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Really struggling, advice or help please


Guest cantswitchoff

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Guest cantswitchoff

Hello

I am pretty sure I joined here a long long time ago, over a similar related incident. Anyhow, as I no longer have access to my old email address or password that I think I would of used at the time, I am back again unfortunately.

Ok so here goes,

Several years ago (around 207), I was working with a friend, installing roller shutters and repairs etc. He was a good friend too. But one day, I was dropped off on a job with a friend of his whilst he nipped off to carry out a repair. Our job involved the fitting of an existing old roller shutter onto a domestic garage. Basically the owner of the house had a garage where he repairs cars etc and was changing buildings so he decided to take the shutter off and have it refitted on his home personal garage.

Anyway, during the job, me and the man i was working with had to roll out the shutter across the back yard of this property and cut it down to size using a small grinder. Things were going well, until we rolled the shutter up ready to pick up and re-fit. There was an old, broken up condom on the ground and to make matters worse the guy who I was working with had put his knee right in it without even realising it.

I started getting hot. clammy and that sicky feeling in my stomach, I didn't know what to do or say and I didn't say anything unless the guy laughed and took the micky out of me. So i pretended I had a damaged arm and lifted it at arms length to help him fit it whilst struggling to cope and having no idea what to do.

After that, I looked where the condom was, and only part of it was still there, the rest had been dragged and moved somewhere whilst we fitted the shutter into its holding brackets. I still never said anything as these guys were older than me and I didnt want them laughing.

When we all got in the van ready to be dropped off at home, I had to sit next to the guy who had put his knee in it and felt sick all the way home. It was a standard type of van, like a transit with one drivers seat and a double seat in the front where the three of us were all sat.

Up on getting home, I didn't want to walk up the path due to the thoughts that a piece of it might still be on me and fall off on to my girlfriends parents path (I was living there with her at the time). So i hopped over the low garden wall and waved at her through the window to come outside a minute whilst i told her what had happened, in the end i walked up the driveway whilst she opened the side gate and i took off all my clothes and threw them in the wheelie bin, after which I must of spent over an hour in the shower.

After this, I never set foot outside for months, and when I did finally go out, I went out the back way and climbed over next doors fence and went through there garden so I didn't have to go out the front way near the path. (The reason for the path is because the guy who i worked with came knocking on the door a few days after because i was supposed to of been working with him and in my eyes, he had been in his van and could of transferred any pieces of this broken up condom out of the van and onto the path way.

As time went on, my mood changed, I got more snappy, frustrated and the relationship between my girlfriend and me wuickly went down hill. She use to burst into tears and her and her family tried to help me, but had no luck, this relationship was a long one, probably around seven and a half years at the time, and everything was ruined, we drifted apart, when her family tried to help me or discuss it with me, I basically bit there heads off, I genuinely didn't know what to do and my I had no family of my own to talk too.

Eventually after nine years, (the last year and a half being a struggle), we split up.

Now several years later, its back again, this time I feel worse.

The problem is, several weeks back, I had a sharp pain in my chest whilst breathing, to the point it got so bad, it woke me up in the middle of the night and I could only take shallow breathes to breath properly. My girlfriend who I have only been with since last November was quite worried and insisted that I see the doctor. So I did this and eventually got an appointment two weeks later.

Teh doctor checked me out and said I would need to go for an xray, he insisted that I went to a certain hospital due to the area my doctors was registered at, so I held it off and held it off as long as i could due to the pain not being as bad, I thought it would go away on its own, so I left it, my girlfriend was still worried and insisted that I go to the hospital and have my xray.

So after a week or so, I went.

Upon arriving, I was anxious, I was dreading that the guy who I worked with that day or his mate who put his knee in the condom might turn up for something knowing my luck, as they lived local to the area. Luckily they never turned up though.

However when I left the hospital, I realised that he had said to me a few months back on the phone one day, that he had to take another friend of his who he was working with to the hospital as he had fallen off a ladder. I somehow thought it wouldnt be the same hospital, as he might of been working out of the area so I kind of didnt worry as much. Althoug hI still worried but not as much.

Anyway, i left the hospital, after sitting in the waiting room and finally having my xray, and walked back to my car.

After getting there i began to get anxious, thinking what if he had been to the same hospital and what if a piece of this condom off his mates knee or the tools etc had gotten in the van that day we worked, and then when this new guy he worked with had sat on the seat and the thing stuck to him and then came off on the waiting room seats. It could then be on me as I had also sat on one of the waiting room seats.

At the time, I wasnt 100% sure if he had been to the same hospital so wasnt as bad as I usually would be. So i came out of the hospital, gave my jeans a quick wipe down with my hands and took off my jumper and shuck it just incase there was anything on it.

I then got in my car and drove back to my flat.

After that, i took the seat cover off my car, which didnt come off that easily and put it in a bin bag, i did the same to my jeans and jumper, and then showered.

However, that night when i drove back to my girlfriends, (im virtually living there all the time now), i couldnt remember what i had changed into to drive back, all i remember is taking my clothes off and having another shower, and my girlfriend doesnt remember what i drove round to her house in either.

So i was a bit careless with that.

About a week later whilst she was at work (my works dried up so being self employed i currenlty have no work on), i began stressing out with it and wanted to confirm which hospital my old friend had gone to with that guy who worked with him.

After speaking to him via text message, it turns out is is the same hospital, where he took him to straight from work and he had broken his arm and therefore was x-rayed too.

This means to me, that he had: -

Driven there in the same van which could still have peaces of this old broken up condom inside off the guys knee that day in 2007.

His mate (the new guy) he was working with, would of sat in the same van, on the same seat as there is only one drivers seat and one double seat.

Then gone and sat in the same waiting room at the same hospital.

Then I go along approx 12 months after and sit in the same waiting room for my x-ray.

I now believe that pieces of the condom at the time have came out of the van on the clothes from them two

Ended up on the chair in the waiting room

I then go along, sit on the chair, and therefore my clothes pick it up and then it gets into my car, then my flat. and God knows where else.

Worse still, is that because i stupidly driven back to my girlfriends that evening as I am virtually living there, I cannot remember which clothes i worn to drive back to here's in, so now I am left with all my clothes at hers, (Most of these clothes being my best ones) and not being able to wear them.

I honestly don't know what to do now, I hardly have any clothes to wear without buying all new which will be costly. I don't want to get in my car again, in fact I want to sell it, but would rather somebody else do that as I don't want to go near it. Plus I am seeing bits of things everywhere and now I'm examining everything, bits of fluff, crumbs etc to try and make sure it isn't one of these pieces of this condom.

The doctors already know about this phobia or whatever it is, from the original incident in 2007. But as I'm still registered in an address out of the area, and have only just changed doctors, I cannot get an appointment with the new doctors until 18th November and thats only for a new patient medical, I can't get to my current doctors as it is t far away and I have no way of getting there. I have seen healthy minds before about this, and they just gave me one appointment and I never heard from them again, - this was earlier on this year.

All in all, I am asking what other people would do in my situation as from reading your posts on here, you all seem to know what you are talking about and are in a similar situation yourselves.

Anyway, thank you for reading this rather long post and apologies if I have waffled on a bit, hopefully it hasn't sent you off to sleep.

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Welcome back to the forum.

Truth is, anyone else would have forgotten about that condom after the first day. Maybe had a laugh over it and that's about it. It never would have come again. It certainly wouldn't be on their minds eight years later.

You're doing all the wrong things, worry about your clothes being contaminated, staying away from your car, texting your buddy to find out what hospital he went to. Those are all compulsions and only serve to reinforce your belief that something is wrong.

What you need to do is work hard to forget about the condom and get on with your life. Drive your car. Wear whatever clothes you want. Watch out for ruminating and try to stop yourself from engaging in it.

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Guest cantswitchoff

Hello PolarBear

Thank you very much for the reply.

The thing is with this problem I've got is that at the time of the incident the condom was broken up into pieces, as if it had been dragged along a rough surface or damaged by decay or a garden strimmer or something else.

This is what makes the problem difficult to contain as it wasn't in one piece and the guy I was working with out his knee in it, plus the fact that when we was leaving the job some of it was missing.

I know my old friend never hovers his van or cleans it, I knew him long enough to know it was just a work horse in his eyes, and it is genuinely worrying me now that I may have brought some of it home with me after sitting in a chair in a waiting room that him and his friend visited.

I know this probably really sounds silly to you and maybe other people, that's why I haven't really told anyone about it, especially my own friends.

I just want to get on with my life but can't. This is really dragging me down.

Fully enough a similar thing happened almost 30 years ago to me when I was only about eight or nine years old, maybe it all stems from that. That's a other story though. The incident in my first post is what is really getting to me.

I don't know and I'm at a complete loss as what to do. It feels dirty and disgusting.

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The likelihood that pieces of the condom are still hovering around after eight years is extremely remote. Then again so what if there was? It's now an eight year old condom bit. It's nothing to worry about.

The reason this is bothering you so much is because you keep going over it in your mind and perform other compulsions like avoiding your clothes and car. Take back control. Resist the compulsions. Stop yourself from going over that condom in your mind. It's no big deal. Drive your car. Wear your clothes. Yeah, your anxiety level will increase but that's normal. Just get on with your life and forget about the condom.

Edited by PolarBear
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