- Date posted
- 4y ago
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Hi. I never post anything online but your situation is exactly like mine and I wanted to show you’re not alone. I’m older now but it began with a girl I thought to be “icky” in middle school. The thoughts have attached to a few different people throughout the years, and each time the previous person will no longer bother me. Just like you, I felt appalled at myself that I would have these issues with people, and just like you, anyone unkempt looking could raise my obsessive thoughts to some degree. I’m not an expert but it seems to me “emotional” OCD is fear you will take on attributes of the person you have an issue with. This doesn’t seem to be the case with me. However there is a difference between disease contamination and disgust contamination where it’s simply the feeling that seems unbearable. I used to call it the “essence” until I realized “disgust” is actually a term used in the field. So maybe that’s the case with you as well. In any case, treatment is the same. I’ve had success with ERP. However it took a while to find someone who specialized in OCD and anxiety disorders that could really help, and medicine can take the edge off to allow you to tackle the exposures. I’ve had setbacks but I blame that on my own carelessness. Again, a person trained for OCD specifically can do wonders.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Welcome 😊 what you're describing reminds me of "emotional contamination". Here's an article about it. https://iocdf.org/expert-opinions/emotional-contamination/#:~:text=Emotional%20contamination%20is%20a%20lesser,somehow%20contaminate%20and%20endanger%20him. What similarities and differences do you notice between what's talked about in the article and what you're experiencing?
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Hi there Yes I have actually read this article before and I do notice the similarities for sure, although I know this imaginary contamination will not cause harm to me I can’t stand the thought of contaminating my space / stuff with it , I just don’t manage to see past it and it all seems so real to me , she was just a unattractive kid at my school I don’t understand why I’m so fixated on it
- Date posted
- 4y ago
There's a disconnect between what you know logically and what you feel
- Date posted
- 4y ago
How can I overcome that tho iv tried exposure therapy etc with no luck yet
- Date posted
- 4y ago
When you've done exposures, have you done response prevention as well?
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Hey mate, thankyou very much for reaching out, for years I have felt very alone and the only one with this type of OCD, our ocd does seem very similar and when I was younger my obsession too would jump from person to person, nowadays it’s fixated on the one unattractive girl who went to my school, and I connect a trail of contamination to her with almost everything it drives me nuts and I feel compelled to do decontamination rituals , I too describe it as essence or presence of that person and like you say the thought of been contaminated by her is unbearable, I have just started to see a new ocd specialist and combined with meds im going to give the erp another good crack , I hope all is going well with you and you are able to beat this OCD
Related posts
- Date posted
- 20w ago
I am starting to come to grips with intrusive thoughts, reading how your brain will think of the worst thing / or make you think of something that really distresses you. BUT, I’ve got something I need to get off my chest, not looking for reassurance but just to know I’m not alone I guess? I remember one time, I saw a girl I follow on Instagram go on a marathon, and then went straight out for dinner after without showering and I had the passing thought of, gosh she must smell, even worse, she must smell down there. That has got to be the worst intrusive thought EVER, and because it affected me so much, I have the urge to think of this horrible horrible thought most times I look at people. Wondering if they smell!!!! It’s disgusting!!!! :( I don’t know if this is because I also have contamination ocd and I do obsess about feeling and being clean.
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- Date posted
- 16w ago
I don't know what to do, my hands have become so numb and bruised because of constant washing hands, i have started hating each and every furniture around me, beacuse i feel they are not clean although they are being cleaned regularly but i cannot stop these thoughts. I clean my phone, bluetooth, charger with wet wipes each day, i don't touch any object around me, i am not being able to focus on my studies or anything else because of my ocd ihave stopped going out, everyone around me is so fed up of me. I have consulted so many therapists and been taking ayurvedic supplements too but nothing works. It is getting worse and worse, please if anybody can suggest me how to overcome these thoughts!
- Date posted
- 15w ago
Trying not to seek reassurance, but rather connect the dots on my OCD and possible reasons as to why I am the way I am. I have severe OCD (or at least I hope I do) mainly surrounding POCD. I've had symptoms of OCD the majority of my life but this theme has come up more recently. When I was a kid, and i'm talking 6-7, I was first exposed to some really gross adult content online. It was introduced to me by a friend of mine around the same age of me. I saw some really disgusting things that a 6-7 year old should definitely not see. This was not a one time occurrence, as I had been exposed to taboo topics online years to come after that, such as the same friend introducing me to Omegle... And i'm sure you can imagine how that went, theres a lot of genuinely disgusting human beings on there. Coming back to the reason for making this post; is it possible to early exposure to this content could be one of the reasons I struggle with POCD? It genuinely scares me to death because you hear that real p*dos dealt with simular situations when they were kids, so thats kind of making me feel that this could be more than OCD, and I could be a genuinely bad person. My POCD feels so real, that at times i'm fully convinced its not OCD. Sometimes I can't even distinguish the feelings of attraction between a younger person and an older person, except for the feeling of anxiety and fear. Its really hard to explain without going into detail, but it just feels so real. Some feedback on this would be great, thank you all.
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