ERP homework: wash hands no more than 20 seconds. ... I just washed my hands multiple times. Washed the soap bottle. Cleaned the toilet. Drowned it in disinfectant. Touched my clothes the wrong way. Wanted to change them. Can’t get them off without them touching my whole body and this contaminating my whole body. Decided that meant I needed to shower. And then—I thought of all the “Face your fears” advice and “Sit with the discomfort!” preaching I’ve done on here. SO I am sitting here, unwashed, unchanged, contaminating my chair, for *you guys.* lol. And for me. I appreciate NOCD and the community on here. Thanks for what you do. ❤️

Thanks!! I hope it works out for you!

@Alyosha Thank you very much! Can I ask what other ERP exercises/"homework" you've been doing? It sounds like we have similar situations. How long have you been doing ERP for, and have you noticed things change for the better? Sorry for the questions! I'm just so anxious about all of this

@ans87 Ask anything you want! It’s mostly my own bodily fluids that bother. I worry about contaminating other people. So mostly it’s just trying not to shower, clean, change clothes, going ahead and sitting on others’ furniture and use their bathrooms. I had a compulsion where I had to clean people’s toilets if I was at their house and used their bathroom. I haven’t done that in about a month. I’ve tried to go ahead and give contaminated stuff to people, even though I’m worried about defining them. So, I returned a contaminated book to the library (it touched something that touched something that touched something that maybe touched bodily fluid lol). My mind really wants me to get stuck on how my clothes get contaminated after I use the bathroom (because you have to you know pull up your pants and stuff ?). I’m trying hard not to avoid or wash or (and this is probably the hardest) ruminate. I still struggle with stuff in my home that’s contaminated that I don’t know how to clean. My brother-in-law sat on a contaminated stool here at my home yesterday lol, so that was some good accidental ERP lol. Anyway. I’ve been doing ERP officially for three weeks, but it began before that. What are your ideas about exposures?? What are your obsessions, fears, compulsions?

@Alyosha One thing I noticed: these contamination exposures drag on over days. Cuz your brain wants to keep a list of all the stuff that got contaminated when you refused to ritualize and wash your hands. Endless fun lol. But! It really has helped.

@Alyosha Thank you for your reply! I feel the same way about clothing and using the bathroom. I put on clean clothes and then touch them after using the bathroom...it definitely bothers me a ton. For me, if something touches me, I feel like the germs are going through my clothes onto my body so I have to wash excessively. It's also just touching things in general that are my triggers. I have to wash my hands extensively before I shower and then I have to use the soap to wash my hands repeatedly while I'm in there. So it's a lot of cleaning and washing to an extreme degree. I'm concerned when I start doing exposures that I'm going to have to touch things that pose actual threats and I could end up getting sick from and passing it on to someone else.

@Alyosha Yes that happens alllll the time. I'm still fixated on something from three weeks ago at this point. It's exhausting

@ans87 Thanks for sharing! Have you been able to see a therapist ever? What do you suppose is one of the least-scary compulsions you could try to stop doing, just to start out with? Like for me, I could wait to wash my feet after feeling contaminated (because maybe the floor got bodily fluid on it and my feet touched the floor), and then not cleaning where my feet had gone in the time I waited to wash them. I mean, it still pings my anxiety and makes me want to avoid, but it’s bearable. You have anything like that you could start out with?

Yay!!

**doing lol

@wellwellwell Thanks for your support ☺️