I'm very far into recovery from my severe OCD. I've been going to therapy for seven years now, since I was in middle school. I can pretty much function normally in everyday life now, which I'm very proud of. The reason I decided to join the NOCD community now is that the coronavirus epidemic is reenforcing many of my compulsions. I have contamination OCD, but it's not about getting sick, it's purely about not being clean. So normally, if I go out and touch something that other people have touched, I feel the intense need to wash my hands or sanitize. Usually this is very noticeable to other people as unusual behavior, but now I can sanitize as much as I want without anyone questioning me. Usually I do not like to bring things that have been outside the house inside the house without wiping it down with an alcohol wipe or washing it in some way; usually this appears unusual to everyone else, but now this is normal. I am using the coronavirus as an excuse to indulge in my compulsions, and I don't know if I'll be able to stop when the epidemic is over. How can I continue my road to recovery in this challenging time?

You seem very self aware. I think the best thing to do is something our advocate Katie says sometimes: when in doubt, act normal. Stick to the health guidelines where you live and don't do more than they ask you to. As they change and perhaps ease off, reduce how much you do along with them. I'm sure you'll be able to. If you want to make sure that you're not indulging your OCD and it's also logistically possible, I would recommend only doing cleaning tasks which have been compulsions for you and are now recommended, at times when you don't actually have the compulsion to do it. Only washing/sanitising the recommended amount and after sitting with the anxiety of not acting on a compulsion to do it. If it's hard to guess when it's smart/non-compulsive to go ahead and wash/sanitize, you could try setting alarms throughout the day. Find out how many times your health authorities recommend washing or sanitising hands in a day and set that number of evenly spaced alarms which you should stick to. I can also tell you I live in an area of the UK with a whole lot of cases and nobody here wipes down objects we bring home unless we know that other people have handled it recently. We have been told only to sanitize our hands after we get home from daily exercise and not to touch our face before we do, we haven't been told to sanitize all the time. Try going by the guidelines, not by what other people seem to be doing!

I personally don’t have the theme of contamination but my mom does so I’m pretty familiar with it. It’s hard to say bc I’m these times I believe we need to take precautions to prevent the virus. Now some of these things we need to do now may have once been compulsions for you. I believe as long as you only continue to do these things as a precautionary measure and not bc u feel u are being compelled to then u aren’t using it as an excuse to engage in compulsive behavior. However if you find that you are doing these things in response to your anxiety as an attempt to make it go away, then I would say yes you are falling back into old compulsions and behavior. I know personally I do this too sometimes. It’s really tough to stop those old habits.

Welcome ? you're being proactive about staying well. That's a big strength