Guest1488484

Date posted: 9h

Disgusted

I went to see a potential client. His house was so dirty, the floor never vacuumed and he had bare feet. I was wearing shoes the whole time, but when we went out into the building, we walked down the stairs out. I am sure the stair touched the back of my calf, I wore long pants so it doesn't matter but I'm terrified and unsure of if the stair touched my shoe. I was changing between those and another pair before entering my house and I kind of stood on top of my shoes. My heel would have come into contact with the part that touched the stairs. I didn't consider it at the time, but his dirty feet, heels, legs whatever, or someone else's in the building also touched the stairs. I wore my normal house slippers without thinking about this, went to shower and after the shower considered washing them but still hadn't thought about the possibility. Now I'm so disgusted. This is real, true bacteria. Not some imaginary contamination. I put my feet on my bed after wearing those slippers. I put my toothbrush and toothpaste on the same bed. I put my clean clothes there and touched them with my feet. I put them into my drawer of clean clothes. My pillow, blanket and everything else is now contaminated. I feel so sick. I'm so stupid. I brushed my teeth after the toothbrush touched the bed. I brushed my teeth with bacteria. I am so sick. I feel so sick I can't bear it. I can't do it. I don't know what to do. I feel suffocated. I'm such an idiot. I should have just washed the slippers. What do I do what do I do what do I do

Guest1488484

Date posted: 9h

Please help me I can't bear it. Anyone would feel this fear, no? It's real bacteria isn't it? It's everywhere now?

Anonymous

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 9h

@Guest1488484 Try to think of just the object not what could possible be on it, they are just slippers. Nothing more. I would remind yourself how many times you’ve come into contact with triggering surfaces and been okay. Remind yourself yes there’s a possibility of bacteria but you are strong enough to fight it off.

Anonymous

Date posted: 8h

@Guest1488484 What is your fear? Is it the possibility of getting sick? I understand this kind of ocd suffering. It’s awful to go feel afraid I’ve experienced it a long time ago.

Guest1488484

Date posted: 8h

@Anonymous Not at all. I'm not afraid of getting sick at all. I just want my house to be clean and all of my objects free of contamination I don't want to be contaminated myself

Anonymous

Date posted: 8h

@Guest1488484 I would not be very afraid of getting sick in this situation you described. It is a possibility, maybe (I don’t know much about bacteria.) but I would not be worried in this situation.

Guest1488484

Date posted: 8h

@Anonymous But I'm certain it's the truth not a possibility. I just can't bear that. The stairs were so small. It had to have touched

Anonymous

Date posted: 8h

@Guest1488484 Oops I didn’t see your response when I posted. Hm is there a reason you don’t want to be contaminated and don’t want your house to be contaminated?

Guest1488484

Date posted: 3h

@Anonymous There is no reason. It's the fault of the disease

Rosesrred

Date posted: 8h

First things first I want you to know your not alone and I'm gonna tell you why and it's all good news so I want you to first take a deeeeep breath where you feel the air travel to your belly for 4 seconds then hold it for 7 seconds and let it out for 8 seconds. The. I want you to repeat this a total of 4 times after I want you to come back and read the rest of this post . That exercise above is therapist approved by my therapist btw :) Okie dokie now for the second part: when I was young I also had a severe fear of germs I'm talking like spraying myself with so much Clorox disinfectant spray that my manager had to pull me aside at work a couple years ago and say hey you can't do that here lol. Anyways back to the past when I was 13 I was instructed to clean. Out the fridge specifically the veggie crisper the land no one in my family would dare ever clean out because alas no one wanted to eat veggies in my house as much as we bought them true story. Shocking right? A 13 year old who doesn't choose a tomato as an after school snack. Anywho so I was tasked to clean the fridge and wiped out all the gunk and alas the forgotten tomato at the bottom of the fridge had black spots on it and I detest mold with a passion my mind started blurting danger danger! Look what you did! You must Google mold and mold solutions so of course in my naove 13 year old brain I looked up black mold and found that it kills 100 people a year and I was devastated completely utterly devastated I told myself I signed my death sentence but even worse I touched everything in the house so after I die my parents and siblings are going to die because now I transferred the germs to the whole house I felt like that 2319 scene in monsters Inc I was a mess.... I was scrubbing every door knob and surface I could find I put towels all over the couch and sat on it instead of directly on the couch so I wouldn't infect anything else and I called my mom and was so bing and asking when she was getting home and when my mom got home I clung to her and apologized for the distraught I brought up on my family and the irreversible doom I've done. And that's when I learned that most people don't die from black mold and my mom explaining that black mold is in houses not on produce. And I'm still standing over a decade later. All this to say and I'm sorry it's so long is that I get the exact fear your going through I used to wipe my skin with Clorox wipes till I had rashes on my skin from the chemicals and I overcame my OCD theme that was about bacteria and it started with opposite action meaning at first do something small then work your way up I first had to start opening doors without using a paper towel and being around sick people without spraying Lysol every time they sneezed (it was a weird symphony it would be like: sneeze spritz sneeze spritz sneeze spritz, I should have brought my conductor wand for that one hahaha) but I digress I promise it will be okay and you will be okay you need to anchor yourself in the moment by practicing mindfulness of some sort look up grounding meditations on YouTube. And as hard as it is agree with the OCD say your definitely right I'm totally infected it will neutralize your overactive alarm system in your head after awhile. Sorry this is long I just have strongly related to your post. :)

Guest1488484

Date posted: 8h

But I'm sure this is real. It has to have touched. How can I live with that?

Rosesrred

Date posted: 5h

@Guest1488484 OCD feels extremely real all the time there are germs all around us and once you recognize that your mind is trying to tell you your in danger when your not. Think of all the times you thought you were gonna get sick and was sure of it after touching a surface a sick person touched. It's like with me and the mold I thought because I touched my hand which touched the door knob and even touched the cleaning materials means all of these germs and bacteria from the mold would infect everyone around me including myself. No amount of reassurance on here is going to stop your OCD from going in a circle you need to ground yourself and be in this moment here. Right here right now you are alive and well and when you wake up tomorrow you'll see that the germs or bacteria didn't hurt you. And then you can add this to all the times you thought you'd get sick by being around bacteria and didn't. This is no different. Your amygdala like in all people's Ocd brains is over active and is telling you that because it feels real that it is even though it isn't. What goes up must come down it's the same with OCD. You feel very frightened now but that will eventually dissipate. Using skills like anchoring yourself in the presence and carrying on with life even when it feels like it won't end it will. Opposite action: agreeing with your OCD trains your mind to stop firing off the danger alarm all the time it takes some time to see results but you'll notice it take effect. Opposite action is saying your definitely right OCD I'm definitely going to get infected I'm definitely gonna die from this etc. your mind will eventually catch up to what your doing and that overactive danger system in your mind will start to slow down. I know it feels real but I've had several OCD moments where I wasn't even 99 percent sure I was 100 percent sure the danger I was sensing was real and it wasn't. Good luck my friend you got this!

Guest1488484

Date posted: 3h

@Rosesrred I am not afraid of getting sick. I am afraid of being contaminated

Anonymous

Date posted: 8h

I don’t know if there is bacteria just from stepping on stairs, maybe there might be some on the shoes, I don’t know. But try to distract yourself from worrying/thinking about it.

oneday.x

Date posted: 24w

Worried about bathroom contamination

Sorry if this is tmi. In advance, I know some germs are fine - I'm all for that, and it definitely does ease some contamination anxiety. But I have lots of anxiety surrounding going to the bathroom, specifically number two. Again I'm so sorry if this is tmi. I went yesterday, and obviously my hands were contaminated because well, they are when you go to the bathroom. But also because I accidentally brushed the back of my hand against myself. When you're done in the bathroom you obviously put underwear back on, and trousers or whatever, but I wash my hands before touching my trousers but not underwear. So I do that bit before I wash my hands, but my hand, the very contaminated part, touched like a bit of my skin at my waist. At the time, I brushed it off, thinking that my trousers will cover that anyway for the time being. But then today, I wore leggings that are kind of small on me and they weren't as high waisted. And then I got in my bed, and had a t-shirt on, and probably touched so many things. I changed my t-shirt, meaning it touched my hair as I took it off. So now I'm paranoid I have poop particles all over me. I'm convinced I need to have a full shower again and wash my hair. I'm okay with having a shower, but I barely have enough energy for that let alone washing my hair too. I don't shower every day, so with my schedule, I'm not due to have one until tonight. I just want to be able to get up, get dressed, and go about my day. But how do I do that when my bed feels contaminated and I feel like I need to change the bedsheets. How do I cope when it feels like poop particles are in my HAIR. And that could totally be possible. I know some germs are fine. But I just don't know what to do.

GuiltyGrapes

Date posted: 6w

I feel so filthy

So Im staying at my uncles house until Saturday or Sunday and I feel like I’m filthy and making his house infected and idk what to do so when I first got here his house had grass I walked through to get to the door so I made sure to wipe my feet at the door and leave my shoes close to the door but I still feel,like I’m infecting his house he gave me and my little brother a room to sleep in and the first think I think of is how I need to wash the sheets when I leave. The first day was hard because I couldn’t shower and I felt so dirty because we had to go on a walk and I was sweating and we also had to water the grass outside and I had the same socks on as I did yesterday and I just felt like they were filthy and I was walking with those socks around the house so now his carpet is filthy and the bed I was laying in is now filthy. And I couldn’t shower because I didn’t have any cleaning supplies to clean it after I was done because I didn’t want to wash in their shower and now clean it afterwards. But I got someone at the store and took a shower and changed clothes and I felt weird about where to put my dirty clothes I hung them on the shower curtain rod but I feel like I just infected the rod. And afterwards I tried to spray off the shower with some Clorox foam cleaner but I feel like I didn’t clean it good and even feel bad about cleaning it because I was afraid the chemicals I tried rinsing off the shower and the bottles I was using in the shower but still feel like it’s infected. And don’t get me started on how I feel about the bags I’m keeping my clean clothes in and also the other bag I’m keeping my dirty clothes the bags are laying on the floor and I feel like my clean clothes are getting dirty from the floor and my dirty clothes are dirtying the floor and the towel I was using I used to dry the bathroom floor and asked where to put my towel he said on the dryer but there was stuff on it so I put it on a box above the dryer but I feel like I just infected everything and also Ik he touched the towel WHST if he gets THISE germs on his kids . Also the covers me and my little brother were using fell on the ground and his kids were playing in them and stuff like that but my little brother said it was fine and still used them but idk and his cover he brought touched my dirty clothes and the floor and he still used them and I just feel kinda ill about that. And today me feeling filthy just multiplied because I can’t SHOWER again today because someone’s toys are in the shower and idk how to get clean becuase we leave soon and idk what to do do I just change clothes? Idk about wipes because I can’t just ask for baby wipes and now I’m walking around with no socks because I only brought one pair and my others ones were put in my dirty clothes bag and now I have to go places no socks just in my flip flops. And last night I went to the restroom because I didn’t want to have an accident in the night because I’m always anxious about that stuff and I went but I feel like I just infected their toilet and I washed my hands after but I went back into bed but my feet touched the bathroom floor so now the bed is hay I feel actually infected and since I’m laying in it I’m infected too. Idk why I woke up so depressed and feel so filthy and guilty idk if it was the pose I was sleeping in or if I think I had an accident idk but we a lot of places to go today and idk what to do I was going to get Lysol at the store today to spray stuff but I don’t think I can get everything and I feel so sick he has kids what if I give them bad germs I can’t live with that

GuiltyGrapes

Date posted: 6w

I feel so filthy

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