Hello everybody, I want to write about an OCD symptom that is really bothering me lately and is causing a lot of contamination OCD. The topic is a bit ”ugly” so if you might get triggered by this please don’t read further since the last thing I want to do is to burden other people, especially ones with OCD. So what I am referring to is that over the past few weeks I am experiencing really bad OCD thoughts. I already have had that for years but at the moment it is just extremely frequent and distressing. It happens that 2-3 times a day [content edited by moderators] When I go through my day I am so scared since it happens all the time. Tap handles, doorhandles, light switches, toiletpaper, toiletseat all these things might get into contact with me. My fear is then that someone could pick the contamination up when touching and then spread it. Finally the peak of this fear is that they get ill from me. This leads to many cleaning, wiping, washing compulsions that are quite bad currently I have to admit. Also, I constantly fear that dirt is not only on the inside but also on the outside (which I think it isn’t). So sitting on chair, getting near things makes me panic.
A while ago I checked with my doctor if there is something wrong but all the tests came back negative and he told me that from a medical perspective everything is fine. So I guess this has something to do with my OCD. A few points that come to mind here are that I never OCD until age 27. Many factors make it a burden. Also, it occurs mainly when I am really stressed out so that might be a factor too.
I am not really sure what to do at the moment. I am really struggling with the compulsions and try to reduce them. But the main problem is my reaction to OCD. Does anyone have experience with this and/or any advice in general how I could handle this?
