*not seeking reassurance* just wondering if anyone can relate... my contamination OCD has many things throughout my house that I avoid, but I find myself THINKING I touched them when I walk by them or got too close. Does anyone else experience this? And how do you handle it? Because the “WHAT IFS” have been kicking my ass lately! I just want to enjoy my life and stop walking on eggshells everywhere! Even in public! A 15 minute target run turns into an hour because I have to avoid walking to close to others or if a kid runs to close to me I have to put everything back and get a different one of each because my OCD tells me then I’m taking these “germs” home with me...

This is a repost, only because the last post had no responses lol. Please if you have any advice share. I’ve been trying hard to sit with the feeling of anxiety. Actually that’s the problem, recently I’ve been trying to sit with the thought (and I’m able to for a few hours or until the next morning) and then my anxiety comes back so strong and it’s like I need to clean everything off. I see images of gross laundry getting on everything or my hand and then I need to clean everything off to un contaminate it. Sometimes the thought happens later at night so I just sleep through and the next morning I will wake up with intense anxiety about contamination. That happened yesterday and I had to clean everything off and since then I’ve been traumatized so I’ve been doing compulsions like avoiding the bathroom and being around people so I know I couldn’t have done anything wrong. Actually recently my biggest compulsion has been recording every time I get up to go eat, etc so that I know I couldn’t have done anything. Any advice or help???

I did an exposure today. More accidental than purposeful, but that's pretty much how it always is for me 😬 So basically, I had to touch some dirty shoes in order to put them on (or at least dirty in my mind), that I had previously trudged through garbage & used syringes with about a yr ago, like I'm talking a "landfill-level" hoarded house - around June of last year if I remember correctly (me and one other person were cleaning that hoarded room for a payment $100 each, which was originally gonna be $25 but the owner eventually realized/admitted that the conditions were just too awful to be cheap about it. Anyways, I didn't realize just how gross it would be till I got there - bcuz the one-time job advertisement didn't exactly mention the severity, only that it would be an organizing of boxes, so I didn't know just how triggering it was going to be for my OCD. It was unspecified. And at one point I got so nauseated that I had to step outside and I was gagging over the lawn). But ya, I don't think I've used these particular shoes since, not once, and this being literally a year later. I also don't remember ever washing them, just sort of stuffing them to the back of the shoe rack, bcuz when it comes to OCD... "ignorance is bliss" or whatever 😂, avoidance, out of sight out of mind... etc. Well, I chose to take a risk and wear them this morning bcuz they went with my outfit, and I planned to wash my hands when I got home anyway. BUT, what completely slipped my mind is that it was quite windy outside, which meant I was constantly brushing my long hair out of my face, u know... away from my eyes so I could see where I was going 😒, with my now "perceived-to-be-dirty" hands, AND -- i wore some of that dreaded lip balm of which I would normally be grateful for to prevent an equally dreadful case of dry lips, so my hair was also "sticking" to said lips, meaning I was having to move my hair off of my mouth like every 5 minutes - yes, very annoying. And all of this for a yard sale, was it worth it? 😅. Well perhaps, cuz I did buy something. Anyways, I was lightly grazing my face & mouth, not that lightly was gonna help, therefore, even though I did wash my hands upon my return, the transfer of germs would have already happened imo I'm at a point now where I'm basically just telling myself "if I get sick, i get sick" 🤷‍♀️ Cuz there's no compulsion, at least none I can think of, that could possibly undo the potential damage that's already been done (and I'm not asking for ideas LOL) If heaven forbid this does result in sickness, I'll just have to act accordingly by going to the doctors, ppl do it every day... Obviously if I become ill, that will ultimately suck, but like I said, it happens to ppl every day. It's not unheard of * If u guys think I'm in any actual danger - that I've taken on some sort of poison - then sure, tell me, but otherwise I think it's fine * And I feel like what I said before still applies, that if I've taken on board a poison, and start showing symptoms like involuntary/uncontrollable tremoring or something, then unfortunately I'll just have to go to the hospital (of which my city's hospital definitely isn't the best, extensive waits, but ik I'm just spiralling down the rabbit hole now)... this is what ppl do when they're poisoned, no? Go to the hospital? ✅ I'd be lying if I said I wasn't still feeling a little uneasy, but I keep reminding myself of how much time has passed. And most importantly, these converse shoes, even though they were pushed to the back, were still in contact/often touched by my OTHER pairs of shoes in the front. So the cross-contamination has likely already been happening throughout the whole year when wearing my alternative shoes, without my OCD alerting me to it, and without any ailment to me Feeling hopeful 🙏 🙌

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!