My friends with contamination OCD, how have you been handling COVID? My bf has COCD and has since been vaccinated and still wears masks in stores and won’t go in to restaurants. He sits in the passenger seat and still wears his mask when we pick up food. How have you guys been coping with this?

I have contamination OCD but for some reason Covid never bugged me. Maybe it’s because I got it really early on. Then again my fears are mostly the it will kill you kind and Covid isn’t serious for someone of my age and health. I think encouraging him to try an exposure evey day. Don’t wear a mask in the drive through and then not doing any compulsions. It’s super difficult and I get it cause Covid does exist but I’m sure he wants to get back to a semi normal.

i felt this way up until a couple of months ago and it was really hard to even go to the store without feeling contaminated. i think that it will most likely take time and that taking every precaution is just a way of making sure that they are ok. it will most likely take time to adjust, i hope that this helped!!

He will. It’s super hard. But if you support him and especially look out for the ocd presenting in new ways. Because that’s what it does when you fight it. Make sure he knows how proud and excited you are that he went the the parade! As someone with that type of ocd I can tell you that was probably really hard. He’s also lucky to have someone who cares enough to reach out to other ppl with ocd for support.

During the first couple months of covid, it was hard. Everything felt like a potential biohazard and I wanted to burn my clothes every time I came home from a store. And we wiped down all our groceries before putting them away. I also hated even breathing when someone walked past me in public. The frenzied feeling calmed down after that, though.

That makes sense. My bf is young and has relatively good health but has a lot of people with health issues in his family. I think since covid is still so “new” AKA there’s still not a lot of research and stuff he’s still careful. He feels that people kind of pulled off the resrictions a little to quickly after the vaccine came out. He’s definitely better since the vaccine, and he did stand outside at a parade yesterday without a mask, while standing away from me at people, but still. 🤷‍♀️ I think you both are probably right. Between time and maybe some contact exposer he’ll get there.