Hi : I have a concern about soap: I suffer from eczema, also on the hands (especially during winter). Of course the reason I have them is not soap … the problem however is that mental stress often triggers my skin to flare up, and this again triggers my OCD: My skin starts to itch and hurt and I attribute the pain to the possibility of “chemical” residues (residue of washing powder, but also of soap, shampoo etc.) on my clothes, skin … this makes it hard for me to calm down because the usual mantra of “I will resist the thought that my clothes are not rinsed out and just put them on and then I will realize that it does not hurt and that everything is fine” does not work for me. Because my skin indeed starts to hurt, just that the reason (most probably) are rather my stressful thoughts than an actual significant amount of soap or detergent on my skin. It is a terrible cycle … but generally I tend to simpyl feel “contaminated” when the things around me do not feel clean anymore, no matter whether they were contaminated by “dirt” (when being touched by strangers for example) or by soap funnily.
You are of course right that we cannot keep everything perfectly clean and pristine. And most things we own were probably never really clean to begin with. As for mobile phones: Mine was actually touched by three other people today. I needed to buy an additional ticket in my app to get to another town and I could not find the right button … as there was a service point at the train station, I asked the staff, and the woman then asked me to hand her my phone so she could have a look. In the end she did not know it either, so her colleague had to help her. Both touched my phone. Their hands looked neat but were they clean? I managed not to think about it much and just put the phone in my pocket again. Later I gave it to my friend to take a photo of me. The thoughts waned and now I am home and still did not clean the phone, I just put it on the desk. I wipe my phone from time to time but it probably will not hurt if I do not do it today. For some reason this was quite easy for me while other things are so hard.
I hope your trip to the supermarket went well, I also needed to buy groceries today.
Best wishes to everyone reading.
