Anyone else with emotional contamination?

Its hard to explain but I will try my best. Where you dont won't to go to a place where someone a person place or thing that bothers you may have been. You could look it up and it would explain it better to you but its called emotional contamination OCD. The OCD website has some info on it. Hope that helped some

This was my biggest issue actually. My therapist called it "Creative associations". It ruled my life. I was so scared of associating something I loved with domething that I hated, that I started avoiding the thing I loved because I was scared I they'd get "contaminated".

What is that?

I think I defiantly have dealt with and deal with aspects of this!

Yaaaassss!!!

Ohh okay so there are others. Lucius so in your opinion was therapy hard to do for the "Creative Associations"? I have trouble doing the erp for this part.

Kinda yes. What worked for me was putting the triggers (names for example) on cards and shuffling them with cards that had the name of the thing I wanted to "preserve". Then you just pick random cards and repeat until you get "used" to it ifbthat makes sense. It was really hard but in the end forcing myself to do the things I didn't want to contaminate while forcing myself to think about the triggers took away the power of the triggers.

Were you ever scared of becoming contaminated yourself? Sorry so many questions I'm just trying to figure out the best approach to this. I don't really have much help near me for OCD so I only get to see my therapist every so often and I'm kind of trying to figure it out in between sessions.

Don't worry about it! In my case no, it was all about ruining the things I loved. I was actually in a really similar situation when I found out about mental contamination. It took almost 2 years before I got real ERP for it. But once I started really challenging it, it didn't really take that long to get past those thoughts. It was miserable at first but once you get the ball rolling it becomes much easier.

Thank you so much for the advice. It really helps to hear your story. Not in a reassurance way but I was just curious how therapy worked for this part of OCD

I'm glad I could help. It's not really common and it's hard to talk about.

I know that's what's so hard. It is hard to talk about. My therapist knew it was emotional contamination and I know she can help me get the right help I just don't get to go as near as much as I would like to.

Its just hard work and I know I have to do it. I just don't have the nerve to go against what I feel keeps everyone around me safe. Uhh this condition sucks!

It definetly is really hard work and it was super scary for me when I started but it gets much easier once you get past the initial anxiety.

Any other suggestions on this topic from anyone else?