Chelsie

Great advice. Today has been A Bad Day but I am hopeful of many better ones in the new year. I have sat down in front of the telly now and am determined to do no more washing this year! No big celebrations here either - hoping to find a good film to put on now to distract me until bedtime!

I feel your pain,Nikki. Your problems sound very similar to mine. I'm having a bad day today but determined that 2017 won't be influenced by my OCD the way 2016 was!

I have 2 cats! And if course they are walking all over where the shoes are and then all over the house (including the bed!).

Really appreciate the advice this morning - sorry if I've been sounding really negative. On a more positive note - I felt guilty at you having been strong and me so weak. Therefore I've just done a mini exposure: normally after putting on trousers etc I wash my hands in case I've touched the bottoms of my feet as I put them in. Today I didn't - and I'm now touching my phone. Take that, OCD.

I'm impressed! I think that the uncertainty of blood contamination is what gets me - knowing hepatitis can be spread by tiny bits that can't be seen and also that you wouldn't be ill immediately. What I want - and what I guess you're going to tell me is not really what I need to hear - is someone to give me definitive proof that blood contamination doesn't spread from surface to surface (e.g floor to shoe to another floor etc). I read in some sources that to catch it you need to touch the actual blood with an open wound whilst others say there is a danger from environmental spills.

Thanks Ashley - such a great post! I need to print it off and display throughout my house! i absolutely take yr point about wiping up blood and moving on. However this particular occasion was so worrying because the blood had been spread everywhere before I was even aware and that is why I can't get over it.

The hardest part is protecting her from both the OCD and any danger from contamination. I just can't feel where the balance should lie and whichever path I take feels wrong.

This morning is not going well. Feeling very anxious. Everything feels contaminated and I don't know what to do. About 3 and a half weeks ago I was helping out at an event where children were playing on the floor. Later, one of them showed me he had cut his finger before arriving at the event and there was dried blood around the cut. This meant that some of his blood was likely to be on the floor. I have avoided going back into this room but, of course, others were walking all around and then walking into other areas of the building, spreading the blood into other rooms, which I have then had to walk into. The floor of the original room has been cleaned now, but there was plenty of opportunity for the blood to spread before this happened. I now feel that I have brought the blood into my own house and that of the family etc I have visited - I take my shoes off as soon as I enter houses, but others step on the hallways, doormat etc that I have trodden on in my shoes and then walk into the houses. My daughter and nephew also play on the floor and then touch things around the house, so everything feels contagious. I'm trying so hard not to tell my daughter to keep washing her hands and to keep away from the floor but it feels so wrong not to protect her.

I tend to be the opposite and hate being at home and on my own. I end to seek out company of my family - feel I'm imposing on them but being with other people helps to distract me from compulsions.

Kittypurry - I hate first thing in the morning. I have really cold, sweaty feet and pounding heart.

Will try my best not to define today in OCD terms when there is so much more i could be doing which is more positive. The danger is that I use doing something else as an alternative to facing the fears instead of doing it as a distraction while I face them. That's what I did over Christmas and then I experienced the anxiety of coming back to the house and finding that nothing had changed. However, now corrected myself - the break over Christmas and the advice from this forum have made me challenge my thinking, if only just a little.

Really trying to rationalise things now - it's not the things I brought back with me that are the problem (my car wouldn't start last night so left it and all my stuff at my mum's and came home in a taxi) but what I'd left behind and now have to face. Trying to use my brain instead of my emotions. It's hard though.

I remember Gilbert O'Sullivan! - appreciate the humour as it did make me stop and smile! Am now showered and dressed - should have fought through and done it sooner as helps to move around and not lay still. Have to be careful though, as often get very faint when anxious. Last January I passed out mid washing and broke my leg! Am sitting down with a cold glass of water and making sure I don't pass out!

Found this forum really helpful over Christmas when I was coping with contamination issues whilst staying with family. Came home last night and OCD is raging again. In fact I'm still in bed as can't face getting up and dealing with the contamination in my house. Don't know where to start - it all just seems too much.

I am very close to my family and we all live quite near to each other so have support. However, over the past few days have found the forum - where I have a degree of anonymity - really helpful. Thank you

Of course you're right. I'd do anything to be like a 'normal' person and not have the thought in the first place. However, once the thought has been 'thunk' it's hard to get rid of it. Am feeling good for having got through a few hours with the anxiety diminishing rather than increasing. I know things are better at the moment because I'm staying with family. Will have to work very hard not to relapse when I go home and it's just me

Sorry to sound a bit abrupt - I appreciate the contribution polar bear! Just threw me a bit when I thought I was doing so well...

Gulp polar bear - kick a girl when she's down!

Really trying to avoid making this thought 'a thing'. Often I find that, contrary to what I've been told in cbt, the anxiety gets worse with time. However, today it does seem to be abating a bit - managed over 3 hours and haven't given in to a compulsion (other than to write on this forum)

You've been such a help this afternoon. I'm hanging in there and my thinking seems to be calming down. I saw a man with blood on his trousers - I did not see blood on the floor. Sorry to sound pathetic but I do really appreciate the support.

I can see your point about catastrophic thinking but it seems such a likely scenario. My mum has just sat next to me on the sofa with her feet up - I know she took her boots off and then stepped in her socked feet where she had been standing with her boots on. I now feel she has created a contaminated area on her sofa that I must avoid touching. I hate this as my mum's house has always been a refuge - my own house has many such contaminated areas. Also, being at her house, I can't do anything to decontaminate the area as she would not allow me to get wipes to clean the sofa. She is under a lot of pressure with my stepdad being ill and I don't want to give her additional worries about my OCD (which I know she worries about anyway). Feeling at a loss to know what to do.

Taurean - I really appreciate you taking the time to reply to me today. It's great to speak to someone not closely connected to me. I have had some cbt in the past but not for about 4 years. I recognise I need some more and have emailed a local therapist - just waiting for a reply after the Christmas break.

Hepatitis? HIV?

Thanks for the reply. This threat feels so real - if the blood had dropped down the mans trousers it seems likely it would drop into the floor and he would step on it.

Had a really rubbish couple of weeks with contamination OCD. Been staying with family over Christmas and feeling the benefit of extra company as a bit of a distraction. However, this morning has put me straight back to square one. Gave my mum and stepdad a lift to hospital today as stepdad had to go in as a day case. Waited in car for my mum but as there was a delay, she suggested having a coffee in coffee bar by a and e. In an attempt to act like a normal person, I met her there. Not too bad until a man walked in and sat at table next to us with arm in sling and blood all down his trousers. He must have come in through the same door as me and I feel he may have blood on the bottom of his shoes that would have transferred to the floor and to my shoes (and to the shoes of my mum and stepdad).