I found for me recently that going out in public can be difficult. Everything feels contaminated. I don’t want to touch anything or anyone, or have them touch me. I feel constantly uncomfortable. Grocery shopping is one of the worst things because I know how many handlers each product has had, most times ends in crying. My therapist only word of is advice is to get over it.

This is a repost, only because the last post had no responses lol. Please if you have any advice share. I’ve been trying hard to sit with the feeling of anxiety. Actually that’s the problem, recently I’ve been trying to sit with the thought (and I’m able to for a few hours or until the next morning) and then my anxiety comes back so strong and it’s like I need to clean everything off. I see images of gross laundry getting on everything or my hand and then I need to clean everything off to un contaminate it. Sometimes the thought happens later at night so I just sleep through and the next morning I will wake up with intense anxiety about contamination. That happened yesterday and I had to clean everything off and since then I’ve been traumatized so I’ve been doing compulsions like avoiding the bathroom and being around people so I know I couldn’t have done anything wrong. Actually recently my biggest compulsion has been recording every time I get up to go eat, etc so that I know I couldn’t have done anything. Any advice or help???

This is a long one lol but basically, a couple of weeks ago I went to the toilet (#2, sorry for the tmi). Let's just say it was messy. I remember that a speck of.. #2.. Fell off the piece of toilet paper. This was probably the worst thing that could ever happen. I can't remember clearly but I'm pretty sure my jeans were on the floor underneath near where the speck could have fallen. There was also a towel. I don't know exactly where it fell as it was so small, but I made sure both the towel and the jeans went in the laundry basket and I cleaned the floor near there. Fast forward to like the next day. My mum does most of the laundry, so she will have picked up all the towels and clothes from the laundry basket and taken them to the wash. The problem is the speck. I don't know where it went but if it was on the towel and she picked it up.... Thus, contaminated mum. And she also puts clothes away that are dry. I remember that day she put my hoodie in my wardrobe, and I haven't worn it since because I feel it is contaminated. I haven't worn the clothes that have touched the hoodie. This leaves me with not a lot of clothes. And today I finally snapped and picked up a sweatshirt that had maybe touched the hoodie. And now I'm just sat here spiralling, wearing it. What if it touched the speck? What if the speck touched my mum and then touched the hoodie which then touched the sweatshirt I'm wearing? Please I'm so scared.

I’m so scared. Part of me feels ok and part of me feels like I need to clean everything off. Basically my sweater had a stain on it from food it was newly washed but I decided to throw it in the wash again. While throwing it in the laundry basket I noticed a specific type of clothing that scares me. I quickly put the sweater on top of the used laundry and left. My phone was in the living room and I’m pretty constantly scared it will get contaminated by laundry I’m not sure why but that fear started randomly. Anyway I had to walk past the living room to wash my hands in the kitchen because someone had to use the bathroom badly and was waiting for me to just throw my laundry in to go to the bathroom. Anyway I’m scared I went near my phone or contaminated it with my hands. I can’t remember the details fully either but I just remember walking straight to the kitchen but I don’t know. I’m really scared and I want to clean everything like my phone and everything it was near. The thing is my fear is real because used laundry is so gross. What do I do? When throwing clean laundry in a basket should you wash your hands? Do most people? Even if the article of clothing isn’t dirty? Because maybe my hands accidentally went near the actual gross laundry I don’t know