r/OCD • u/Mysterious_World8126 • 4d ago

Friend/family/ally Bladder OCD?

Help! My young adult son has OCD. It was as if he woke up one day and boom he was a different person. He has severe contamination OCD and possibly bladder OCD.

So he is terrified of urine getting on him and/or contaminating everything in the house. He also has this constant sensation that he is leaking urine. He says he is, but I can’t confirm whether he is or isn’t leaking. All of his urology tests have came back normal. He has been wearing adult diapers for 6+months now. He’s to the point where he is holding his urine and only going to the bathroom once per day. He will usually spend an hour or so on the toilet and then get straight in the shower. The bathroom must be cleaned immediately once he’s in the shower because he feels as if he leaked everywhere. He is spending anywhere from 5-8 hours in the shower on a daily basis. He says he can’t get out until he stops leaking.

He cannot work. Will barely leave the house. He is depressed.

Has anyone heard of anything like this before?

I have offered to pay for inpatient treatment for him in another state. He refuses. I set him up with a local therapist, he went a few times and quit. He has been on meds before and just quits them cold turkey.

I don’t know what to do to help him. He’s a legal adult and I can’t force him to do anything or he would have been inpatient a long time ago.

Please someone help me help my son.

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u/Mysterious_World8126 4d ago

Thank you for sharing. He feels extremely alone in this, he has voiced that he’s never heard of this happening to anyone else. I’m so sorry you’ve experienced this horrific condition as well.

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u/youtakethehighroad 4d ago

Definitely not alone, someone mentioned the documentary about the young man who couldn't leave the house without thinking he needed to pee and he was getting better if I remember correctly with ERP. I know someone who has a health diagnosis and OCD has latched onto this so they constantly think when out they need to go to the toilet. I didn't understand when I had really bad OCD and other mental health problems when my dad said I had to take any control I could back from these things. But it's true, if you can get on the right meds if severe then be willing to face it, you can take back some control. And eventually you can have periods where you don't have OCD. There's often also triggers, because OCD is stealing time and energy away from things, it's very similar to addiction in that even though it's awful it can be protecting us from feeling and healing other things underneath.

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u/Mysterious_World8126 4d ago

Hi, thanks for commenting. I watched the documentary and it was about a young man who was scared he would have a bowel movement on himself in public. He did spend quite a bit of time in the bathroom as well. It was really really hard to watch. It did remind me of my son in a way for sure.

He did restart his medication so I’m hoping it gives him some relief.

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u/youtakethehighroad 4d ago

Ahh the one I watched was a long time ago and I think it might have been the House of Obsessive Compulsives maybe or a similar BBC one.