Just here to say don’t give up guys! I used to take about an hour in the bathroom washing my hands repeatedly. After a couple of months of frustration, I reduced it down to 30 mins. That was one of the best feelings I ever had. Fast forward to another couple of months (about 4) I reduced it down to 15-20 mins. Today I tackled the problem of washing my hands to less than 5 mins. I’m still waiting for the anxiety to kick in, I don’t know how I’ll handle it. Keep trudging on and let’s all win this battle! :)

good job!! we are all proud of you, thank you for sharing your story!

It always happens out of frustration usually. It gives me a lot of motivation to expose myself. It had a lot to do with the idea that I don’t want to keep living this way for 40+ years and so eventually I’ll have to expose myself anyways. This isn’t to say that it was easy at all, there were definitely many nights crying leading up to this point. I figure that as long as you are willing to expose yourself even to the smallest thing that scares you, you’d be able to improve and live a better life

I got the exact same Lark. I hate the idea of it. I don’t know how to get rid of it other than accepting the fact that nothing is in our control and I can get contaminated at anytime. I get super frustrated and still am fearful for many things that stop my life from progressing. I found the best way to stop the thoughts is to redirect to something hands on and distract yourself.

You are so right. When I’m running around busy sometimes ocd will convince me that the dirt got to me and I am able to reason it and say no it did not, I don’t have time for you ocd. However, despite always being busy at my job at the mall... there are times when it still haunts me the minute I get back to my uncontaminated bed. That said you make a great point. I am impressed by your progress. Kudos to you!

Thanks! And yeah that’s the stumper! In my mind I can go ahead and think to myself to just do the action that scares me. But the thing that always gets me is that I would get the things that were “clean” contaminated and all I had to do was not expose myself and just keep it that way. That thought always makes it much more harder than it needed to be.

Great job! Did you do this with the help of meds or just CBT or just using the techniques you mentioned?

The challenge is my fear is other bodily fluids and I’m constantly exposed to it. While I know it won’t harm me it still just grosses me out. It’s so hard!!