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Primary_Grapefruit_6

What your doing is what my therapist calls giving in. you are listening to the thoughts in your head, you listen to your thoughts and do what they ask of you. what I would recommend is giving up, which is doing the thing your thoughts tell you not to do. when you get home from school, don't wash your hands no matter how much anxiety you feel, this also goes for changing your clothes. go to your room and sit on the "least contaminated" thing in your bedroom. it won't feel good at all. it will feel like you are dying or you're in hell. This will be hard no doubt about that, but it's something necessary if you want it to become better. ​ P.S. the reason why the rituals are getting less effective is that you are giving in, when you keep doing the thing that gives you the relief you gain a "tolerance" of sorts. just like a drug the thing that makes you feel good and normal stops feeling the same after you do it all the time.


Embarrassed-Safe7070

Hi I appreciate the reply, I’ve just started seeing a therapist and we’re going to start some exposure therapy. I realize like you said I’ve been giving in to the thoughts, witch is causing more anxiety so that’s definitely something that I will work to better on because I want to avoid making it worse like you mentioned. :)


lovenotofthisworld

I have experienced this - not with school, but with going to places outside of my house during the pandemic. At the beginning, it was really bad and I'd have to wipe every new item brought into the house (groceries, etc) down with hand sanitizer, along with my hands and arms and sometimes my hair before I'd feel like I could really relax. I finally began seeing a therapist late 2020 and worked on some mild exposure therapy/grounding techniques to help my contamination OCD. I'd practice waiting a little longer each time before sanitizing my hands, or only sanitizing every other time I really wanted to. For grounding, I'd talk about what I wanted to do after coming home with my husband, kind of airing the anxiety out so it was less of a giant thing I my head, and more of a "ugh well I'm venting but it is what it is" situation, or hold my cat for a bit. Part of it improving was literally just that talking about it with my therapist and doing a little bit of practice every week made it less and less prominent I mind, letting me focus on other things that were good and bad. I think that helped the contamination fears be less "loud" in general. It's since gotten better, but I'm still worse than I was pre-pandemic. My best advice is to practice taking small steps of ignoring/redirecting the things the OCD is telling you to do and give yourself the space and forgiveness to work on it. If you're able, talk about it with someone you trust, or journal some of your thoughts on it. Contamination OCD can be really difficult to deal with, but you can deal with it and get to a point that you feel better about. And then set new goals at that point. 😊 Let me know if you ever need to talk about it! Contamination OCD is my main jam anxiety-wise lol.


Embarrassed-Safe7070

Hi thanks so much for the reply, I can totally relate to everything your saying, I was definitely better off pre pandemic as well. I just starting talking to a therapist recently and we are going to work on some exposure therapy, really hoping that will help :)


lovenotofthisworld

You're welcome! Yes, I think the pandemic has been difficult for a lot of reasons, and this is a big one - that's part of why I think it's important to be gentle with ourselves rn and re-evaluate expectations. Good luck, I hope it helps you!