It Really Does Worsen With Age

Hi everyone. First time here. I suffer from Contamination OCD. I have a good support group in friends, family, and my boyfriend, but I have not met anyone else with OCD and I needed to reach out to others to find help. I first got OCD when I was 17 (I am now 33) and was able to go into remission, but COVID brought it back. I was struggling at work (which was outside with the public). I found a therapist and she wrote me a doctor’s note suggesting I be allowed to work from home. My work was not accommodating at all and only offered me FMLA leave, so I took it as my only option and eventually got on Short Term Disability. The whole process took forever and was incredibly stressful. My leave was supposed to be a time of healing and it just made my OCD symptoms worse. My employer basically treated me as though I was trying to get out of work and proved to me that though they talk about the importance of mental health, they don’t take mental health seriously. I ended up having to leave my job “involuntarily due to health reasons” as they would not grant an extension nor let me return with any restrictions/accommodations. My therapist seemed good at first, but it became clear that she wasn’t really helping me. She would often use our sessions to vent about the insurance company and in one session, she basically called me a hopeless case and kept saying “I don’t know. I am concerned. I don’t know how you are going to be able to function” and threw out the word hospitalization, though she did backtrack on that one. I struggle everyday. I am worried that something from outside of the home touched something clean and is now contaminated. I need help working through this. I am constantly looking for reassurance, question if things are clean, wash my hands, use too many disinfectant wipes, and take showers upwards of 50-60 mins. I feel like my mind is being taken over by my OCD, I’m losing time, and it’s straining my relationship. For anyone who is struggling with contamination OCD brought on by COVID - any tips? My therapist never gave me anything specific to work on with this - to help me focus on something else. I am in the process of finding another therapist, but until then - any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

My therapist is getting on top of the way I wash my hands. Its really challenging. I am struggling with bad contamination OCD. It really takes up so much brain space. I would love to hear from other people how their journey is going.

Hello anyone reading, I just wanted to vent here because at this point i’m not sure what to do or if i’ll ever be normal and my OCD is causing my mental health to go down the drain badly. It’s so debilitating I can’t do anything daily other than focus on it. I can’t feel comfortable anywhere, not even in my own home. I deal with the type of OCD where i’m convinced things are contaminated with chemicals or feces or any number of things. TMI: For example when I used the bathroom the other day in a public one and it went off on its own so now i’m convinced I had feces all over me so I had to shower and wash my clothes. Now i can’t even sit in my car cause the seat supposedly is covered now too from the drive home. I can’t touch anything on my floor or anywhere for that matter without washing my hands like my phone charger or my feet/shoes/ankles, door knobs, handles, anything cause i don’t even know why anymore. I’m terrified of cleaning products being on me or touching them, people spraying anything. I can’t have my windows down in the car anymore because i’m terrified of someone’s window washer fluid getting all over me. I watched a video about a guy accidentally drinking paint thinner cause he kept it in a water bottle and had to convince myself that my water wasn’t paint thinner and etc These are just some of the examples I have and I don’t know how to get over it or handle it anymore and I feel like I’m literally going crazy. Any suggestions or advice would mean a lot. please