help, I can’t do this anymore

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!

Prisoner to contamination OCD here and the "things" I "have to" do to stop the. feeling of some imaginary plague overtaking me just keep multiplying. The whole Covid lock down and sanitization really made my OCD spiral. I'm still wiping groceries. I can't touch anything public or money without sanitizing. I wipe any surface I come into contact with or have some kind of plan of how I will conduct myself (what to wear, if I can cover my head, come home change, shower) just to make it through, say a dentist appointment or a manicure. Yes, I can complete the tasks, but the thoughts of the ritualistic washing just looms and makes me more anxious and depressed. I know not to go into specifics here, but can anyone chime in? I only have a good day when I don't have to come into contact with things or use my coping compulsions. Unfortunately nocd doesn't have an available therapist that accepts my insurance. Anyone here have success with ERP? I just think it would be extremely difficult.

Okay, so, I know it says I have a conqueror badge, which is partially true, but doesn’t tell the whole story. I’m better, NOCD and medication have helped, but I’m not where I want to be yet. There are still things I can’t get past. For context, I have COCD and POCD and they feed into each other. A few things I still struggle with thinking that they contaminated or going to cause harm to someone: • Any kind of bodily fluid, especially my own. (I worry with my male bodily fluids, that I could somehow spread this to people and worry especially that I could spread nastiness to children.) • The floor. For whatever reason I feel that the floor is really gross and that I’ve put bodily fluids on the floor and they are going to be spread to people. (Same type of issue) • Sink handles. • Shoes and socks and my own feet even after a shower. • Trash cans, bags, and dumpsters. • Playing cards. • Other people’s cell phones. • My phone after using it in the bathroom. • Doing laundry. I could use some advice on dealing with these things. A huge thing for me (and here’s where I say only 18 and older should read this,) is a very natural thing that happens to me a lot. Pre-ejaculate. This probably causes me the most stress of anything in my life. I get this often, even when not feeling sexually aroused. I worry that it’ll get on my clothes when I go to the bathroom and then I’ll end up getting in on someone. I worry that it’ll go through my clothes and same result. I worry that when I take my clothes off and some is in my underwear that I’ll get it on the floor and then it’ll end up in my feet, socks, shoes, and/or anything that goes on the floor at all. I worry about getting on the machines or my hands while doing laundry and have to scrub my hands after doing my laundry and/or wipe down the machines or use paper towels to open them/close them/start them/stop them or just touch very specific spots on them. I worry that I’ll get it on me before bed and then my bed will no longer feel clean and safe and I’ll feel like I need to wash my sheets/wipe down everything that comes into contact with my bed. I’m so scared of the possibility of all these things that I avoid doing things like touching my feet or shoes without washing my hands, spraying down the floor with Lysol Disinfectant spray, wiping down anything I think may have had contact with something that may have gotten some on it. I don’t know what to do anymore. I want to be able to just exist and not have to shower before bed or as soon as I wake up or have to wash my hands while I’m doing laundry. I could go into more detail about the other things but they’re relatively self-explanatory. The precum thing is not so I wanted to be v more in depth while describing this issue. I do not have any attraction to children btw, (Back to the POCD) I will protect every child I can. And that’s why this freaks me out so bad because I worry about other peoples wellbeing over my own. Please if anyone has any ideas. Help me. Thank you.