If anyone has beaten or gotten a lot better with contamination ocd how long did it take and how did you do it? I don’t see myself getting over this theme for a long time but I’m worried for my future like getting a job , I’m scared I won’t be able to cope with bacteria in a workplace and stuff like that. Just feeling lost in recently :(
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 you were 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 intensly 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 able to urinate and then quickly was 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.
I heave contamination OCD specifically in regards to emetophobia (fear of throwing up), and while I just joined and haven’t had any therapy yet, I can tell you that I am coping. I have a normal job, I go out to eat, I do most things normally, except I wash my hands excessively and have a few other habits that most people don’t notice. The most noticeable thing is how dry my hands are. So I haven’t beat it yet but it’s totally possible to have a pretty normal life, at least for me, and I’m hoping that with therapy it will improve!
Does anyone have any tips on how to handle contamination OCD?
(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.
sorry this is super long i just wanna know if anyone else has been thru something similar bc i feel super alone 🩷 i have super bad contamination ocd. it was bad already but my house was like my safe space until a few months ago someone brought something into my house that i considered ‘contaminated’. and so then i felt like that part of the house was contaminated, then it spread to everything outside my room (since family is moving around touching stuff) and then somehow i got convinced everything in my room except my bed is contaminated and i need to wash my hands after touching it. in my mind its like the contamination just infinitely spreads to things after the tiniest bit of touch. idek what im afraid of anymore or even what the original thing was but i can’t let it go. when i have to wash off contamination i have to wash at least 4 times or until it feels right, or sometimes take rlly long showers and wipe down all my stuff. i even throw away food and clothes or just whole items sometimes because they feel so contaminated i don’t want them in my space. i can’t be super near people or have anyone touch me, and i also can’t bring anything new into my room since it had to go through the entry of my house which feels contaminated. i feel like all i do is lay in bed and then wash my hands and do compulsions so i can go eat or do other stuff around the house. also i never go out because i’m bc people outside make me feel dirty, and i hate thinking about how many people have touched stuff in stores or in public and stuff. so im just in my room worrying all day. i feel so trapped and the contamination/avoiding it is all i think about anymore i barely have time for anything else and im never present when i talk to people because im worrying about if i accidentally got contaminated. im starting erp next week and knowing that im going to have to expose myself to things is really freaking me out. does anyone else have this kind of ocd ? im exhaustedddd 🥲🥲💔
Share your thoughts so the Community can respond
