Hey guys, I've been staying with my parents since March (I'm in my mid 20s) because the virus derailed and paused my grad school plans. I used to struggle with severe contamination ocd, which had eased significantly for a while with medication and therapy, but it has come back full force because of COVID. I think COVID has helped me justify my ocd to myself and left me unable to tell what is considered taking normal precautions and what is excessive and unhealthy. My biggest fear is getting my parents sick. I have not seen anyone besides my parents and doctors (for separate medical reasons) in person since March, and this has deeply impacted my mental health. I want to meet with friends outdoors with masks, but I fear it will cause unbearable anxiety and I won't want to come home, or I'll sit in my room for two weeks wearing a mask and avoiding my parents. I don't know how to stop this feeling, and I see no end in sight until I'm able to move out of my parents' house. Anyone have any solidarity or advice?

As the title says, I’m having a severe breakout while abroad with a friend. It is contamination related and mostly STI related. I am at loss what to do and that ehat I’ve learned I am not able to follow and my intrustive thoughts are going rampant. I am not able tk enjoy my time and I am faking it for my friend. Going back earlier is not an option. What can I do to survive this period? I am not able to distinguish realistic fears from unrealistic ones anymore

i haven’t left my house in a whole month because of contamination OCD and it’s extremely isolating i don’t know what to do anymore i just want to be able to be happy again i feel so alone i just wish i never had this at all sometimes i just think to myself and say why me why me

(Long post warning) Hi, I’ve been struggling with severe OCD for six years now. it started in 2019 with my theme being getting sick/emetophobia. it devastated my life. I almost didn’t graduate high school from it. I remember washing my hands for three hours one day until they were nearly bloody while crying and asking why I could not stop doing it. I remember id have to write and rewrite sentences when I did my English homework and that’s why I nearly failed that class. I remember how I would spend up to thirty minutes to an hour pacing the halls of my apartment while my mom was asleep until I neutralized the thoughts about throwing up and I could finally go to bed. I don’t know when it happened, but my theme switched. Sometimes in late 2020 or early 2021, it switched to POCD. It started with a single thought, and I focused on it and it’s been my theme since then for four years. It has been absolutely destroying me. I feel so disgusted and lost and just tired. My compulsions are severe now. I thought they were bad before, but now they’re ten times worse. I can’t eat, drink, change my clothes, walk, or even do things on my phone normally. I’ve developed so many mental compulsions that it’s so intricate and complicated yet at the same time I’ve done them so much that they’ve become normal. An example I have is if im putting on a shirt and I have a “bad” thought, I have to take it off and put it back on two more times (that’ll make it 3 times I put the shirt back on - odd numbers are my safe number). I have to have a good thought on the third time otherwise I have to take it off and put it on two more times to make it five times I put on that shirt. If not that then I just put on a different shirt because the original is now tainted with my bad thought. I can’t open apps on my phone. It’s with the numbers again. If I open TikTok once while having a bad thought - I have to close it and open it two more times and so on. Sometimes I do it up to 30 times. So I just don’t do things usually. I don’t turn on the TV because I know I’ll redo it. I don’t open a book or grab it off my shelf because I’ll have to repeat the action. I can’t even lay in bed without getting up and redoing it even if im exhausted. I just feel so helpless. I don’t know what to do. I feel disgusting and even now my minds screaming at me that I am dirty and what I think is true. I just wish I was free of this, I wish I could just live my life. I’ve wasted hours and days because of my compulsions. I mask it so well around my friends. I don’t do them in front of anyone or I’ve learned to hide it well. But when im back home alone, it goes haywire. I just want to live again.