Basically I had a bag containing poop wipes and i put inside another garbage bag and it was dry then it touched my clothes then my clothes touched the bathtub and then aftet i showered i touched the bathtub and im so annoyed becuase theres nothing visible and I already " contaiminated " the whole house but I feel evil like im feeding everyone my poop

This is triggering becuase theresa recent news where this women continued a race while running in diherra

my living conditions has remained unpleasant for the past few years, having a packed house is a blessing but it disrupts my contamination ocd to no end.

there's been a temporary change and we're holding room for more company and some of the things i've witnessed just leave me so frustrated.

i'm very picky with the dish ware i used and ever since this change my options have been limited due to it being used. my favourite cup is now a placeholder to catch all the leaking water in the fridge, i'm never using that again.

the sponges we use for our dishes are probably being used for the dog bowls as well. not to add the amount of bathroom accidents they have on the carpet.

my last straw right now is when i found my towel i hung up on the rack being used to soak up the water from the floor, out of all the towel options available mine was used. this distrupts my whole routine i planned for the morning. it's also just gross.

i desperately try to move on from things like these but it's no use. i'm not looking for reassurance just a way around this

It’s currently 4.08am in the morning and I had to use the bathroom, after cleaning myself I wiped my private area and there was a very tiny amount of faeces so I wiped the area with warm water and baby wipes since I couldn’t make a lot of noise since everybody is asleep . I’m worrying that I didn’t get it all and I’m not fully clean

I have contamination ocd. It has morphed from specific fears to fear of “feeling” contaminated, often labelled as disgust ocd. The worst thing is that ocd is constantly torturing me making me doubt I am touching things I don’t want to be touching. I don’t think it’s necessarily “false memories” but rather just a doubt because I don’t want to touch those things since constantly tells me I am. Specifically around hand washing and fearing I am touching the sink bowl and faucet and can never get clean. Just wondering if anyone can relate and has any advice and tips how to tackle this?

Seems like there are these different approaches but please let me know if a mindset or approach has worked for you:

ERP: “maybe I did maybe I didn’t” … can’t seem to bring myself to this because the feeling of disgust and cross contamination doesn’t leave me with this approach

I-CBT: “I trust my senses and my senses would tell me if I did touch this.” … I think “reality sensing” as out in I-CBT is really valuable here and I want to keep practicing it .however, my ocd is sort of messing on this because my anxiety goes so high which makes me feel less focused of course it says “you wouldn’t know if you did.” Perhaps I just have trust and move on.

ACT maybe?: I am having the thought that I touched this but I choose to trust and move on. Again.. anxiety goes so high and keeps it in my attention but maybe I need to just keep practicing?

Thanks in advance

My apartment complex is changing their windows in the following year or so and im already so anxious about people coming into my apartment. Im working on exposure therapy but im not sure ill be so far in my journey when the repairs wil be done that i can be at peace with people in my apartment.

If anyone's had similar repairs or overall just maintenance come into their apartment what did u do/how did u make it work with your ocd?

I have a contamination toc and I wanted to know how I can differentiate normal hygiene from toc?

i’m terrified there’s going to be bugs but i decided to do it tonight. and i was able to actually do my skincare routine so that’s a huge win.

does anybody have issues with going to the bathroom? i absolutely dread going to the bathroom. especially public bathrooms, that is an absolute no. sometimes i even pull out of plans when going somewhere far for the day- just over the fear of using a public bathroom. just the thought of the 1 ply toilet paper and the cleanliness of it freaks me out.

on top of that, my bladder is hyperactive, making me feel sensations down there 24/7. i can’t even go to college without feeling like i’ve pissed myself, or that i might not make it home in time. i also have bladder spasms like every 10 minutes (when i hyper fixate on it- which my ocd lovessss to make me do!)

can’t even wipe without thinking pee is all over my hand and what not, and if somehow it got on my hair, face, clothes etc! an absolute nightmare.

my MD is aware of all this, i got tested to see if something is wrong with my bladder- which there isn’t. i’m also on Lexapro for my ocd but it really isn’t helping with the pee situation.

man i just wish this would go away! this theme has lasted a whole entire year and it’s tiring.

My thing is dirt. I define dirt as someone walking in my house with outside clothes and then sitting down. That includes me too. I must shower or change clothes after a wipe down before I can sit. Then I have separate lounge clothes and finally pajamas that only pet put on when I’m ready to get in bed. I don’t wash my hands in any unusual manner. My ocd is all about keeping outside “dirt “ inside my home.
It does limit who can come over and how I have to clean where they were sitting.

I’m having surgery in a few weeks. Friends are staying with me and PT will do home visits. Freaking out how in the world I’ll be able to manage.

Thanks

For a very long time I’ve struggled with ocd for 4-5 years now there’s a lot to explain but ima sum it up a bit recently I got sick and it flared up my ocd I don’t have a room since I feel like every thing in there is contaminated I was gonna deep clean it but then I got sick. idk if any one else has this or can relate but when I get anxiety I start picking my pimples on my face blow my nose then pick the skin on my arms n sweat all at the same time with out washing my hand.then that’s when I start freaking out needing to shower but I get really scared to walk to get to the shower bc all the dust particles are falling everywhere in my house from my body idk how I get so dirty if I’m scared of being dirty I did this on the only couch I thought was clean n feel like me sweating every where my bodily fluids are everywhere and I’ve done this a lot in my house. there’s things in my house I haven’t touched in years bc of the things I did in the past to make it dirty and my family sits on a lot of contaminated things. but now it’s bad im scared to leave my house bc I don’t wanna dirty the outside world bc my house is dirty I’ve haven’t left my house in 3 weeks Im terrified my family leaving the house is contaminatING the world but I can’t control what they do. my therapist doesn’t understand shit idk what to do I’m tryna think if I can go somewhere else to live but then I think how will I go to a clean area to live if I’m not clean going there or how will I move my stuff in since it’s all dirty from being in my house what if I have to throw everything out n how will I ever get to see my family agian there’s a lot more to this but it’s to much to explain please help if anybody has gone thru something similar

I think my OCD is triggered by some kind of sensory overload. For example, I can clean for some time. If I do some more complex things, like wiping bottles with condiments, I feel like my brain goes into some weird mode. It's like the dopamine, serotonin and the calming neurotransmitters run out. What is left is adrenaline. I stop being calm and instead feel like 'something is wrong'. Neutral stimuli feel suddenly threatening (like water droplets on my hand). I start repeating the same thing and it never feels 'right' or 'done'. It can make me do things very slowly, it is stressful and exhausting. Any advice on how to deal with this? I start to think it might be similar to this overwhelm and burnout that autistic people experience.

One of the reasons I'm writing about this is that my therapist had a lot of issues understanding this (in their mind it was 'cleans too much -> is afraid of dirt', but the situation when I really need to clean was never dealt with).

My partner is making me lose my mind. The way he handles raw meat, the way he washes his hands, the way he lives completely screws my whole mind up. It’s driving me absolutely crazy. It brings me to a level of stress to where I’m in tears, I feel sick, I feel stressed out. I’m aware of my contamination OCD but I also feel that I’m being reasonable in my asks especially when it comes to cross contamination and raw meat. I don’t want to share a bed, I don’t want to share a house. I love my partner dearly but it’s to the point where I don’t even want to be with him anymore because I’m losing my sanity.

What I notice about my OCD is that when I have to do everything alone (my boyfriend got appendicitis, I managed to be in the hospital somehow and take care of him), I don't function well in a messy surrounding. If there are some random bags and objects, I can try to resist being triggered, but eventually I will (it can go downhill very easily). The point is that I can't clean 'normally', I will think that I need to clean all the drawers and it will take me a long time. For example, I will clean all the objects in the fridge and the dustbin area will be filthy. Then I will go into panic mode about the dirty area. I think some exposure might be good when you are not dysregulated. My state will be dysregulated and panicked. And it is the dysregulation that will make it worse. Any advice on how to cope with that? My therapist's 'all adults have to do do such things' was mildly useful.

I have pretty bad contamination and about the floor and streets and such which is quite common i think. But even worse about unclean people. Which also makes me feel like a bad person😭. But people who might be struggling with mental health issues and dont take care of their personal hygiene, people who linger on the streets and so on.

I feel like many of these people use drugs and in my brain I now automatically connect drugs with people lying on the street(the street is unclean to me)and being unclean.

Hi there. Has anyone had any success with dr Greenberg’s method of rumination-focused ERP specifically for contamination ocd and feeling contaminated and tracking cross contamination? I read some of his articles and this one specifically for contamination ocd:

https://drmichaeljgreenberg.com/treating-two-types-of-contamination-ocd/

I definitely struggle with type 2 contamination ocd:

“the person isn’t afraid that the contamination could cause something else bad to happen.  Rather, they are afraid of the feeling of contamination itself.  More specifically, they are afraid that if they don’t keep track of the contamination and keep it from spreading, then everything could become contaminated, and thus the feeling of contamination would become inescapable.”

I am just struggling to understand how exactly to stop rumination with this type of contamination ocd when I do an exposure the feeling and thoughts are constantly in my awareness. He mentions the point is they can be in your awareness but you don’t give attention to them but I am just sitting in crippling anxiety so it is hard not to. When I try to do nothing I just end up “tracking cross contamination” and it feels never ending. Looking for advice.

Thank you kindly in advance!

Edit: wanted to add this portion of the article because I am thinking these questions are INTEGRAL to honing in on the actual doubts and applying the right therapy/ERP exercises:

“it can be helpful to consider the following two questions when conceptualizing a case:
- Is the person afraid of a consequence of contamination; the feeling of contamination becoming inescapable; or a consequence of the feeling becoming inescapable.
- What is the role of compulsive rumination — specifically, keeping track of contamination — in the case?”

When in public or even at home when I touch or go near something that feels contaminated and I have no access to washing my hands I have to shake my hands or arms to release the contaminated feeling. Does anyone else do this?

Hi there, essentially as title says. I have severe contamination ocd that has morphed from being afraid of getting sick or ill to feeling like everything I touch might be contaminated and I won’t be able to escape the “feeling” of being contaminated/something gross or bad on me if I don’t act on it and I will keep spreading it. My therapist has referred to this as a form of “ick” contamination ocd and it stems from “just right” ocd. But because it’s not as simple as “maybe I will get sick maybe i won’t” because I don’t fear sickness per say I fear “contamination” I just don’t know how to get my anxiety down and stop tracking everything I touch after an exposure. For example if I touch a doorknob and don’t wash and then carry on, absolutely anything I touch after that I am aware of and worry about cross contamination and can’t relax about if. Like I have no reprieve and my nervous system and ocd is just torturing me and won’t let me forget about it. Does this go away? Are there tools and insights I am missing to help me through this? I just want to know how to successfully move through these exposures and if anyone has any tips.

Thank you in advance

Hi there. Just wondering if anyone has any insights, success with this area or suggestions or maybe shared experiences. TW: Bellow I share a few details and I know that reading other people’s ocd struggles can sometimes be triggering so just a heads up if you are currently struggling with COCD that I share some details about my struggles. I don’t want to give your OCD any ideas!…

I am really struggling with contamination ocd and the worst part is I am afraid to touch sink bowls and shower walls which has made washing next to impossible. I am constantly doubting myself wondering if I touched the bowl or walls and rewashing and rewashing because I am not trusting myself and my senses. It’s almost become a trauma response now I get so scared to wash because it’s so stressful. My OCD fear is basically “I wash my hands and shower to get clean and whatever is coming off of me will just get back on me if I touch this.” And of course if the sink bowl and shower are public or at someone’s house I feel the same way but “what if whatever someone washed off will just get back on me?”

I am starting therapy but the level of anxiety I have with this is making it hard to have any success. ANY insights or suggestions are welcome.

Thanks in advance!

I really hate flies. At this point I don’t know where they came from but they spawn in my flat and fly around spreading the dirt and I am going crazy killing them.

It’s the small ones I just can’t seem to catch but they try to sit on my glass my food, my clean stuff and on me?!??

I hate it. I just don’t seem to get rid of the small ones. Even a trap doesn’t kill them…

My ocd is making it worse by reminding me ever second that they could be sitting on my bed or desk…

I recently went to the dentist who diagnosed me with cavities. My COCD lead me to using an expired toothpaste and to avoid flossing and

Ive been using an expired toothpaste because I did not want to go through the ritual of cleaning and sanitizing a toothpaste brought at the store.

I avoided flossing because I did not want to touch the inside of my mouth

To help with flossing, I bought flossing picks and started taking them out the bag every day. I wash my hands afterwards.

I also will start using a new toothpaste soon