My town is doing Mandatory waer meter replacements. Where I live water meters are in the basement of the house. We are entering a second wave of covid and I'm going to have to allow two strangers into my house, who have also been in every other house in town? With their dirty shoes that have touched every other floor? And breathing on my house after being exposed to everyone else?? No. No. No. No. I haven't even let my mother and father in my house. What the hell am I supposed to do? This will break me for sure.

My mom is visiting me and we have been sharing my studio apartment for about 10 days. I was already struggling with this because I have a hard time sharing my space with people—I like things to be clean and orderly and I hate not having total control over these things. She got sick with what we thought was a cold and I was getting very stressed/irritated with her coughing and sneezing in the apartment, even though I obviously know that it’s not her fault. Her illness got progressively worse (probably the flu), so she decided to get a hotel for her last night. I am alone in my apartment, which I am grateful for, and I cleaned everything down with Lysol, but I still feel as though my apartment is contaminated and I just feel grossed out and stressed. I felt fine earlier before I realized it is most likely the flu, but now I am starting to feel congested and I can’t tell whether it is real or just my paranoia

my roommates are great people and very supportive, but they don’t understand ocd. they try to fix me by telling me things i’ve heard a million times before, and by doing things that actively trigger me as a kind of exposure therapy. i’m very particular about contaminants in my water, but i have a specific aversion to tap water, which is why i have my own water dispenser. every few weeks, i fill jugs with filtered water and keep them upstairs so others can use them too. after getting home from work, i filled my cup with ice water and, for once, didn’t inspect it like i normally would. i drank it down. when i went for a refill, the ice had melted a bit and i noticed particulates floating in the water, instantly recognizable as calcium and other minerals from our tap. i don’t explode when i’m triggered. instead, i shut down. the anxiety starts to crawl in. i felt myself spiraling while i pulled out the jug. i know it sounds stupid, but i swear there’s a real difference in smell between filtered and tap water. i checked it, sniffed it, and confirmed what i already felt. and once that thought was in my head, it took hold. i felt disgusting. i wanted to make myself puke. i couldn’t tell if it was anxiety or the water itself, but it felt like something was burning a hole in my stomach. i sent a message in our group chat asking about it, and one of my roommates said they had done it to prove i wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. they said water is water, so i shouldn’t care. i know they meant well. but when people who don’t fully understand ocd try to force those kinds of steps on you, it sticks. it reminds me of my parents. they do things like this a lot, pushing back against my compulsions, trying to help by challenging them. and sometimes, i do appreciate that. but this felt like too much. it crossed a line. and i just needed to rant.

Looking for help coping with contamination OCD, bugs, and water damage. Bugs in my home are my number one trigger, and I am living in a historic (75 year old) house for the first time with a shitty landlord who does not carry out repairs in a timely manner. We had a really big leak from a broken toilet in the house recently (inches of standing water both upstairs and downstairs) and maintenance didn't get here for a whole day. Cleaning up the water by myself and dealing with all the accompanying thoughts and worries was incredibly taxing. They cut holes in ceiling downstairs and put in a giant dehumidifier, which for a couple days, made the house (and my brain) feel SO much better. But the dehumidifiers generate so much heat that I think we're honestly worse off now. I have also begun finding smokey brown cockroach nymphs in the house, including two today. Cockroaches are my number one most feared bug. I am really scared to find bugs in my home because that tells me that my home is unsafe and I cannot relax there. I check every room many times in a specific manner to see if there are bugs. I am bound to find something with how excessively I am checking. I do not want to see a bug in my house at all, but in a kind of twisted, subconcious way, I *do* want to see a bug, because it would confirm my fears and anxieties and validate my obsessions and compulsions. I am just so tired, and I feel hopeless. I do not know how to relax. No amount of weed or drinking or sleep can quell the way I feel. I can't afford ERP or anything specific but I am on a few waitlists. I wish I could be someone that understands roaches and bugs are an inevitable part of life, and I wish they did not cause such a visceral reaction for me. It does not help that my roommates are not home often and do not see these things as a very big deal. They are very go with the flow, whatever happens happens kind of people, and it frustrates me. Thank you for reading this.