- Date posted
- 5y
- Date posted
- 5y
Sit with the anxiety
- Date posted
- 5y
Been sitting. It’s so bad. I ended up overly washing and then I stepped where I stepped before washing I wiped my foot and now I have major doubts. Trying to sit with the anxiety more
- Date posted
- 5y
It'll be difficult but no matter what stay with it, you've got this!
- Date posted
- 5y
Id find a distraction? Play a game or listen to music, hope it helps.
- Date posted
- 5y
I'm so sorry. This is so hard. You're doing an AWESOME job by trying to fight back against this compulsion! Even in the times when you give in, you still get a trophy because you're TRYING YOUR EARNEST BEST, and alternately you could not try, and everything could just be awful and impossible forever. But you're not going down that easy. YOU ARE DOING THE THING. YOU ARE FIGHTING BACK! YOU ARE DOING IT! YOU ARE AWESOME! You ARE going to get there some day if you keep up this hard work. You ARE going to get to the point where these behaviors do not control you anymore; you WILL successfully take control with enough time and determined practice. Every single person who has ever downloaded this app believes in you and is rooting for you and is celebrating every small success, every five seconds you made it without rushing into the bathroom and indulging in the compulsion. Every five seconds is a victory. They're gonna keep adding up. You're gonna conquer this.
- Date posted
- 5y
Thank you both soo much. It wasn’t easy. Today was a new day. I did t have a trigger and I don’t care about the events of yestrday anymore. That said. It still took me many hand washes today. It’s far from perfect but I am so afraid and cannot live my life this way that I’m considering g taking the medication I was prescribed. I was really afraid about it for some time.
- Date posted
- 5y
Stay strong! ✌❤
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- 5y
Thank you!!
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- 5y
It’s so hard. Still ruminating and still anxious and now other forms of ocd have surfaced with intrusive thoughts so I’m just all around anxious and struggling and unable to sleep
- Date posted
- 5y
Hi everyone. It’s been a few days. I’ve sat with the anxiety and while it goes away the shoe I wore the day I saw the blood is still there untouched. That alone is still making me so upset. I feel like I need to wipe it or throw it away (it’s an old worn out shoe) and I know I shouldn’t but it’s over bearing. If I keep wearing it I will feel like blood will get to my foot even though I just saw it and did not step on it. This happened last year and I still have yet to deal with the shoe I wore. It’s hard.
- Date posted
- 5y
Sorry. What I meant to say is the same thing happened last year and I haven’t gotten over that with that shoe. This incident happened last Wednesday and I’ve been dealing with the anxiety and been very afraid.
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- 5y
I can’t touch the shoe and I can’t go back to that bathroom. I’ve been so dehydrated when I’m at wiek
Related posts
- Date posted
- 24w
Im having a OCD specifically contamination OCD flare up all month and I don’t want to feel this way going into March, I’ve thrown out clothes, towels, stayed up for hours doing compulsions, washed my hands till they crack and bleed, I have washing pilling up cause I’m so overwhelmed by all the extra things I’ve added cause I thought it was contaminated. It’s completely draining me to the point where I’ve become sleep deprived and are avoiding part of my home because they are deemed contaminated to me…I only moved in a few months ago, I had a roach problem and using baits and insecticides really messed with my ocd too. anyone have any tips or tricks to make this easier? I wasn’t doing this bad in January :( thankyou in advance :)
- Date posted
- 18w
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"?
- Date posted
- 18w
(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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