//mention of possible contamination ocd and not eating regularly warning this is a huge post lol i tried to resist posting something on this app but ive bottled up too many things for far too long 😭😭🤠🤠 so uh i dont really know if i have some form of contamination ocd or not. i keep seeing stuff about erp and avoiding reassurance and stuff but i dont really know what else im supposed to do to fight off the Bad Thoughts ™ i feel like i dont have the willpower to expose myself to my fears on purpose right now. and im not currently in therapy and i dont know if we even have the money for that right now im feeling really anxious lately and i dont really leave my room or eat and drink often anymore because im scared of contamination. im not really worried about getting sick though i just dont like touching or being near gross things. im typing this post in anguish because i left my bedroom to find that there was cat poop on the floor in the living room and i feel like i need to shower even though i didnt touch it or anything, i just didnt shower and went to bed to type this so im wondering if my bed is contaminated now. im also slightly worried about the food i ate since it was in the living room for a short time. Eating food that was delivered to our house makes me nervous because i haven’t found out how to clean our patio/ front door area off so i can feel comfortable again. I feel the need to clean that area because we live in an apartment so thats where the cats nasty litter box gets cleaned out and uh yeah ew. ive tried cleaning up the cats litter box in the past at least once a day but i usually had trouble maintaining that because of my fear of germs combined with not scheduling my day properly. when we got the cat we agreed that me and my twin sister wouldnt clean the litter box because that stuff grosses us out too much, but everyone stopped cleaning it regularly and only emptied it out once a month and it started driving me crazy so i tried to clean it but yeah that didnt really work out. I feel like i cant really live with pets at this point in my life, like i cant even touch the cat and i sanitize everything that the cat touches because i cant remember the last time she was bathed, and i dont think i have it in me to bathe her myself. Getting rid if the pets is out if the question though and also i would be very sad if that happened, i still love them even if i cant really hang out with them these days. My mom also has kind of become a walking contamination ocd trigger for me, so i dont want to touch anything she touches if i can avoid it, which is a huge problem considering we live in the same house and she touches pretty much everything as one tends to do in their own home. I feel like im starting to be too controlling of my sisters and mom because of the contamination fears, but i dont know how to stop. i dont have my own money so i have to rely on my mom if i want to pay for therapy or something, but i have a feeling that wont really turn out well since theres so many other expenses we are behind on. at this point i dont really know how to function like a normal human being, much less clean up after pets and stuff. im stuck in my house all of the time so that makes it even worse, although i did recently apply for a job. I want to move out really badly and i feel like thats the only way to really solve my problems, but i am extremely broke, and theres also the problem of having no idea how to pay for college. if i were to move out id probably want to throw out as many belongings as possible because they would be associated with how disgusting my current living situation is. i had something similar to this before, but it wasnt as bad as it is now. I started having fears like this when i lived with my dad every 2 weeks. After my dad forced me to do something i was uncomfortable with, i started thinking differently and started washing my hands more, as well as associating thoughts with the distressing event. I was able to recover after we stopped living with him and I was fine for a while, and i started doing more chores and stuff and my mom was pleased with me, but i feel like i relapsed into that past mindset in a way and now every day feels like a struggle and i dont really do much anymore other than laying in my bed. honestly this is more of a vent post than anything else, i dont know what im expecting for this post, sorry for the atrocious grammar. i realize this turned into an essay that kind if goes all over the place and is probably hard to keep up with lol sorry about that

This is ruining every part of my life. The carpet on my staircase is old and pretty dirty, and there's dried mud on it. There's brown bits, which I'm convinced is cat poop and there's a good chance it could be because there have been multiple times my cat has had it stuck to her after going in the litter tray. It's impossible to clean so I don't try, and my parents don't probably because they don't see it's dirty and because it's such an old worn out thing anyway. So I wear slippers everywhere except my bedroom. Only, the other day I stepped somewhere contaminated in socks and then put my slippers back on, so now they're contaminated on the inside which defeats the whole point. So now, if I want to get into bed, I have to take my slippers off outside my door, and my socks, and I have to put new socks on, but if I do that I have to wash my hands again. Which means going to the bathroom. Which means putting the slippers on. Which means I'm contaminated again. I feel so sick and I want to cry. There are so many not hygienic things in my house, and it makes living with this so much harder. I tell myself that what I'm going through are compulsions and intrusive thoughts and obsessions but how can that be true if there's a very real chance the brown on my staircase is cat poop? How can it be true when it's my own fault because I'm too lazy to clean it and I'm too lazy to try fixing the issue when there are so many things stopping me and there are so many things not hygienic about the house. I want to cry, it's too much. I can't tell myself I'm being irrational when I'm being rational. I just can't keep doing this. I want to lay in bed until I feel better but I never feel better. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow about my ocd symptoms and thoughts but what am I meant to say? My house is a state and covered in mud on the carpet, and it sends me into multiple mental breakdowns a week? A day? Surely that's not ocd but instead is perfectly rational? I can't cope with any of this anymore, I want so badly to live in hygiene and cleanliness. It doesn't matter how hard I try, I'm never clean. I will never be clean. And I keep trying to tell myself that even if it's cat poop, it's not the end of the world. But I feel so ashamed. I feel dirty. I just want all of this to stop being so difficult.

(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.

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 🥲🥲💔