Plumbers!!

[amewat]

Hi everyone ,does anyone have any advice on how to deal with plumbers coming into ure home? They touch so much and I'm so scared cause I won't be able to clean everything then stuff will get contaminated and spread. And to me this is pretty logic to me, how do u just not care.help!!

[PolarBear]

The problem is not with the plumbers. It's you and your OCD-skewed perception of risk.

 You're buying into the lies that OCD dishes out about contamination. You need to learn they are lies and refuse to buy into them.

Also, you need to do no cleaning once the plumber leaves, unless they've tracked mud in your house. Cleaning would be a compulsion.

[taurean]

I have had plenty of plumbing and other building work in the last few months, as we renovate the house. 

I don't have contamination OCD, so I don't have the OCD- driven fears you do.

My concern was more collateral damage, stopping them physically damaging my nice new drive, putting paint pots direct on surfaces, failing to use dust sheets

But with vigilance I kept things under control.

Whether the theme is contamination, harm, magical thinking, relationship, sexual preference - it's all still OCD and it will try and tell us black is white, 2+2=5 - lie, greatly exaggerate. 

They are false messages. 

 

Edited September 25, 2017 by taurean

[amewat]

Hi but the thing is it will spread germs it's a fact t is it not? Surely with their job. It can't be all lies. Like they will be touching mould and stuff Arghh

[Ashley]

2 minutes ago, amewat said:

but the thing is it will spread germs it's a fact t is it not? Surely with their job. It can't be all lies. Like they will be touching mould and stuff Arghh

But if that was true, do you not think plumbers and their families would not all be ill all the time?   I understand why you say what you do Amewat. and I had an issue today when an engineer nipped to the loo whilst working on my internet connection. But, it's important to understand the issue is not the plumber or him spreading germs, the issue is our OCD and how we 'perceive' risk. 

[PolarBear]

No facts present. It's all a big OCD lie. Millions of people have had plumbers in their homes. They simply do not go around cleaning everything the plumbers touched. Actually, they could care less. The only readon you want to clean is because you believe OCD when you shouldn't.

[amewat]

I don't fear getting ill so that doesn't matter ,it's just the spread of stuff I cant stand

[gemma]

I thought I was the only one who felt this way 

[PolarBear]

Running around cleaning imaginary contamination is only going to help solidify OCD's grip on you.

[BelAnna]

21 hours ago, amewat said:

Hi everyone ,does anyone have any advice on how to deal with plumbers coming into ure home? They touch so much and I'm so scared cause I won't be able to clean everything then stuff will get contaminated and spread. And to me this is pretty logic to me, how do u just not care.help!!

I have this problem too! For me it is related to illness because I think that if the plumber has been working on toilets, which are contaminated with faecal bacteria and even possibly norovirus (a big fear for me) then I could catch it if they don't wash their hands after a job.

I have contamination OCD so usually I would wear a glove and clean door handles and anything else that was touched afterwards with an antimicrobial wipe. I managed not to do many compulsions last time we had a plumber at our house though and we were all fine (I'm sure 99.9% of the time they don't cause sickness as a lot of faecal bacteria is actually not harmful and their clients wouldn't have norovirus all the time and most probably wash their hands anyway).

If a member of your household had an extremely compromised immune system (e.g. due to a specific and serious health condition) then I would absolutely recommend using wipes as plumbers are exposed to more faecal bacteria in their jobs than the average person BUT if not then it's just giving in to OCD to clean afterwards and the germ exposure just forms part of normal healthy germ exposure- we are of course surrounded by bacteria all of the time and we stay healthy.

 

 

Edited September 26, 2017 by BelAnna

[taurean]

1 minute ago, BelAnna said:

(I'm sure 99.9% of the time they don't cause sickness as a lot of faecal bacteria is actually not harmful and their clients wouldn't have norovirus all the time).

 

Now doesn't that just illustrate the power of the OCD - a perceived 0.1% (in your case BelAnna)  risk is sufficient to set you scurrying to carry out protective measures - do you see how irrational that is? 

I don't have antibacterial wipes in the house - I don't have contamination OCD so see nil point in having them. 

I think contamination OCD is horrible, but it is still just OCD peddling lies and exaggerations through this theme. This is why it is so important to really get to understand the cognitive side - how OCD works irrespective of theme, and how it drags us into irrational false or exaggerated core beliefs and the urge to carry out worthless compulsions. 

[BelAnna]

2 minutes ago, taurean said:

Now doesn't that just illustrate the power of the OCD - a perceived 0.1% (in your case BelAnna)  risk is sufficient to set you scurrying to carry out protective measures - do you see how irrational that is? 

I don't have antibacterial wipes in the house - I don't have contamination OCD so see nil point in having them. 

I think contamination OCD is horrible, but it is still just OCD peddling lies and exaggerations through this theme. This is why it is so important to really get to understand the cognitive side - how OCD works irrespective of theme, and how it drags us into irrational false or exaggerated core beliefs and the urge to carry out worthless compulsions. 

Yes Roy, definitely. I think though that OCD focuses more on the perceived horrendousness of a feared outcome than it does on the probability of the outcome- our primitive limbic systems don't really need input from our higher cognitive processes/reasoning!

[taurean]

True - a potential 1% or less possibility is still a major risk to OCD

This is why if we use the excellent technique of a behavioural experiment, as laid out in the book "Break Free From OCD"  we can view the OCD in a more practical light - see that we can treat it in therapy as a worry that the OCD is true, not a fact. 

Once we come to terms with that, therapy rolls out much easier.