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What is normal when it comes to washing?


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Hi :thumbup:

I have this problem and from speaking to other people with contamination OCD they have told me that have the same problem - about what is 'normal' when it comes to washing etc?

I'll give an example, I do in excess of 5 washing loads in the machine in the space of 5 days quite a lot of weeks. In contrast, my dad will do maybe one at the most in a whole week (7 days).

So, what I'm hoping people without contamination OCD might be able to help us out with please is what is 'normal'?

Suggested ideas are...

What is the normal way/time to wash your hands after going to the loo?

Is it normal/necessary to wash your arms and/or hair after going to the loo?

How often should clothes, bedding etc be washed?

How often should hair be washed (I have long hair, if that makes any difference?)

There are others but I'm a bit afraid to post them at the mo so maybe when I get a bit more brave :thumbup:

Cheers :huh:

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Guest Creative Cat

Hi Northern Star,

I have some contamination issues too (so I hope its okay that I respond), but here's what I think normal would be:

washing hands after restroom -- just use a little soap (so you don't dry out your skin) and rinse til soap is off -- I'm guessing, but rinse 10 seconds or even less...

No, you don't need to wash your arms or hair (that's ocd)

I wash my hair once a day (I have long hair too). It really depends on person, though, everyone's scalp is different. I've heard just put shampoo on scalp area so you don't dry out the ends as much (although the shampoo washes over the ends anyway as you rinse it out). I have friends who do not wash their hair every day though and I did not always wash my hair every day. I actually do this because my hair gets flat when its oily and it styles better when its clean so that is my reason -- not ocd.

As far as laundry....that's a hard one -- I think women have more laundry than men (in general). I probably have 2 loads of clothes per week (dark and light colored in separate loads). Unless, I'm being ocd -- then I'd have more....I would say that I use one outfit per day (I try to reuse it if I can one more time) -- unless I know its dirty or if my ocd makes me feel uncomfortable....although I need to work on that one....(I have to admit there are times when my ocd is bad that I wear more than one outfit due to contam. issues). But, I think "normal" would be wearing an outfit more than once...maybe a few times as long as its not stained.

Hope this helps :thumbup:

Marie

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Hiya Jo :thumbup:

Lets see...

1. What is the normal way/time to wash your hands after going to the loo?

I would turn on the taps, rub my hands on the soap for 2 or 3 seconds, rub hands for a couple of seconds and briefly rinse the soap off.

In truth (especially at home) you aren't going to come to any harm from germs in the toilet. To put it delicately, using loo roll you have no contact with anything anyway, germs will not seep through your skin or legs where they've been in contact with the seat and germs won't jump out of the toilet. I've never heard of anyone suffering harm ever from using the toilet.

2. Is it normal/necessary to wash your arms and/or hair after going to the loo?

Nope, never necessary

3. How often should clothes, bedding etc be washed?

Clothes are slightly different. I obviously change underwear each day. I change t-shirts and shirts daily. Jeans/skirts etc I'd wear a couple of days or so unless they were specifically stained/soiled. Bedding I change weekly or more if my naughty, dirty dog leeps up to wish me good morning :thumbup: With people showering on a daily basis we're all pretty clean. What germs do you think you might catch from your own body?

4. How often should hair be washed (I have long hair, if that makes any difference?)

I have long hair too. My hair generally is washed daily, not out of necessity or because it's dirty but simply because I jump in the shower in the morning. I shower daily not because I'm dirty or germ ridden, simply because when you've been in bed all night it's nice to feel refreshed. Hair would be fine to be left for 2 or 3 days, it's just a personal choice.

Hope that helps :huh:

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It's useful to have answers to these questions, but hopefully what I mention here will be more useful.

I would try and look at your clothes etc in a different way. Look at them as not really a part of you. They are external to you. Their cleanliness status is irrelevant. It does not matter whether they are contaminated or not, because the human body is a closed system and has a barrier to the outside environment, i.e. your skin. Acknowledge that no-one has ever come to any harm from their clothes.

I appreciate that you will sometimes feel uncomfortable because of a perceived contamination of your clothes. Essentially, your brain fear system will light up as a result of these thoughts, and you will feel very on edge, and uncomfortable. You must learn to accept that you will feel uncomfortable, safe in the knowledge that no-one came to any harm from their clothes. Putting up with this uncomfortable feeling will in time give you more power to carry on in life without being at the mercy of OCD.

Don't be distracted into thinking that washing your clothes is the answer. It never is. The answer is establishing what is the most productive types of behaviour to perform in life, and then sticking to them, even if you feel uncomfortable. The key skill that you have to learn is to tolerate times when you feel highly uncomfortable. You are either going to spend your lifetime washing your clothes etc etc to find relief from your anxiety, or you are going to learn how to carry on with life even though certain things make you feel uncomfortable.

If you give in to your ocd, you won't do what you feel you should be able to do, and it will get you down. You have to lose your fear of contamination, dying etc, because although these fears are your brains overreaction to helping you reduce risk, you know if you maintain these fears you won't enjoy life anyway, so there's no real point having these fears. So, you have to be fearless, and you have to be dogged and determined, and prepared to put up with feeling anxious and uncomfortable.

Remember, it's your world. The world only exists for you because your brain perceives the world, so really, as far as you're concerned, the world only exists because you do. So, it's up to you to make the most of your world, and it's up to you to make the most of your life.

Write down a list of what you want to be doing in life and then try and do some of those things. If you are doing things you enjoy, you are spending your life productively.

These are things I've learnt after wasting a lot of time over contamination issues. You have to remember that you are only on the planet for a certain amount of time, so the amount of time you spend worrying about contamination should be minimised - although I appreciate that due to your obsessive nature, it's not as simple as that.

Incidentally, don't worry that you're obsessing about contamination all the time. After all, what does obsessing mean? It means thinking all the time - and we all have to think of something all the time, it just so happens that we think about contamination all the time, but if we were "normal", we'd still be thinking all the time, but it would just be about something else.

Rgds

aeon

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Guest lilyelspeth
Suggested ideas are...

What is the normal way/time to wash your hands after going to the loo?

Is it normal/necessary to wash your arms and/or hair after going to the loo?

How often should clothes, bedding etc be washed?

How often should hair be washed (I have long hair, if that makes any difference?)

There are others but I'm a bit afraid to post them at the mo so maybe when I get a bit more brave

39392[/snapback]

I wash my hands (as my science teacher told me) for twenty to thirty seconds focusing on each hand after every use of the bathroom.

I wash my hair once a day in the shower in the morning, I would do it every other day (as recommended) but I feel dirty if I don't.

I wash bedding once a week to two weeks depending on circumstances.

And feel free to PM with the questions you were afraid to post. I'd be very happy to help you.

Love, Lily

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Guest madmummy

Suggested ideas are...

What is the normal way/time to wash your hands after going to the loo?

Is it normal/necessary to wash your arms and/or hair after going to the loo?

How often should clothes, bedding etc be washed?

How often should hair be washed (I have long hair, if that makes any difference?)

hi,

i wash my hands for about 10 seconds after going to the loo. (i also wash them after almost every other thing i do too, but that's another story!!) but for each wash, i consider a quick wash with soap for about 10 seconds (for both hands, not each hand) to be quite sufficient.

No, it is neither normal nor necessary to wash your arms or hair after using the loo.

I wash clothes each time they are worn BUT they only need to be washed when they are visibly dirty, or when they have been worn 2 or 3 times i'd say.

Bedding i think once a week/2 weeks is right.

Hair - I used to have to wash it each day BUT i dyed it pillar-box red and COULDNT wash it each day cos too much dye washed out! result! Now its back to brown but i still manage to only wash it twice a week. it doesnt need more washes than that and is much healthier as a result. :thumbup:

HTH

MM x

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  • 5 weeks later...

Thanks lads and lasses :thumbup:. Your answers have confirmed that a lot of what I do is OCD, in particular the fact that at the mo I am doing one washing machine load pretty much every day and other stuff too (I get a bit :whistling: when talking about contamination stuff, sorry :) )

Jo, just as a point of interest, what do you fear from the contamination/germs?

Someone getting ill, dying etc. Not so much myself, although I do worry about that too, but I worry more about making someone else ill.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest NickNickNick

I know that Health Canada recommends hand washing once every hour or so even when you haven't gone to the bathroom or touched anything that it really dirty...and before handling food. This is simply to keep yourself safe from the common cold/flu - nothing that will kill you or make you really sick. Very few people I would say actually follow this guideline.

For me, with contamination OCD, I wash my hair once a day, I wash my hands once after I go to the bathroom (for about 10 seconds).

As for laundry, I think this is a personal thing...I usually have about 3 loads per week. Depending on what I'm doing, I might have 5 in a week. Last week, I had only 1.

Most people I know change their sheets probably once every two weeks, and have two sets, so they wash the rest of their bedding with the sheets once per month. I usually leave sheets for 1-2 months which my friends seem to think is pretty gross...they wonder how I can have OCD and leave bedding for that long. I tend to shower before bed, so I don't worry about it too much. Plus, I'm super lazy. :)

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Most people I know change their sheets probably once every two weeks, and have two sets, so they wash the rest of their bedding with the sheets once per month.  I usually leave sheets for 1-2 months which my friends seem to think is pretty gross...they wonder how I can have OCD and leave bedding for that long.  I tend to shower before bed, so I don't worry about it too much.  Plus, I'm super lazy. :Canada:

46409[/snapback]

lol.... I leave my sheets on for ages.... I sorta realised it's easier to go to bed 'dirty' and just shower in the morning, otherwise with my current OCD, I'd have to shower more and change my clothes more.... so seeing I consider my bed 'dirty' either way, I'm not to fussed about changing it... I have a friend who changes her bed twice a week, and thinks I'm gross too.... and like you, they wonder how I can do that with OCD, lol

Anyway, washing your arms and hair after going to the toilet isn't normal. I do it because of my contam. issues, but I don't wash my hair anymore, just the arms, lol. But judging from people who know I do this, their reactions tend to be, 'that is really weird/not normal' lol.

My parents have started washing my clothes again, as I only wash clothes when I need them, and that's one wash, so a lot of things dont get washed, and with how often I change, it builds up, lol. But I do about 1 or 2 washes a week...

And it's normal to wash you hands with some soap, until the soap is off, after going to the toilet.

Changing clothes depends. I know a lot of non-OCD people who usually change clothes daily, or wear something once or twice then change. So to be noraml, you dont have to wear the same clothes all week... just try and only use one set a day, max. Underwear and socks is of course different (well only socks if your feet sweat... but this is going into th gross details, :lol2: )

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Guest William

Hi all,

This is an interesting discussion and it seems that many people have those questions about washing up after using the loo.

After using the loo, I first wash my hands and then step straight into the shower to wash the bottom part of my body which has come into contact with the toilet seat. I sometimes also wash my forearms but not always. It only takes a few minutes so it is not so much of a handicap.

I also have to take off all my clothes before I can use the loo.

Even though this is probably not normal, it gives me a very clean and comfortable feeling. The downside is that I only can use the loo at home which is sometimes a problem especially when I am at work and have to wait to get home.

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I have to sorta lift my shirt behind my head, and leave my trousers out of the bathroom (so they dont touch the bathroom floor) and use the shower to wash my forearms.... this makes it next to impoosible to go to the toilet anywhere but home too... lol

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hi all,

i don't have contamination issues but do have obsessional ocd (mental checking of past actions). just this evening i was asking myself 'what do normal people do in terms of knowing what happened in the past -- do they just know, or do they kind of know roughly, or are they not sure but don't worry too much anyway, etc. so i was engaging in exactly the same 'what is normal' type thinking.

in my case, this was itself obsessional questioning/doubting/checking and i decided that it didn't matter what was normal and that my recovery didn't depend upon my feeling sure about these questions!

in the case of the questions posed about washing can i just offer my own 2p's worth? its ocd that turns the question of how much one 'should' wash into a 'should', that is, into a matter of responsibility. i would suggest that whenever one feels that one should wash inorder to avoid something bad happening then this is ocd because its about catastrophe and responsibility. i have seen my partner take a 'number 2' and happily go over to the kettle and make tea without washing his hands. it wouldn't occur to him that he was obliged to wash his hands. now, many people including myself, would think this is rum. but even if he did wash his hands, he would do it because he could be bothered to do it, wanted to, or just did it without thinking.

so what i mean is: its not the amount of washing that makes it ocd its the intention and motivation.

i think one of the reasons that i haven't (yet) developed contamination issues, despite having many thoughts and doubts in that area, is because as soon as i find myself about to wash my hands because i think i 'should' i deliberately don't . weird, but it works.

sorry to preach !

will x

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that's a really good reply will :) i'm sure i've read someone else saying that too, because i think i might have started a thread like this somewhere before.... maybe i'm just getting deja vu!

or, great minds think alike NS :) hehe

sometimes it does help to know what is "normal" for washing. and of course there are some things that the majority of people will do, but often hygiene is a very personal thing and everyone has their own routine.

i asked my counsellor about this once and she said it didn't matter what everyone else did, it only mattered that i got my washing down to a manageable level which was "normal" for me and did not come associated with any anxiety, obsessive or compulsive feeling.

as for your questions, i cannot answer fully because i am a bit of a contamination worrier myself as you well know! :tongue: but nowadays i would say i wash my hands with soap after going to the loo - one squirt out of a squirty soap thing, and then under the water long enough to get the slippery feeling of the soap off!

i change my bedding once a fortnight, i think this is pretty normal.

when i was in canada i used to get one load of washing done a week. i will only wear knickers and socks once before changing, and usually tops/t shirts etc only once, unless they're delicate fabric or whatever, and then i air them and try not to wash them as much. trousers or skirts i wear a few times, either until they get grubby/stained or until i have a contamination issue :huh: which is not really the best reason but seems to be cropping up a bit too much lately!

anyway hope this helps, take care hun xxxx

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so what i mean is: its not the amount of washing that makes it ocd its the intention and motivation.

i think one of the reasons that i haven't (yet) developed contamination issues, despite having many thoughts and doubts in that area, is because as soon as i find myself about to wash my hands because i think i 'should' i deliberately don't .  weird, but it works.

I never thought of it in that way. Thanks :wontlisten:

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Well, I know that people don't wash the taps when washing their hands.

(I use a different flannel everytime I turn the off so your not alone with avoiding the taps when you have cleaned your hands, if that's what you do it for.)

Gayle

xoxox

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NS,

I know exactly what you mean! I find going to the loo a HUGE problem I only go twice a day when I wake up and when go to bed! I get loads of grief from my parents but I understand that it is for my own good. Even though it doesn't feel like it sometimes! When I go to the loo I have to lay all my clothes that i will get changed in to after the loo, then I will go to the loo with my hair scrapped back- so that it won't go anywhere down below! :) Then when i have finished I throughly wash my hands with soap and my wrists. Then I go into my room and put what I was wearing in my own linen basket get into my clean clothes,go downstairs and wash my hair in the sink :) which is :) annoying! Then go back upstairs change my top- put it in the wash and then put a clean ne on and then go back downstairs wash my hands and then I have finally finished!!

Sory about that! Now you can probably understand wh I only go twice a day! Well not really because all of that isn't "normal" but that is what I have to do!

Love Nat xx

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