Help with a mistake

Thoughts that I feel tricked. Thoughts that urine residue and whatever salts that make it up is getting spread to all my things. How can I feel comfortable holding something close to me, like a blanket in my bed, when it has urine residue transferred to it. I want to get to a point where these things don't happen. I'm ok pushing back on compulsions that I do only out of fear, with no known risk; like accidentally bumping into something and feeling like I need to determine quickly if there's anything to worry about. I commonly just do a compulsion when this happens to avoid spending time and thought trying to decide if there is a concern. I'm ok sitting with that discomfort, but the idea of sitting with discomfort when I have waste residue on things is repulsive.

This stuff sucks. The feelings are stronger than my urge to eat when I'm hungry. I want to do things the right way, not accept living in waste. And I want to try and address things that are somewhere in the middle. Like door handles or things people have contact with. Right now I am using hand sanitizer everytime I leave my car because of something I touched prior to getting in my car last Tuesday. I'm hungry right now and I want to get food, but only drive through type stuff are probably open yet, and if I went to a place like that, I'd be touching the food/bag, while touching things like my steering wheel. Then the food will get contaminated. I'd like to work with my therapist on things like this but it has gotten so much negative reinforcment this past week because I've been stuck dealing with it. I was hoping we would address it last Wednesday and I brought it up as one of the erp options I was quickly trying to remember, but we didn't do erp for it, and instead did erp on other things that still put me in contact with my steering wheel and then because I was distracted I've spread that contamination to other areas. I have had such strong and rigid attention to detail for the 3 or 4 years I've been battling my ocd, and instead of finding a way to first clean the disgusting things, I feel like I'm being told that it's good to jump in a cesspool. Just bath ourselves in human waste. Isn't that just wonderful.

I'm likely going to have to spend time cleaning my car today, instead of taking care of some important tasks I have for work, but I can't keep living this way and I can't wait a week or more to try and make it an erp step. I need to get past it so it's not continuing to be an obstacle, particularly because other obstacles will come as well, and each additional obstacle brings complexity.

@Searching for strength I mean, we have OCD so what it tells us is real and a danger isn’t actually even tho it 100% feels that way. So why believe your OCD when it’s making you live in a way that doesn’t align with what you want to do?

@Honeyshark It's not so much about believing it, it's that I want to be clean. I also want to be able to live my life, but living life is a luxury that we get to do after taking care of our priorities, getting cleaned up. Sorry if it seems argumentative. That's not my intent. I'm just trying to respond in the way my thoughts work.

@Searching for strength You don’t sound argumentative. I guess that’s kinda the hard part of OCD is that you have to choose to live your life without the certainty of being clean or taking care of that first. I get “feeling clean” feels urgent and like a priority first but actually it’s OCD. All of our obsessions feel like priorities and urgent and like everything will be fine once we fix it/figure it out/get fully clean but we never reach that cuz it’s OCD it’s not reality. My OCD keeps trying to get me to put all my energy on my obsession that feels real and a priority but that has made me miserable and I lost a special person to me because of it. I rather take the risk that the obsession comes true than hurt myself or others anymore - my OCD is not my friend, it’s the enemy of my happy life but it tries to pretend it’s a friend.

@Searching for strength It’s a choice between us living by OCD’s rules and being miserable and maybe being clean vs living our lives and being happy and maybe being clean.

@Honeyshark I understand that for some things, and I don't mean to keep talking about this gross topic, but what about a drop of pee on the bathroom floor? What about the likelihood that one drops represents many more smaller less visible drops in that area. What about the possibility that residue is transferred from those spots to other areas, eventually even the counter. I typically avoid sharing this next detail, but my toilet seal has been leaking for about 6 yrs, and that adds to the concern about trying to keep things clean in the areas I step. The toilet doesn't leak onto the tiles, but it leaks into the basement, and it seemed like it leaked under the tiles in the past because the grout used to appear wet. Sorry I don't mean to go off on a tangent, but I guess I'm just saying, there are things that I'm dealing with that have very low probability of actually being clean. I almost need to be extra vigilant to keep a line of delineation between me and reasonably certain dirty stuff.

@Searching for strength Yeah I hear you and it’s not gross. I mean that’s the point of ERP we have to live in uncertainty and accept it to be happy. Yes the reality is your toilet is leaking - can you get it fixed? If yes, get it fixed and still accept with the uncertainty of not knowing if it’ll ever be clean. If no, then still accept the uncertainty of not knowing if it’s clean. Nathan Peterson on YouTube has some good videos about this. You basically have to jump in head first with pretend enthusiasm into your worst case. So I dunno - maybe actually let a drop of pee on the floor and leave it. Wear your normal pants into the bathroom and agree with your OCD that you’re unclean now. Really celebrate not being clean so OCD doesn’t have a hold on you anymore. Doesn’t mean your OCD/fear is true/real/danger, just means you’re not letting it control your life.

@Searching for strength None of our themes are special or unique. They’re all OCD. :/

@Honeyshark In order to get my toilet fixed, I need to clean. I need to clean a path for someone to come in. I need to clean the bathroom. So it sort of comes back to, some real things that need addressing, so that I can accept that the other fears aren't real. From here I can next bring up the kitchen. My kitchen got cluttered years ago while I was taking grad coures, and while I wanted to take time off in between courses, my fiance at the time convinced me to continue with my courses, because she had health issues and we were hoping she could reduce her hours once school was done. Plus we didn't live together, so me sacrificing my comfort and basic needs didn't affect her. Anyways, since then, I've had mice, and there's mouse dropping from long ago amongst the clutter of dishes. At this point I'm not even sure how I want to go about cleaning in there. I haven't used the dish washer in probably 8 yrs, so maybe the seals have dried out at this point. Otherwise maybe I could wash the dishes and then put them in a box somewhere until I decide if I can ever use them again. I get really frustrated with my therapy because for over 2 years, I've had a talk therapist and 6 months with an erp therapist. My life has been on hold this whole time, but I put my trust in them and do my very best to follow their direction. I get 2 hrs with them each, each week, and my talk therapist wants me to stay calm, and my erp therapist wants me to accept that things may or may not be dirty. Meanwhile, things are actually dirty. It's frustrating because time keeps passing. When I started with each of my therapists I was filled with hope that my troubles would get better. I'd tell myself, don't stress the bags of mail Steve. Your therapist will have you back on track before you know it. So with each, I would trust the process. I would be patient. And we have made some progress. I have returned to work, although I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to keep my job because I'm struggling with getting my work done, and have been burning through pto as I try to manage my time between work and basic needs like picking up food, basic groceries like water, some amount of sleep, etc. Sorry to go off on a rant. I guess I'm saying therapy wise, there are these big things that I really don't want to address, but which are probably important to address. And there are certain things that need to occur in gaining the ability to address them. I'm not really looking to compromise on these things too. The bathroom needs to be clean, like seriously disgustingly in need of being cleaned. I need to have a plumber be able to get to the bathroom, so I need to address that. I've been compromising all along here, so I don't have wiggle room for more compromising. Anyway, I'm not sure what to say. When I dwell on this stuff it gets pretty dark. Giving up is a dead end, so I'm just proceeding blindly in a way that I'm losing hope with, until I reach its dead end as well. Yep, dark stuff. Sorry, I wish I could be more upbeat about it. The meds take the edge off though, so there's that.

@Searching for strength I got you. I mean those are things you can see that actually are problems so it’s kinda two prong - one: can you ask for or hire help to get those done? (Ask family to clean for you or hire a cleaning service? Order recurring groceries on Instacart?) Cuz you’re not able to do those for yourself right now. You’re having a mental health crisis and it’s normal for that stuff to become lower priority. Once they say it’s clean you gotta accept it’s clean tho. And two: the parts that are OCD can you work on accepting the uncertainty with those? Like if someone else cleans the house for you, can you accept the uncertainty of it not being 100% clean. OCD wants us to stay stuck however it can and asking for help and admitting we need help is a way to get unstuck. Hopefully didn’t trigger you more.

@Searching for strength I’m glad the meds take the edge off. You deserve some respite.

@Honeyshark Thank you. You didn't trigger me more. I didn't want to respond to an earlier message though, and say maybe I'd be able accept a drop of pee on the floor if the toilet was fixed. Right now it's just an extension of the toilet problem. And then I ultimately feel like I'm trying to preserve what little clean area I have. I'm able to do my grocery shopping, but I go nightly because of a few reasons (limited area to store items, limited in what I can carry inside in one trip, discomfort leaving any groceries in my car unsupervised because my old car had a T shirt get devoured by mice once when I parked in the garage. Sorry, I shouldn't try to explain everything. Hmm, I guess the summary is, its like a game of pick up stix.

@Searching for strength I guess the problem with OCD is that it can always find data to “prove” our fears our real. So your house is so cluttered and dirty that you can’t get a plumber in right? So hire cleaners then hire a plumber. Your OCD will then use that to throw a bunch of what ifs at you but if you can get through it you’re on the other side and two of your real problems are taken care of. It sounds like OCD when you say “what if a drop of pee got on the floor?” “What if the floor is unclean because the toilet leaked into it?” “What if my rug is unclean and I walk on it with my bare feet and contaminate my bed? It sounds like something you actually need to deal with when you say “there are too many dirty dishes in my kitchen to use the sink” “I can’t access my toilet without moving a lot of stuff out of the way first” It’s awesome you can get your own groceries!! I really struggled with that when I hit my peak mental health crisis. I couldn’t clean or eat or buy groceries. I had to hire or ask for help and it saved my sanity.

@Searching for strength Can you hire or ask for help for cleaning your house? Can you book a plumber? Or ask for help booking a plumber? These are actions OCD doesn’t want you to take cuz it keeps you stuck if you don’t do them.

@Honeyshark As for getting help, it bothers me that now it needs to be me getting helo from someone. I've been in therapy for 2 yrs, waiting for someone to help me organize how to go about reclaiming these areas. Its disappointing to winder why that couldn't have been something I made progress with through therapy these past couple years. It kind of revisits some of the frustration about trusting the process and being patient. These things are areas I've talked about. We only get 2 hours together a week, and I know my therapists have things they want to accomplish too, but I feel like these details are the unique details that can get identified and get attention in session. And I know I don't want to do the task myself either, but I think that is what is needed. I have to find a way, find a plan, to be able to do the cleaning. But I need help making that plan, and getting that encouragement. I don't know. Just seems like that's the way. And the time getting to it feels maybe inefficient. Not sure.

@Honeyshark Thank you for taking the time to help me come up with considerations about this. It's certainly challenging and I appreciate your help.

@Searching for strength It wasn’t my therapist who made me feel like I could ask for help. It was actually my best friend and her husband. I told them I was having difficulty completing tasks and they offered to help by doing them for me or hold me accountable. It was life changing. My whole life it felt like i couldn’t ask for help and they happily offered to and it helped so much!!! Knowing I had a safety net if I needed it helped me do it myself too. Yeah I get that. I wish I had these resources and understanding earlier too. You sound like you need the ERP therapy cuz of your distress levels but also need a support system outside of therapy. I know I do.

@Searching for strength So what’s the plan for the actual problems vs what ifs?

@Searching for strength Its probs two phone calls (or online booking website) to release yourself from OCD in a big way. You can do it.

@Honeyshark Yes, I think you're right about my need for the support system as well as the erp. I don't have many options for talking with people outside of therapy. I can call my parents, but they are older now and I don't want to give them that burden of knowing what is going on when their inability to help might cause them frustration as well. Also, talking to my parents sometimes makes them anxious as they try to solve my problems, and their anxiousness than makes things harder for me. So good question about a plan. To be honest, I'm not completely sure. Besides these issues, I just wrote my therapist yesterday that I am out of places to put my mail. I have a coffee table covered in mail and then 3 paper grocery bags filled and balanced on top of tge piles on the coffee table. I have no room for sorting my mail, but I haven't filed my taxes this year or last because of not being able to deal with my mail. In addition I should have gone into work this weekend because we are going to miss a production deadline due to delays with something that is now in my lap. My boss is probably going to be upset that I wasn't in this weekend, and maybe I shouldn't be on here gabbing, but it's too late in the day now today. Plus I need to find answers because the reason I haven't made it in this weekend is because of all the stuff I'm trying to keep up on. Sorry. But yeah, I'm not sure the plan. It's something I have to figure out. :/

@Searching for strength @Searching for strength Is it cool if I recommend a plan? What do you think your parents could handle helping you with? Opening mail maybe? Calling services? What are specific tasks you need done?

@Honeyshark Maybe I could set goals with my therapist (not sure who else I could use for accountability) and try to take steps towards cleaning areas of a one room, and build on it with a second room once the first is cleaned.

@Searching for strength Sure! Makes sense.

@Honeyshark In your journey, did you try any prescriptions

@Searching for strength Yeah they were crucial and I’m on them now. I’m on Prozac and had to up it to get some mental peace and space.

@Honeyshark Thank you for being open to share this info. Do you mind if I ask if you had tried other scripts prior to that, and what your experience might have been?

@Searching for strength Yup all good! I tried Zoloft and Wellbutrin which worked well for a while but then I made the bad decision to wean myself off. Then tried Cymbalta which def didn’t work. Prozac has been the best so far.

@Honeyshark I feel bad that I'm taking up so much of your day. I'm taking a supplement called SAM-e which seems to be having some effect, and I haven't had any significant issues with it yet, but my therapist keeps suggesting we consider prescriptions. My nurse practitioner was the one prescribing sam-e, which we did as prescription just to make sure we could get it through the pharmacy if ever it wasn't on the shelf. Anyway, I'm not sure whether to change up meds at this point. What do you feel is the biggest benefit you get from meds? How does it effect your urge to perform compulsions? I look at these meds in terms of cost/benefit. Ways it can help vs. Potential side effects, delays in improvement due to starting over with new script. This is so much to handle sometimes.

@Honeyshark With SAM-e, I notice that when I make a mistake it's not such a meltdown, but that bothers me too a bit. I don't want to accept some of the mistakes. And a couple things, if I don't do my compulsion, it's like I'm facing it on my own. That makes me panic. I don't want to do it on my own. Not yet at least. Do you think changes in meds could make me want to accept some mistakes? I still don't want to do this on my own, but just trying to figure out if I should expect a lot of difference with other meds. Like right now it's easier to do some erp things with my specialist, but its still scary and I can't do it on my own.

@Searching for strength I’m not sure about Sam-e but two of the SSRIs made a huge positive difference for me. I didn’t feel like I was constantly in distress anymore. It felt so relaxing and peaceful. Things that kept me obsessing for weeks or months only took up a few hours and I was able to work through a lot of my hierarchy. You still have OCD but it no longer feels like it’s in control anymore, it feels manageable, ya know? I’m not sure about the mistakes part since my OCD was about proving if I was gay or not, or about losing my special person but thank god for meds seriously.

@Searching for strength It’s worth a try. Especially cuz it sounds like you’re stuck and need help. When I was at my highest distress and got on meds it was like I wasn’t carrying an elephant anymore but rather a large dog - I could do it with help. 😅