Contamination OCD

Contamination OCD, like any form of OCD, is best managed by not giving in to compulsions. For example, if you feel the urge to wash your hands after touching a doorknob, you can start by touching it for a few seconds and delaying washing for a set amount of time, like 5 minutes. Over time, you can gradually increase that delay. It’s important to start small and build up your tolerance to the discomfort. Contamination OCD can be a tough theme to deal with, are you currently seeing a therapist for your OCD?

Routines can help :) Apart from gradually delaying any cleaning, sticking to a schedule can help so much. For example, if you’re the type who showers compulsively, allow yourself to shower once in the morning and once at night. Whatever happens between then, just do your best to wait until the next shower. Brushing your teeth? Brush in the morning, after lunch, and at night. Limit anything between those set times. Some other examples: Laundry: If you feel the need to wash clothes frequently due to contamination fears, set specific days for doing laundry. For example, wash clothes Monday, Wednesday, Friday only. Then gradually reduce to two days like Tuesday and Thursday. Eventually trying to go down to one day of the week. Eating Out: If eating food from outside feels unsafe, create a routine where you allow yourself to eat takeout once a week. Stick to that schedule, and gradually challenge yourself to two times. The key is to gradually change the number of times you do something, allowing your anxiety to become more manageable over time. I hope that helps some.

Hi S.L.! I read your post- I'm a therapist and I've seen how difficult it can be to make the choice to begin therapy. Since growth never happens in the comfort zone, it's the challenges we face that help us improve our lives. NOCD therapists will never judge you, if that is your fear. We work with all sorts of OCD presentations and have seen it all. AnonymityK responded to you and really summed up what happens in treatment. A therapist can help you build up tolerance for uncomfortable thoughts. We also emphasize accepting uncertainty. If you have any questions about therapy, I'm happy to speak with you. You can reach me or another NOCD therapist through the care team at treatmyocd.com. Take care and reach out when you are ready!

Hello, Thank you for reaching out. Before I say anything else, let me unequivocally state, "IMPROVEMENT IS POSSIBLE"! The next question is how to achieve this? The only therapeutic way to defeat Contamination OCD is through a technique called "Exposure Response Prevention" (ERP). This is where you expose yourself to the situation you fear and then prevent yourself from performing your usual response. For example, if you have contamination OCD. If you view a trash can as contaminated and therefore, if you happen to touch a trash can you wash your hands for an inordinate amount of time. So ERP would have you touch a trash can and then NOT wash your hands. You will feel a tremendous amount of anxiety and discomfort. But after sitting with this anxiety and discomfort for some time (say,5, 10, 20 minutes) your anxiety will go down and you will be able to move on with your day. This will teach two important lessons. 1) You can handle more anxiety than you thought as evidenced by being able to avoid washing your hands. 2) The feared situation of touching a contaminated object was not as bad as you thought it would be. For ERP to be successful it is important that you do this work with a therapist. Together, the two of you could create exposures that get more challenging as you progress in your treatment. By targeting the compulsion (for instance, hand washing) and eliminating it, you can indeed, conquer your OCD and be able to live a fuller life as you engage in activities that you never thought possible. One brief but inspiring example is a member I know who used to wash his hands with soap and water very intensely after urinating. He would scrub his hands intensely with soap and then wash under every single finger nail. This was very time consuming and draining and caused going to the bathroom to be a stressful ordeal. However, after attending therapy and doing ERP, he is now able to urinate and then quickly wash his hands WITHOUT soap and WITHOUT washing under every single nail. This is something that would have been unthinkable ten years ago. Thank G-d, he has made tremendous progress and is just one of many examples of people who have overcome their OCD.

Short answer - ERP therapy