Hi all, I'm currently struggling with getting my hand washing under control. I have a rather intense fear of illness (due to nearly dying at 11) and as cold season approaches, my washing gets to the point of cracked bleeding hands. Any advice on how to approach this? I am also in therapy however would like to ask you all just incase!

I’m so scared. Part of me feels ok and part of me feels like I need to clean everything off. Basically my sweater had a stain on it from food it was newly washed but I decided to throw it in the wash again. While throwing it in the laundry basket I noticed a specific type of clothing that scares me. I quickly put the sweater on top of the used laundry and left. My phone was in the living room and I’m pretty constantly scared it will get contaminated by laundry I’m not sure why but that fear started randomly. Anyway I had to walk past the living room to wash my hands in the kitchen because someone had to use the bathroom badly and was waiting for me to just throw my laundry in to go to the bathroom. Anyway I’m scared I went near my phone or contaminated it with my hands. I can’t remember the details fully either but I just remember walking straight to the kitchen but I don’t know. I’m really scared and I want to clean everything like my phone and everything it was near. The thing is my fear is real because used laundry is so gross. What do I do? When throwing clean laundry in a basket should you wash your hands? Do most people? Even if the article of clothing isn’t dirty? Because maybe my hands accidentally went near the actual gross laundry I don’t know

Hello! I’m new here. Unfortunately I’m not able to afford a therapist but I’ve been doing a lot of research and I think a lot of my symptoms/thoughts align with OCD. I want to share some of what I experience and see if anyone else experiences the same and what resources helped you. I think I mostly experience contamination OCD. I’m constantly worried that something I do/touch is going to make me really sick and/or die. Especially with food, I’m constantly worried that I’ll accidentally have something on my hands when I eat, then I’ll touch the food and get that on the food, eat it and get sick. So I’ll wash my hands every time my hands touch any little tiny thing again and again before I eat, same with any forks/spoons, or I’ll even think I touched cleaner a few hours ago and I’ve washed my hands several times since then and I just washed them again but they still feel dirty so even if impractical I’ll use a fork and if my hands touch the part of the fork that touches the food then I can’t eat the food any longer or use that fork. Also at work I have these thoughts that I know are ridiculous but also give me very real anxiety. Like “if I don’t finish this order before that machine beeps its a sign I’m going to die” and then I have to rush to make sure I finish fast and then I’ll be like ok that’s so stressful I’m not going to think like that any more it’s ridiculous but then the thoughts keep coming back so I have to keep rushing. This is just a little tad bit of what I experience and I would love to hear from others as I haven’t met anyone else like me before. Thank you!

I’m really trying to be better at not washing my hands every second and I proud of myself the days I didn’t give in to compulsions, but today I feel a little defeated. I was getting ready for work and I was trying to cover up a pimple on my face, but I had sunscreen on. I wanted to put a pimple patch so I tunrned around got the paper towel in my bathroom and the towel touched the shower wall. I had a wart 6 months ago and although I didn’t have it on my hand… I did have it on the palm of my foot. I’m almost sure I sprayed Lysol on the wall but I forget because I’m ruminating constantly and my mind likes to play tricks on me. I was also in a rush today for work so that’s triggered the thoughts more. I put more sunscreen on my face to camouflage the pimple patch/ pimple. I’m scared that I contaminated my face . I even looked it up on gpt (which is another compulsion.) it was basically saying the percentage was extremely low. It’s like the answers right there but my mind won’t believe it. And I know you shouldn’t trust everything on google. Too lazy to edit, but a small part I left out was that after touching that part of the towel where I thought is contaminated …. I rolled that part on the floor and broke it off. But then continued to still roll it because the part I touched , had touched the other pieces too. I don’t know if that makes sense. So when I finally had that “just right feeling.” I put the paper towel down , washed my hands again but my hands weren’t as soapy bc it still had the tinted sunscreen on them. Washed my hands more and just got fed up and dried my hands off with the paper towel I still feel is contaminated. Ugh😞. I’ll be honest too after having the wart on my foot, I cleaned the shower in itty bitty sections. I think cleaning the whole thing at once had me overwhelmed and especially the early stages after my wart was gone I didn’t want to clean bc I was nervous I would catch another one. I had used so much Clorox to wipe down where my foot had touched the ground on the shower floor. I don’t think I wiped down the outer perimeter but I’ve recently just sprayed Lysol on the floor . I could be better at cleaning my shower more but it is what it is right now.