- Date posted
- 6y
- Date posted
- 6y
Im the same, i have emetophobia (phobia of sick and being sick) and If I’m out In public and there’s sick on the pavement I have the exact same reaction it’s very difficult. You must remind yourself there’s no possible was it could have physically touched you. You were close to it but you did not touch it.
- Date posted
- 6y
Public bathrooms are like trigger central to me.
- Date posted
- 6y
Can you do some scripting with your therapist? At the IOCDF they do a group exercise for contamination fears where they go dumpster diving and stuff. Huge community around this kind of OCD.
- Date posted
- 6y
I think it’s helpful to recognize that there is a rational and ordinary concern here. Blood borne pathogens are a legitimate concern. You wouldn’t want to go touch it to create an exposure. But the catastrophizing is the OCD. So once you follow basic mall employee protocol for calling the custodian of whatever, fighting OCD will mean trusting that the protocol is sufficient and doing exposures about “what if the standard cleanup protocol isn’t enough to protect me.” Push into that fear of what might happen if you weren’t adequately protected from blood borne pathogens. What might happen? And then what? And THEN what? Most of this will be mental scripting to be able accept the possibility of whatever lies at the end of the “and then what?” chain of hypothetical events. You can work on this even while being waitlisted for a therapist bc a bunch of the OCD workbooks have instructions on how to do “what if?” scripting. Hang in there, you’re going to push through this and be all the stronger for it!!
- Date posted
- 6y
*custodian or whatever
- Date posted
- 6y
No possible way*
- Date posted
- 6y
Thanks all. It’s so hard as I work at the mall and have to use public bathroom daily. Most of the time it’s moderately clean but being trained to look for the contaminants and triggering days like today really set me back a ton.
- Date posted
- 6y
Tryingso hard to deal with the discomfort. I’m not wiping my shoe as much as it’s the easy way out
- Date posted
- 6y
I’m still waitlisted for a therapist. I think dumpster diving or any other conventional dirt won’t gross me out so long as it’s not public bathroom or bodily fluid in a bathroom which is my trigger. I know it’s not rational but I can touch a trash can and be ok washing my hands once but the sight of a dirty public bathroom is enough to trigger me.
- Date posted
- 6y
Thanks so much. I didn’t even know about what if scripting and I’m looking into this now! Very helpful. As for the custodian sadly ours is actually very below standard and I’ve already complained but they have done nothing. For example, the custodian doesn’t use cleaning materials. She wipes the bathroom with a rag wet with water and no cleaning solutions. She also just empties the trash and leaves. She cleans a long bathroom with 8 stalls in under 3 minutes since it’s very bare min.
- Date posted
- 6y
You’re welcome! As for the custodian, I see a legitimate concern and it sounds like grounds for contacting OSHA. https://www.osha.gov/workers/file_complaint.html
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- Date posted
- 24w
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- Date posted
- 21w
(long read ahead, sorry lol) I’ve struggled with ocd for as far back as I can remember. I find that it gets worse with stress, and recently I’ve really been struggling with the contamination aspect of my ocd. I’m worried about it becoming unmanageable and negatively affecting my relationship with my partner. I’ve been living with my boyfriend since January (got kicked out of my house a week after I turned 18, it’s for the better though my house is toxic as hell) and I love living with him, but him and his family aren’t as concerned with cleaning as I am used to. My boyfriend and I have been together going on 2 years and there’s been many times throughout our relationship that his struggle with depression severely impacted his ability to keep up with cleaning his room. This is something I completely understand because I’ve struggled with it too so i’ve often helped him clean, and since i’ve moved in he’s done so much better at keeping up with cleaning (especially because he knows about my issues with clutter, mess, germs, etc.) He is really good at being accommodating towards my needs (not overly so, i’m aware that recovering includes accepting being uncomfortable), but it’s so hard for me to differentiate between what is the normal standard for cleanliness and hygiene and what’s excessive and unhealthy. I get so stressed out every single day over the thought of how dirty everything is. He has 3 cats that mainly stay in his room (he has a catio attached to his window/side of the house) and dogs which stay on the opposite side of the house and backyard, so there is fur everywhere constantly (i’m also allergic to cats but it’s not severe). I can’t stop thinking about how they are getting germs from their litter box all over everything. They also used to piss under his bed and in his closet when his room used to be a mess and it’s soaked into the floor so no matter what it stinks. It’s so hard to bring myself to walk around the house without slippers because my feet will get visibly dirty and my socks would get covered in hair. I always think about how my boyfriend sometimes walks on the rugs in the bathroom in shoes and all the germs that spreads. There’s so many more things but this is already getting long and I am shaking just thinking about how unclean everything is. I want to deep clean the entire house myself so I can get it to where It’s not like psychological torture everyday and it’s easier to maintain but I have been so busy I don’t have the time. I am worried about my boyfriend thinking I don’t like living with him or that I think that’s he’s dirty but i don’t. We have had several conversations about this and he’s reassured me that he knows none of my obsessive thoughts are personal but I still feel so bad about it. I would like to get therapy to help work through this but currently that is not an option for me. I know things will get better once I get through the main things in my life that are causing a lot of stress and therefore making my ocd flair up, but I need advice on what to do in the mean time. I keep having moments where all I can do is shake and cry and clean and I feel bad for my poor boyfriend who can only sit next to me and try to comfort me or help me clean. I also don’t want to make him worried that nothing he does is enough for me (i’ve also already talked to him about this and told him about how I can never even be clean enough for myself and that I don’t think he’s dirty). There’s been many times where I want to tell him to do things that I think might be my own unhealthy compulsions (ex. not wearing shoes in the house or in our room, not getting into bed with socks on, making sure to completely dry off before getting out the shower, put makeup and jewelry back where they belong right after using them, etc.) but i can’t tell if they’re reasonable or not and i try to not tell him unless it’s something that severely distresses me. I’m aware that everything is going to have germs no matter what and have been using NER’s to help manage my thought spirals/rumination. I know that I shouldn’t keep doing compulsions because it just offers temporary relief and makes the problem worse because nothing will ever be enough. I just feeling so overwhelmed and hopeless and exhausted and want some feedback.
- Date posted
- 18w
sorry this is super long i just wanna know if anyone else has been thru something similar bc i feel super alone 🩷 i have super bad contamination ocd. it was bad already but my house was like my safe space until a few months ago someone brought something into my house that i considered ‘contaminated’. and so then i felt like that part of the house was contaminated, then it spread to everything outside my room (since family is moving around touching stuff) and then somehow i got convinced everything in my room except my bed is contaminated and i need to wash my hands after touching it. in my mind its like the contamination just infinitely spreads to things after the tiniest bit of touch. idek what im afraid of anymore or even what the original thing was but i can’t let it go. when i have to wash off contamination i have to wash at least 4 times or until it feels right, or sometimes take rlly long showers and wipe down all my stuff. i even throw away food and clothes or just whole items sometimes because they feel so contaminated i don’t want them in my space. i can’t be super near people or have anyone touch me, and i also can’t bring anything new into my room since it had to go through the entry of my house which feels contaminated. i feel like all i do is lay in bed and then wash my hands and do compulsions so i can go eat or do other stuff around the house. also i never go out because i’m bc people outside make me feel dirty, and i hate thinking about how many people have touched stuff in stores or in public and stuff. so im just in my room worrying all day. i feel so trapped and the contamination/avoiding it is all i think about anymore i barely have time for anything else and im never present when i talk to people because im worrying about if i accidentally got contaminated. im starting erp next week and knowing that im going to have to expose myself to things is really freaking me out. does anyone else have this kind of ocd ? im exhaustedddd 🥲🥲💔
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