- Date posted
- 7w
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 7w
I want to point out one thing in your post. You said “it’s probably been there for a while and I never noticed.” That means you’ve been able to live with it this whole time and you’ve been just fine :) It was always there. So that shows you’re perfectly capable of still getting through this- even now that it’s in your awareness. Nothing has changed besides the fact that the mold is now in your awareness and you’ve been ruminating on it
- Date posted
- 7w
Don’t think you are alone. Something similar happened when I was in college where I had roaches and I couldn’t stop thinking about everything that I needed to clean. Something similar happened recently where one thing was dirty and my sister put all of my clean clothes on the dirty thing and I was so upset and went crazy and said how I needed to rewash everything, making my family get upset at me. You are not alone. We will get through this!
- Date posted
- 7w
I'm so sorry you're struggling right now. Some days it does feel like everything is just adding to the day to day hardships of OCD. Just want to be a kind and gentle reminder that you deserve to live a life that is safe and comfortable for you. Now that you know about the mold, and it has been confirmed you can take steps to mitigate it, and while I understand that's just an added task, it's also now something you can address. It's not an uncertainty anymore.
- Date posted
- 7w
There are probably many buildings that have some mold spores on every square of their surfaces, and mold is also very common in the outdoors. I don't know whether you'll feel better or worse if you learn more about mold and how common it is. Healthy food, good sleep, exercise, and the correct amounts of vitamins can often help people's immune systems, which protect from mold to some extent. You should probably clean the AC thing, of course, but you probably don't need to panic.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 13w
My ocd has been at an extreme all time high the past 2 weeks and I am in dire need of some relief. I’m not sleeping right anymore. for context: I live in the south and found a springtail on my sheets about 2 weeks ago. This was like 2 days before our bug guy came and sprayed (it’s a normal maintenance thing here) so it’s a common bug down here and I’ve found them all over different areas of the house before. Finding it in my bed sent me on a bit of a spiral bc I started to doubt if it even was a springtail and that i was wrong and that it was a bed bug, not trusting my brain. It was a bad, sleepless night and carried over continuing feelings. Typical ocd stuff. Well two days later, I’m a nurse and I had a patient that actually had bed bugs. This wasn’t the first day they were here and I did not see any myself but it still freaked me out. There had one 2 founds after visitors came the day before. Of course I wore PPE in the room (coveralls shoe covers and hair net) going in and took everything off before exiting the room. When I came home I stripped in my garage and bagged everything down to my shoes. Threw everything in the wash and did multiple cycles. There were no other steps I could take but I still had a terrible night. Hours of ruminating and going back and forth about tracing my tracks, thinking of new ways I could’ve taken one home with me. Just checking everything. I was already on a spiral from the springtail. Having two such back to back triggering events for me so closely related has made me deteriorate significantly. I was already doing bad with my normal OCD and starting therapy here. I obsess over the thought of having bedbugs constantly and haven’t been able to sleep. I am constantly checking my bed while in it and can’t settle down. My bed is heavy too and I keep hurting myself lifting my mattress to check. But I need to check. I’ve become obsessed. I check everything and go down Reddit rabbit holes looking for new things. And of course, I talk myself into it every time. I can’t take it anymore, it’s bleeding off into other parts of my life like friendship and marriage because I am so high anxiety right now. I need relief so bad. I’ve never felt this unstable to be honest. I feel like even someone without ocd would be really struggling with this topic, nevermind me, with ocd to a point where I just started treatment. These aren’t even my normal intrusive thoughts and compulsive acts. It’s just taken on a life in the last week and I can’t find any sign that it’s going to slow down. when I think rationally I know I did everything right to prevent but I can’t shake it. 💔
- Date posted
- 7w
Also Im sorry for posting so much about this type of stuff I’m just genuinely terrified and don’t know what to do Ok so last night I (16M) made a mistake of watching some stuff and had a physical reaction and I have a huge fear of bodily fluids and them infecting things and getting people infected because I think that would basically be a crime and of course I was in bed when this happened and worse part is I was on my bare mattress since I washed my covers a week ago and didn’t put them onto my bed yet but they were sitting on my bed if that makes sense and so I decide to shower change clothes spray the part I was laying down on with Lysol and also my chair and I feel asleep thinking I would clean it my room in the morning and also use my deep cleaning rug machine in the other room because I was scared thay room was also infected. So I wake up and my mind is ringing with fear telling me everything is filthy and what really scared me the most was my little brother and I used to share a room and so he had like a pile of his clean clothes on his bed which was by my bed but separated by a dresser and our room is small my chair is in the middle of our two bed and so I was scared that his clothes are now infected and I was panicking so I decided to just get up start cleaning up in the other room in order to clean the rug and I also swept the floor so I could mop later and of course chaos ensued the machine to clean the rug wasn’t working for a good hour before I got it working and then I cleaned the rug and then finished sweeping and I was going to mop before of course I made the same mistake I did last night and now my brain things everything is infected again so I quickly go shower spray the shower with Clorox foam and Lysol on the shower handle and head and I was going to wash it all off later after it sat for a bit but and I sprayed the floor with some Clorox foam just incase someone went in there before I mopped the bathroom floor and wiped it up with a towel I start preparing the mop and yep of course something else happens the pipe in the bathroom I just showered on frayed and water was pouring everywhere I told my dad he stopped it and of course I had to take everything out of the cabinet put it on the bathroom counter but my dad out some stuff in the shower and of course I’m grossed out because I didn’t rinse the Clorox out of it so to me that stuff got dirty and my dad can’t fix the sink until tomorrow so everything in there is sitting in limbo and my dad also used the mop I was gonna use to mop the house to get the water up that was covering the bathroom floor. But I mopped anyway cleaned the floor in my room and the bathroom along with what I could get in the house. Afterwards I start cleaning my room more wiping down the chair with a Lysol wipe and the dresser separating out bed I started throwing slot of stuff away like cards, coins, mail it was cluttered anyway and I tired wiping everything down to clean it the dresser the tv controllers my phone and iPad stuff like that I put some of my coins in a back I out back onto my dresser after wiping them with a Lysol wipe or ATLEAST trying and I threw some of my brothers clothes into the laundry room because I was scared it was infected I moved some stuff out of my room because I’m honestly scared to go back in there because I don’t want to get dirty again. So now I’m lying in a different room typing this terrified I forgot to clean something which would put someone at risk and thinking of how I need to go back in my room to wash my bed covers and clean my mattress but I’m so stressed I have a headache and my laptop is broken I think so another thing on my plate and I’m spiraling and have no idea what to do
- Date posted
- 5w
I came home from a trip today to find mold growing out of every vent in my apartment. This has been an intrusive thought of mine for a long time (i.e. everything is infected, spores in my possessions, spores in the air) and I feel like this has just confirmed everything I thought to be true. I’ve been reading statistics about mold to try to calm down (how common it is to have an issue with mold in vents and how low the chances are of illness from it) but I don’t know how to stop thinking about it being everywhere. Any advice?
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