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the NOCD Community

I got my bloodwork done this morning. I usually watch to make sure they use a new needle but I forgot to watch this morning. Now I am worried they reused a needle and I will get HIV. 😔. I hate myself for not watching.

I already have the herpes virus, HSV-1 in my body. I have had it since 2020. So I obviously have the antibodies in my bloodstream. Even though I ALREADY have the virus, I am still so afraid of getting herpes all over my hands, and that it is everywhere in everything that I touch. It sucks because it consumes me non stop all day 24/7 and my parents say I have nothing to worry about because I already have the virus but I still worry. I have the virus downstairs. So nothing orally. But I still can’t even brush my own teeth without gloves because I fear what if I do have it orally and I’m just not showing symptoms. My main fear is getting it in my hands. Can anyone relate to this or does anyone have anything to chime in

Hello anyone reading, I just wanted to vent here because at this point i’m not sure what to do or if i’ll ever be normal and my OCD is causing my mental health to go down the drain badly. It’s so debilitating I can’t do anything daily other than focus on it. I can’t feel comfortable anywhere, not even in my own home. I deal with the type of OCD where i’m convinced things are contaminated with chemicals or feces or any number of things. TMI: For example when I used the bathroom the other day in a public one and it went off on its own so now i’m convinced I had feces all over me so I had to shower and wash my clothes. Now i can’t even sit in my car cause the seat supposedly is covered now too from the drive home. I can’t touch anything on my floor or anywhere for that matter without washing my hands like my phone charger or my feet/shoes/ankles, door knobs, handles, anything cause i don’t even know why anymore. I’m terrified of cleaning products being on me or touching them, people spraying anything. I can’t have my windows down in the car anymore because i’m terrified of someone’s window washer fluid getting all over me. I watched a video about a guy accidentally drinking paint thinner cause he kept it in a water bottle and had to convince myself that my water wasn’t paint thinner and etc These are just some of the examples I have and I don’t know how to get over it or handle it anymore and I feel like I’m literally going crazy. Any suggestions or advice would mean a lot. please

Everyone meet: the bag. He’s been around for almost a year now. It is time this bag is conquered and OUT of my room. I suffer with severe contamination OCD and have difficulty cleaning. About seven months ago, a mouse was discovered in the house, and was suspected to have originated from this very bag…This bag that I used to carry miscellaneous college supplies when I moved out… Mouse poop was discovered underneath it. And ever since then, I’ve been TERRIFIED to clear out this bag. EVERYTHING, I mean EVERYTHING inside is “contaminated.” Mouse poop!!! MOUSE POOP! My luck! And don’t even try to search up the diseases mouse poop carry, because I did and now I can’t even touch this bag without panic. See that packaged item next to it? It is untouched, because it fell on the bag. 🤦‍♀️Even being within a RADIUS of the bag can cause “contamination,” as if the bag emits a poisonous smog. 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ Guys, even as I say this I’m understanding the ludicrousness, but I NEED to deal with this bag. There’s so many precious items inside. All “contaminated.” Anyone have any idea how to do this!!?

I don’t know if this will be useful to anyone but, If you need reassurance about your OCD I found this Yale-Brown test is helpful. https://www.intermed.com/content/uploads/Yale-Brown-Obsessive-Compulsive-Scale-Y-BOCS_July-2022.pdf My OCD-free boyfriend took it and didn’t mark a single thing on the sheet, while I had a ton. It was reassuring to know that I’m not being dramatic about my symptoms. Google also describes OCD as having fear of contamination, but there are way more types out there. This test ( https://ocdtest.com ) can help you identify what kinds of OCD you have

I’m here because I’m looking for help. I’ve tried CBT but my therapist isn’t specialized in OCD and I don’t know what else to do. I’m terrified all the time, I wear a mask every day and wash my hands till they are raw. I don’t know what to do, I didn’t have anywhere near the levels of anxiety and depression before the pandemic that I have since the pandemic started, I am terrified of everything, I had Covid once but I am terrified that I’m a ticking time bomb because it does cause long lasting symptoms and can disable or kill you even after one infection and that’s what terrifies me. I’m forced to go into the office with people who don’t mask and don’t care about coughing up a lung and not covering it up. I can’t sleep without feeling like something is wrong with my heart or my body and I am constantly afraid of going out and being around people and crowds. I’m terrified of Covid and getting it again and losing my life and quality of life because of it. I’m also terrified of losing my wife because she doesn’t want a partner who just stays in the house all the time.

It really sucks to avoid public settings as much as possible because of all the germs & diseases I’ll be in contact with/exposed to and I wish to overcome this. I want to feel free.. I’m so scared to and notice before we make a planned outing I’m always anticipating the worst and end up not going, missing out on life itself.. it’s heartbreaking, lonely and not healthy..

I have been an emetophobic since i’m a child i’m 32 now and over the last few years i have never been worse. I’ve truly spiraled and my contamination OCD is ruining my day to day life. I can’t go to any store or pick up my son from school without coming home and scrubbing my hands raw and spraying everything i have touched with professional grade disinfectant. My hands are so bad they are split , bleeding and so red and dry and i will keep washing them over and over even though it burns. If i touch something in my own home and i feel it’s contaminated i wash my hands and spray until i feel it’s clean. It has taken over my life and now with this norovirus outbreak i am just not handling anything well. I am at a loss and sometimes feel like i’m a lost cause.

Hi everyone. I have been doing better with my ocd and have less compulsions. Thoughts are always and will always be there. But my husband is treating me like I am in the thick of an episode. His father lives with us and he’s usually a major cause of my condition. He’s just overall messy and unkept. Today he was bleeding all over the place. I told my husband about it and left it at that. He rushed over to him and gave him some bandaids and something to wipe up. We were supposed to get ready to go to a friends house and I asked him to wash our daughter up and change her dirty shirt (stained with food she was eating) he flew into a rage saying that he doesn’t care about my ocd and doesn’t want to do xyz (while I’m packing the dinner I spent the last 2 hours making) We later went to a friends house .. and they were talking about lead paint being present in any home built in the 1970s and before. . where he degraded me by saying if he puts something up on the walls I will go and clean up any residue .. in reality he will just leave sprinkled dry wall and put the furniture over it as if nothing happened. I just need to vent. I feel like any type of request turns into him flying off the handle and blaming my ocd when they are normal requests.

i’ve had pretty bad anxiety all day because of what happened last night. basically it made me scared i was getting the stomach bug, but i never threw up. i also ate a pretty good amount of food today. however, all day today i’ve just been so anxious. it’s like one minute i’m completely fine and the next i’m scared that i’m nauseous and don’t feel good. i can’t figure out if i’m okay or not. i feel like it might be me getting scared that i have symptoms which then makes me feel like i have symptoms. it’s a never ending cycle. i can’t bring myself down. i feel like i’m going at 100.

Hello. I have been on here for a while but this is my first post. I'll cut to the point. I've always wanted kids. And now that my husband and I are trying for a kid.. I'm so nervous about it. I have a hard time touching doors and foreign objects because of germs as it is. And i'm worried all pregnancy is going to do is increase my anxiety. The fear is so intense that tonight I told my husband maybe I don't want kids?.. I do. But I don't know if I can put myself through hormone changes like that when I feel like I can't even control my anxiety most days nows. I've felt like this for 3 years....

Ever since the pandemic I have had this fear of germs. However this fear then turned into being scared of sperm. Germs were not the problem anymore. For the past two years I have been battling with my mind trying to convince myself that it’s impossible to get pregnant from surfaces, from the toilet, from chairs in public. I have this irrational fear that I might somehow get sperm on me and then that will somehow get onto my underwear and then I get pregnant which Ofcourse will be a cryptic pregnancy, so I won’t know until I am actually giving birth. Unfortunately, I have these thoughts about every male I come into contact with, whether that is brushing up against them on the bus, or the train or them being the cashier at the supermarket. I can spend hours cleaning my phone and my glasses just in case. However when I’m actually having intercourse, the fear of getting pregnant doesn’t even cross my mind and doesn’t worry me even a little bit as I’m on contraception. But what worries me is if I touch a door handle which was dirty with sperm and then getting pregnant by a complete stranger. Does anyone else have this type of OCD?

Hi all I was curious how you all think about this situation. I have severe ocd and mainly on cancer, lyme and since recently scabies. Of course something happened and now I don't know how to handle it. My girlfriend went on a trip and possibly slept under a comforter without the lose cover you can wash. So now I am worried that someone who was in the hotelroom before him and slept under that comforter without a cover and had scabies my boyfriend now is infected with scabies. We didn't meet up yet but next week we probably will. And I am terrified that I get scabies also. And it will take months of itching and trying to beat it. On top of it I am scared my son will catch it from me. I can't ask him about it because he wouldn't understand and if he did sleep under the contaminated comforter than damage is already done. How do I cover with this, because there is a change but maybe it's a small one. I just don't want to get it but I also really don't want to lose my boyfriend or not meet up Thanks a lot!!

I wish I wasn't so paranoid. I hate when I give in to my fears whenever I'm about to eat something just to end up avoiding it instead. There are some moments where I eat confident and ignore the intrusive thoughts, but most of the time it's spent in agony. My relationship with food has completely changed. It's gotten to a point where when I do get myself to eat something I cant help but pick at my food and spit it out if I feel something that doesn't "feel right". I can't keep being babied anymore and I know it's up to me to put an end to this new fear, but I'm so scared. This is so exhausting I hate living like this everyday.

Hi I’m new to talking about my ocd, since I never knew what I had, I always thought I was crazy till I found out was ocd was and started doing research. Im glad I am not alone. I’m looking in doing some therapy soon, I was just wondering if anyone had any advice or tips on how they try to work on their ocd on their day to day, I struggle with intrusive thoughts, compulsions and contamination.

I really hope this doesn't invalidate anyone with depression as I have no idea what it is like. I have not obtained an official diagnosis for OCD, I am pretty confident that I am somewhere on the spectrum though, especially with contamination OCD. When my thoughts about contaminations and hand washing got more severe, my relationship with my brother had worsened. I can't engage in physical interactions with him like hugging or even sitting next to him without feeling contaminated to the point i have to change my clothes. It sucks because I think it affects him aswell, like I am invalidating his experience with depression.

My contamination ocd has gotten so bad over the last 6 months. My roommate moved in with his girlfriend and I’m living in my own now, which makes it harder for me to suppress the urge to wash my hands. It makes me not want to do anything but stay at home. I’ve gotten to the point where I can’t even rationalize it anymore. Today for example, my girlfriend got out of the shower before me and wanted to get a new towel so put the towel on the floor. I didn’t have any clean ones except for the one that I use to wipe down my dogs feet after she steps in poop or mud or something. The towel has been run through the wash, but after using it I see that there were some brown streaks still on the towel, making me think that the towel didn’t get fully clean in the wash. It’s completely killed my mood and now I’m sitting here feeling anxious because I can’t do anything about it without feeling weird in front of my girlfriend. She’s very supportive about things like this, but I’m worried she’ll feel bad. Just wanted to vent, hoping it’ll make me feel better until I can go home and shower again

Hi everyone. I just want to vent because I am struggling with OCD so badly in a way that I haven't in a really really long time. Like doubting my memories and wanting to check/repeat movements and actions Ii make sure I don't touch things that I feel are contaminants. I haven't been like this in 3 years. It's hard to be back. It's scary. I know I can do it but god I'm so deeply frightened. I've always had a chaotic life, and it's been a really hard year with everything going wrong on top of it...but I think what set this flare up off is my relationship of 9 years (with someone I've known and loved since I was 17, and I'm 34) coming to and end and realizing that despite my efforts to heal this relationship....it is good that it ended because it was emotionally abusive. Like classic gaslighting, manipulating to meet boundaries, and constantly insulting me and me not noticing because of my trauma emotional abuse. I'm devastated to have both come to this realization and knowing I have to leave this behind because repair is not possible due to where my ex is at in this point of time. When we were together, our love seemed like the most certain thing in the world. I thought she was going to be the rest of my life, and I looked forward to being with her. I would always tell myself that no matter what happened in life I would have her...and with all the crazy awful bad luck things I had going on in my life she was a beacon of hope. It's so hard to lose that and to have to start all over again, working a scary job I hate and living alone in a home where i witnessed a violent death. Everything is so uncertain and scary and I know that one of the many (knowable and unknowable) reasons my ocd is flaring up is because I am trying to protect myself and trying to find certainty in the face of the unknown. I just feel so trapped and scared. Like my life will never get better and I'm doomed. It's so hard to wake up at 5 am to fight the urge to go in and out my front door to make sure I'm not touching the item I'm scared of contaminating me and feeling like if I do touch it....I'm dead. It's over. Theres no way to clean or repair it. That there's no coming back. I'm just really really really scared. It's scary to doubt my memories and perception again. I know it's because of stress and change and grief...but it's so hard. I've been doing ERP, inner child work, mindfulness and meditation and they help but it's still so frightening and they don't always help for long before I start getting scared and spiraling again. I know I have to go through this process and I know it will help me heal from the abuse....it just seems impossible and frightening and hopeless. I'm trying so hard to not give up and I am reminding myself that I've done this before and I can do it again and again. Please send good vibes

In my culture, nail clippings are associated with bad energy. I cut my nails and a few of them are stuck in the sink basin (the water isn't going down). I can't really fix this until Sunday, but now I'm scared to do any important action/thing I want because I'm scared the action will be contaminated with bad energy.

I struggle with primarily contamination OCD however I’m starting to wonder if I also have a touch of false memory OCD. Is worrying excessively about whether or not I washed an item, or my hands, or if something touched something else and contaminated it in the recent or immediate past FM OCD? Or just part of the contamination OCD? 😊 thanks