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I need help. My current anxiety right now is contamination OCD, my fear of contaminating others and myself. It all started back in February 2020, where I was shopping at Wal Mart. I was walking past the aisle where all the pesticide/herbicide/Roundup are located. Then when I got home, an intrusive thought popped in my head, telling me that I contaminated my clothes and purchased items by pouring it all over myself and my purchase items. I had since thrown them away. Since then over the next several months l I’ve been doing more research on Roundup/glyphosate and its dangers. I then became more anxious over the items I possibly contaminated when my intrusive thoughts told me that I contaminated my belongings, and began throwing them away. I have already thrown away hundreds of dollars worth of books and novels by donating them to a local books store, justifying that I can always repurchase an e book version of them. I also repurchase hundreds dollars of xbox games digitally after my intrusive thoughts told me that the games are contaminated because they made physical contact with the books. Today I was cleaning the carpet with a steam vacuum, and half through the task, I got an intrusive thought telling me that I miss roundup with the water tank, even though there aren’t any in the house. I felt the need to replace my entire carpet in my room. On the same day, I went to Wal mart to buy some new clothes, because the ones that are “contaminated” are sealed in a box getting ready to be donated to a shelter. I was walking down the aisle, to get some clothes hangers, which is across the aisle from the home gardening section which contained all the herbicide/pesticide. Even though I didn’t go to home gardening, I saw the aisle containing the herbicide/pesticide, triggering my anxiety and me into putting the clothes back where they belong. I’m even considering refunding new shoes I bought when I wore it al Wal mart. I’m still distress even when I’m typing this. Long story short, I’m in a rut and I need help. Please.

How to Make OCD Your Bitch I’ve had my ups and downs with OCD, plenty of horrendous days that felt like death but I’ve also had many victories and seasons of joy, love and peace. You may lose a battle every once in a while but OCD is a war you can win. So below I am leaving a few tools, tricks and knowledge I have on how to live the best life possible while having OCD. 1. Accepting the thoughts does not mean you want them to happen: This is a hard concept for people with OCD to understand and it took me a long time to figure this out but let’s say for example you have the thought of “What if I molest this child” or “what if I poisoned that food” by accepting the thought and saying “maybe i do want to molest that child” or “i could’ve poisoned that food” doesn’t mean you actually did or reflect anything about you personally. Remember thoughts are simply just thoughts, they are not behaviors, and not a personal reflection of who you are as a person. 2. Don’t stop the thought, stop the compulsion: So many people with OCD focus on “stopping the thoughts/intrusions” but at the end of the day you are not in control of the thoughts your brain produces however you are in control of your reaction and your compulsions. Instead of resisting the thought focus on resisting the compulsion whether its checking, ruminating, list making, praying, etc... 3. Practice being alone: This one was huge for me, for the longest time possible I always wanted to be distracted, I needed to do something to keep my mind busy and hopefully off of my thoughts and compulsions. However in order to truly find peace you need to learn how to accept yourself, and your own thoughts. Sit still, try maybe five minutes and just let whatever thought you have arise. You may get anxious and you may try to answer the thought or judge it, try your best not to. Be in the mindset of “thoughts can’t cause me harm”, if you find yourself spiraling and your thoughts racing that’s okay, the goal isn’t to get rid of anxiety but rather for you to experience it and understand that you are stronger than it and can manage it. 4. Write out your intrusions: If you start to notice certain thoughts arising more and more, write them out on paper. For me I always struggled with suicide ocd and I used to get mental images of me drinking bleach or hanging myself, however I learned that if I wrote out the images in my head and expressed them on paper it allowed me some freedom from internalizing it and questioning it. Also when you write out these thoughts write out how anxious they made you and describe the sensations, then follow up and write how you felt 10-15mins later as the anxiety starts to unwind a bit. 5. We all have bad days: This is just a truth of life, your treatment will never be perfect, there will be ups and downs. Don’t get discouraged if one day you find yourself compulsing more or if something triggers you more than you would’ve liked. 6. Don’t trust your “feelings”: When I say this I mean if you feel “great” one day don’t get ahead of yourself and act like you are cured and the same goes when you have a day where you feel “down” don’t start obsessing about “how long am I going to feel like this” focus on your functioning, did you get out of bed? Did you go to work/school? Did you perform any hobbies or take any action on your goals? If you are able to perform daily tasks be proud of that even if a little obsessing gets in the way. 7. Believe that you are here for a reason: You are not floating around nilly willy, you have value, you have a purpose. There are things in life that you are supposed to achieve, feel and experience. You may feel like you are in a dark place and sometimes the pain may be irritating but that pain will be replaced have faith!!

I fucked up and asked for reassurance, so it flipped on its head. I asked this,regarding recent events,I also acknowledged my pure o: "Whilst going on my email,I found a horrible chat on my hangouts,I never seemed to have interacted with it or sent anything. I didnt even remember it. it was full of people calling eachother slurs and being racist,and sending in images like nsfw. The ones I can clearly recall were all cartoons,like Wendy (from the fastfood chain),and a few cursed images of gore. A lot of the images are gone because the people in there deleted their accounts so I didn't see everything. Horrified,I deleted it. I didnt report it,I really feel bad for not reporting it, but I was so distressed I just deleted it and was sort of preoccupied with spiraling. I have no way of accessing it or knowing who was there.There was images of a little girls face i remember,I remember looking close just in case for a second and not noticing anything lewd. It was likely somehow edgy or cursed in another way. I cant remember or not,this may be a false memory,but i can't tell if i saw more images of the girls face or just children and just got too scared to inspect them or if thats a product of my ocd,because i just started thinking abt it. It was a groupchat of what was obviously bigoted, scummy teens trying to be edgy,but im still terrified if they went to extents of sending illegal content for ?? I dont know. I guess those gross type of people would think its funny. and i just happened not to notice or have the courage to inspect going through. Im guessing,because i didnt look at the date but most other chats were around this time,I was .15 when I was invited, or 16,which is around the time I stopped checking hangouts or atleast hardly went on in months. I am 18 now and just discovered it,and live in constant fear i sit on a ticking time bomb and don't even realize it. I have tried to find a way to contact google to tell them, but im too scared to call and I cant find if they have a support email,or think of what I would even say. I never sent,or interacted,not even sure if i knew abt it til now,but I worry solely by association or just being there im fucked. My question is: if my worst fear is true,what do I do? Am I in trouble? Should I even be concerned?" And then,in response it got taken down for not being concise,and I'm quite sure the mod hates me. My question is, now,where do I go from here,why can't i let this go? I was always told that no matter what if you get sent something illegal and don't report it then your in trouble, so my whole life feels like its threatened. I know I'm overthinking, I know its ocd ,but some moments, I wonder if I should listen to the thoughts. Im sorry I can't let this go,this thing just opened up a fresh wound . I made things worse for myself, and I feel guilty for inconveniencing people,and I feel guilty because the only way I've been able to feel better is to talk about it over and over,so i know I don't sound horrible. How do I accept this? How do I live with this?

Okay, I’m having a small moment of clarity, so while I’m having it I’m going to share with you what I’ve learned: If you struggle with ROCD like me, tell your partner you are grateful for them. If you’re like me, you probably don’t say it enough because you’re too caught up with your thoughts and anxiety. It’s hard for me to say what I feel or be vulnerable. I didn’t use it as a compulsion. I just felt the need to tell him how thankful I was for him and grateful I was for him taking care of me and being patient. We’ve been dating almost 2 years now. He knows about my themes. It’s hard I know it is. As soon as I felt the good impulse to tell him how I thankful I was, not only did it make him feel good, but it made me feel good. I didn’t ruminate or check to see how I felt afterwards. I really meant it. Secondly, if you struggle with SOOCD, here’s some videos that definitely helped me: https://youtu.be/79dYWL_nrqU https://youtu.be/qZZ-JNrYjqE https://youtu.be/3FTHSSpHLF4 These kind of helped. My SOOCD is only truly triggered when I’m suffering from my ROCD. So, this helped a little Lastly, if you’re not on any vitamins, consider taking them. Along with my Wellbutrin I take vitamin d3, omega3 in the day and magnesium at night. The one I can tell that helps the most is the magnesium. It’s not going to diminish your thoughts and it isn’t going to take the intensity away sometimes. What it’s going to do is help you feel relaxed and it’s going to help you sleep or get to sleep. It may take over a week for you to notice a difference, but I promise you it’s beneficial anyway. Especially for bone health. That’s it so far. I’m having a rare moment of hey this stuff actually worked. I thought I would share.

i can’t do this anymore. i just proved to myself that i’m into my fear. i literally just DID it. it’s been proven. i’m in denial. it’s over. i really am just a horrible person. i fucking knew it. i can’t live like this.

Disturbing contents I read a few stories and watched a few videos on gay/bi hypno. They are sex videos with the aim to convert you and it’s been really disturbing me. They start by using straight sex and then slowly manipulate you and then they show women getting f****** and giving blowjobs and say things like “try it”,”you know you want to”,” accept your true self”,” once you do it you’ll never go back”.They encourage you to commit gay acts. I’m scared I’m going to become gay or I enjoy it and that the videos are actually right. I also saw a few blasphemous videos and stories to do with sex and how people abandon their religion to live a life of sex and I’m scared I will become like that and I’m trying to figure out why they would do that. I also saw a website that only shows blasphemous videos and pictures. It shows people ripping, urinating, ejaculating and rubbing pages on their privates From holy books. They also write things on their bodies disrespecting religions and swearing at god, some of them mock the way people pray. What disturbs me is that the whole website is dedicated to this and this stuff is on the home page, usually blasphemous content is hidden away and hard to find on sex sites. I’m worried I will become like that one day and also why would they do such a thing. I’m also thinking about the person who created the site and why he would promote stuff like this. I’m also scared about the future generations and things like this become normalised. Sorry for ranting but I just need to get this off my mind. I do take responsibility in this as I was surfing sex sites and this type of content for the past hour. Even when I stop searching this content a few days later I get a strong urge to search it up and it feels like I want to search it up and I like it but I know it always makes my ocd worse. Any advice would be greatly appreciated 😔

(How can you do ERP when there is a legit concern?) Trigger warning for Contamination OCD/coronavirus. For instance, I’m pregnant right now and have had a resurgence of contamination OCD. (I also have GAD, so I’m never sure which tactic to take with a thought.) Health really is a legitimate concern here, and I’m told I should be more careful. Of course I overdo it, yet ERP seems to be the exact opposite of being more careful and that seems very, very unwise. How do you do exposure for something that your doctor says to not do? How do you do exposure for something like, for another unrelated example, not wearing a mask around other people right now in the time of the pandemic when you’re absolutely required to wear a mask and it’s dangerous to not? ERP basically doesn’t make sense to me. By that thinking I should be changing the litter box and not washing my hands and *I definitely should not do that*. How do you do ERP when there is a legitimate aspect of an actual concern?

So I am recovering from HOCD and I am not really anxious. I am coping with what OCD is throwing at me. So I wanted to watch some porn yesterday and I have never watched lesbian porn as I think I don’t like it. I am more into a bit hard porn, like threesome with two man and a woman or submissive ones. But yesterday I thought I’s watch two females and a male. I just thought to see how I was going to react and my HOCD again made me wonder. Like one of the girls had some big breasts and I really think big breast are arousing to look at and when the other girl was licking them I felt like I liked it. So my OCD was like you want to lick her breasts coz you’re a lesbian not because you want to have big breasts. So it kept throwing at me questions all the time even today. I am trying my best not to do any compulsions or analyze as I know that’s what OCD wants me to do. I don’t know how do you guys cope with this? Does your OCD make you wonder all the time if you want to be with the girl or be the girl?! It’s so confusing sometimes.

A clinician named Hallam in 1974 identified reassurance seeking as a common compulsion in pediatric ocd. He described inpatient treatment of a 15 yr old female with OCD who sought reassurance regarding her social status, appearance, and whether others were gossiping about her. At first, unit staff were trained to respond to her questions by saying "I can't answer that" or "that question is a ritual". However, her ocd persisted in seeking reassurance. After realizing that the clinical approach wasn't working, the treatment team tried a new strategy-not responding to the questions at all. Instead, they turned their head/body away from met momentarily, and then redirected the conversation onto another topic. Hallam stated that this protocol dramatically reduced the number of questions she asked. Success!!! - Only, there's a catch. He didn't actually collect any data. So, fast forward to 1988, a doctor named Greta Francis has an 11yr old male client with OCD. He fears a variety of illness and death. Multiple times a day he asks his parents questions like "will I throw up today?" "will I die today?" "am I going blind?" or "do I have a tumor?". Francis decided to implement the treatment Hallam wrote about... But to collect data while doing it. - She designed a multiphase experiment. First, she and the boy's parents broke the day into four blocks (wake up to leaving for school, arriving home from school to 3pm, 3pm to end of dinner, end of dinner to bedtime). She asked them to count the number of blocks each day that he sought reassurance. - Next came baseline data collection. For 8 days the parents provided reassurance as usual. - This was followed my the first extinction phase- 8days where parents turned away briefly and then redirected the conversation. As you can see in the graph, he sought more reassurance than usual at first (an extinction burst) but the the questions tapered down to zero. During the extinction bursts, the parents observed the boy being highly irritable and "needy" - Then, the parents returned to giving reassurance for a few days. The child's number of questions spiked higher than during the baseline phase. - After that, the extinction phase was reintroduced. Parents ignored the questions and changed the conversation topic. After roughly ten days of fluctuating amounts of reassurance seeking, the boy finally completely eliminated that compulsion for the final ten days that his parents logged his behaviors. - One month later, the therapist suggested they track his behaviors for a few days as a "follow up". He had maintained his gains. 0 reassurance question asked! - Nowadays, clinicians still train loved ones to not provide reassurance. The best practice has evolved. Experts recommend starting with empathy by acknowledging the person with OCD's distress, then encouraging them or prompting them to use a therapy skill. If the person with OCD is actively engaging in treatment, it's possible to agree on a token system. The person with OCD starts each day or week with a preset number if reassurance tokens. Each time they ask for reassurance, they spend a token, which buys the a single sentence of reassurance. Once all the tokens are spent, that's it, no more reassurance for the time period. some families even agree that unused tokens can be cashed in or accumulated for rewards. Over time, the number of tokens the person with OCD starts with is decreased gradually. - Most of the time when I do science posts, I look for recent articles. I don't want to share out of date information. Nevertheless, there is value in looking back at articles from decades ago, because they paved the way for all the advancements we benefit from today. I wonder where the OCD research and treatment field will be at in 2050... Maybe some of the cutting edge science of the present will look crude to people reading it thirty years from now.... - Well, now that I've bombarded you with information, its time for you to share your thoughts. Here's a couple questions to get you started: how has someone helped you reduce or eliminate a compulsion? Have you ever experienced an extinction burst? What do you hope research will have discovered in 2050?

so i feel like i need to vent because all of this is just building up, 3 months ago when i had my first intrusive thought that caused an obsession that went on for weeks and then every other week a new intrusive thought would pop up and i’d obsess over that one. and it continues with multiple themes. some even similar to the one i’m dealing with right now but for some reason this one feels so much more real then again all the themes did. i really don’t know how to explain it, frightened if it’s just me. some days i feel completely numb to it like i’m a bad person but if that was so why would i keep fighting it and being in distress over it. it’s breaking my heart. i should know that it’s no coincidence since i’ve been dealing with this thing. whatever it might be ): i really don’t want to give up but i’m just scared. it all feels wrong and i feel numb or sometimes the ugliest stuff pops into my head. also the old themes have tried popping up again. i wonder if this whole thing is just my fault if it’s all just me but the truth is i guess i’ll never know... there’s so much more i could say... but i hope someone can relate to this... is it possible to feel just completely not like yourself like you’re trying so hard to just be the way you are but it’s hard because you have to sit with the fear inside your head... cause tbh there’s no other choice

Anyone else here have dermatillomania (skin picking disorder)? I was diagnosed with OCD a long while back and was told it was a part of it.

How do I stop reminscing,my current obsession from the post before popped up again,and its just looming above my head in a cloud of dread no matter what I do. I feel guilty,and scared,I cant really calm.myself when I'm constantly going back and forth bewteen deciding if something happened to put me in danger or make me irredeemably bad that I hadn't noticed. Sometimes I feel like I'm overreacting and others I feel like I have legitimate concern and I need to know now. The situation im in has created the perfect product for my thinking to flourish. Its got every sort of thing I dread most. Can't stop thinking abt it. For all ik. I am doomed and can't accept it.

Does anybody know what do when you’re stuck?

Has anyone wiped away bleach with other types of cleaners or used them at the same time and then worried about it causing toxic chemical fumes or scared of combing two chemicals by accident? I’ve never had this ocd fear but since spilling bleach and cleaning the area after wiping with a towel with other cleaners, I’m paranoid and scared to go into my apartment. :(

I’m so scared because some clorox bleach from my laundry dripped and spilled out the bottle onto my hands and the floor. It was on the floor and I used my swifer wet jet cleaner over it. Now I see the wet jet cleaner has Didecyl Dimethyl Ammonium Chloride and youre not supposed to mix ammonia with bleach. Now I’m scared of the chemical fumes in my apartment and that it’s dangerous

Can someone with sexual orientation ocd explain a little to me? I know what it is but my confusion is like... What's wrong with the possibility of being gay? What's scary about it? I'm someone who's ok dating both men and women and seeing people on here being terrified of the possibility kind of hurts? Some people even seem to get arousal responses, and I'm so confused as to why they have to fight it??

What have you all named your OCD? I’ve called it the OCDemon, the Worry Monster, the Assassin (this was in reference to the Rurouni Kenshin manga), and more recently, Bobert. For those who aren’t familiar, the principle behind naming your OCD is to help externalize the experience. Personally, a major part of my recovery has been learning to accept that there are so many things that go on in my brain that, while they show up in my conscious thought, are not under my conscious control...or, won’t come under my conscious control just because I feel they ought to, but will require a lot of concerted and targeted effort on my part. (Intrusive thoughts fall into the former category; changing my fear response from Flight/Freeze/Fawn to Respond Constructively *might* be part of the latter; I’m experimenting with this.) Conceptualizing OCD as a whole other person/presence—“an obnoxious teenager talking shit over Xbox Live” is the way someone on tumblr put it—can (eventually; it takes awhile) go a long way in sucking the fear and therefore the power out of the experience of intrusive thoughts.

How do you guys deal with your ocd in the workplace? Does it affect you at all?

I'm not sure if I have OCD. I wasn't diagnosed with it. But I really think I do bc of my actions and thoughts. My mind tells me that I need to organize everything I possibly can. Most of my day is of me organizing something. And I will worry about it so much, that I sometimes forget to do other things that are more important like eat or shower. It stresses me out and I feel it's taking over my life. Im not able to do the things I need to take care of myself sometimes. And it drives me nuts when I have to stop organizing wen my mom needs me in the room to help with the kids or something. I've had bad luck on finding a good therapist in the past. I'm going to try to find one soon, hopefully.

Man how can people go about their lives having OCD? I would understand if you don’t have an arousal feeling from people looking at you but unfortunately that’s what I’m faced with. Taking an antidepressant and antipsychotic doesn’t take away my arousal feeling. I keep telling my therapist is cuz I’m not able to have sexual thoughts like regular cuz I have weird images or thoughts that pop up with women which is causing my arousal feeling to be exacerbated but I don’t know what to do on the daily. How can I wake up and eat healthy, workout, go to work, have a little bit fun while feeling all this. How am I supposed to have real connections with women if this is what’s wrong with me. I’m not going to keep acting like everything is ok cuz it’s not. Please tell me there’s some genius on here as to how to get health insurance right now to leave to a treatment facility so I can get the 24/7 care I need.