dont work at a grocery store if you have contamination ocd

(long read ahead, sorry lol) I’ve struggled with ocd for as far back as I can remember. I find that it gets worse with stress, and recently I’ve really been struggling with the contamination aspect of my ocd. I’m worried about it becoming unmanageable and negatively affecting my relationship with my partner. I’ve been living with my boyfriend since January (got kicked out of my house a week after I turned 18, it’s for the better though my house is toxic as hell) and I love living with him, but him and his family aren’t as concerned with cleaning as I am used to. My boyfriend and I have been together going on 2 years and there’s been many times throughout our relationship that his struggle with depression severely impacted his ability to keep up with cleaning his room. This is something I completely understand because I’ve struggled with it too so i’ve often helped him clean, and since i’ve moved in he’s done so much better at keeping up with cleaning (especially because he knows about my issues with clutter, mess, germs, etc.) He is really good at being accommodating towards my needs (not overly so, i’m aware that recovering includes accepting being uncomfortable), but it’s so hard for me to differentiate between what is the normal standard for cleanliness and hygiene and what’s excessive and unhealthy. I get so stressed out every single day over the thought of how dirty everything is. He has 3 cats that mainly stay in his room (he has a catio attached to his window/side of the house) and dogs which stay on the opposite side of the house and backyard, so there is fur everywhere constantly (i’m also allergic to cats but it’s not severe). I can’t stop thinking about how they are getting germs from their litter box all over everything. They also used to piss under his bed and in his closet when his room used to be a mess and it’s soaked into the floor so no matter what it stinks. It’s so hard to bring myself to walk around the house without slippers because my feet will get visibly dirty and my socks would get covered in hair. I always think about how my boyfriend sometimes walks on the rugs in the bathroom in shoes and all the germs that spreads. There’s so many more things but this is already getting long and I am shaking just thinking about how unclean everything is. I want to deep clean the entire house myself so I can get it to where It’s not like psychological torture everyday and it’s easier to maintain but I have been so busy I don’t have the time. I am worried about my boyfriend thinking I don’t like living with him or that I think that’s he’s dirty but i don’t. We have had several conversations about this and he’s reassured me that he knows none of my obsessive thoughts are personal but I still feel so bad about it. I would like to get therapy to help work through this but currently that is not an option for me. I know things will get better once I get through the main things in my life that are causing a lot of stress and therefore making my ocd flair up, but I need advice on what to do in the mean time. I keep having moments where all I can do is shake and cry and clean and I feel bad for my poor boyfriend who can only sit next to me and try to comfort me or help me clean. I also don’t want to make him worried that nothing he does is enough for me (i’ve also already talked to him about this and told him about how I can never even be clean enough for myself and that I don’t think he’s dirty). There’s been many times where I want to tell him to do things that I think might be my own unhealthy compulsions (ex. not wearing shoes in the house or in our room, not getting into bed with socks on, making sure to completely dry off before getting out the shower, put makeup and jewelry back where they belong right after using them, etc.) but i can’t tell if they’re reasonable or not and i try to not tell him unless it’s something that severely distresses me. I’m aware that everything is going to have germs no matter what and have been using NER’s to help manage my thought spirals/rumination. I know that I shouldn’t keep doing compulsions because it just offers temporary relief and makes the problem worse because nothing will ever be enough. I just feeling so overwhelmed and hopeless and exhausted and want some feedback.

sorry this is super long i just wanna know if anyone else has been thru something similar bc i feel super alone 🩷 i have super bad contamination ocd. it was bad already but my house was like my safe space until a few months ago someone brought something into my house that i considered ‘contaminated’. and so then i felt like that part of the house was contaminated, then it spread to everything outside my room (since family is moving around touching stuff) and then somehow i got convinced everything in my room except my bed is contaminated and i need to wash my hands after touching it. in my mind its like the contamination just infinitely spreads to things after the tiniest bit of touch. idek what im afraid of anymore or even what the original thing was but i can’t let it go. when i have to wash off contamination i have to wash at least 4 times or until it feels right, or sometimes take rlly long showers and wipe down all my stuff. i even throw away food and clothes or just whole items sometimes because they feel so contaminated i don’t want them in my space. i can’t be super near people or have anyone touch me, and i also can’t bring anything new into my room since it had to go through the entry of my house which feels contaminated. i feel like all i do is lay in bed and then wash my hands and do compulsions so i can go eat or do other stuff around the house. also i never go out because i’m bc people outside make me feel dirty, and i hate thinking about how many people have touched stuff in stores or in public and stuff. so im just in my room worrying all day. i feel so trapped and the contamination/avoiding it is all i think about anymore i barely have time for anything else and im never present when i talk to people because im worrying about if i accidentally got contaminated. im starting erp next week and knowing that im going to have to expose myself to things is really freaking me out. does anyone else have this kind of ocd ? im exhaustedddd 🥲🥲💔

I did an exposure today. More accidental than purposeful, but that's pretty much how it always is for me 😬 So basically, I had to touch some dirty shoes in order to put them on (or at least dirty in my mind), that I had previously trudged through garbage & used syringes with about a yr ago, like I'm talking a "landfill-level" hoarded house - around June of last year if I remember correctly (me and one other person were cleaning that hoarded room for a payment $100 each, which was originally gonna be $25 but the owner eventually realized/admitted that the conditions were just too awful to be cheap about it. Anyways, I didn't realize just how gross it would be till I got there - bcuz the one-time job advertisement didn't exactly mention the severity, only that it would be an organizing of boxes, so I didn't know just how triggering it was going to be for my OCD. It was unspecified. And at one point I got so nauseated that I had to step outside and I was gagging over the lawn). But ya, I don't think I've used these particular shoes since, not once, and this being literally a year later. I also don't remember ever washing them, just sort of stuffing them to the back of the shoe rack, bcuz when it comes to OCD... "ignorance is bliss" or whatever 😂, avoidance, out of sight out of mind... etc. Well, I chose to take a risk and wear them this morning bcuz they went with my outfit, and I planned to wash my hands when I got home anyway. BUT, what completely slipped my mind is that it was quite windy outside, which meant I was constantly brushing my long hair out of my face, u know... away from my eyes so I could see where I was going 😒, with my now "perceived-to-be-dirty" hands, AND -- i wore some of that dreaded lip balm of which I would normally be grateful for to prevent an equally dreadful case of dry lips, so my hair was also "sticking" to said lips, meaning I was having to move my hair off of my mouth like every 5 minutes - yes, very annoying. And all of this for a yard sale, was it worth it? 😅. Well perhaps, cuz I did buy something. Anyways, I was lightly grazing my face & mouth, not that lightly was gonna help, therefore, even though I did wash my hands upon my return, the transfer of germs would have already happened imo I'm at a point now where I'm basically just telling myself "if I get sick, i get sick" 🤷‍♀️ Cuz there's no compulsion, at least none I can think of, that could possibly undo the potential damage that's already been done (and I'm not asking for ideas LOL) If heaven forbid this does result in sickness, I'll just have to act accordingly by going to the doctors, ppl do it every day... Obviously if I become ill, that will ultimately suck, but like I said, it happens to ppl every day. It's not unheard of * If u guys think I'm in any actual danger - that I've taken on some sort of poison - then sure, tell me, but otherwise I think it's fine * And I feel like what I said before still applies, that if I've taken on board a poison, and start showing symptoms like involuntary/uncontrollable tremoring or something, then unfortunately I'll just have to go to the hospital (of which my city's hospital definitely isn't the best, extensive waits, but ik I'm just spiralling down the rabbit hole now)... this is what ppl do when they're poisoned, no? Go to the hospital? ✅ I'd be lying if I said I wasn't still feeling a little uneasy, but I keep reminding myself of how much time has passed. And most importantly, these converse shoes, even though they were pushed to the back, were still in contact/often touched by my OTHER pairs of shoes in the front. So the cross-contamination has likely already been happening throughout the whole year when wearing my alternative shoes, without my OCD alerting me to it, and without any ailment to me Feeling hopeful 🙏 🙌