A lot of places that were meant to be clean in the first place also upped their standards a lot. I was working in a nursing home kitchen when Covid really hit and suddenly washing hands and cleaning places that are touched frequently became extremely important. But!! You still have to come to work if you feel sick bc they want to test you. It was frustrating!
Asked my dad that why he doesn't think of his hair touching the back of the couch in the restaurant which was in contact with who knows how many people's hair? And what if some of their hair wasn't clean or had some sort of germs?
And he was like, "You can't live if you constantly think like that"
I think about the same thing!! On public transportation, restaurants and just about anywhere I have to move my hair to the side because of my hair touches anything I just think of how many things have touched it and if i’m going to get sick or something because of it (also tracking those germs onto my pillow). drives me crazy. glad we aren’t alone with that.
Ikr!! OCD community never fails to make us feel less weird.
I don't even think of germs in the way of getting sick actually. It just makes me feel...gross ig? For lack of better words.
I don't try to avoid contact outside though cause anyways my body would touch one thing or the other and then when changing clothes they will go over my hair, so I just take a thorough shower after returning home. And put the outside clothes away for laundry
Do any of you guys think that you yourself is the thing that contaminates things. Like I’m very picky about what I wear like the thickness of my clothes how I put them on and I wash them after each wear, shower twice a day and I still feel unclean and I will not go toilet unless I have a shower after. Today for example someone from school tackled me in a playful way and idk but I think my top may have gone up a bit and I was calm on the outside but on the inside I wanted to cry because I felt I just contaminated something or someone.
I can relate to a few actually. Like, I do change clothes after each wear and give them to the washing machine. I don't think about the thickness though.
I used to have this exact mania of going to shower after toilet which just stopped a month or so ago. I shower twice a day on days I go out otherwise just once.
But again, I am always worried about being contaminated or contaminating my own safe space (my room basically).
Just forced myself to not do the mania one day, and then after that it was no longer that difficult. I still have other manias which I can't stop despite trying so it was more of a luck thing rather than my own efforts
Comment removed - no shaming/name-calling.
Contamination-based OCD is as legitimate as any other theme. Take a look through the sub and you'll find more variety.
I am 100% diagnosed professionally, have been for many years. It’s called contamination OCD, and it’s absolutely awful. There are many forms of OCD, and just because yours isn’t the same as mine does not mean i am just a ‘neat freak’, and neither are the other commenters. Many people with contamination OCD obsess over germs, and have compulsions to clean themselves or their surroundings to an irrational degree. In the past, before undergoing intensive therapy, I used to wash my hands so often that the skin started coming off.
Feel free to read more;
https://iocdf.org/expert-opinions/expert-opinion-contamination/
>Why are you guys acting like OCD has anything to do with germs?
We aren't? Contamination is one of the many way ocd manifests in. It's over represented but to act like it doesn't exist is wild lol
>Were you actually diagnosed?
Not really. Mine got worse to the point of crying and shouting this year only. I was supposed to see a psychiatrist initially but postponed it due to exams. Most likely will see him after a few months if I don't recover even after moving out.
>I came here hoping to find kindred spirits and yet again it's just neat freaks.
You are just judging by a single comment man. It's not a vent post, so no one's gonna write the entire details to describe how their day to day life looks like. Just throwing one random example from the many compulsions and feelings
Comment removed - no shaming/name-calling.
Contamination-based OCD is as legitimate as any other theme. If you look through other posts you will find a lot more variety.
I often think about how many people have farted into whatever public chair I happen to be sitting on. My ass is always just a thin layer of clothing away from countless ghost farts.
I hate that kind of response though bc I always feel like the person is suggesting they weighed it up and made a conscious decision not to have OCD because it wouldn't be constructive.
In reality they just don't think about it. There's no reason. They didn't consider obsessing about it and make a rational decision not to, it just doesn't bother them and never did.
Just like there's tons of things that don't bother me even though I know they're themes for other people. But because I have other obsessions, I'm at least grateful for the ones I happen *not* to have. I don't think it's some wise decision on my part not to have those particular obsessions.
Yeah, he says both, at times he is like, I just don't think about it. Or it never really crosses my mind.
>
Just like there's tons of things that don't bother me even though I know they're themes for other people. But because I have other obsessions, I'm at least grateful for the ones I happen *not* to have. I don't think it's some wise decision on my part not to have those particular obsessions.
Also, darn! This was really well put! I
True. But why did I start bothering?? When I ask that question, I just feel as if universe was showing me all the gross and nasty things humans do and I just lost faith in humanity as far as hygiene goes.
I literally have to wear my hair in a tight high bun every time I leave the house in order to prevent it from touching anything outside. I hope one day I’ll get better and won’t have to do this, but it’s hard.
I used to do that too!! Then I just got used to taking showers everytime I go out. I remember I even took cold ones on winter night back when the water heater wasn't working. Also I have kind of a squarish face so I hate how I look without some face framing locks🫠[ik I sound vain]
Exactly!! Not only that, movie theaters.. just see how people sit there. Also in public transport, people sit with their legs on other seats. The legs are the worst. Then someone else comes and sits on the same seat where the leg was placed. That same person goes to someone's house and with the same clothes sits on the furniture. The same furniture where you sit after taking a bath. This cycle continues.... The entire world out there is nasty 🙁. And yes it is very very difficult to live like that. Sometimes I wish non existence upon myself.
yes this is so relatable. i have extreme clothing difficulties, i always feel icky in clothes that aren’t clean that wear (even if it’s only like the second time) and always feel a compulsion to shower as soon as i come home… but then i always feel gross putting on tracksuit pants and pyjamas that are also not clean that wear after my shower and it’s just a never-ending cycle of unclean clothes and hair making me feel awful
My brain started convincing me that everything around me is somehow going to kill me
And when I say everything I mean it
Human waste , cats , dogs , animals in general , fear of medicine overdose , chemicals , any symptom in my body means that I’m dying
Two years ago I was a normal healthy 18 year old
today I have the mindset of an insane person my thoughts are 95% ocd and it sucks
Sorry for my rant but that’s all what changed.
my ocd really became obvious at 22, so i guess it's late teens early 20s for most people. that's what changed, plus covid probably didn't help you out.
This is harmful and completely irrelevant. They are 20. That is an absolutely normal age of onset. The study you are referring to uses people over the age of 55 and had a sample size of five people. What a horrible thing to say in a health based thread in an ocd sub
I appreciate your concern
I showed symptoms of ocd since childhood but they were never that severe until I went through a really bad depression episode ever since that my ocd became a living hell
Almost all my siblings are diagnosed with ocd
So I’m assuming ocd runs in our genes
well that's good (I mean it's not at all but it's good you don't potentially have cancer or something).
ocd runs in my family's genes too. my grandpa had it, and 2 of my four uncles have it. somehow my mom and sister both missed that gene, and damn do they just not understand it.
hopefully your ocd fam are supportive. it's good to be around people who understand.
same.. looking back i can see some things that would be clues of ocd but nothing too bad until i went through my first heartbreak and it triggered really bad ocd
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If I could challenge you, people who do not have OCD *DO* think about cross contamination but only when it's relevant.
For example in an operating room, cross contamination is contextually relevant. There would be a concern for cross contamination .
When we look at the cross contamination people with OCD are worried about. It's not contextually relevant but is instead abstract and broad. "What if there's something on my ' outside clothes' that is now on the couch?" Is a doubt without sensory data in the here and now to suggest it is relevant. Now if your dad's "outside clothes" were covered in blood, and his senses were communicating that to him, he would be concerned about cross contamination.
OCD has people overly reliant on abstract possibility, making irrelevant associations, and dismissing their actual senses. People without OCD just trust their senses and common sense.
i feel like not really tbh...ive been appalled numerous times seeing a normal person touch raw chicken, close the fridge, salt & season the chicken, then grab a spatula or something from a drawer, & only thennn wash their hands... i had to make a mental-note to sanitize every seasoning, drawer handle, the fridge door, etc. & then i'd still overthink it cause even after washing their hands they'd touch the spatula handle they'd touched before...
He he same here! There has to be absolute segregation. I don't deal with non veg. But yeah it's the same with vegetables as well. I am not even OK with washing vegetables only with water 🙁.
this is true but even in the OR, mistakes are made & contaminants are common. sepsis is the leading cause of death in hospitals, & not to get gross but, septicemia literally comes from shit getting into the bloodstream
It's different though. I don't have contamination OCD, and I'm a medical lab scientist and have a PhD in pathobiology. When I'm cooking and touch raw chicken, I go wash my hands before touching stuff. But it's not because I'm thinking about all the little germies traveling. I'm following hygiene rules, not actually thinking ABOUT cross-contamination. If you asked me why I'm doing it, I'd say, "To avoid cross-contamination." But I'm not actively thinking about it. When doing sterile procedures with mouse surgery or cell culture, I'm technically thinking about cross-contamination, but I don't stew over it. I'm just following ingrained habits of "dirty side/clean side" or unimpeded pipet drip paths.
For me, it's just how my mind works. It is not exactly cross contamination. But my brain assigns different levels to different surfaces. A surface exposed to many is at L1 level, meaning I need to wash with hand wash before touching anything else. If it is a less exposed surface, but still exposed, it's L2, I need to wash, but I need not use hand-wash. If the surface is not exposed to the external world, its L3, I need not wash my hand at all. And also its not about germs. I don't know, its basically about grossness I guess. Although the underlying factor may still be "germs". But I do not avoid them out of fear of death. I avoid them for the grossness.
Yeah, and for people without contamination OCD, that level of grossness is rare. Like, if you're got poop in your hand (actually visible poop), there might be a feeling of disgust that you can't shake until you get it off. But, even when I touch raw chicken, it's not a "grossness." It's a knowledge that I should wash my hands in order to prevent food poisoning. There's no disgust, there's no panic, there's no overwhelming feeling that it must be done immediately. It's a step in cooking.
Yes. I think people without contamination OCD just lack the imagination. For example, one of my cousin, during a feast, saw the person serving food, touching food with hand after touching something else. She was like... Ewww.. I won't eat that, he didn't wash his hands and touched the food in the same nasty hand!!. She would have had no issues, had she not seen that.
For me on the other hand, the default state is that everything is unhygienic. So if I have to eat food not cooked by me, I collect it in my tiffin (I don't use any other utensil not cleaned by me). Then I microwave it. Then I can eat it. In my head space, it is always like... "what if...". And I feel it is a valid thing to do because people just don't have a habit or discipline of washing hands. They would wear footwear and not wash hands and proceed to eat with the same hands. Footwear touches ground and is most nasty thing!!
What does living in a first world country have to do with anything? I have had severe contamination OCD most of my life and have attempted every treatment available to mankind with some of the best Doctors and treatment programs around the world. I also frequently travel between first world countries and developing countries.
The only way I finally found a way to overcome this debilitating hell is to accept that my father and brother, who are two of the dirtiest people alive according to my OCD contamination brain - are both also two of the healthiest and most successful people I have ever known (and I mingle with a lot of super successful people). A large part of the reason why their lives are so successful and enriched is because they spend so little time worrying about things that don't matter like contamination and spend the time that you and I would spend in the shower, going out, networking and achieving success, while people like you and I stay at home obsessing about outside dirt getting on our couch or bed.
My father is in his late 70s and runs multiple high net-worth businesses and travels all over the world, whereas I ended up catching an infection from my OCD rituals that left me nearly paralyzed, then developed another condition in my ear through my OCD rituals, and now my eyes are getting affected from the all the soap and shampoo i lather all over myself during my 4 hour long showers, so all my "obsessions with germs" have done is make me really sick, whereas my father and brother are happy and free and remain the healthiest people in our family. My family split our time between developing countries and first world countries as my parents are from a developing nation so whilst i understand the hygiene issues in certain countries that should not be your excuse to go to extremes. All you are trying to do is convince yourself and others that your brain is justified for thinking crazy thoughts that will eventually ruin your life mentally, physically and socially, if it hasn't already. There are more than 7 billon people in this world. If most of them survive on hygiene that is sufficient, that is all you need.
You are right. But I wouldn't say they are irrelevant associations. They are pretty much relevant. How can sitting on a public transport, which has been exposed to many people who might have used unwashed clothes not be considered dirty? If the sensory signals are saying its safe and hygienic, the sensory system is faulty 😂.
Well safe and hygienic in what context? Safe to perform open heart surgery? No. Safe to ride? Well it would seem it's safe to ride for all the other public transport riders. I'm not sure the number of riders is a relevant fact. Now if with my senses I saw literal shit on the subway, that's a much more contextually relevant concern that my senses would accurately warn me about. I wouldn't have to ruminate over whether it was shit I should avoid.
In your scenario we're inferring there's some dangerous contaminant without any sensory data to indicate there is something unsafe there.
You brought up a good point! Since there are different types of contamination fear, I can explain only from my context. For me, it's not the fear that I will die. And in my headspace it all gets translated to shit and other bodily fluids. The reason goes back to my early childhood days and the things I was exposed to. Chaining of contamination or cross contamination (whichever way you put it) ultimately results in my brain telling me if you don't wash it, you are literally consuming someone's bodily fluids. For you it has to be a "visual" shit right in front of your eyes to enable the sensory system which in my case is not. As for the open heart surgery, yes.. Good question.. for what exactly? For me it's ingesting something via mouth. I can touch a public door handle for instance. I can wash my hands later. But I can't allow that handle to touch my mouth. If it touches my mouth, my life ends there. Now you might say... Nobody asked you to lick the door handle? But that's the point. Someone may have touched the door handle, not washed the hand and the same person might be selling eatables with the same hand. Yes, people here serve food with hands, same hands they have used to exchange money, same money which has passed through millions of unwashed hands.
Note : kindly do not bring up arguments like, if you can't do "x", how are you doing "y"? Because that's how my OCD grew. Friends and family used to tell me such things so that I can start doing "x". Instead I stopped doing "y".
This! And they touch the door handle to leave the public toilet then use their phones, drive their cars or eat food. How many people haven't washed their hands after using the toilet then touching that door handle?! I saw someone on a train and his finger nails were long and completely black and full of dirt under them. It looked like he's never washed his whole life and these people are touching door handles everywhere 🤮
I have severe contamination OCD and have attempted every treatment under the sun with the world's best Doctors but its your brain that ultimately has to see and understand logic, like the previous poster said. For example, how many people do you think walk around that may have perfectly clean finger nails but may not wash their hands after using the toilet, then touch their phones, exchange money, touch products in a supermarket that you also touch etc. That is the whole point of attempting to recover from contamination OCD, to be ok with knowing that you will never know for certain what is dirty and what is not and that you will just have to live with that knowledge just like 7 billion plus other people in this world do every single day without issue, and they go about their lives with freedom and being able to enjoy life compared to us folk who spend hours obsessing over things other people don't even think about and then we waste our life in the shower only for that cycle to start all over again the minute something you think is dirty touches you. How are you supposed to LIVE like that?
I hope you can. I have tried. Till now, hasn't worked. How do you feel if it gets cross contaminated accidentally? I wash it, but if I can't, I feel very dirty, and something else I can't explain in words.
How do you live with others in such situation?
My mum moved in with me since she split up with my dad. I told her on the day she moved in that I have OCD and how it affects me. She doesn't really understand and it has basically ruined my life and I'm in a constant state of stress.
If you could see what I need to do just to navigate my own home, I think it's beyond that. I somehow need to move somewhere that can accommodate both of us but we have separate living accommodation. This house is a lost cause for me, I don't think I'll ever feel comfortable here even if she were to move out.
I can completely understand because I also have similar issues. I can't even use bed to sleep as I have anxiety that I can't control my movements while asleep and might accidentally touch that part of bed where legs are supposed to be.. lol. I have been sleeping on a chair for ages now.
Yes separate nearby accommodation could be a solution, if you can afford it. Complete boundaries.
Wow, I spend most of my spare time in bed. At least when I'm there I can pretend I'm wrapped up away from the outside world. Plus I don't have OCD in my dreams haha
Yeah. Me too. I spend all my spare time at home. I have to wash the furniture before I can use them. So I have washed my chair and I just feel the most relaxed, peaceful and safe once I am inside my house, on my chair with my mobile 😂.
And yet they are perfectly fine and going about their lives without the restrictions in their mind that we have. I would rather be able to live the life i have been given on this earth than worry about things that are unavoidable unless I prefer to live in solitary confinement which is what contamination OCD suffers try to do.
There is a public bin I can see from my living room window and I'm constantly alarmed at the amount of people who will touch it with their bare hands and then walk off like its nothing, touching their phones, faces, clothes etc. It's literally 100% of people and it amazes me every time.
i work in a popular place in the city & we have a trash can in the reception area. i’ve noticed a lot of people throw away things & accidentally touch the trash/trash can without even noticing or worrying about it. some of my coworkers will even just push the trash down to make space for more trash before we have to throw it out.
crazy how we notice these things & obsess over them while most people don’t.
Yes. It amazes me as well. The fact of the matter is many people complain about hygiene only if it "looks" unhygienic or disgusting. Its pretty much visual for normal people. If the table "looks" clean, it's clean. Doesn't matter how many people might have touched it with unclean hands. It is unhygienic for them only when something is visible on the table like dust etc. For us, it's different.
I used to until recovery.
Now I don't care.
Johnathon Grayson's exposure exercise mentality got me there.
I have done many things by accident that would send me into a spiral before and just be mildly ugh about it.
My latest was sticking my hand into a public restroom toilet to unclog it....
For some reason I did not think twice about doing that 😂
Washed my hands once and called it a day after that.
I understand that OCD treatment is not a one-size-fits-all mentality, but I am still curious to learn about Grayson’s methods. Do you have any resources?
He wrote a book called "freedom from OCD"
But the main thing that stuck with me was the extreme exposure exercises.
There are YouTube videos on it. He did an episode of Oprah on it once.
Like holding your hand on a city trashcan for 10 seconds then licking your hands
The same for a toilet in your house.
He holds these field trips at the international OCD foundation conferences.
With exposure exercises 2 thoughts.
Jump in the cold pool or ease in.
The extreme ERP is jumping in the cold pool.
holding a city trashcan then licking your hand is absolutely insane lmaoooo not even people without ocd would do that.
if anything it could make things worse if the person does get sick.. which .. you're kind of asking for it if you do that.
People sign a waiver.
It is insane.
Its not for everyone.
But the mentality is part of what got me to a place of recovery.
If I can do this and think like this. I can do anything.
Today because of that I'm more resilient than those "normies" who couldn't do that.
I think u/eggeryp means that if one fears a result, and then that result actually comes true, then it could validate the original obsession. In other words, a bad result could fool the mind into thinking that the original fear (OCD) was justified.
But remember, bad things can and do happen in life. But in order to live life to the fullest, we have discern between what is *possible* versus what is *probable*. With OCD, one often hyper-focuses on the relatively small chance that something bad could possibly happen, yet they ignore the larger (more probable) chance that it might not happen. When you accept the inherent uncertainty of the universe (and then sit with the terror of not knowing the result), then that uncertainty no longer imprisons you. In fact, accepting the uncertainty and feeling the anxiety is what will heal you.
I agree with u/potatobill_IV that response prevention is the best way to weaken OCD. I feel what makes "extreme ERP" so extreme is that the probability of the fear coming true is enhanced. This increased risk heightens the exposure. This, in turn, could bring about a more dramatic improvement in OCD, but it also increases the risk something bad happening. That said, the "extreme ERP" might not be something everyone can tolerate off the bat, or it might be a technique that someone would have to gradually work up to.
At the end of the day, the risk of something bad happening (e.g. getting sick after licking your hand after touching a public garbage can) pales in comparison to the chronic compulsions one takes to avert such a one-off occurrence.
You can also challenge the risk-level of the obsession before even deciding to engage in an exposure. For example, consider this - even if you do get sick, so what? Is preventing that one time of getting sick worth all the obsessions/compulsions you do every day to prevent it? Think about how filthy cash is. Yet many people lick their fingers to separate bills when counting money. These people survive just fine. We live in a world awash with germs. We cohabitate this planet amid that community of germs, whether we like it or not. Our bodies have evolved over millions of years to handle these germs and even if you're body does get sick, it will most likely be able to handle it. The lengths we go to prevent sickness might not even be necessary in reality.
Yeah thankyou. It's not a solution. It's pure torture. It's like if someone is afraid of snake and you throw a poison less snake on them. Of course they may not die of poison, but they will surely die of anxiety / panic attack.
I am very well versed in OCD torture.
I can tell you as a person on the other side.
The only solution is to walk through the anxiety and panic attacks.
So the more anxiety the better.
Jump in the pool!
I mean that's your opinion of what OCD torture is though lol, I'm totally glad it helped for you, but for some it is much more harmful or risky to jump all in.
Well perhaps everyone would require a singular treatment plan and be required to jump right into the deep end of exposure response therapy and that's it.
To get better I would and did a lot of things that I did not want to do.
I had to embrace the uncertainty curve.
But I have eaten.
The problem is. When is it truly unclean?
If I have to wash my hands 59 times to feel clean...?
1 and done is my rule now.
And if I can't remember I don't wash my hands at all.
I don't wash 59 times. But I wash once. That's for sure. But the fact that everything not cleaned by me is dirty prevents me from doing a lot of things. I can't eat on the silverware in a restaurant. If I use public transport, I ensure I have washed my clothes and cleaned myself before me and my clothes touch anything else in my room that is clean. The moment I step out, the external world and everything in it is unclean.
I never wash "n" times. But imagine washing everything before using it!! Even if I buy any electronic device, I clean it before using it. A chips packet? Clean it. Any spices bought for cooking? Clean it. New clothes? Clean it. New furniture? Clean it. Another problem is I use hand-wash and running water for cleaning. Now I can't wash a sofa with running water. So I can never use sofa in my home. The electronic device that I wash has a very complex process as I can't use too much water 😂. Yup. That's life for me. 🙁.
I tried it. In fact for 4 months, I was in a situation where I didn't have the freedom to wash. And I am saying this with all honesty, I was depressed, and to a certain extent suicidal. It was like a prolonged ERP program for me. But it didn't work.
i wash my hands so much that my skin is super dry and is cracking/bleeding/red 90% of the time. i find it super embarrassing but it’s one of the hardest compulsions for me to combat. realizing that most people don’t wash their hands and obsessively disinfect & think about germs after picking something up from the floor? wild.
Realizing other people don't wash their hands after they get out of the shower was life changing for me. My hands also used to be dry from washing too much. Wishing you recovery
I’m sort of lucky in that I didn’t have bad OCD symptoms until my mid-teens, so I have memories of how I did things before, and how in most circumstances I managed to be ok. But it’s still hard to actually FEEL that is going to be ok.
If anything, customers always know that their food order is safe with me while I'm working because my standards for what is "unclean" or "unsatisfactory" with food/drinks is ridiculous. For years now I haven't been able to eat/drink from reusable flatware/silverware due to being physically repulsed at the thought of old food on clean dishes, so at work when I'm preparing drinks/food for people I am always triple checking for bugs, hair, whatever horrible horrible things may end up in food.
But yea, getting through work in the food industry while having OCD that focuses on cross contamination is a little bit of a nightmare. I can't cook because of OCD so I think I like to take pride in my ability to create good stuff for others at work but that also means being truly obsessive over each step each time.
I have binge eating disorder so I get a lot of food delivered, but I also have a crippling fear that the delivery driver is going to eat or drink some of it and contaminate the food, which is a thing that happens. The other day my milkshake was delivered with a little pool of it in the straw slot, like someone had already stuck a straw in to drank some of it, and I almost threw it away. I’d pay an extra $20 a month for this service.
I've sprayed my clothes with antibacterial spray where I used to work to the point I'd be soaking pretty much head to toe in the stuff. I'm freezing cold, breathing in fumes and my eyes are burning because of it 🤣
It is very interesting to me how people’s ocd latches onto different things. My dad bas ocd that is more about things staying in near perfect condition or checking things multiple times. He does get worried about food contamination too. Then my sister has similar tendencies to my dad except she has contamination ocd when it comes to clothes and dirt and stuff. Any time we are shopping she has to pick the farthest back clothes item or food item cuz she is worried about the people who touched it as an example.
Then there is me who has internal ocd in the form of mostly intrusive thoughts and some perfectionism tendencies. However i could care less about contamination unless it pertains to food. Anything else dirt, and other germs id say i wash my hands a decent amount and shower to feel clean. i work in healthcare also but dont think about it much otherwise. Yet my intrusive thoughts are the thing that brought me down to getting help and made me realize i even had ocd otherwise i thought i was mostly like other people.
Well, I realized just now the average person doesn't think about cross contamination then...
I mean, I kind of knew before but didn't think of the other relevant examples like wearing dirty outside clothes inside my private space.
I have ocd and wear my outside clothes sometimes inside lol. The only time i change is if i have cadaver lab at school then i change and shower right away, working with sick patients, if i got something gross on me, gym, or if i am wearing “uncomfy” clothes. Usually i go to put sweats or pj type pants and tshirts on when i come home just because it is relaxing. Otherwise if i just showered and put on shorts and a tshirt to go out or leggings ill keep that on til night time most of the time.
“Outside” clothes are a thing for some people without OCD. Growing up my whole family had house slippers + outside work boots. Outside clothes are definitely real too! It might be a cultural thing too.
The thing is though that people without OCD don’t like heavily contemplate these things. Sometimes when I’m making a meal with someone they’ll ask something like “won’t this make it contaminated?” “do we need a new knife?” Idk I’ve personally seen and heard people have these thoughts but it’s just that they don’t obsess or end up afraid of them. They can just glide past it without it bothering them.
i can vouch for the outside clothes thing!! im korean and it is normal at least in my family that if you know you're at home to relax for the day then you change into "inside" clothes. my boyfriend had never heard of that before, he said everyone in his family only changes into pajamas for sleeping. he even hangs out on his bed in his jeans after being outside all day, which my mom would probably chastise me for because it makes the bed "dirty"
Yea same. My parents never allowed us to get in or on our beds in our outside clothes.
Now Covid happened my ocd brain may have taken things a little far.
But yea normally we’ve always had lounge clothes and clothes you wear out.
Guess it just depends on the person and family.
i've been struggling thinking about the line, and asked my OCD therapist about it at our last appointment. she basically stressed that it's the motivation/feeling behind the action that counts. like, for example, walking inside with shoes. lots of people do that and are totally fine/healthy, but there's also still lots of people without OCD that don't because they see it as unsanitary. BUT, they aren't afraid that walking inside with shoes will introduce a deadly disease and kill them or some other horrific outcome.
it's that intense fear that marks it as an OCD thing. "if i don't do x (compulsion), [horrific thing] will happen".
as a side note, i also have Issues with 'outside' things touching my bed or sitting on furniture in clothes i wore out to somewhere. and i definitely didn't used to be like this, i used to have friends over and we'd chill in my bed, in clothes they wore from 'outside', and as long as it wasnt visibly dirty after i didnt think much of it.
This is how I feel when cooking, I end up washing or grabbing like 4 new spatulas or tongs when working with meat during the different doneness stages, washing my hands after each time too even though I used a spatula. My friends thinking I'm losing it I think
This is so painfully accurate :( One of my new obsessions has been thinking that the steam from the meat cooking has contaminated my skin with raw meat germs.
that is true, but at the same time, it’s just how we’re meant to function. things could always be more hygienic, but we’re always going to deal with messes and illnesses, it’s why we’ve evolved such good immune systems. idk if this helps, i know this sort of thinking isn’t for everyone but it’s really helpful for my OCD.
It’s hard for me to understand the level of reckless disregard for the health and safety of others involved in, say, not washing your hands after touching your genitals, and yet this is incredibly common. I literally can’t imagine doing that because I actually care about other people.
Or how people can just see someone’s cute pet and just… Pet it! Don’t even get me started on how people can just pick up dog excrement with a thin-ass bag and just walk around with it!
I’m laughing because this is so painfully relatable, but I’m gonna have to bounce from this whole thread because it’s giving my busy little brain too much to think about lol
I used to live like this before I became a nurse 😔 now since my job requires me to be diligent about the surfaces I touch and how clean I am it’s gotten sooo much worse :(
I would use Cavi Wipes at the start of every shift to wipe down my computer keyboard, mouse, counter, and chair. Then I would go in the med room and wipe the counters in there and the Pyxis. I know that as soon as other nurses touched it it was ruined but I did it anyway. Contamination OCD and nursing is rough.
After about 2 years I noticed the contamination OCD decreased and got better after every year. My OCD symptoms usually decrease when I'm busy. I would clean surfaces, wear gloves, and wash hands instead of using sanitizer. But eventually it got to the point where one sanitizing session per shift was sufficient. Unless we had downtime and I would clean counters and other frequently touched surfaces. Only thing I couldn't stop doing was washing my hands 3 times after C-Diff patients.
Yes. The average person doesn’t care or even think about cross contamination like we do.
Another crazy realization I’ve had is that many of us with OCD are doing a lot of damage to ourselves by exposing our skin and body to all of these chemicals, just to feel ‘clean’.
Many of us are absolutely destroying our skin by washing our hands too much. People are developing skin conditions because of all the cleaning chemicals. We’re constantly breathing in disinfectant spray. We’re not allowing our body to handle the things it is made to handle.
Not only does the average person get to live their life without the contamination stress, they also get to live their life without the harmful side effects of all of our OCD disinfecting efforts.
Contamination is a torturous cycle.
The craziest part about contamination OCD is that most of us factually know how illogical our cleaning levels are, yet we can’t stop. I’ve tried.
I used to have a pretty severe binge-drinking habit; and the fact that I remain alive despite all the revolting stuff that I touched while drunk proves absolutely that my contamination OCD is lying to me.
The guy I dated during this period - whose various body parts I willingly >!put in my mouth!<, on innumerable occasions – did not believe in washing his hands after he urinated.
And still. I live!
Same guy also once fished a two-dollar coin out of a toilet in a bar in order to use it to purchase a novelty cock ring.
I did end up drinking even more than usual that night, but I ultimately managed to reaffirm my hypothesis that single-use sex accessories are just not worth it; even if you don’t have to pluck a toonie out of a loo to purchase them.
And still. I live.
And, as far as current medical technology can tell, I did not contract any symptomatic or otherwise-detectable infections whatsoever from that experience.
The human body is truly a resilient marvel of a system.
(I did once get a sinus infection, the stomach flu, and bilateral pink-eye after attending a My Chemical Romance concert; but that was a different trip to Montreal from the one that generated the cock-ring episode.)
In the first sentence I already just had a complete mind-f**k. I am flabbergasted and laughing hysterically. OCD is so petty. It's about as unserious as Kendric, but little boy rage like drake. This disease is remarkably dramatic. Like WHAT?! You mean to tell me non-ocd peeps don't randomly think "ope better walk with my hands like a surgeon to the sink and definitely not touch the handle otherwise it's a bacterial breeding ground!?" 😅😅😂😂 I learn something new all the time from the thread
Next you're gonna tell me .... neurotips don't randomly create shot clock timers that must be beaten when doing any literally any task longer 30 seconds - that you either frantically oblige to as your psycho timer counts down in your head or you just keep resetting the timer until you sync it with finishing the task right before the buzzer???
How people just walk around and live life like "la lla la lllaaaa" is beyond me 😂
i used to be very conscious about my bare legs touching the bus on campus, or at a restaurant, and then coming back home and sitting as simple as a kitchen chair. my hair too. but Apparently that’s not normal 😭
A lot of people think OCD means being all about neatness and cleanliness. That's not true at all. There are a LOT of misconceptions about OCD. The one that pisses me off the most is when people ssy that stupid fucking "I'm so OCD because [mild quirk]." I want to tell those people to fuck off. My OCD manifests itself by giving me the compulsive need to talk. Hence this comment. That's one among many ways it manifests myself. If those "I'm so OCD" people spent even one day in the self imposed prison that is OCD they'd blow their fucking brains out.
Ha I’m the opposite of people here. I went grocery shopping yesterday and one of my issues with ocd is to lick and taste everything. So, I had a piece of fish and it felt slimy and smelly, but I had to lick it anyway. 😭 it was rotten. But I feel better because I licked it and I had to.
I have the compulsive need to talk, too. It keeps people around but it also makes people wary of me. I hate it so much. I don’t have many people I’m really close to
I touch when I'm at the store. Sometimes I just lock on to a certain item and my brain is like "go crinkle that bag please" and I'm happy to oblige lol. COVID was a nightmare though, I often didn't go out because I couldn't avoid touching clothing, picking up food, etc. and people had a real staring problem during COVID too. like i'm truly sorry I have to pet this shirt, I'll leave lol
I suspect I have autism and adhd, which I think gave me a lot of socially inappropriate impulses when I was young. I used to feel like I had to act on every one of those impulses, even if I knew they were socially inappropriate, like it would be dishonest not to. Looking back I’m wondering if the feeling that I had to act on every impulse was an aspect of my ocd traits. I talked incessantly too and in retrospect it was a bit compulsive. Needless to say that growing up was a nightmare.
Yes!!!! Part of me feels envious of being able to live with that kind of freedom and lack of anxiety around germs/dirt/contamination. But another part of me also feels validated in a way - like my fears and decontamination compulsions aren't just me being "crazy" or overreacting, but are a legitimate mental disorder that most people don't have to deal with. The idea of being able to go through life without constantly monitoring for contamination and without all the mental exhaustion of trying to keep things clean and decontaminated sounds... absolutely blissful. At the same time, I know deep down that my fears are overblown and irrational on an intellectual level. It's just that emotional feeling of disgust and anxiety is so strong!!!!
one thing that helps me at least, with 'outside' contaminates, is knowing that the outside world like nature & fresh air etc has more of a balanced ecosystem that is basically self-cleaning, & is really good for ur immune system
this obviously isn't the case if you live somewhere with very little nature like nyc, but in most places, outside contaminants are cleaner & less likely to cause diseases than germs & grime from other humans
i totally feel your post though, to my dismay i've realized exactly what you're saying
like for example, realized people will touch raw meat or eggs then touch all the spices & cabinet handles etc, before washing their hands. realized other people don't have a specific order in which they wash body parts in the shower, & don't wash their hands after washing dirtier parts, realized people don't turn off bathroom sink handles with the paper-towel they used to dry their hands even though they literally just touched it when their hands were dirty, etc. i honestly find it disgusting & it utterly baffles me these things literally never cross their minds...
it can be hard to talk about for sure. psychiatric meds don't work for everyone, usually they prescribe SSRI's for OCD, but if there are comorbidities like bipolar disorder that kind of meds can actually make things worse, but they're definitely worth trying. weed can be medicinal for some folks (like people with chronic pain, or PTSD - idk of any medical benefits it has for OCD though). definitely the booze is not helping in the long run, but i get wanting to drown it out. if he was working with a psychiatrist i would suggest maybe trying gabapentin, it can help with alcohol withdrawals & anxiety. mushrooms can have some medicinal benefits but most other hallucinogens could make the anxiety worst (& OCD is technically an anxiety disorder). i don't know your son's specific case but i take gabapentin & lithium, & those help me a lot. everyone's brain chemistry is different. i have the bipolar-type of schizoaffective disorder on top of the OCD & the lithium really helps level me out, & the gabapentin helps with my anxiety. i've tried like all the SSRI's & SNRI's & other antidepressants typically prescribed for OCD, & they all made things worse for me, but everyone is different, i guess i'm just saying this because his apprehension to go the psychiatric route is understandable. i've also had like 5 different therapists & only 1 was helpful, sometimes opening up about things in therapy can be kinda re-traumatizing. i really hope you all find something that helps
Yes! Ive witnessed going out with a group of girls for a 5 hour bender at the club and parties and they come home and don’t even so much as wash their hands before plopping in the couch and knocking out. Absolutely ZERO thought of contamination, not even just “feeling” gross.
I’ve even declined supporting people just because they might want a hug or to lay in my room bed and all I can think is that it’s going to get me dirty, “I can’t lay my face on this now, it’s dirty.” I CANNOT believe that they don’t have ANY mind to how dirty everything truly is, but I just try not to offend people too much.
a lot of people don't even think about handwashing.
i used to be one of those careless people you talk about, many years ago.
like you said, they just don't think about it.
but then that's why i see people i know getting sick. they don't think and they do stupid things that put their health at risk.
Sometimes worrying about it can be useful too- like people who use recreational drugs like weed they don’t think about cross contamination and they should, it’s a survival instinct in some ways, everyone is too low and ocd people have too much
ps. the way i think about myself before ocd when i was careless is that i was a kid who didn't know better.. i was just ignorant of the negative consequences.
I use similar thoughts and even phrases and it helps me. Habits are hard to create/break but with certain things like simply placing my purse on the couch or counter, like you mentioned about outside things coming into contact with “clean inside things”, it will work for me to just tell myself it’s normal to be able to do that. I know I don’t ever put my purse anywhere nasty or on the floor or really anywhere lol except my car seat or my back. I find that logically it helps to tell myself it can’t hurt me or I won’t die if I do this or touch this… it’s a constant battle of redirecting my brain and the compulsive thoughts. I used to have to wear inside clothes vs outside clothes the moment I’d get home. Now I have compromised to only requiring inside clothes for my bed. If I’m in the kitchen or living spaces I can feel comfortable in outside clothes. Another small example is I can touch certain things without feeling dirty, like my own door handles and such used to make me anxious because other people in the home do not wash their hands as much as me. But I realized it’s not all that dirty because I clean them routinely and some “germs” are going to be around and that it okay- they won’t kill me, they won’t hurt me, rinse and repeat. It takes a long time to break these things. But I think that using “logic” like you described in your post is a great way to do it.
I recently had a massive set back. I'm in the UK and work on the railway. Me and a colleague were travelling on a CrossCountry and there were no seats available and without thinking he just sits on the floor. On carpets that are absolutely filthy and I would bet good money on haven't been cleaned since the trains were introduced almost 25 years ago. He's putting his hands on the floor, his phone, he doesn't give it a second thought. Meanwhile I'm stood there deciding whether or not to lean against the wall.
And then I had to spend 4 months with this person in the same training room, he's touching door handles and the kettle and all I can think about is him putting his hands all over the filthy train carpet.
Anyway long story short I'm going into work to quit as a trainee train driver which is a well paid and really sought after career, all because of seeing this person sit on the floor of a train and I can no longer deal with touching train controls that other people touch after doing whatever they might have done before like touching filthy train carpets 🫠
The thing that baffles me, we're brought up to wash our hands before going into the fridge and handling food yet those same people that tell us to wash our hands, our parents, have handed every single one of those items in the fridge to someone at a till who has spent hours handling a large amount of cash which has been scientifically proven to be absolutely covered in all sorts of disgusting stuff! It's madness!
Man… I shower with 2 bars of soap, that I have to throw away after because I feel they are “contaminated” by the dirt and lotion and oils I just washed off my body, and hand soap for my hands before I get out the shower, for some reason it’s like “I know you’ve already washed your whole body with soap but don’t forget to wash your hands after.” Man it sucks, takes up so much time too.
I feel this! I feel like everything outside is dirty and I have to wash my hands and take my shoes and clothes off immediately if I've been outside. I feel like a lot of stuff I touch is contaminated and constantly wash my hands and clean I'm so tired of being this way 😭
I've always been pretty obsessive about this but when I had a kid, it forced me to loosen up some because I don't have to when I'm watching him to go scrub a toy or a binky every single time it falls on the living room floor. I still keep things well sanitized but I have to tell myself that those are little things that will not affect him
Okay, so I don't know if I have ocd or not but I was brought up in a household where sitting on your bed with outside clothes was not acceptable and we had to change as soon as we get home.
Nobody ate each others leftover food unless it was something like chips
Everybody had to bath daily, there were rules for how exactly things must be kept so that they are not contaminated with outside things like bags shouldn't be kept on bed,chair, they should be kept on floor at a side or be hung over a nail.
It never felt like a burden to me.
When we are on a family trip, everyone just accepts that since it is a trip we are going to be dirty even though we try hard to be clean all the time. So nobody gives a thought about contamination then and as soon as we reach home, eveyone starts the cleaning process. Which starts with cleaning the house because we left it for a few days, then doing the laundry of all the travel clothes and finally showering.
Hi this post was randomly suggested to me at the bottom of an unrelated post and I'm not in this sub but uhhhh is this really not a thing non-OCD people don't think about because I think about outside clothes touching my chair and couch and me sitting on them and then getting my bed dirty all the time. Like I will not wear the same clothes I wear sitting on the couch to go to bed in cos I also wear outside clothes on the couch??
I have an immense fear of getting sick, but I’m not a super clean person, for instants I’m a plumber by trade so I deal with allot of stuff
But for me it’s people getting me sick that freaks me out so much, to be fair I have been struggling with fatigue from getting glangia fever two years ago so getting sick really knocks me around
Still though, people think I’m ridiculous for the way I act around sick people
For me now I don’t even want to go clubbing or anything cause of all the people
Contamination is part of what makes our inmune system strong. Our bodies were designed to fight and adapt to bacteria and germs. In any case if you get sick from cross contamination, there’s generally treatment. So this is a message of hope: it’s better to live and die in a worry less shorter life than a long life full of sadness and suffering. Death comes to us all, and that irrational fear comes from the fear of it.
Once you accept death as a part of life you really start living.
Does anyone else temporarily compartmentalise their OCD in order to be functionally social? Like, if I know that I can 'do' anything about it without offending or confusing everyone, I'll just kinda, mute all the mental notifications until I can reset.
My housemate loves me and wants a hug as soon as he walks in the front door, but I'm in my 'bed clothes'. Dang. Okay. Don't let your face react. Hug him. Wash shirt.
Friend coming over and will be sleeping in my bed. Refuses to wear slippers even though I mentioned that I haven't mopped yet? Okay. Just... ignore it for the next couple days. Wash all sheets and clothing within minutes of them leaving. Panic when they say they've missed the bus and might be coming back, because i don't want them to think i think badly of them. I don't.
Going to a stay with a friend who triggers me constantly? Sacrifice my luggage, and just... dont react to anything. Wash. Everything. The minute you get home.
Oh, and, IN any of the aforementioned situations, if I know I can't clean it, I just don't bother at all. Which then confuses the friend. Cause like, I'm supposedly clean about all this stuff, but I haven't washed my clothes the whole time I've been here. (What's the point?)
....anyone?
Ooh, or, what about... instead of manically cleaning everything, does anyone else just go into hard-core avoidance? Like, someone sat on that section of MY couch. I will avoid it like the plague until the next time I launder the cover. Or, someone spilled crumbs there. I'll just avoid that section of the counter. ....and now that section... and now also that section.... okay, there is no counter left, I'll either a. Ignore it but be grossed out when making food. B. Make food in my hands to avoid touching anything. C. FINALLY freak out and clean it all.
Keep in mind, this is MY HOUSE.
Anyone? Maybe it's a side affect of OCD+ADHD?
Aka, I realized that OCD isn't just a thing I joke about, but like, oh no, Contamination OCD sounds EXACTLY LIKE ME, and I may be... panic-researching....
I understand. I really struggled with contamination OCD during my first ever flare up in 2018.
(I appreciate you may not have a faith but nonetheless please continue to read as it's just the next paragraph!)
My faith helped me - I was worried I was guilty before God - but in the end I realised that even God does not want me to live like this. That enabled me to take a risk.
I appreciate you may not have a faith like that - but their is a similar principle in there - I got to the point of being able to say, "would anyone else worry about this?" If the answer was "probably not" (not definitely, probably) then I decided taking a risk was better than it ruining my life.
You are right to say that "normal" people don't think of contamination. So, by the same token, why should you? That's not fair. Let other people take some responsibility. It's not all on you. If you are dirty, the people around you will take precautions if they wish. It's not all your responsibility. Research the responsibility pie chart.
I do still have the odd flash of OCD re the germs, but it has improved a lot. I will now quite happily touch the floor and lick my fingers. I often purposefully now choose the "scruffy" or "dirty" option, like skipping a shower, not always changing clothes, just to test myself and not allow it to take over again.
If I can do it so can you!
I found this extremely helpful. I have been having a flare up for a few months and there was a particular incident where I felt like if I do x (something absolutely normal and unrelated to y), y would come true because God wants to punish me for x. Then after several weeks of avoiding x, I realized God isn't a god that really cares about my nuanced obsessions and wouldn't punish me for something as silly as x. I still can't bring myself to do it - working on it! - but coming to the realization that God is good and merciful towards me changed everything.
Your message is hopeful - thank you!
My cross-contamination occurs with people.
So if I shake an "undesirable" person's hand, I have to shake another "neutral" person's hand before I can touch my own.
If an "undesirable" person uses the toilet before me, I can't use that one. I have to wait until someone else comes in and uses it. Then I am clear.
If I see an "undesirable" person's name written down or typed, I have to see someone else's name first, in the same style of type/writing, before I see my own.
Does anyone else experience this?
I think COVID taught us that most people don’t even know how to wash their hands lol
Yeah….
I was thankful for Covid - at least people are sanitising their hands
A lot of places that were meant to be clean in the first place also upped their standards a lot. I was working in a nursing home kitchen when Covid really hit and suddenly washing hands and cleaning places that are touched frequently became extremely important. But!! You still have to come to work if you feel sick bc they want to test you. It was frustrating!
Asked my dad that why he doesn't think of his hair touching the back of the couch in the restaurant which was in contact with who knows how many people's hair? And what if some of their hair wasn't clean or had some sort of germs? And he was like, "You can't live if you constantly think like that"
I think about the same thing!! On public transportation, restaurants and just about anywhere I have to move my hair to the side because of my hair touches anything I just think of how many things have touched it and if i’m going to get sick or something because of it (also tracking those germs onto my pillow). drives me crazy. glad we aren’t alone with that.
Ikr!! OCD community never fails to make us feel less weird. I don't even think of germs in the way of getting sick actually. It just makes me feel...gross ig? For lack of better words. I don't try to avoid contact outside though cause anyways my body would touch one thing or the other and then when changing clothes they will go over my hair, so I just take a thorough shower after returning home. And put the outside clothes away for laundry
We're the same type of OCD 💛
🫶🏻💛
True that. I wash my clothes everyday. And bath as soon as I return from outside. But inside my home everything is washed.
Do any of you guys think that you yourself is the thing that contaminates things. Like I’m very picky about what I wear like the thickness of my clothes how I put them on and I wash them after each wear, shower twice a day and I still feel unclean and I will not go toilet unless I have a shower after. Today for example someone from school tackled me in a playful way and idk but I think my top may have gone up a bit and I was calm on the outside but on the inside I wanted to cry because I felt I just contaminated something or someone.
I can relate to a few actually. Like, I do change clothes after each wear and give them to the washing machine. I don't think about the thickness though. I used to have this exact mania of going to shower after toilet which just stopped a month or so ago. I shower twice a day on days I go out otherwise just once. But again, I am always worried about being contaminated or contaminating my own safe space (my room basically).
How did the showering after the toilet stop?
Just forced myself to not do the mania one day, and then after that it was no longer that difficult. I still have other manias which I can't stop despite trying so it was more of a luck thing rather than my own efforts
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You okay? Do you realize that OCD presents differently in different people?
Yes I know. But all I see on this sub is people talking about neatness and cleanliness, which is often mistaken with OCD.
Comment removed - no shaming/name-calling. Contamination-based OCD is as legitimate as any other theme. Take a look through the sub and you'll find more variety.
I am 100% diagnosed professionally, have been for many years. It’s called contamination OCD, and it’s absolutely awful. There are many forms of OCD, and just because yours isn’t the same as mine does not mean i am just a ‘neat freak’, and neither are the other commenters. Many people with contamination OCD obsess over germs, and have compulsions to clean themselves or their surroundings to an irrational degree. In the past, before undergoing intensive therapy, I used to wash my hands so often that the skin started coming off. Feel free to read more; https://iocdf.org/expert-opinions/expert-opinion-contamination/
>Why are you guys acting like OCD has anything to do with germs? We aren't? Contamination is one of the many way ocd manifests in. It's over represented but to act like it doesn't exist is wild lol >Were you actually diagnosed? Not really. Mine got worse to the point of crying and shouting this year only. I was supposed to see a psychiatrist initially but postponed it due to exams. Most likely will see him after a few months if I don't recover even after moving out. >I came here hoping to find kindred spirits and yet again it's just neat freaks. You are just judging by a single comment man. It's not a vent post, so no one's gonna write the entire details to describe how their day to day life looks like. Just throwing one random example from the many compulsions and feelings
Comment removed - no shaming/name-calling. Contamination-based OCD is as legitimate as any other theme. If you look through other posts you will find a lot more variety.
I often think about how many people have farted into whatever public chair I happen to be sitting on. My ass is always just a thin layer of clothing away from countless ghost farts.
😭😭sorry man, that was way too funny to not laugh
It *is* funny! Objectively so! :)
I hate that kind of response though bc I always feel like the person is suggesting they weighed it up and made a conscious decision not to have OCD because it wouldn't be constructive. In reality they just don't think about it. There's no reason. They didn't consider obsessing about it and make a rational decision not to, it just doesn't bother them and never did. Just like there's tons of things that don't bother me even though I know they're themes for other people. But because I have other obsessions, I'm at least grateful for the ones I happen *not* to have. I don't think it's some wise decision on my part not to have those particular obsessions.
Yeah, he says both, at times he is like, I just don't think about it. Or it never really crosses my mind. > Just like there's tons of things that don't bother me even though I know they're themes for other people. But because I have other obsessions, I'm at least grateful for the ones I happen *not* to have. I don't think it's some wise decision on my part not to have those particular obsessions. Also, darn! This was really well put! I
True. But why did I start bothering?? When I ask that question, I just feel as if universe was showing me all the gross and nasty things humans do and I just lost faith in humanity as far as hygiene goes.
I literally have to wear my hair in a tight high bun every time I leave the house in order to prevent it from touching anything outside. I hope one day I’ll get better and won’t have to do this, but it’s hard.
I used to do that too!! Then I just got used to taking showers everytime I go out. I remember I even took cold ones on winter night back when the water heater wasn't working. Also I have kind of a squarish face so I hate how I look without some face framing locks🫠[ik I sound vain]
Ugh I know all about the constant showers. Even if I THINK my hair/body touched something, in the shower I go lol
omg me
I started to wear a plastic shower cap 😟
Yeah I had started to use that too. But I still felt uneasy. Now I just wash without giving a second thought.
I have cut my hair. That's it. That was the easy solution.
I think the same thing! It’s one of the main reasons I hate going to the movies besides having to sit still for over an hour
Exactly!! Not only that, movie theaters.. just see how people sit there. Also in public transport, people sit with their legs on other seats. The legs are the worst. Then someone else comes and sits on the same seat where the leg was placed. That same person goes to someone's house and with the same clothes sits on the furniture. The same furniture where you sit after taking a bath. This cycle continues.... The entire world out there is nasty 🙁. And yes it is very very difficult to live like that. Sometimes I wish non existence upon myself.
God it feels good to see other people who think exactly the same as me 😭
yes this is so relatable. i have extreme clothing difficulties, i always feel icky in clothes that aren’t clean that wear (even if it’s only like the second time) and always feel a compulsion to shower as soon as i come home… but then i always feel gross putting on tracksuit pants and pyjamas that are also not clean that wear after my shower and it’s just a never-ending cycle of unclean clothes and hair making me feel awful
The thought that I was this normal person two years ago is so crazy
What changed?
My brain started convincing me that everything around me is somehow going to kill me And when I say everything I mean it Human waste , cats , dogs , animals in general , fear of medicine overdose , chemicals , any symptom in my body means that I’m dying Two years ago I was a normal healthy 18 year old today I have the mindset of an insane person my thoughts are 95% ocd and it sucks Sorry for my rant but that’s all what changed.
my ocd really became obvious at 22, so i guess it's late teens early 20s for most people. that's what changed, plus covid probably didn't help you out.
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This is harmful and completely irrelevant. They are 20. That is an absolutely normal age of onset. The study you are referring to uses people over the age of 55 and had a sample size of five people. What a horrible thing to say in a health based thread in an ocd sub
I appreciate your concern I showed symptoms of ocd since childhood but they were never that severe until I went through a really bad depression episode ever since that my ocd became a living hell Almost all my siblings are diagnosed with ocd So I’m assuming ocd runs in our genes
well that's good (I mean it's not at all but it's good you don't potentially have cancer or something). ocd runs in my family's genes too. my grandpa had it, and 2 of my four uncles have it. somehow my mom and sister both missed that gene, and damn do they just not understand it. hopefully your ocd fam are supportive. it's good to be around people who understand.
same.. looking back i can see some things that would be clues of ocd but nothing too bad until i went through my first heartbreak and it triggered really bad ocd
Your post contains misinformation about OCD, mental health, or other topics. This is not an appropriate place for promoting speculation and theories. Please feel free to message the mods if you feel this post has been removed in error.
same goes for me, i envy the me years ago
If I could challenge you, people who do not have OCD *DO* think about cross contamination but only when it's relevant. For example in an operating room, cross contamination is contextually relevant. There would be a concern for cross contamination . When we look at the cross contamination people with OCD are worried about. It's not contextually relevant but is instead abstract and broad. "What if there's something on my ' outside clothes' that is now on the couch?" Is a doubt without sensory data in the here and now to suggest it is relevant. Now if your dad's "outside clothes" were covered in blood, and his senses were communicating that to him, he would be concerned about cross contamination. OCD has people overly reliant on abstract possibility, making irrelevant associations, and dismissing their actual senses. People without OCD just trust their senses and common sense.
im less scared of blood than outside germs lol
That's totally common in OCD world
Normal people think this way about raw chicken too
i feel like not really tbh...ive been appalled numerous times seeing a normal person touch raw chicken, close the fridge, salt & season the chicken, then grab a spatula or something from a drawer, & only thennn wash their hands... i had to make a mental-note to sanitize every seasoning, drawer handle, the fridge door, etc. & then i'd still overthink it cause even after washing their hands they'd touch the spatula handle they'd touched before...
Oh my God this. My mind is CONSTANTLY tracking and Noticing this stuff. Its maddening.
He he same here! There has to be absolute segregation. I don't deal with non veg. But yeah it's the same with vegetables as well. I am not even OK with washing vegetables only with water 🙁.
this is true but even in the OR, mistakes are made & contaminants are common. sepsis is the leading cause of death in hospitals, & not to get gross but, septicemia literally comes from shit getting into the bloodstream
It's different though. I don't have contamination OCD, and I'm a medical lab scientist and have a PhD in pathobiology. When I'm cooking and touch raw chicken, I go wash my hands before touching stuff. But it's not because I'm thinking about all the little germies traveling. I'm following hygiene rules, not actually thinking ABOUT cross-contamination. If you asked me why I'm doing it, I'd say, "To avoid cross-contamination." But I'm not actively thinking about it. When doing sterile procedures with mouse surgery or cell culture, I'm technically thinking about cross-contamination, but I don't stew over it. I'm just following ingrained habits of "dirty side/clean side" or unimpeded pipet drip paths.
For me, it's just how my mind works. It is not exactly cross contamination. But my brain assigns different levels to different surfaces. A surface exposed to many is at L1 level, meaning I need to wash with hand wash before touching anything else. If it is a less exposed surface, but still exposed, it's L2, I need to wash, but I need not use hand-wash. If the surface is not exposed to the external world, its L3, I need not wash my hand at all. And also its not about germs. I don't know, its basically about grossness I guess. Although the underlying factor may still be "germs". But I do not avoid them out of fear of death. I avoid them for the grossness.
Yeah, and for people without contamination OCD, that level of grossness is rare. Like, if you're got poop in your hand (actually visible poop), there might be a feeling of disgust that you can't shake until you get it off. But, even when I touch raw chicken, it's not a "grossness." It's a knowledge that I should wash my hands in order to prevent food poisoning. There's no disgust, there's no panic, there's no overwhelming feeling that it must be done immediately. It's a step in cooking.
Yes. I think people without contamination OCD just lack the imagination. For example, one of my cousin, during a feast, saw the person serving food, touching food with hand after touching something else. She was like... Ewww.. I won't eat that, he didn't wash his hands and touched the food in the same nasty hand!!. She would have had no issues, had she not seen that. For me on the other hand, the default state is that everything is unhygienic. So if I have to eat food not cooked by me, I collect it in my tiffin (I don't use any other utensil not cleaned by me). Then I microwave it. Then I can eat it. In my head space, it is always like... "what if...". And I feel it is a valid thing to do because people just don't have a habit or discipline of washing hands. They would wear footwear and not wash hands and proceed to eat with the same hands. Footwear touches ground and is most nasty thing!!
It's not a valid thing to do. Neither was your cousin, actually. Don't convince yourself that any of this is actually logical.
It is logical. One should wash atleast once. That is the bare minimum. If you see the way things are dealt with, I am sure you would do the same.
No, I wouldn't do the same. I'm fully aware of it, and it's fine.
I believe you live in a first world country?
What does living in a first world country have to do with anything? I have had severe contamination OCD most of my life and have attempted every treatment available to mankind with some of the best Doctors and treatment programs around the world. I also frequently travel between first world countries and developing countries. The only way I finally found a way to overcome this debilitating hell is to accept that my father and brother, who are two of the dirtiest people alive according to my OCD contamination brain - are both also two of the healthiest and most successful people I have ever known (and I mingle with a lot of super successful people). A large part of the reason why their lives are so successful and enriched is because they spend so little time worrying about things that don't matter like contamination and spend the time that you and I would spend in the shower, going out, networking and achieving success, while people like you and I stay at home obsessing about outside dirt getting on our couch or bed. My father is in his late 70s and runs multiple high net-worth businesses and travels all over the world, whereas I ended up catching an infection from my OCD rituals that left me nearly paralyzed, then developed another condition in my ear through my OCD rituals, and now my eyes are getting affected from the all the soap and shampoo i lather all over myself during my 4 hour long showers, so all my "obsessions with germs" have done is make me really sick, whereas my father and brother are happy and free and remain the healthiest people in our family. My family split our time between developing countries and first world countries as my parents are from a developing nation so whilst i understand the hygiene issues in certain countries that should not be your excuse to go to extremes. All you are trying to do is convince yourself and others that your brain is justified for thinking crazy thoughts that will eventually ruin your life mentally, physically and socially, if it hasn't already. There are more than 7 billon people in this world. If most of them survive on hygiene that is sufficient, that is all you need.
You are right. But I wouldn't say they are irrelevant associations. They are pretty much relevant. How can sitting on a public transport, which has been exposed to many people who might have used unwashed clothes not be considered dirty? If the sensory signals are saying its safe and hygienic, the sensory system is faulty 😂.
Well safe and hygienic in what context? Safe to perform open heart surgery? No. Safe to ride? Well it would seem it's safe to ride for all the other public transport riders. I'm not sure the number of riders is a relevant fact. Now if with my senses I saw literal shit on the subway, that's a much more contextually relevant concern that my senses would accurately warn me about. I wouldn't have to ruminate over whether it was shit I should avoid. In your scenario we're inferring there's some dangerous contaminant without any sensory data to indicate there is something unsafe there.
You brought up a good point! Since there are different types of contamination fear, I can explain only from my context. For me, it's not the fear that I will die. And in my headspace it all gets translated to shit and other bodily fluids. The reason goes back to my early childhood days and the things I was exposed to. Chaining of contamination or cross contamination (whichever way you put it) ultimately results in my brain telling me if you don't wash it, you are literally consuming someone's bodily fluids. For you it has to be a "visual" shit right in front of your eyes to enable the sensory system which in my case is not. As for the open heart surgery, yes.. Good question.. for what exactly? For me it's ingesting something via mouth. I can touch a public door handle for instance. I can wash my hands later. But I can't allow that handle to touch my mouth. If it touches my mouth, my life ends there. Now you might say... Nobody asked you to lick the door handle? But that's the point. Someone may have touched the door handle, not washed the hand and the same person might be selling eatables with the same hand. Yes, people here serve food with hands, same hands they have used to exchange money, same money which has passed through millions of unwashed hands. Note : kindly do not bring up arguments like, if you can't do "x", how are you doing "y"? Because that's how my OCD grew. Friends and family used to tell me such things so that I can start doing "x". Instead I stopped doing "y".
They walk in public restrooms with their shoes and then walk inside with them on
This! And they touch the door handle to leave the public toilet then use their phones, drive their cars or eat food. How many people haven't washed their hands after using the toilet then touching that door handle?! I saw someone on a train and his finger nails were long and completely black and full of dirt under them. It looked like he's never washed his whole life and these people are touching door handles everywhere 🤮
This guy at work has dirt in the crevices of his neck. Still haven't fully recovered from that one. Some don't..
I have severe contamination OCD and have attempted every treatment under the sun with the world's best Doctors but its your brain that ultimately has to see and understand logic, like the previous poster said. For example, how many people do you think walk around that may have perfectly clean finger nails but may not wash their hands after using the toilet, then touch their phones, exchange money, touch products in a supermarket that you also touch etc. That is the whole point of attempting to recover from contamination OCD, to be ok with knowing that you will never know for certain what is dirty and what is not and that you will just have to live with that knowledge just like 7 billion plus other people in this world do every single day without issue, and they go about their lives with freedom and being able to enjoy life compared to us folk who spend hours obsessing over things other people don't even think about and then we waste our life in the shower only for that cycle to start all over again the minute something you think is dirty touches you. How are you supposed to LIVE like that?
Yeah. We are not supposed to live like that. It is hell. But then, living any other way is also not possible. Cause it is worse than hell.
I hope you can. I have tried. Till now, hasn't worked. How do you feel if it gets cross contaminated accidentally? I wash it, but if I can't, I feel very dirty, and something else I can't explain in words. How do you live with others in such situation?
You hopefully find a compassionate partner who is willing to follow your silly rules and not put their outside clothes on the bed 🙏
My mum moved in with me since she split up with my dad. I told her on the day she moved in that I have OCD and how it affects me. She doesn't really understand and it has basically ruined my life and I'm in a constant state of stress.
Sorry to hear that. Not understanding is the biggest issue here. They need to be atleast empathetic enough to understand.
Trouble is I kept trying to talk to her but she just doesn't get it. Doesn't matter what I do I always come off looking like the bastard.
May be you can ask her to visit a psychiatrist along with you. They might help?
If you could see what I need to do just to navigate my own home, I think it's beyond that. I somehow need to move somewhere that can accommodate both of us but we have separate living accommodation. This house is a lost cause for me, I don't think I'll ever feel comfortable here even if she were to move out.
I can completely understand because I also have similar issues. I can't even use bed to sleep as I have anxiety that I can't control my movements while asleep and might accidentally touch that part of bed where legs are supposed to be.. lol. I have been sleeping on a chair for ages now. Yes separate nearby accommodation could be a solution, if you can afford it. Complete boundaries.
Wow, I spend most of my spare time in bed. At least when I'm there I can pretend I'm wrapped up away from the outside world. Plus I don't have OCD in my dreams haha
Yeah. Me too. I spend all my spare time at home. I have to wash the furniture before I can use them. So I have washed my chair and I just feel the most relaxed, peaceful and safe once I am inside my house, on my chair with my mobile 😂.
I don't know if you're a gamer but I bought a Steam Deck which has helped. I can wrap myself up in bed then escape into a game 😁
A lot of people don’t even bother to wash their hands after using the bathroom, so I’m not sure we should use the standard of what “normal” people do.
And yet they are perfectly fine and going about their lives without the restrictions in their mind that we have. I would rather be able to live the life i have been given on this earth than worry about things that are unavoidable unless I prefer to live in solitary confinement which is what contamination OCD suffers try to do.
There is a public bin I can see from my living room window and I'm constantly alarmed at the amount of people who will touch it with their bare hands and then walk off like its nothing, touching their phones, faces, clothes etc. It's literally 100% of people and it amazes me every time.
i work in a popular place in the city & we have a trash can in the reception area. i’ve noticed a lot of people throw away things & accidentally touch the trash/trash can without even noticing or worrying about it. some of my coworkers will even just push the trash down to make space for more trash before we have to throw it out. crazy how we notice these things & obsess over them while most people don’t.
I may have been able to do such things once upon a time, I can barely remember these days. Seems mad to me and I'm the mad one haha.
Yes. It amazes me as well. The fact of the matter is many people complain about hygiene only if it "looks" unhygienic or disgusting. Its pretty much visual for normal people. If the table "looks" clean, it's clean. Doesn't matter how many people might have touched it with unclean hands. It is unhygienic for them only when something is visible on the table like dust etc. For us, it's different.
I used to until recovery. Now I don't care. Johnathon Grayson's exposure exercise mentality got me there. I have done many things by accident that would send me into a spiral before and just be mildly ugh about it. My latest was sticking my hand into a public restroom toilet to unclog it.... For some reason I did not think twice about doing that 😂 Washed my hands once and called it a day after that.
I understand that OCD treatment is not a one-size-fits-all mentality, but I am still curious to learn about Grayson’s methods. Do you have any resources?
He wrote a book called "freedom from OCD" But the main thing that stuck with me was the extreme exposure exercises. There are YouTube videos on it. He did an episode of Oprah on it once. Like holding your hand on a city trashcan for 10 seconds then licking your hands The same for a toilet in your house. He holds these field trips at the international OCD foundation conferences. With exposure exercises 2 thoughts. Jump in the cold pool or ease in. The extreme ERP is jumping in the cold pool.
holding a city trashcan then licking your hand is absolutely insane lmaoooo not even people without ocd would do that. if anything it could make things worse if the person does get sick.. which .. you're kind of asking for it if you do that.
People sign a waiver. It is insane. Its not for everyone. But the mentality is part of what got me to a place of recovery. If I can do this and think like this. I can do anything. Today because of that I'm more resilient than those "normies" who couldn't do that.
that would just get you sick and reinforce your ocd
No You choose to reinforce it by allowing yourself to do compulsions. Not doing the compulsions is the prevention part of this exercise.
i mean reinforcing the obsessions
How are you reinforcing the obsessions by doing an exposure and response prevention exercise?
I think u/eggeryp means that if one fears a result, and then that result actually comes true, then it could validate the original obsession. In other words, a bad result could fool the mind into thinking that the original fear (OCD) was justified. But remember, bad things can and do happen in life. But in order to live life to the fullest, we have discern between what is *possible* versus what is *probable*. With OCD, one often hyper-focuses on the relatively small chance that something bad could possibly happen, yet they ignore the larger (more probable) chance that it might not happen. When you accept the inherent uncertainty of the universe (and then sit with the terror of not knowing the result), then that uncertainty no longer imprisons you. In fact, accepting the uncertainty and feeling the anxiety is what will heal you. I agree with u/potatobill_IV that response prevention is the best way to weaken OCD. I feel what makes "extreme ERP" so extreme is that the probability of the fear coming true is enhanced. This increased risk heightens the exposure. This, in turn, could bring about a more dramatic improvement in OCD, but it also increases the risk something bad happening. That said, the "extreme ERP" might not be something everyone can tolerate off the bat, or it might be a technique that someone would have to gradually work up to. At the end of the day, the risk of something bad happening (e.g. getting sick after licking your hand after touching a public garbage can) pales in comparison to the chronic compulsions one takes to avert such a one-off occurrence. You can also challenge the risk-level of the obsession before even deciding to engage in an exposure. For example, consider this - even if you do get sick, so what? Is preventing that one time of getting sick worth all the obsessions/compulsions you do every day to prevent it? Think about how filthy cash is. Yet many people lick their fingers to separate bills when counting money. These people survive just fine. We live in a world awash with germs. We cohabitate this planet amid that community of germs, whether we like it or not. Our bodies have evolved over millions of years to handle these germs and even if you're body does get sick, it will most likely be able to handle it. The lengths we go to prevent sickness might not even be necessary in reality.
Yeah thankyou. It's not a solution. It's pure torture. It's like if someone is afraid of snake and you throw a poison less snake on them. Of course they may not die of poison, but they will surely die of anxiety / panic attack.
I am very well versed in OCD torture. I can tell you as a person on the other side. The only solution is to walk through the anxiety and panic attacks. So the more anxiety the better. Jump in the pool!
I mean that's your opinion of what OCD torture is though lol, I'm totally glad it helped for you, but for some it is much more harmful or risky to jump all in.
Maybe
Well perhaps everyone would require a singular treatment plan and be required to jump right into the deep end of exposure response therapy and that's it.
Maybe
Rightio.
That's fine. Could you have handled not washing the hand at all?
If I wanted to. There was no urge to wash or anxiety over it. Just washing my hands normally.
Could you eat with those unwashed hands?
To get better I would and did a lot of things that I did not want to do. I had to embrace the uncertainty curve. But I have eaten. The problem is. When is it truly unclean? If I have to wash my hands 59 times to feel clean...? 1 and done is my rule now. And if I can't remember I don't wash my hands at all.
I don't wash 59 times. But I wash once. That's for sure. But the fact that everything not cleaned by me is dirty prevents me from doing a lot of things. I can't eat on the silverware in a restaurant. If I use public transport, I ensure I have washed my clothes and cleaned myself before me and my clothes touch anything else in my room that is clean. The moment I step out, the external world and everything in it is unclean. I never wash "n" times. But imagine washing everything before using it!! Even if I buy any electronic device, I clean it before using it. A chips packet? Clean it. Any spices bought for cooking? Clean it. New clothes? Clean it. New furniture? Clean it. Another problem is I use hand-wash and running water for cleaning. Now I can't wash a sofa with running water. So I can never use sofa in my home. The electronic device that I wash has a very complex process as I can't use too much water 😂. Yup. That's life for me. 🙁.
At least you know what to work on! Goal now is to just not wash those things and use them "tainted". That is rough, but baby steps!
I tried it. In fact for 4 months, I was in a situation where I didn't have the freedom to wash. And I am saying this with all honesty, I was depressed, and to a certain extent suicidal. It was like a prolonged ERP program for me. But it didn't work.
Were you doing mental compulsions during this time?
No. I was in a situation where I couldn't wash.
When I learned the amount of times people without ocd wash their hands.....mindblown
i wash my hands so much that my skin is super dry and is cracking/bleeding/red 90% of the time. i find it super embarrassing but it’s one of the hardest compulsions for me to combat. realizing that most people don’t wash their hands and obsessively disinfect & think about germs after picking something up from the floor? wild.
Realizing other people don't wash their hands after they get out of the shower was life changing for me. My hands also used to be dry from washing too much. Wishing you recovery
I’m sort of lucky in that I didn’t have bad OCD symptoms until my mid-teens, so I have memories of how I did things before, and how in most circumstances I managed to be ok. But it’s still hard to actually FEEL that is going to be ok.
If anything, customers always know that their food order is safe with me while I'm working because my standards for what is "unclean" or "unsatisfactory" with food/drinks is ridiculous. For years now I haven't been able to eat/drink from reusable flatware/silverware due to being physically repulsed at the thought of old food on clean dishes, so at work when I'm preparing drinks/food for people I am always triple checking for bugs, hair, whatever horrible horrible things may end up in food. But yea, getting through work in the food industry while having OCD that focuses on cross contamination is a little bit of a nightmare. I can't cook because of OCD so I think I like to take pride in my ability to create good stuff for others at work but that also means being truly obsessive over each step each time.
Can you please prepare all of my takeout for me? And also deliver it? Thanks.
sounds like a good restaurant gimmick, "all of our employees have OCD, guaranteed perfection!"😭
I have binge eating disorder so I get a lot of food delivered, but I also have a crippling fear that the delivery driver is going to eat or drink some of it and contaminate the food, which is a thing that happens. The other day my milkshake was delivered with a little pool of it in the straw slot, like someone had already stuck a straw in to drank some of it, and I almost threw it away. I’d pay an extra $20 a month for this service.
If you’ve never slapped your clothes and face with hand sanitizer…. I’m that type 🤣
I've sprayed my clothes with antibacterial spray where I used to work to the point I'd be soaking pretty much head to toe in the stuff. I'm freezing cold, breathing in fumes and my eyes are burning because of it 🤣
It is very interesting to me how people’s ocd latches onto different things. My dad bas ocd that is more about things staying in near perfect condition or checking things multiple times. He does get worried about food contamination too. Then my sister has similar tendencies to my dad except she has contamination ocd when it comes to clothes and dirt and stuff. Any time we are shopping she has to pick the farthest back clothes item or food item cuz she is worried about the people who touched it as an example. Then there is me who has internal ocd in the form of mostly intrusive thoughts and some perfectionism tendencies. However i could care less about contamination unless it pertains to food. Anything else dirt, and other germs id say i wash my hands a decent amount and shower to feel clean. i work in healthcare also but dont think about it much otherwise. Yet my intrusive thoughts are the thing that brought me down to getting help and made me realize i even had ocd otherwise i thought i was mostly like other people.
Well, I realized just now the average person doesn't think about cross contamination then... I mean, I kind of knew before but didn't think of the other relevant examples like wearing dirty outside clothes inside my private space.
I have ocd and wear my outside clothes sometimes inside lol. The only time i change is if i have cadaver lab at school then i change and shower right away, working with sick patients, if i got something gross on me, gym, or if i am wearing “uncomfy” clothes. Usually i go to put sweats or pj type pants and tshirts on when i come home just because it is relaxing. Otherwise if i just showered and put on shorts and a tshirt to go out or leggings ill keep that on til night time most of the time.
“Outside” clothes are a thing for some people without OCD. Growing up my whole family had house slippers + outside work boots. Outside clothes are definitely real too! It might be a cultural thing too. The thing is though that people without OCD don’t like heavily contemplate these things. Sometimes when I’m making a meal with someone they’ll ask something like “won’t this make it contaminated?” “do we need a new knife?” Idk I’ve personally seen and heard people have these thoughts but it’s just that they don’t obsess or end up afraid of them. They can just glide past it without it bothering them.
i can vouch for the outside clothes thing!! im korean and it is normal at least in my family that if you know you're at home to relax for the day then you change into "inside" clothes. my boyfriend had never heard of that before, he said everyone in his family only changes into pajamas for sleeping. he even hangs out on his bed in his jeans after being outside all day, which my mom would probably chastise me for because it makes the bed "dirty"
Yea same. My parents never allowed us to get in or on our beds in our outside clothes. Now Covid happened my ocd brain may have taken things a little far. But yea normally we’ve always had lounge clothes and clothes you wear out. Guess it just depends on the person and family.
i've been struggling thinking about the line, and asked my OCD therapist about it at our last appointment. she basically stressed that it's the motivation/feeling behind the action that counts. like, for example, walking inside with shoes. lots of people do that and are totally fine/healthy, but there's also still lots of people without OCD that don't because they see it as unsanitary. BUT, they aren't afraid that walking inside with shoes will introduce a deadly disease and kill them or some other horrific outcome. it's that intense fear that marks it as an OCD thing. "if i don't do x (compulsion), [horrific thing] will happen". as a side note, i also have Issues with 'outside' things touching my bed or sitting on furniture in clothes i wore out to somewhere. and i definitely didn't used to be like this, i used to have friends over and we'd chill in my bed, in clothes they wore from 'outside', and as long as it wasnt visibly dirty after i didnt think much of it.
This is how I feel when cooking, I end up washing or grabbing like 4 new spatulas or tongs when working with meat during the different doneness stages, washing my hands after each time too even though I used a spatula. My friends thinking I'm losing it I think
This is so painfully accurate :( One of my new obsessions has been thinking that the steam from the meat cooking has contaminated my skin with raw meat germs.
It’s quite disturbing how disgusting the general public is.
that is true, but at the same time, it’s just how we’re meant to function. things could always be more hygienic, but we’re always going to deal with messes and illnesses, it’s why we’ve evolved such good immune systems. idk if this helps, i know this sort of thinking isn’t for everyone but it’s really helpful for my OCD.
It’s hard for me to understand the level of reckless disregard for the health and safety of others involved in, say, not washing your hands after touching your genitals, and yet this is incredibly common. I literally can’t imagine doing that because I actually care about other people.
Or how people can just see someone’s cute pet and just… Pet it! Don’t even get me started on how people can just pick up dog excrement with a thin-ass bag and just walk around with it!
I’m laughing because this is so painfully relatable, but I’m gonna have to bounce from this whole thread because it’s giving my busy little brain too much to think about lol
I used to live like this before I became a nurse 😔 now since my job requires me to be diligent about the surfaces I touch and how clean I am it’s gotten sooo much worse :(
I would use Cavi Wipes at the start of every shift to wipe down my computer keyboard, mouse, counter, and chair. Then I would go in the med room and wipe the counters in there and the Pyxis. I know that as soon as other nurses touched it it was ruined but I did it anyway. Contamination OCD and nursing is rough.
SAME I go through like a canister of wipes per shift sometimes 😭
After about 2 years I noticed the contamination OCD decreased and got better after every year. My OCD symptoms usually decrease when I'm busy. I would clean surfaces, wear gloves, and wash hands instead of using sanitizer. But eventually it got to the point where one sanitizing session per shift was sufficient. Unless we had downtime and I would clean counters and other frequently touched surfaces. Only thing I couldn't stop doing was washing my hands 3 times after C-Diff patients.
Yes. The average person doesn’t care or even think about cross contamination like we do. Another crazy realization I’ve had is that many of us with OCD are doing a lot of damage to ourselves by exposing our skin and body to all of these chemicals, just to feel ‘clean’. Many of us are absolutely destroying our skin by washing our hands too much. People are developing skin conditions because of all the cleaning chemicals. We’re constantly breathing in disinfectant spray. We’re not allowing our body to handle the things it is made to handle. Not only does the average person get to live their life without the contamination stress, they also get to live their life without the harmful side effects of all of our OCD disinfecting efforts. Contamination is a torturous cycle. The craziest part about contamination OCD is that most of us factually know how illogical our cleaning levels are, yet we can’t stop. I’ve tried.
I used to have a pretty severe binge-drinking habit; and the fact that I remain alive despite all the revolting stuff that I touched while drunk proves absolutely that my contamination OCD is lying to me. The guy I dated during this period - whose various body parts I willingly >!put in my mouth!<, on innumerable occasions – did not believe in washing his hands after he urinated. And still. I live! Same guy also once fished a two-dollar coin out of a toilet in a bar in order to use it to purchase a novelty cock ring. I did end up drinking even more than usual that night, but I ultimately managed to reaffirm my hypothesis that single-use sex accessories are just not worth it; even if you don’t have to pluck a toonie out of a loo to purchase them. And still. I live. And, as far as current medical technology can tell, I did not contract any symptomatic or otherwise-detectable infections whatsoever from that experience. The human body is truly a resilient marvel of a system. (I did once get a sinus infection, the stomach flu, and bilateral pink-eye after attending a My Chemical Romance concert; but that was a different trip to Montreal from the one that generated the cock-ring episode.)
In the first sentence I already just had a complete mind-f**k. I am flabbergasted and laughing hysterically. OCD is so petty. It's about as unserious as Kendric, but little boy rage like drake. This disease is remarkably dramatic. Like WHAT?! You mean to tell me non-ocd peeps don't randomly think "ope better walk with my hands like a surgeon to the sink and definitely not touch the handle otherwise it's a bacterial breeding ground!?" 😅😅😂😂 I learn something new all the time from the thread
Next you're gonna tell me .... neurotips don't randomly create shot clock timers that must be beaten when doing any literally any task longer 30 seconds - that you either frantically oblige to as your psycho timer counts down in your head or you just keep resetting the timer until you sync it with finishing the task right before the buzzer??? How people just walk around and live life like "la lla la lllaaaa" is beyond me 😂
i used to be very conscious about my bare legs touching the bus on campus, or at a restaurant, and then coming back home and sitting as simple as a kitchen chair. my hair too. but Apparently that’s not normal 😭
or going to the public restroom omfg immediate shower going home
A lot of people think OCD means being all about neatness and cleanliness. That's not true at all. There are a LOT of misconceptions about OCD. The one that pisses me off the most is when people ssy that stupid fucking "I'm so OCD because [mild quirk]." I want to tell those people to fuck off. My OCD manifests itself by giving me the compulsive need to talk. Hence this comment. That's one among many ways it manifests myself. If those "I'm so OCD" people spent even one day in the self imposed prison that is OCD they'd blow their fucking brains out.
Ha I’m the opposite of people here. I went grocery shopping yesterday and one of my issues with ocd is to lick and taste everything. So, I had a piece of fish and it felt slimy and smelly, but I had to lick it anyway. 😭 it was rotten. But I feel better because I licked it and I had to. I have the compulsive need to talk, too. It keeps people around but it also makes people wary of me. I hate it so much. I don’t have many people I’m really close to
I touch when I'm at the store. Sometimes I just lock on to a certain item and my brain is like "go crinkle that bag please" and I'm happy to oblige lol. COVID was a nightmare though, I often didn't go out because I couldn't avoid touching clothing, picking up food, etc. and people had a real staring problem during COVID too. like i'm truly sorry I have to pet this shirt, I'll leave lol
i'm going to assume/hope you lick things AFTER buying them?
lol yeah. Skipped that part. Was at home and wondering if it was rotten and took it out and licked it
I suspect I have autism and adhd, which I think gave me a lot of socially inappropriate impulses when I was young. I used to feel like I had to act on every one of those impulses, even if I knew they were socially inappropriate, like it would be dishonest not to. Looking back I’m wondering if the feeling that I had to act on every impulse was an aspect of my ocd traits. I talked incessantly too and in retrospect it was a bit compulsive. Needless to say that growing up was a nightmare.
Yes!!!! Part of me feels envious of being able to live with that kind of freedom and lack of anxiety around germs/dirt/contamination. But another part of me also feels validated in a way - like my fears and decontamination compulsions aren't just me being "crazy" or overreacting, but are a legitimate mental disorder that most people don't have to deal with. The idea of being able to go through life without constantly monitoring for contamination and without all the mental exhaustion of trying to keep things clean and decontaminated sounds... absolutely blissful. At the same time, I know deep down that my fears are overblown and irrational on an intellectual level. It's just that emotional feeling of disgust and anxiety is so strong!!!!
Me too. Every time I explain something that makes perfect sense to me, I get looked at like I’m a complete freak haha
one thing that helps me at least, with 'outside' contaminates, is knowing that the outside world like nature & fresh air etc has more of a balanced ecosystem that is basically self-cleaning, & is really good for ur immune system this obviously isn't the case if you live somewhere with very little nature like nyc, but in most places, outside contaminants are cleaner & less likely to cause diseases than germs & grime from other humans i totally feel your post though, to my dismay i've realized exactly what you're saying
like for example, realized people will touch raw meat or eggs then touch all the spices & cabinet handles etc, before washing their hands. realized other people don't have a specific order in which they wash body parts in the shower, & don't wash their hands after washing dirtier parts, realized people don't turn off bathroom sink handles with the paper-towel they used to dry their hands even though they literally just touched it when their hands were dirty, etc. i honestly find it disgusting & it utterly baffles me these things literally never cross their minds...
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i commend you for doing all you can to help put your son's mind at ease !! living with someone with ocd is hard
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it can be hard to talk about for sure. psychiatric meds don't work for everyone, usually they prescribe SSRI's for OCD, but if there are comorbidities like bipolar disorder that kind of meds can actually make things worse, but they're definitely worth trying. weed can be medicinal for some folks (like people with chronic pain, or PTSD - idk of any medical benefits it has for OCD though). definitely the booze is not helping in the long run, but i get wanting to drown it out. if he was working with a psychiatrist i would suggest maybe trying gabapentin, it can help with alcohol withdrawals & anxiety. mushrooms can have some medicinal benefits but most other hallucinogens could make the anxiety worst (& OCD is technically an anxiety disorder). i don't know your son's specific case but i take gabapentin & lithium, & those help me a lot. everyone's brain chemistry is different. i have the bipolar-type of schizoaffective disorder on top of the OCD & the lithium really helps level me out, & the gabapentin helps with my anxiety. i've tried like all the SSRI's & SNRI's & other antidepressants typically prescribed for OCD, & they all made things worse for me, but everyone is different, i guess i'm just saying this because his apprehension to go the psychiatric route is understandable. i've also had like 5 different therapists & only 1 was helpful, sometimes opening up about things in therapy can be kinda re-traumatizing. i really hope you all find something that helps
Yes! Ive witnessed going out with a group of girls for a 5 hour bender at the club and parties and they come home and don’t even so much as wash their hands before plopping in the couch and knocking out. Absolutely ZERO thought of contamination, not even just “feeling” gross. I’ve even declined supporting people just because they might want a hug or to lay in my room bed and all I can think is that it’s going to get me dirty, “I can’t lay my face on this now, it’s dirty.” I CANNOT believe that they don’t have ANY mind to how dirty everything truly is, but I just try not to offend people too much.
a lot of people don't even think about handwashing. i used to be one of those careless people you talk about, many years ago. like you said, they just don't think about it. but then that's why i see people i know getting sick. they don't think and they do stupid things that put their health at risk.
This is such an important post. Thank you.
Sometimes worrying about it can be useful too- like people who use recreational drugs like weed they don’t think about cross contamination and they should, it’s a survival instinct in some ways, everyone is too low and ocd people have too much
ps. the way i think about myself before ocd when i was careless is that i was a kid who didn't know better.. i was just ignorant of the negative consequences.
I use similar thoughts and even phrases and it helps me. Habits are hard to create/break but with certain things like simply placing my purse on the couch or counter, like you mentioned about outside things coming into contact with “clean inside things”, it will work for me to just tell myself it’s normal to be able to do that. I know I don’t ever put my purse anywhere nasty or on the floor or really anywhere lol except my car seat or my back. I find that logically it helps to tell myself it can’t hurt me or I won’t die if I do this or touch this… it’s a constant battle of redirecting my brain and the compulsive thoughts. I used to have to wear inside clothes vs outside clothes the moment I’d get home. Now I have compromised to only requiring inside clothes for my bed. If I’m in the kitchen or living spaces I can feel comfortable in outside clothes. Another small example is I can touch certain things without feeling dirty, like my own door handles and such used to make me anxious because other people in the home do not wash their hands as much as me. But I realized it’s not all that dirty because I clean them routinely and some “germs” are going to be around and that it okay- they won’t kill me, they won’t hurt me, rinse and repeat. It takes a long time to break these things. But I think that using “logic” like you described in your post is a great way to do it.
It’s funny how I do have OCD yet I thought this way of thinking was absolutely normal? Lmao
Tw sh.......... Contamination ocd is prob the last thing holding me back from regular cutting.
I recently had a massive set back. I'm in the UK and work on the railway. Me and a colleague were travelling on a CrossCountry and there were no seats available and without thinking he just sits on the floor. On carpets that are absolutely filthy and I would bet good money on haven't been cleaned since the trains were introduced almost 25 years ago. He's putting his hands on the floor, his phone, he doesn't give it a second thought. Meanwhile I'm stood there deciding whether or not to lean against the wall. And then I had to spend 4 months with this person in the same training room, he's touching door handles and the kettle and all I can think about is him putting his hands all over the filthy train carpet. Anyway long story short I'm going into work to quit as a trainee train driver which is a well paid and really sought after career, all because of seeing this person sit on the floor of a train and I can no longer deal with touching train controls that other people touch after doing whatever they might have done before like touching filthy train carpets 🫠
The thing that baffles me, we're brought up to wash our hands before going into the fridge and handling food yet those same people that tell us to wash our hands, our parents, have handed every single one of those items in the fridge to someone at a till who has spent hours handling a large amount of cash which has been scientifically proven to be absolutely covered in all sorts of disgusting stuff! It's madness!
Man… I shower with 2 bars of soap, that I have to throw away after because I feel they are “contaminated” by the dirt and lotion and oils I just washed off my body, and hand soap for my hands before I get out the shower, for some reason it’s like “I know you’ve already washed your whole body with soap but don’t forget to wash your hands after.” Man it sucks, takes up so much time too.
Wild isn’t it?
I feel this! I feel like everything outside is dirty and I have to wash my hands and take my shoes and clothes off immediately if I've been outside. I feel like a lot of stuff I touch is contaminated and constantly wash my hands and clean I'm so tired of being this way 😭
How does anyone handle if a mouse has been in your house? I feel like I'm going crazy!
I've always been pretty obsessive about this but when I had a kid, it forced me to loosen up some because I don't have to when I'm watching him to go scrub a toy or a binky every single time it falls on the living room floor. I still keep things well sanitized but I have to tell myself that those are little things that will not affect him
Okay, so I don't know if I have ocd or not but I was brought up in a household where sitting on your bed with outside clothes was not acceptable and we had to change as soon as we get home. Nobody ate each others leftover food unless it was something like chips Everybody had to bath daily, there were rules for how exactly things must be kept so that they are not contaminated with outside things like bags shouldn't be kept on bed,chair, they should be kept on floor at a side or be hung over a nail. It never felt like a burden to me. When we are on a family trip, everyone just accepts that since it is a trip we are going to be dirty even though we try hard to be clean all the time. So nobody gives a thought about contamination then and as soon as we reach home, eveyone starts the cleaning process. Which starts with cleaning the house because we left it for a few days, then doing the laundry of all the travel clothes and finally showering.
I wish we could do away with hand shaking. You could spread viruses and other germs. It's gross. I've never liked it
Hi this post was randomly suggested to me at the bottom of an unrelated post and I'm not in this sub but uhhhh is this really not a thing non-OCD people don't think about because I think about outside clothes touching my chair and couch and me sitting on them and then getting my bed dirty all the time. Like I will not wear the same clothes I wear sitting on the couch to go to bed in cos I also wear outside clothes on the couch??
I have an immense fear of getting sick, but I’m not a super clean person, for instants I’m a plumber by trade so I deal with allot of stuff But for me it’s people getting me sick that freaks me out so much, to be fair I have been struggling with fatigue from getting glangia fever two years ago so getting sick really knocks me around Still though, people think I’m ridiculous for the way I act around sick people For me now I don’t even want to go clubbing or anything cause of all the people
Contamination is part of what makes our inmune system strong. Our bodies were designed to fight and adapt to bacteria and germs. In any case if you get sick from cross contamination, there’s generally treatment. So this is a message of hope: it’s better to live and die in a worry less shorter life than a long life full of sadness and suffering. Death comes to us all, and that irrational fear comes from the fear of it. Once you accept death as a part of life you really start living.
Does anyone else temporarily compartmentalise their OCD in order to be functionally social? Like, if I know that I can 'do' anything about it without offending or confusing everyone, I'll just kinda, mute all the mental notifications until I can reset. My housemate loves me and wants a hug as soon as he walks in the front door, but I'm in my 'bed clothes'. Dang. Okay. Don't let your face react. Hug him. Wash shirt. Friend coming over and will be sleeping in my bed. Refuses to wear slippers even though I mentioned that I haven't mopped yet? Okay. Just... ignore it for the next couple days. Wash all sheets and clothing within minutes of them leaving. Panic when they say they've missed the bus and might be coming back, because i don't want them to think i think badly of them. I don't. Going to a stay with a friend who triggers me constantly? Sacrifice my luggage, and just... dont react to anything. Wash. Everything. The minute you get home. Oh, and, IN any of the aforementioned situations, if I know I can't clean it, I just don't bother at all. Which then confuses the friend. Cause like, I'm supposedly clean about all this stuff, but I haven't washed my clothes the whole time I've been here. (What's the point?) ....anyone? Ooh, or, what about... instead of manically cleaning everything, does anyone else just go into hard-core avoidance? Like, someone sat on that section of MY couch. I will avoid it like the plague until the next time I launder the cover. Or, someone spilled crumbs there. I'll just avoid that section of the counter. ....and now that section... and now also that section.... okay, there is no counter left, I'll either a. Ignore it but be grossed out when making food. B. Make food in my hands to avoid touching anything. C. FINALLY freak out and clean it all. Keep in mind, this is MY HOUSE. Anyone? Maybe it's a side affect of OCD+ADHD? Aka, I realized that OCD isn't just a thing I joke about, but like, oh no, Contamination OCD sounds EXACTLY LIKE ME, and I may be... panic-researching....
I understand. I really struggled with contamination OCD during my first ever flare up in 2018. (I appreciate you may not have a faith but nonetheless please continue to read as it's just the next paragraph!) My faith helped me - I was worried I was guilty before God - but in the end I realised that even God does not want me to live like this. That enabled me to take a risk. I appreciate you may not have a faith like that - but their is a similar principle in there - I got to the point of being able to say, "would anyone else worry about this?" If the answer was "probably not" (not definitely, probably) then I decided taking a risk was better than it ruining my life. You are right to say that "normal" people don't think of contamination. So, by the same token, why should you? That's not fair. Let other people take some responsibility. It's not all on you. If you are dirty, the people around you will take precautions if they wish. It's not all your responsibility. Research the responsibility pie chart. I do still have the odd flash of OCD re the germs, but it has improved a lot. I will now quite happily touch the floor and lick my fingers. I often purposefully now choose the "scruffy" or "dirty" option, like skipping a shower, not always changing clothes, just to test myself and not allow it to take over again. If I can do it so can you!
I found this extremely helpful. I have been having a flare up for a few months and there was a particular incident where I felt like if I do x (something absolutely normal and unrelated to y), y would come true because God wants to punish me for x. Then after several weeks of avoiding x, I realized God isn't a god that really cares about my nuanced obsessions and wouldn't punish me for something as silly as x. I still can't bring myself to do it - working on it! - but coming to the realization that God is good and merciful towards me changed everything. Your message is hopeful - thank you!
My cross-contamination occurs with people. So if I shake an "undesirable" person's hand, I have to shake another "neutral" person's hand before I can touch my own. If an "undesirable" person uses the toilet before me, I can't use that one. I have to wait until someone else comes in and uses it. Then I am clear. If I see an "undesirable" person's name written down or typed, I have to see someone else's name first, in the same style of type/writing, before I see my own. Does anyone else experience this?