Username: strawberryjax

Date posted: 4w ago

hey. i have contamination ocd and this is my life.

back in october i made my first post about my specific type of ocd, how it mixes in with my day to day and how i “deal” with it. i talked about the starting point, how it gradually got worse, and then how it was going just a few months ago. i always think it’s insane how much can change in just the course of a small to a large amount of time. right now, i honestly feel like garbage. to be quite sincere i really want to give up, i’m barely holding on by a thread. and if i cut that thread, i really doubt anyone would care. i’ve never considered myself to be a suicidal person, and i still don’t consider myself that right now. it just gets to a point where it’s just, a lot to deal with. i don’t really enjoy things a lot nowadays. sure i have good days like everyone does, like today, when i was just enjoying my day without worries. but then it all comes crawling back twice as bad the following days. i take online college so i’m usually just stuck at home most of the time. but, when i do decide to actually go out and leave my house, my ocd just explodes because i have this whole routine i need to do or else i feel like i’ll contaminate wherever i end up going. i’m not going to go really deep into my compulsions because it’s hard enough to live with them, much more having to type them all out in detail. but when i go out my compulsions go from wiping down all my stuff i’m going to use after showering, to washing my clothes/cleaning the washer + dryer. i also have separate things (or two of the same thing) i use specifically in my house, and items i use when going out. such as shampoo/body wash, deodorant, lotion, hair curler, etc. as if that’s not draining enough, i also feel the need to fast a couple days prior to any plan i make because i’ve forced myself to believe i need to feel empty in order to be clean. i’m not sure if that’s my past eating disorder talking, or my ocd, but my brain can’t help but think any food in my house is utterly and completely contaminated. i’m so tired of this feeling, feeling like nothing will ever be clean again. feeling like my ocd is trapped in my childhood home. feeling that wave of diseases rushing through my veins the moment i step foot into what’s supposed to be “home”. and i’m so scared of therapy because what if i do get healed, and then everything comes rushing back the second i step into my room. i’m planning on moving somewhere far from my current house in this next coming year, so sometimes i feel like just waiting it out. but it’s insufferable when going to hangout with someone. i miss my friends, my family, and my partner. it’s crazy to me that i’m dealing with all this at the young age of 18 but, i’m sure lots of people have it way worse. i just want to find a way out, any possible way. but i keep pushing myself deeper and deeper that when i finally find a way, it will no longer exist.

Username: SammyyySammyyy

Date posted: 4w ago

Hi this is exactly how I feel you are not alone. I’ve never been suicidal either but I know exactly what you mean about how it just becomes too much to handle anymore. I feel like I’m going insane. Everyday when I wake up I just want it to end so bad but I can’t break myself from the routine. I’m still in highschool and live with my family and I struggle with feeling like everything they touch is contaminated and unless I sanitize everything I can’t touch it. I can only use plastic forks and spoons and paper plates because the dishwasher doesn’t clean things they use well enough. I can’t touch doorhandles or anything they touch. I can’t eat food they have opened and touched. I have to clean the dryer before I put my clothes in and if my clothes touch anything I have to rewash the whole load. I go through a bottle of soap and day. I go through a bottle of Lysol a day. I can’t use any bathroom besides my own after I have cleaned the entire thing. I feel so guilty because they don’t even have anything wrong with them. They definitely aren’t the cleanest people but it doesn’t make sense.

Username: strawberryjaxstrawberryjax

Date posted: 4w ago

@Sammyyy SO REAL OMGG it feels so comforting to know there’s more than one person who feels the same way i do:’)

Username: ShellcatShellcat

Date posted: 4w ago

Please know that you're not alone. I struggle with a lot of emotional problems, including OCD and anorexia nervosa. I hope you will seek therapy. The "what ifs" sometimes keep us from healing or at least getting better. I'm so sorry to hear you're going through this but therapy, even online, has helped me. Best wishes to you.

Username: Orca Orca

Date posted: 4w ago

Hi. I have contamination OCD too. I went through what you're saying as well. It seems like you've reached breaking point. I know it's hard, but I really feel that the right thing to do now is to go for therapy. If you can't go outside your house, go for online therapy. Just don't try to do everything all by yourself. There is an app called Finch which you may find useful. You will seriously be shocked by the way your life will change after you go to a therapist. Keep going! You can do it!!

Username: tig.chitig.chi

Date posted: 4w ago

I'm tired of ocd shrinking my world. And tired of confronting ocd as I expand my world. So I just do what I can and keep going. Progress is small and sometimes hard to see. But it's there. I have support through therapy. And I journal a lot and take walks.

Username: strawberryjaxstrawberryjax

Date posted: 4w ago

@tig.chi you’re so right about the progress part, it’s definitely small but it’s there. i’m glad you’re getting the support you need through therapy, and i think it’s a great form of stress relieving to journal and walk:)

Username: HD30HD30

Date posted: 4w ago

Hi I can totally relate to you and want to share my part of story to show u that u r not alone!!! I am 24 years old and I have contamination ocd!!! I developed that theme recently .. it takes me around 1 hour to clean myself after using the toilet .. I need to wash my hair everytime I poop as I am convinced it is dirty .. every sensation I get I feel I am popping myself and I am contaminating my whole house.. I can not poop.. I feel dirty and I avoid eating food so that I don’t need to use the toilet again and again.. I am currently living on Diet Coke as a meal.. I change clothes whole day after going to the toilet.. my room is in a mess.. I have a whole closet of clothes to wash as I am convinced they r contaminated with poop and pee.. I have to clean my dryer each time and my washing machine after using it.. I am currently on vacation leave and home whole day.. so sometime I shower 5-6 times (I pity myself) If I go out and see a waste water carrier; I feel dirty even if I am in the car and on that day I can’t sleep in my room as it will get contaminated.. My hands are dry skin peeled from over washing I am exhausted to the core.. I have been applying for job abroad as I wanna run away from my life and don’t want my family to be affected by me.. I used a bottle of shower gel in a week and shampoo.. I need to wash everything and currently we r having drought where I live.. I know it is wrong to say this.. but I am glad that there are other people like me .. I know it is exhausting frustrating and painful.. but I think one day we will be cure of that.. let’s have faith You ain’t lonely; I can feel ur pain

Username: strawberryjaxstrawberryjax

Date posted: 4w ago

@HD30 i’m really glad there’s other people like me as well💗i wish we could talk more in depth about it but i don’t want to make you uncomfortable

Username: HD30HD30

Date posted: 4w ago

@strawberryjax No you can!! I won’t feel uncomfortable..

Username: strawberryjaxstrawberryjax

Date posted: 4w ago

@HD30 is there anywhere else we could talk like insta/snap/etc. or anywhere you feel comfortable enough with? i completely understand if not:)

Username: Enthusiast Enthusiast

Date posted: 4w ago

19 here! I also had very thorough routines I’d do to feel “clean” within this year. I think the part where you worry for doing therapy in fear of doing compulsions once you are in a specific space is stemmed from uncertainty. Unfortunately we just have to sit with it until it’s a passing thought. For me, when I worry if I’ll have an intrusive thought come up after already letting it pass by I tell myself “I don’t know” and move on. Applied for all intrusive thoughts as well. Makes me squirm and become tense not having that clarity but that’s the point. Discomfort is part of the work to moving forward, we’re doing the work right now. Imagine if we all knew when and where we would die in big bold print. You’d be worried and fixate on that specific scenario and struggle to be present. We must accept the uncertainty of all things in life. The world isn’t in my hands or yours. Easier said than done but I would go against my own judgement just to prove my compulsions aren’t black and white, all or nothing. It’s kind of fun debunking strong beliefs tied to compulsions. When it came to hanging out with my bf outside of my home, I dropped most of my hyper fixation on being clean. Although I’ve never been made to feel like an inconvenience to him or anyone because of my ocd, my compulsions should not affect the people around me. That’s a rule I will strongly stand by. Has it happened before? Yeah but I am self aware it shouldn’t. It’s hard to care for or fixate on cleanliness when I’m in the present moment with people i care about. Too busy having fun! Also, give yourself some wiggle room. When we’re not in our safe space, out in public, there’s only so much one can do to *stay* clean yk ? Don’t let it stop you from going out. Tell yourself “I’m going to this place or hanging out with these people and it’s possible I will get dirty”.

Username: MaddyKohMaddyKoh

Date posted: 4w ago

I also really struggle with contamination OCD and haven’t done any therapy for it before. I really want to get better and I feel like when I’m older, I am going to be sad my brain wouldn’t allow me to honestly just live. Everything I do feels affected by these thoughts. Even when I’m having a good day there is this dull hum in the back of my mind waiting to come back out. I feel like my whole life is laced with these thoughts of contamination that I will never be able to get rid of. I also have a lot of issues with wiping down my everyday items, so when I’m done showering everything I touch after will be clean. I feel the need to wipe down my shampoo, body wash, and other hygiene products I use in and out of the shower because I was dirty when touching them in the first place. I also feel like I can’t wear my clothes unless I’ve cleaned the dryer because other family members dirty hands have touched clothes that went into the dryer, and so many more habits like that around the house. I have a really hard time living at home with my family even though I am 17 and that is obviously completely normal, but it is so hard to not be able to control everything in my surroundings and keep everything “disinfected” when there are other people in the house who cannot begin to comprehend how these thoughts affect my life. We also have three dogs which really adds to the feeling of not being able to control the cleanliness of the house and everything I touch. Some days I try and tell myself when I move away to go to college that I’ll have more control in my surroundings and be able to have a “cleaner” life, but then I realize that is not how I want to live as an adult and on my own, as well as I love my family and want to be able to visit them comfortably. These thoughts make thinking about my future extremely uncomfortable and scary and I feel like this is going to follow me forever, even though it is debilitating and I am so tired of it running my life. I will say the one thing that keeps me sane is my sport and physical exercise. My whole life revolves around my sport and I have managed to not let these thoughts affect me much when I am doing my sport, which then causes me to delegitimize the nature of this issue and whether it’s actually that bad because I’m not letting it affect my progress in my sport, but I feel like I need to remember it is deeply affecting my outside life from sports which will eventually catch up to me if I don’t do something about it.

Username: strawberryjaxstrawberryjax

Date posted: 22d ago

@MaddyKoh i completely understand everything you said, you’re not alone. we’ll be able to conquer this someday, together. keep your head up🫶🏼

Username: Tea and HoneyTea and Honey

Date posted: 4w ago

ERP therapy can help you overcome the compulsions!!! It can help you get your life back. Have you heard of it?! I can’t recommend it enough. You can learn about ERP therapy in many places (NOCD does ERP, for example). I have gone through therapy with NOCD, and I was able to solidly learn what I needed to know to defeat OCD. That made a big difference!!! NOCD has all sessions over ZOOM and take most insurance. (Howie Mendel totally recommends NOCD too, by the way.) People try a lot of therapies, but they mostly come back to ERP because other things don’t work. You are suffering intensely. It’s like being sick with the flu all the time, but a doctor is holding the medicine that could make you better (which is ERP therapy). If you do nothing, this flu will continue. But if you do the RIGHT kind of therapy, you can conquer the obsessions and compulsions. Believe me! You don’t have to let these compulsions make you suffer and be exhausted each day. I also recommend Nathan Peterson on YouTube if can’t do therapy. He teaches ERP, and YouTube is free, lol. I’ll link his contamination video below. I am so sorry that you are suffering. But you don’t have to let these compulsions do this to you. You can beat it!!! https://youtu.be/b5ctlevBxbk?si=q02g_BxLDDOhqz_R By the way, I can also talk you through the steps of ERP, if you want to talk more:)

Username: strawberryjaxstrawberryjax

Date posted: 22d ago

@Tea and Honey hey! sorry i didn’t see this sooner, this is very sweet of you. thank you so much for your words, i think i’ll take up your advice in the near future and go through with ERP, even if i’m petrified. as for now, i’ll watch Nathan and hopefully learn a thing or two lol. and i’d love to talk about the steps of ERP as well!! is there any other platforms we could talk about it, like ig/snap? js so it could be more one on one, totally fine if not:)

Username: Tea and HoneyTea and Honey

Date posted: 22d ago

@strawberryjax Yay!!!! So glad to hear !! I think you can find so much improvement!!!! I only do this app, so sorry about that. But I can talk on it as much as you want! Here’s some things to start with to talk about ERP, and then we can talk more with any feelings you have about it or questions. But here’s ERP in a nutshell: 1.)Allow any thoughts to run around wild and free in your head. 2.) Deny any compulsions that come up —————————————————- Let’s make this specific to you. Intrusive thoughts (also called “obsessions”) are never-ending in OCD. These can take many forms. But, for you, you might have thoughts (or feelings) like “If I eat food before I leave, something bad is going to happen [fill in the blank with the bad thing].” Or perhaps, “If I don’t use certain lotion, something bad will happen.” Etc, etc. Let’s define terms: All these thoughts are called “obsessions.” You don’t have to fight off the obsessions. You can let them run around in your head all they want. But the work that you do need to do is to deny the compulsions that are brought in by the obsessions. Let’s talk more about that. ———————————————— The “compulsions” are the safety behaviors we do to avoid the fears brought on by the compulsions. So, for example, my obsessions say that “If don’t wipe something down, someone could get sick.” The “compulsion” in this case is to wipe things down. The “compulsion” is following the rules created by the obsessions. The compulsions are how we keep ourselves safe from the dangers brought to us by the obsessions. One of the main OCD compulsions is often AVOIDANCE. You see, the obsessions tell us that “If you go out with a full stomach, then something bad will happen.” So in this case, it is a compulsion to avoid eating food. —————————————— So, once you can define terms with what is going on, what do you do? You practice ERP, a little bit of a time, until you grow to the point where you are denying all compulsions and living the life you want (even if the obsessions still rankle around in your head.) It is a journey, and it takes time. You want to start with one or two things and work yourself forward. So for example, you will expose yourself to eating before you leave home. You don’t allow yourself to do the compulsion of avoiding eating. It will feel SCARY!!!! But you have to “ride out” the scary feelings. The more you practice, the easier it gets!!! We can talk more. What do you think?

Username: strawberryjaxstrawberryjax

Date posted: 4w ago

does anyone here in the comments want to join an ocd group chat on snap i’m making?

Username: JesusSaves424

Date posted: 24w ago

OCD and new chapters

Kind of a vent, thank you if you read all the way through. It feels like every time a new chapter of my life opens up or is on the horizon, my OCD flares up so bad. I get imposter syndrome, I get the urge to confess, self-sabotage, ruminate, etc. I’m moving in with my boyfriend’s family soon. Me and him are long-distance (14 hours away from each other), and this move means we will be able to get married sooner. I am SO excited! … but I also have ROCD soooo bad. My OCD tries to convince me I’m a liar, I’m an imposter, I don’t deserve him, “what if I cheated on him and can’t remember?”, etc. and it’s miserable it eats me up. It feels like lately I’m having 1 good day and then 3 bad days, over and over again. Me and him just met in person for the first time this year (in June actually) after knowing each other 4 years and being together for 2. I have also had some other life changes, family drama, and now moving on top of all of that, I can’t help but wonder if change *itself* is triggering my OCD. I stayed with my boyfriend and his family for a month, and I loved it! My OCD was bad maybe the first week I was there, and it flared here and there, but I was able to cope and I felt so hopeful. It was really nice being around his family a lot, his siblings and parents are really fun to be around and my OCD is much better when I’m around people. Now, I’ve been home for almost a month, and throughout the past month I’ve been so anxious on and off with OCD flares. I got home, and then the next day my mom went out of state for about 2 weeks and I was home completely alone. Going from always being around people and talking to them, to being home completely alone and sleeping alone, it drove me crazy. I am also thinking of my future and I’m simultaneously excited and terrified. I’m so scared for when me and my boyfriend get married and eventually have children, I want kids so bad, but I’m scared because I have to be off my meds (Clomipramine) during pregnancy. I’m afraid that if I can barely cope *now* while I’m medicated, how the heck will I cope when I’m pregnant and unmedicated for 9 months? It’s just so many thoughts roll in and my OCD and anxiety takes over and I’m so sick of being so overwhelmed all the time. I’m so sick of feeling knots in my stomach for not confessing or ruminating. Please, does anybody relate?

Username: user2826728292

Date posted: 17w ago

My ocd is taking away my life

I’m losing it completely, I’ve never had a flare up like this with contamination. I’m so burnt out seriously , I feel like I’m going insane. My hands are cracking and bleeding from washing them and my family’s getting very tired of me , they think I should go stay in a hospital or something for a while because of how bad it is. OCD as taken away my relationships with people , I can’t sit on the couch anymore with my family , I can’t hug my dog anymore , I can’t relax ever. I just needed to write this down as I really can’t process my feelings right now as I have too many thoughts , any advice?

Username: Sage._

Date posted: 5w ago

I don't think I can handle my ocd anymore

I can't stop thinking about ending my life. I feel like I'm not even living, I'm just surviving. Everyone is capable of being a person and functioning and I'm just stuck here avoiding everything. My psychiatrist said my ocd is severe and it will all take time and I'll start erp and I'm already on medication but I just feel so depressed and like I won't be able to handle erp and it's already too late for me. I feel inhuman, it's debilitating. My major theme is just fear or contamination, I can't even make myself a meal I can't touch anything in the kitchen. I get stuck in the shower for 2 hours and when I don't shower because I'm depressed I feel like a walking germ. My hands are a mess, my school work is shit, I avoid and avoid and I'm just so tired of "living" like this. My psychiatrist said they don't have any therapists available right now like.... excuse me? What do you mean u don't have any 😭 I honestly don't even know why I'm typing this becuase nothing helps, nothing ever will. I'm so deep into this I can't get out, my room looks like shit, I can't live in this body anymore, I really can't. I let everyone down, I am and will be such a dissapointment. I don't have any dreams or goals or passions I just wasn't made to be here. I don't know how or who to ask for help like there's nothing anyone can do, I'm already on meds. I can't keep being like this, seeing everyone judge me for acting insane.

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hey. i have contamination ocd and this is my life.

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