- Date posted
- 6y
- Date posted
- 6y
If it makes you feel any better, I used to wash my hands and arms until they were so raw they were bleeding. I’d wash several times each wash, throughout the day. I even at times used bleach wipes. Now I only wash when I need to, once but thoroughly (I’ll sing the happy birthday song twice and I just let it be). It may help to ask someone who doesn’t have OCD when they wash their hands. Usually after using the bathroom and taking out garbages but ask so you can try to limit washing for when you do those things. As for how I got over it, my therapist made me touch things that I thought were contaminated and waited 10-15minutes before I can wash -once. Sometimes she had me rub my hands all over myself and all over my place so it’s spread enough it’s hard to clean. Also maybe after touching something you think is contaminated, touch your family. I touched my ex who understands my OCD and is very supportive. Seeing him being okay to what I perceived to be danger helped me to realize it’s okay.
- Date posted
- 6y
You’ll get through this. ❤️
- Date posted
- 6y
Wow u have awesome support crazy cat lady
- Date posted
- 6y
I actually took the handles off of my sink so the water couldn't turn on because i was so sick of washing my hands until they hurt, it actually helped! ?
- Date posted
- 6y
Thanks you all so much for the support!
- Date posted
- 6y
@crazy.cat.lady I might try that. It seems so difficult tho? especially touching my family, I don’t want to hurt them?
- Date posted
- 6y
@sof you can do it! My therapist had me eat chocolate off of a toilet seat ?and had me crying ?but I’m not scared as badly as i used to be. Also if it helps, have your family or whomever allows you to touch them to be with you when you touch the contaminated thing. If it helps have them tell you to touch them. And after you do go reward yourself. ?I know you don’t want to hurt them. It sucks how OCD attacks things that we care about the most.
- Date posted
- 6y
@crazy.cat.lady Yh, it’s frustrating?
Related posts
- Date posted
- 14w
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
- Date posted
- 11w
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.
- Date posted
- 11w
Hi everyone, I’ve been spending more and more time at the gym and with that means I’ve been spending more time disinfecting and washing my hands. There are certain numbers I try to “hit” when carrying out tasks like the number 4. When washing my hands I will pump the soap 4 times. But then I think about how the running water + paper towel used adds on +2 pts and so I end up at 6 but I don’t like the number 6. So to combat this I will do 4 steps of 4 actions because I don’t like numbers in relation to 3,6, or 9 ( bc of course washing, rinsing, drying 3 times would not be adequate in my mind). But I’ve gotten to the point where I’ll mess up a sequence of what I’m doing and then try to combat the compulsion I feel in the moment and try to forget the number of actions I’ve just carried out. In my mind doing something “♾️” times is better than knowing I for sure didn’t do enough. (In cases like these I equate ♾️ to an undefined/ unknown #). It’s gotten to the point where I feel like I’m wasting so many resources and a lot of my time too but I still struggle to stop until I feel like everything is fine again. I spray my sanitizer spray 4 times on a paper towel and tell myself that 4 sprays + 1 paper towel is okay because at least 4x1 =4 and 4+1 =5 but it really just drives me mad but because 4-1 =3 I have to combat that with wiping an adequate amount of times.
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