- Date posted
- 5y
- Date posted
- 5y
Avoidance is a compulsion, and it’s SUPER common for all OCD themes. When you say avoidance makes your OCD “go down”, what you actually mean is that you temporarily feel less anxious, but in reality, your OCD is actually getting worse. It strengthens that message you’re sending to your brain that these thoughts are real and important and dangerous. Part of recovery is purposefully exposing ourslelves to these triggers. This makes our anxiety heighten in the short term, but ultimately reduces our OCD in the long term. If you already have a lot of avoidance behaviors, cutting them all out cold turkey is probably too much too fast, so go slow, work with your therapist to decide what level of discomfort you can reasonably handle, and only do it when you can resist all other compulsions.
- Date posted
- 5y
it is hard but have you ever come across a trigger after avoiding it? the anxiety that comes with is soo much worse after avoidance. that’s why it worsens it. plus, with avoidance you aren’t actually giving yourself the chance to just live. you’re only cutting yourself off from everything else more and more
- Date posted
- 5y
It’s so hard Jaz. As I mentioned , for awhile I got over avoidance then suddenly I saw fresh blood by my foot. Dealing with that was sooo exhausting that I could not leave my house. Now I don’t have the courage to go back and use the bathroom. I use such a far one and even that is not great. It’s taking so much of my break time to go there.
- Date posted
- 5y
it’s ok if you have to start over exposures again, recovery isn’t linear
- Date posted
- 5y
I just wanted you to know that I would’ve absolutely flipped under these circumstances and would do the same thing. I broke into tears when my new job even MENTIONED blood borne pathogens.
- Date posted
- 5y
You are right. I didn’t mean to say avoidance makes my ocd go down but rather it’s actually the compulsions. And lately I noticed my fear of leaving the apt is getting worse and worse which I cannot bear to have since I have school and a job. But the toll of my compulsions is so hard too. It’s 1.5 hours a day and then some days it’s 2 hours.
- Date posted
- 5y
Don’t worry, I’ve had compulsions last up to 8 hours a day before. Cut them down suuuuper slowly. Tomorrow, try just 10 min less. And do that for a week or two. Check in with yourself. At first it will make you more anxious, but if you stick to it without more compulsions, you’ll see improvement.
- Date posted
- 5y
I’m glad to hear it worked for you. I’m trying but the fear of disgust is too much but I know I have to do this so I’ll try less and less
- Date posted
- 5y
Ceej for me it’s just pure grossness and disgusts. I actually know it’s quite hard to catch illnesses from blood and especially not from the ones on the bathroom floor from that time of the month but regardless I find it still sooo disgusting and the thought of it really grossed me out
- Date posted
- 5y
And by that I mean it’s hard to catch illnesses from blood just by looking at it or being next to it but still the disgust overpowers me
Related posts
- Date posted
- 21w
(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.
- Date posted
- 20w
I had avoided a lot with school specifically, but I did do it in other areas of life as well. School for some reason has been the biggest trigger that sends me into avoidance and it has been for the longest time. Does anybody relate? If so, what did you do to help besides therapy? In high school I used to sit in the bathroom stalls for hours so I could avoid going to classes. I was struggling to keep up because my OCD makes me perfect my school work so much so to the point where I’d never turn it in because I’d never be satisfied with what I’d produce. I’d get so incredibly frustrated with myself and the fact that I could never meet my own standards, never mind the rubrics given. I took ages analyzing all my writing, all my answers, all my google slides and I burnt myself out. So I stopped trying. I stopped turning in work because I’d never be satisfied. I’d cry because I felt I wasn’t good enough. Then I’d be missing assignments, getting them done but not submitting them because I was too ashamed. So, I avoided classes because I’d be in trouble or be called out for not getting anything done. Unfortunately this habit bled into my first year of college last year, and OCD coupled up with depression, made going to the dining hall and attending classes even worse. So I avoided it all together. It’s so hard being a freshman in college, so so hard. I unfortunately failed out of that school but I tried to medically withdraw either semester. No, I wasn’t partying, or drinking or smoking or hanging with the wrong people. I was a college freshman struggling with ocd and depression. I’m trying to not make excuses for myself either because I’m well aware this is my fault and I’m trying to reverse it now at community college. Right now I’m trying to get those Fs turned into Ws from my old school so I can fix my gpa. I want to transfer, I want to be a forensic psychologist, I want to be independent, I want to be ok. It’s gonna take me so long to transfer from community college but that’s on me. I’m willing to put in the work. I’m so embarassed, please help me.
- Date posted
- 18w
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 🥲🥲💔
Be a part of the largest OCD Community
Share your thoughts so the Community can respond