- Date posted
- 7y
- Date posted
- 7y
When you’re feeling ready, here’s a little exposure you can try. Set a small amount of time (I’d suggest a minute or two, don’t jump off the deep end or anything) and then look at the thing you want to clean and say “It might not be clean, but Im going to accept it.” Then don’t clean it for your set amount of time. Increase the time a little bit every day, and you’ve made some awesome progress towards recovery. Hang in there ❤️
- Date posted
- 7y
I hear you. I don’t have cleaning compulsions but I understand the anguish and meltdown. Isn’t it also crazy how with OCD one thought can ruin your whole day?
- Date posted
- 7y
I relate to this so much! Thank you for sharing. I will burn my fingers from using bleach for cleaning and not being careful enough with gloves you know i make sure to wear!
- Date posted
- 7y
Thank you, TabbyKitty. I have tried that when it comes to things being out of place and the floor not being perfectly clean (I have cats-the floor is never clean lol). Sometimes I can do it, sometimes I can't. It's a process. Flamewheel, it is crazy how one thought can ruin your whole day. I have multiple types of OCD so one thought or another is bound to do it. My mind exhausts me. So does the 4-8 hours of cleaning I do every single day.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 22w
i’ve unfortunately fallen into the cycle of trying to figure out my thoughts and find answers as to why i feel so distressed. this still pertains to the situation regarding changing my room for those reading who have seen my multiple posts over the last few days. i’ve been so distressed and in so much panic about it. i’m also panicking over my other room looking so different from when i left it. it’s been making me feel crazy because to me there’s no reason for my anxiety to latch so hard onto something that seems so minuscule. i was thinking i was having anxiety over change, but it’s like symptoms of ocd too that’s making it really hard for me to let go. SO i started thinking maybe it was perfectionism ocd? i’ve realized over time that i do compulsions to where things have to feel “just right”, but i also do that with any environment i’m in. like it HAS to feel cozy to me and provide me comfort in order for me to feel at ease. and this change is causing me to panic because there’s something wrong that i can’t find an answer to. maybe the different colored carpet? but it’s also more than that it feels like. however, now it’s spreading into other areas of my house where i’ve always been fine in and possibly to just any area i’m in at all. hence why it’s making me feel crazy because there’s no reason for me to be THIS distressed over that as i’ve never really had this problem before. and when i did it would last maybe an hour to a couple of days at most, but this has been going for over 2 weeks with my really bad anxiety being this week. i’m doing a little better, but it’s still hard when i can feel that panic waiting for me to acknowledge and just engulf me in the ocd cycle. i’m also analyzing basically any feeling i have so i just feel off in general and like i’m going insane. i’ve been so hyper focused on how i feel and that will send me spiraling too. multiple themes then start coming in like existential ocd and fear of solipsism. not to mention my harm and contamination ocd that just adds on when i’m this vulnerable. then i worry if no one is real, then no one feels the way i do. or just in general that what if no one feels the way i do. honestly, i think being out of college and in my house with nothing to do is causing me too much time with my thoughts. which is why i’m so distressed about everything that pops into my brain.
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 22w
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
- 16w
sorry if im putting to much detail in here I can take it down if it is too much and makes people uncomfy. Last night was watching some ex*pl*cit content while lying on the rug in the room in my house I spend most of my time and where my family usually goes into and it caused a physical reaction. I went to the bathroom to clean up and then sprayed the shower done and put bleach on the floor but I wiped the floor with a towel to kinda clean it but idk if I put enough bleach to clean it and if I got it in the areas that mattered and I sprayed Lysol on the bathroom counter to make sure no germs of my earlier reaction got any where but I ran out of Lysol after spraying everything but I made sure to spray the rug with some Lysol before I ran out but idk if I got everything I mean I focused on the rug but I didn’t spray all of it and I didn’t spray all the stuff that was in the room. And to make things worse after my reaction earlier I put my devices and charger on the floor of my room before washing my hands or my devices so I had to clean the floor in my room I used bleach but I didn’t put it everywhere on the floor which makes me anxious and idk if I cleaned my devices or charger well enough and I’m scared they are still infected. But back to the rug i sprayed it down with odoban it says disinfectant on it but I think it’s only for hard surfaces it disinfects but I still sprayed it around on the rug but I don’t know if it actually disinfected anything. And of course to make matters worse my baby cousins toys were in the room so I sprayed them with what little Lysol I had left but idk if I cleaned it well enough but I already put them with their other toys so idk what to do. After I thought I cleaned everything I put my devices on my mattress I don’t have my blankets on my mattress yet cause I washed them like a week or 2 ago and they are just laying on my bed but not put on my mattress so I’m scared my mattress if infected since I’m laying on my mattress with my feet on my chair and my devices are on my mattress. And idk I don’t want people getting those bad germs in them and I,worry about this a lot and Ik a lot of people will say that it isn’t that huge of a deal and I want to,believe them and it helps but my mind is always telling me that even if that’s true I have a responsibility to make sure everything is clean so people don’t get hurt and it doesn’t help that I’ve been so,itchy and idk why and my little brother is also itchy idk if it’s because I don’t clean well enough and it’s my germs or not but I’m tired do I need,to clean my mattress and covers again and reclean the rug I think I do but I’m trying to go against that thinking but it’s hard because I feel like a bad persons. And today I’m scared to leave my room i feel like I’m filthy and that the rug in the other room is contaminated and it doesn’t help I need to go to the doctor today when I’m feeling like anyone I’m around im infecting
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