem here is I don’t throw it away when I decide it’s bad. I just side-eye it. Maybe because I know it’s silly to decide 6-day-old soy milk that smells fine has a “bad vibe,” and I think I may be able to get over it later. But then the food actually spoils and I don’t want to touch it to throw it out. I actually had a week or so in June where I couldn’t open the fridge because it smelled bad. It took every ounce of emotional energy and an external deadline to force me to clean my kitchen. I had a couple of meltdowns but it felt great to get my space back. Of course, it’s a cycle and it got bad again. The crazy thing is, I love to cook and I even like doing dishes. And I do dishes every day at work, no problem! But I’m spending so much money on takeout because my kitchen is always trashed. :( Is this super crazy? Does it even sound like contamination ocd? Am I alone in this? Any feedback would be helpful.
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