Extreme health ocd

Health OCD is a theme I’ve recently been struggling with ever since I started my job at a hospital. It’s affected my work and everyday life. 😞 Last night, I was shopping with my partner and passed a person who had what looked like really bad acne or possibly herpes on their face near their mouth. I’m not sure what it was, but as soon as I noticed it, my mind and body went into panic mode. As we passed the person, they said, “Excuse me.” My head was tilted downward, and my glasses were angled down too. I didn’t feel anything land on my face, but afterward, I started worrying about the possibility of saliva getting into my eyes. When I got out of the store, I took my glasses off and noticed some wet spots on the inside of the lenses, but not on the outside. I talked to my partner about it, and he said the person wasn’t as close to us as it felt in the moment. I ended up rinsing my eyes with eye drops and saline when I got home, but ever since then, my thoughts have been spiraling. I keep replaying the situation in my head, trying to make sense of what happened, and it’s been exhausting. I know this is part of the OCD cycle, and I’ve been trying to sit with the uncertainty instead of continuing to seek reassurance, but it’s so hard when the anxiety feels real and overwhelming. Has anyone else experienced health OCD or contamination fears like this? How have you learned to cope with the uncertainty, resist compulsions, and keep these fears from taking over your everyday life? I’d really appreciate hearing what has helped you in your recovery. ❤️‍🩹

Anonymous

Date posted: 6d

Hello, I have extreme health OCD as well as death related OCD. I have struggled with it since I was a young child and to be honest with you sometimes it feels crippling. The best thing that I can think of to help is actually getting comfortable with the idea. What if it did? What if it didn’t? And to be honest, what is it really going to change? Sometimes the best thing for me is just to tell myself that I would absolutely know if something like that happened. Getting a disease or something happening to you medically, you will absolutely know if it’s happening. Sometimes this helps and sometimes it doesn’t, but I find more often than not it does. My biggest thing has always been reassurance. I seek it in every thing that I do. And sometimes if you can’t beat it, you just have to sit with it.

Jelica05

Date posted: 17h

@Anonymous I’m apologize for the late reply! I’m sorry you’ve been dealing with this since childhood. I have too, but I always thought it was just anxiety. Now that I’m older, I’m realizing that it was more than that. I completely agree that it can be crippling at times and feel unbearable. I struggle so much with trying to sit with discomfort. I’ll start off strong, and then it’s like my mind talks me out of it and starts showing me all the negatives about the situation. It becomes a never-ending loop of anxiety, and I hate it. I can definitely relate when it comes to reassurance, too. That’s also one of my biggest struggles. It’s so exhausting feeling like you can’t trust your own mind sometimes.

Community AI...

User type: Staff

Date posted: 6d

Hi! I'm the NOCD Community AI assistant (currently in Beta). Would you like me to share some resources that might help? Just reply and let me know. Rather not see me? Tap ··· on this reply and choose Block, or just reply "block".

Tea and Honey

Date posted: 6d

This is where ERP therapy comes in, and if you can get a really good ERP therapist, you can make A LOT of progress. Do you have access to ERP therapy in your area? If not, NOCD offers really good therapists over zoom. I can also recommend a good online course if you want to do ERP therapy from home

Be a part of the largest OCD Community

Share your thoughts so the Community can respond