Does anyone else have environmental allergies? My contamination OCD is specific to stuff I’m actually allergic to. So it’s been hard to treat since it’s hard to tell what level of avoidance of allergens is necessary for physical health vs what’s OCD. To top it off my allergist told me anxiety can lead to releasing extra histamine in the blood stream so I may be experiencing allergy symptoms due to anxiety as well. I was hospitalized recently and did therapy etc and was being brave and decided to do a carpool which I normally wouldn’t do since I’d be worried about a dirty car. I started feeling sick within minutes of sitting down but I told myself it was psychosomatic so I stayed for the whole ride home which was more than an hour. By the end I had lots of trouble breathing. I showered and changed soon as I got home but got sicker over the weekend and then was diagnosed with allergic bronchitis which lasted for weeks and I had to use an inhaler. The point is my contamination fears aren’t illogical. I do need to avoid allergens but it can be hard to tell how much avoidance I need to do. Anyone else in the same boat and has advice?

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 🥲🥲💔

Hi all, I’m new here and just recently got diagnosed. I’m trying to make sense of a lot of things and could use some perspective. I feel like I’m the only one who has contamination themes and does not have the compulsion to clean things, but rather to run away from the mess. I would really love to hear from someone who can relate, because right now I feel like I’m making it up. Details which might either be useful or triggering: My kitchen is the best example. I might leave a dish or two in the sink and say “I’ll clean it up soon, it’s no big deal.” But then—because of a combination of factors—it will probably sit there for a couple days. Around day 2 or 3 I develop an aversion to dealing with it. It gives me ick. And the longer it sits, the ickier it becomes—realistically and in my imagination. And because I’ve stopped doing dishes, they really start to pile up, and each day, getting started feels like more work and more confrontation with disgust. I will start thinking about how I need to do dishes, or take out the trash, and then get hit with a horrifying mental image of bugs (I’ll spare you the details) or other really disgusting things happening. That image brings me shame and makes me scared to deal with the mess. When it really piles up, I start getting images of the nastiest hoarders’ houses I’ve ever seen, and I start catastrophizing about the future I’m doomed for. So mostly I just watch tv to get my mind off it. (I swear I’m not just lazy 😔) This is true for food too. I will be unsure if something in my fridge is a little too old, so I decided to hedge my bets and I avoid it. I let a lot of food go to waste this way. The biggest problem here is I don’t throw it away when I decide it’s bad. I just side-eye it. Maybe because I know it’s silly to decide 6-day-old soy milk that smells fine has a “bad vibe,” and I think I may be able to get over it later. But then the food actually spoils and I don’t want to touch it to throw it out. I actually had a week or so in June where I couldn’t open the fridge because it smelled bad. It took every ounce of emotional energy and an external deadline to force me to clean my kitchen. I had a couple of meltdowns but it felt great to get my space back. Of course, it’s a cycle and it got bad again. The crazy thing is, I love to cook and I even like doing dishes. And I do dishes every day at work, no problem! But I’m spending so much money on takeout because my kitchen is always trashed. :( Is this super crazy? Does it even sound like contamination ocd? Am I alone in this? Any feedback would be helpful.

Okay, I am going insane at this point. I've been in and out of hospital with my contamination stuff and made huge progress in ERP, so I decided to tackle a bag of "contaminated clothes" from months ago when I went to my endocrinologist and something made my eyes and skin and inside of my mouth etc. itch and BURN, I mean to the point of coughing up blood and bloodclots coming out of my nose, and everything felt very dried up (at the time I thought it was residual acid from medical test I was supposed to undergo and couldn't because of the OCD). When I washed myself and rinsed my mouth, it would stop, but whenever I'd come close to the clothes I was wearing that day, it'd start again. I have since washed them in a washing machine, but not separately, I did a whole load trying to convince myself it would be fine. It wasn't though, the whole batch of clothes now does this to me, even a towel I put near it. But it doesn't make any SENSE, it was washed?? Twice now and it still won't go? Can OCD do stuff like this? I used the towel to dry myself and my hair after shower and have been waking up the whole night unable to breathe with dried up sinuses and inside of my mouth. Can it do this?? I've never had this happen to me before and I feel crazy beyond recognition from it.