Hi there everyone, I'm new. I'm 35 and a long time sufferer with OCD. Both my parents have it, my mother moreso. I grew up from a tot completing her rituals/experiencing the emotional, mental, verbal and physical abuse that came with it. I myself realised I had the disorder at 12 years old as well as being soaked in an OCD environment.
I am currently struggling with this Covid thing, and my OCD has gotten a lot worse. It peaks and troughs, but it's getting bad. I am trying to face it and not do the compulsions to the level that I have been doing it (mostly pressure from my partner as he's getting fed up). I don't want to, but it has to stop or at least reduce. I've realised that if I remove OCD from the equasion, I don't know how to clean things properly and safely. I want to make sure I protect us from Covid, but I don't know how to do that without using ridiculous amounts of Dettol and bleach and cleaning every tiny little surface or nook for hours and then bathing, washing clothes, moping, spraying etc (only for me to never feel like it's really clean and that the clean part of the house is very easily contaminated and the whole process starts again).
Basically, I don't know how to be normal. I simply do not have that template as I was never taught it and when I see other people cleaning, I think "Bloody hell, you're slapdash". It doesn't seem worth the bother as they don't see the OCD patterns of contamination. It's like, why bother if you're not going to do it properly? Does anyone else have this thought? Any advice at all?