- Date posted
- 27w
Contamination OCD
Does anyone have any tips on how to handle contamination OCD?
Does anyone have any tips on how to handle 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?
@AnonymityK Thanks for your advice! Unfortunately I am not seeing a therapist. I know I should, but I’m not. I come up with all excuse in the book to not see one. I guess I’m just afraid to. 😒
@S. L. - I totally get that—I was the same way. I dealt with my OCD alone for months, coming up with every excuse not to see a therapist. When I finally found the courage to ask for help, it was still scary, and those first sessions were tough. But as time went on, I realized I should have done it a long time ago. OCD loves to come up with reasons to avoid the very thing that could help, and fear makes it even harder. But you don’t have to go through this alone. Whenever you feel ready, I truly think it could be beneficial. A therapist who understands OCD can make such a difference!
@AnonymityK You’re absolutely right! Will definitely take that into consideration.
@S. L. - Glad to hear that! Take your time with it, and remember that every small step counts. :)
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.
@issphra 🫶🏻 That does help. Totally makes sense. Thanks for the tips! 😊
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!
@Donna Simons Thank you for responding.
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.
@Noah Pollack Thanks for replying back. Will definitely take your information & put it to good use. Thanks also for sharing your story.
Short answer - ERP therapy
I have to visit a place tomorrow which triggers my contamination ocdand false memory ocd really bad, can anyone help me in this panic situation. Tips needed!
So I have pretty intense contamination OCD tied to Moral/Real event OCD, and I'm having a hard time with it because part of me does genuinely believe my logic checks out, and I was hoping to get some insight as to how to change the way I see it from other people who sort of get the mindset involved :). To sum it up as well as I can, I basically have a very souped-up version of the same item-event association most people have. For example, let's say you have a HORRIBLE, GOD AWFUL relationship with a person you can't even begin to think of favorably even years after the event. They had gotten you a stuffed animal for your anniversary at some point. You finally "escape" the relationship, and you throw away the stuffed animal. This is seen as a very normal and sound-of-mind action. Here's where things get tricky: For me, throwing out that stuffed animal wouldn't be enough. After all, it touched my table didn't it? And my table touched the floor right? And these things now carry that person's germs. And if I don't get rid of them, then they'll infect my future belongings. This logic isn't entirely flawed either, as even my OCD specialist said he believes in a "weaker version of what I do". How am I supposed to convince myself that what I'm believing is false when the literal psychologist confirmed that what I'm doing is just a more in-depth version of a normal experience? Ex: I have a new outfit, fresh and clean. I'm unbothered and happy, but I knick the side of a table. The table holds awful associations. I get this awful sense of dread. The clothes are now somewhat sullied, and I'll eventually have to give them away. I don't think I'm explaining this as well as I could, but I feel like those notions are there. Anyways, does anyone have any insight as to how to get my mind to genuinely believe that interacting with these things is "safe"?
(long read ahead, sorry lol) I’ve struggled with ocd for as far back as I can remember. I find that it gets worse with stress, and recently I’ve really been struggling with the contamination aspect of my ocd. I’m worried about it becoming unmanageable and negatively affecting my relationship with my partner. I’ve been living with my boyfriend since January (got kicked out of my house a week after I turned 18, it’s for the better though my house is toxic as hell) and I love living with him, but him and his family aren’t as concerned with cleaning as I am used to. My boyfriend and I have been together going on 2 years and there’s been many times throughout our relationship that his struggle with depression severely impacted his ability to keep up with cleaning his room. This is something I completely understand because I’ve struggled with it too so i’ve often helped him clean, and since i’ve moved in he’s done so much better at keeping up with cleaning (especially because he knows about my issues with clutter, mess, germs, etc.) He is really good at being accommodating towards my needs (not overly so, i’m aware that recovering includes accepting being uncomfortable), but it’s so hard for me to differentiate between what is the normal standard for cleanliness and hygiene and what’s excessive and unhealthy. I get so stressed out every single day over the thought of how dirty everything is. He has 3 cats that mainly stay in his room (he has a catio attached to his window/side of the house) and dogs which stay on the opposite side of the house and backyard, so there is fur everywhere constantly (i’m also allergic to cats but it’s not severe). I can’t stop thinking about how they are getting germs from their litter box all over everything. They also used to piss under his bed and in his closet when his room used to be a mess and it’s soaked into the floor so no matter what it stinks. It’s so hard to bring myself to walk around the house without slippers because my feet will get visibly dirty and my socks would get covered in hair. I always think about how my boyfriend sometimes walks on the rugs in the bathroom in shoes and all the germs that spreads. There’s so many more things but this is already getting long and I am shaking just thinking about how unclean everything is. I want to deep clean the entire house myself so I can get it to where It’s not like psychological torture everyday and it’s easier to maintain but I have been so busy I don’t have the time. I am worried about my boyfriend thinking I don’t like living with him or that I think that’s he’s dirty but i don’t. We have had several conversations about this and he’s reassured me that he knows none of my obsessive thoughts are personal but I still feel so bad about it. I would like to get therapy to help work through this but currently that is not an option for me. I know things will get better once I get through the main things in my life that are causing a lot of stress and therefore making my ocd flair up, but I need advice on what to do in the mean time. I keep having moments where all I can do is shake and cry and clean and I feel bad for my poor boyfriend who can only sit next to me and try to comfort me or help me clean. I also don’t want to make him worried that nothing he does is enough for me (i’ve also already talked to him about this and told him about how I can never even be clean enough for myself and that I don’t think he’s dirty). There’s been many times where I want to tell him to do things that I think might be my own unhealthy compulsions (ex. not wearing shoes in the house or in our room, not getting into bed with socks on, making sure to completely dry off before getting out the shower, put makeup and jewelry back where they belong right after using them, etc.) but i can’t tell if they’re reasonable or not and i try to not tell him unless it’s something that severely distresses me. I’m aware that everything is going to have germs no matter what and have been using NER’s to help manage my thought spirals/rumination. I know that I shouldn’t keep doing compulsions because it just offers temporary relief and makes the problem worse because nothing will ever be enough. I just feeling so overwhelmed and hopeless and exhausted and want some feedback.
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