- Date posted
- 1y ago
Contamination OCD
I want to beat OCD because I’m tired of worrying about if something has been contaminated with raw meat especially raw chicken after I touch it and spread the contaminates around.
I want to beat OCD because I’m tired of worrying about if something has been contaminated with raw meat especially raw chicken after I touch it and spread the contaminates around.
Me too
Thanks for your expert advice! I’m new to this app so am taking baby steps. I haven’t set up any appointments yet for a consultation. Am slowly working towards it. But getting your advice really helps.
So glad to hear! There is so much hope. It's nice to have you as part of this community.
Glad I’m not alone.
Yeah I can barely handle touching raw meat or anything of the sort without washing my hands. But we’ll get through this. God bless!
Same here! You’re right. Same to you…God bless!
I feel this. It may seem paradoxical but you have to touch the meats and allow reasonable washing of hands- OCD will scream at you to do more, clean more, be excessive- but the response must be changed- no more excessive cleaning and decontaminating, sitting with uncertainty, maybe I will become ill, maybe not- maybe someone else might, maybe not. I often say to people- learn the voice of OCD, so to speak, and when you hear it, ask yourself, how would someone who doesn't have OCD respond in this exact situation? And most often, do that.
Thank you for responding to my post. First off my name is Stacey also. I’m not too concerned about other people getting sick (although maybe I am) but my fear is the raw meats I cook, when taking them out of the package are going to splatter on my clothes that I don’t know about and I’ll touch my shirt then touch something else & something else. Even going to the grocery store & buying meats is a chore. Touch the raw meats then touching my purse, my wallet to pay then the car and on & on. It’s real frustrating.
I can honestly say that I understnd this. There was a time when my husband had to cook all of our meats- or at least reassure me that I had not touched other things. The truth is that no matter how 'clean' you are- you could still get sick. You can do everything 'right' and still have something bad happen. At its core it is a feeling of lack of control and uncertainty. We must work towards accepting these scary things and continuing to live our lives, as hard as it can be. You can do this.
Thanks
im not diagnosed, but these past two days have been terrible. i constantly have this underlying feeling that i might do something that i think is gross and i feel like i can’t do anything on my own because otherwise i might do something wrong. like i feel like i constantly have to be in front of people so that i can make sure of my every action. this is so exhausting and I’m so confused. and like i keep getting terrible images and stuff replaying in my head. i also try to recall what happened but i feel like i have false event too. i used to have religious ocd and that eventually stopped completely, but now it feels like all my work getting over that was pointless. also like i feel like i might have contamination ocd but not the typical germ type. I just get terrible images and I can’t remember if those images are true or not even though they’re impossible and i feel terrible. I don’t know if i could ever get over this because even the thought of it is terrible.
I've gotten diagnosed with OCD and I'm in therapy. But I'm worried that I don't have OCD/that I got misdiagnosed. And recently I'm worried that I've just gotten myself into a habit of thinking of dirty minded or just plain old terrible things after I see/hear certain things because I feel like I need to prove I have OCD or else I'm faking(sometimes this goes away). Or that I'm just mimicking symptoms of ocd to cope with real problems I may have and that im just really deep into denial. I don't know...I'm just so tired. I mean, what if I really am what I think I am and this is my brains only way of coping? I don't even really feel anything towards most of the thoughts anymore either I just know they go against my values and I don't want them. I don't know if that's because I'm so mentally exhausted, I just don't care, or that the thoughts are true and I'm comfortable with them.
I have contamination OCD that causes me to excessively wash my hands/clean items with disinfectant wipes. I know I just need to start with small exposures but how do I do that without spiraling? I tried a while back by just touching the outside of my dishwasher and not washing my hands after and it led to me being unable to even exist in my house. I basically lived on my couch for three weeks as it was the only 'safe' space that I had not touched with my dirty hands. I had to take a week off work to clean my house to make it somewhat liveable. I still haven't got round to cleaning everything though so things like my kitchen are still no-go zones that I don't enter. I just don't know how to start ERP without it making everything worse. Any advice would be appreciated. I am not seeing a therapist at the moment due to financial constraints.
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