New to the group! I’m 38 and have had OCD since I was 8 (officially diagnosed at 34). My OCD used to revolve around order and cleaning. In the last year it developed into a chronic series of intrusive thoughts centered around parasites. Lice, bed bugs, fleas....you know it. I’m constantly checking beds, hair any surface. I’m now on my umpteenth attempt with medication and cognitive behavioral therapy. I feel like I’m the only person with these irrational sets of intrusive thoughts. It’s embarrassing and isolating. Anyone here who has a similar fear or focused fear that triggers their ocd?

Welcome to the group :) I’m sure you aren’t the only person struggling with OCD with that same obsession. But either way, we here are all struggling with the same disorder, just different forms of it. So even if there isn’t anyone here with the same exact obsession as you we can still understand what you’re going through and won’t judge!

I am also extremely afraid of lice and bed bugs! You aren’t alone!

There are others in this community with that exact same fear!

It’s nice to know at least I’m not the only one. Some days it’s like my compulsions completely take over and I’m checking and rechecking beds and my hair etc even though my rational brain is telling me to stop, there’s always that one “what if” thought that tortured me.

Yeah, I can’t tell you how much money I wasted buying lice elimination stuff and how much I treated my hair and washed all my clothes and sheets. Every single time my head itches even a little bit my ocd is triggered. I wonder how anyone ever buys a hat or lays down on a bed in a store. I also have a really intense fear of coming into contact with poison ivy oil and getting a really severe rash. I have yet to meet someone else with that problem ☹️

I have that as well. I cannot go near anything with leaves like plants growing out of the ground even if I know they aren’t poison ivy because in my head I keep thinking it may not be poison ivy but that doesn’t mean an animal hasn’t brushed up against poison ivy and then up against the same plant. And I’m the same way with lice as well. If I get the thought in my head I’ll use a flea comb through my hair for weeks until the thought subsided and I hate trying clothes on because I feel like the person before me could have had head lice.

Oh man I am the same way. I can’t even pet my parents’ dog or cat anymore because I’m so afraid they have gotten poison ivy oil in them. I’m also afraid to touch the outside of my car because I worry that I could’ve driven some poison ivy plants and that the plants grazed my car. I don’t like trying on clothes either, and I am pretty afraid of the seats in movie theaters because I know a lot of people get lice that way.