Chelsie

Well, not feeling brilliant today. Woke up at 4.30am with anxiety symptoms which were horrible and didn’t abate. Got up and did some jobs, went shopping etc. But felt like I was on high alert all the time. Now home - a couple of compulsions, but generally avoided them. Still feeling rubbish

Thanks Gemma I find the hardest thing is that I lose sight of how a normal person would react to the same situation. It’s good to get some perspective. Going to do my best to continue to avoid the compulsions this evening and to have a nice early night, hoping tomorrow will be a better day.

I really appreciate what your saying, but on this occasion, it does feel like a real threat. I’m pretty sure mouse blood carries lots of horrible diseases (although I’m resisting the compulsion to google and find out exactly which ones!)

Thanks for the reply, Gemma - it helps to know someone is out there listening. I have stopped cleaning and have forced myself to sit back on the sofa that I’ve cleaned, using phone, remote control etc. Forcing myself not to do any compulsions, but keep thinking of other things I need to sort out - eg the towel I used this morning, I would have used to dry my feet, so needs fetching and putting in the washing machine. Realky suffering with physical symptoms of anxiety - heart pounding, sweating etc, but doing my best.

Typing this as an alternative to googling/other compulsions, so please bear with me. I’m an on and off contributor to this forum - I have times when I get my ocd under control and then I have times when it all crashes around me. I’m a teacher in the uk and, for sone reason I can’t work out, these bad periods always seem to coincide with the school holidays. Ive been aware that things were spiralling for a few weeks. My ocd is mainly about contamination, particularly blood. I got back to the point where I was waking every morning with anxiety symptoms and my worries were having an impact on my everyday life. Got to the point where I had a really bad migraine yesterday and spent most of the day in bed. This morning, I woke feeling positive and determined to get things back on track. I’ve managed this before (with cbt). Decided to have a quiet morning at home - laid on the sofa with a cup of tea and a book and really relaxed. After a couple of hours, I noticed that there was a brownish red stain all over my big toe. Checked and no cuts etc on my foot, so went to investigate. Checked my en suite and found blood on my bath mat that is outside the shower - I must have stepped on it when I got out of the shower this morning. Now, there are two options where this blood came from - my cat has a habit of bringing in mice and eating them on the mat, and my teenage daughter uses my en suite and she has her period at the moment (but she had her shower last night, so I would assume any blood would have dried over night). So, I went into a cleaning frenzy in case this was mouse blood, which would carry germs - of course I had put me feet up in the sofa, so that needed cleaning, but during the morning, I had got up and put all sorts of things on the sofa (handbag, tv remote, phone etc). I’ve stopped now, but I’m not convinced I’ve remembered everything that might have been in contact with the blood. Feeling terrible.

Feeling anxious and frustrated that I’m back here again after a fairly good time coping with my contamination ocd (particularly blood) recently. I’m a teacher and notice that my ocd peaks in school holidays - no idea why, I love holidays - but thought I’d got through the Easter hols reasonably well. I’ve felt a bit anxious the past few days, but coped with it, but then a tiny event set off a spiral of panic this afternoon. I’m so cross I allowed this to happen. Ladt night I got in and found the cat had brought in a pigeon and eaten most of it in my lounge. Pigeon blood and feathers everywhere, but I coped fairly well with clearing it up and went to bed. This afternoon, the cat jumps up on the sofa next to me and brushes it’s face on my foot. This sets me off into a panic about pigeon blood from his mouth on my foot, so I wash my foot and then my hands with anti-bac handwash. Then I notice I’m getting low on hand wash and so go to the shop to get some more. On way back to the car, I see a discarded sanitary towel on the path where I’m walking - instant panic: I didn’t notice it on the way into the shop - did I tread on it? Did it move there from where I have walked and leave blood traces that might now be on the soles of my shoes? I got home and changed shoes for slippers - managed to avoid the compulsion to throw the shoes away. However, feel that everywhere I walked in the shoes from front door to bedroom where I changed them is now contaminated. I have taken a propananol and sat down to try to force myself to breathe and stop feeling anxious. I’m so cross that I didn’t deal with the first incident better, which would have avoided the later, worse incident. I’m now faced with my house feeling contaminated again, which I hate.

having a bad afternoon. Things happening at work meant that I didn’t go back into the room where the bandaids were dropped on the floor until today. They were gone, but that was almost worse, as I couldn’t see where they had been and wanted to avoid stepping on that part of the carpet. Also had worry that door handles etc a prob as cleaner who picked up the bandaids would have touched them. Managed to get on with work however, but now just about to go home and face taking the contamination home with me

Thanks for the support. I just find it difficult to work out what are legitimate contamination concerns - obviously they exist or protocols for dealing with band-aids, blood spills etc wouldn’t exist - and which are ocd.

Thanks for the reply. Looking back, a better option would have been to have picked up the plasters (band-aids) with something to cover my hand and put both the plasters and hand cover in the bin. By taking the cowardly route, I have made it worse as I now know the cleaner would have picked it up. She wears plastic gloves, but won’t have changed them after touching the plasters and then will have touched other things in the room, including the door handles. Now I have a whole host of contamination to deal with.

Just reread this and realised that what I should have done was informed site team last night. Then they could have disposed of plasters safely and immediately cleaned area. If I do so today, plasters probably will have been disposed of by cleaners and they’ll never find the exact right part of carpet to clean. Realse now that my panic and failure to deal with things properly last night has actually put everyone and myself in more danger.

Why is it that when my contamination ocd is at its worst, then things happen to just push me over the edge? I work in a school and my office/room is used by others working with children when I am working elsewhere. I came back to my room yesterday at the end of the day to find it had been used and two (used) plasters were in the middle of the carpeted floor. I picked up my bags and left - leaving the plasters to be dealt with by the cleaners. Now laying in bed really panicking about coping today. Obviously I can’t avoid this room as it’s my room. Cleaners will pick up plasters, but then touch door handles etc. Room is used for a variety of activities, including yoga, so children will be lying on carpet later in the week - should I inform site team that carpet needs disinfecting? Why hat does this happen to me? I was feeling so much better only a couple of weeks ago

It’s hard though.

I really understand the need to repeatedly check that something is ok. When my DD was little, I had a compulsion to keep checking she didn’t have meningitis if she had a rash - so much so that she began to offer to go and get a glass for me every time I started to look at a rash, as she knew I’d start repeatedly checking it to make sure that it blanched. This was a wake up call to me that my ocd would start to affect her. I try to be really aware of this now.

Thanks Polar Bear - I really appreciate your advice, and it has helped me so many times in the past. I will really try to hold on to the idea that the concept of a home lab is ridiculous .

Thanks for the reply. My panic was that this lady works from home but I don’t know what she does. I wondered whether she does the actual testing from home and the completed kits get sent to her to test, rather than her bring the one who wanted to be tested.