Contamination

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.

This should be common sense, but unfortunately I stumble down these rabbit holes and subreddits because I have a complicated health problem, and am trying to seek a similar community. I have sought out medical advice with no real conclusion and ocd anxiety makes things worse so I guess this is a form of compulsion? I’m not exactly sure anymore. Anyways, I had a strange experience last night where I had a bit of swelling and discomfort in my mouth and fingers. I took an antihistamine just in case, and the issue resolved itself. I posted in a histamine intolerance subreddit asking if anyone has experienced similar as there was no known trigger. Well, someone told me it was anaphylaxis and that I had to be more careful with what I ate. Anaphylaxis is already a trigger of mine, and although I know logically it couldn’t have been, the opinion of another person feels like confirmation. I am now afraid to eat or drink because of it. I am unsure if posting on subreddits was a compulsion now but please be careful with anything like that. It can make things so much worse.

Dose anyone else experience that your OCD calms down and goes to the back of your mind during- feels almost safe and unaware of it but as soon as it's over and youve calmed down all the intrusive thoughts come rushing back 10x worse? I've had really awful panic attacks because of it the past two nights and it's exhausting I haven't been with another person in over a year because of how bad it was after and not being able to explain it properly to partners "no I'm not crying because of you" "no you didn't do anything wrong" I feel insane- like I'll never be able to have a normal functioning sexual time alone or with others do to it the compulsions that come with it are exhausting it's like the need to cleanse myself of filth like I'm disgusting and horrible until there's no traces I did anything in the first place I'm just so tired dose anyone have any tips of how to work through this- or at least be able to enjoy myself without crying afterwords? I have no idea what subtype this would even entail? I'm going to go with contamination I guess ?