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Ocd contaminated cupboard help


Guest Phil10

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Phil, what you need to remember is that compulsions may reduce anxiety in the short term but actually make things worse in the long term. 'Neutralising' thoughts is a compulsion.

I'd hazard a guess that the reason your therapist hasn't mentioned this sort of exposure is because you haven't got that far yet in your treatment. Your understanding of OCD could be better. The whole idea behind deliberately touching the toilet bowl or whatever is to help you learn that there's nothing wrong with a bit of contamination, which ultimately should help you to stop thinking that anything that's contaminated is 'radioactive' - because that's an unhealthy and irrational way of thinking. You're basically taking things a step further and learning that, for example, even if the envelope came from the bin, there's still nothing wrong with it.

These posts aren't mad, Phil. We're all trying to help you, but you need to be prepared to listen and change.

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Guest Phil10
19 minutes ago, bobfish said:

Phil, what you need to remember is that compulsions may reduce anxiety in the short term but actually make things worse in the long term. 'Neutralising' thoughts is a compulsion.

I'd hazard a guess that the reason your therapist hasn't mentioned this sort of exposure is because you haven't got that far yet in your treatment. Your understanding of OCD could be better. The whole idea behind deliberately touching the toilet bowl or whatever is to help you learn that there's nothing wrong with a bit of contamination, which ultimately should help you to stop thinking that anything that's contaminated is 'radioactive' - because that's an unhealthy and irrational way of thinking. You're basically taking things a step further and learning that, for example, even if the envelope came from the bin, there's still nothing wrong with it.

These posts aren't mad, Phil. We're all trying to help you, but you need to be prepared to listen and change.

People don’t go around randomly touching toilet bowls though and lots of people wash there hands after it..I understand what you are saying about getting to a stage of not fearing these germs however I don’t see touching stuff as the solution?

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I understand what you're saying, but I think that we OCD sufferers should eventually take things a little further than even 'normal' people, so that we can learn just how irrational our thoughts can be. To be honest, toilets aren't even that dirty; there are many everyday items that are much dirtier, like mobile phones for example.

One of the hardest ERP exercises I did with my therapist was rubbing my clothes against the bin and then going to work or to meet a friend. Do most people do that? No. Do I do that on a regular basis? No. Was it a good exercise for helping me feel better? Yes, absolutely.

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Guest Phil10
19 minutes ago, bobfish said:

I understand what you're saying, but I think that we OCD sufferers should eventually take things a little further than even 'normal' people, so that we can learn just how irrational our thoughts can be. To be honest, toilets aren't even that dirty; there are many everyday items that are much dirtier, like mobile phones for example.

One of the hardest ERP exercises I did with my therapist was rubbing my clothes against the bin and then going to work or to meet a friend. Do most people do that? No. Do I do that on a regular basis? No. Was it a good exercise for helping me feel better? Yes, absolutely.

What made you feel you had to touch the bin? 

And yes my phone probably is dirty. But at the moment it’s the fear of blocked toilets the toilet water and toilet paper I worry about I wish I could overcome this I don’t think it would be wise to make myself block a toilet to get over this. 

Do you think people are not as clean as ocd suffers then if they are happy with possible toilet germs touching bank cards? 

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I deliberately touched the bin because it was an exercise to help my OCD.

Some people are cleaner than others, there's a huge amount of variety. The difference is that people without OCD aren't anywhere near as bothered about contamination as people who have contamination-related OCD thoughts.

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1 hour ago, Phil10 said:

People don’t go around randomly touching toilet bowls though and lots of people wash there hands after it..I understand what you are saying about getting to a stage of not fearing these germs however I don’t see touching stuff as the solution?

Then you don't understand ERP, which is an integral part of CBT. It is practiced the world over for OCD of all types. You are not ready for ERP but you will have to do it to recover. That's just a fact.

Ashley, the head of OCDUK, has contamination OCD. He has licked the bottom of his shoe and plunged his hand in a toilet, forgoing washing his hands.

And please, don't go down the path of thinking we are leading you astray. Some of us have been here years and we know what we are talking about.

Edited by PolarBear
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Guest Phil10
43 minutes ago, PolarBear said:

Then you don't understand ERP, which is an integral part of CBT. It is practiced the world over for OCD of all types. You are not ready for ERP but you will have to do it to recover. That's just a fact.

Ashley, the head of OCDUK, has contamination OCD. He has licked the bottom of his shoe and plunged his hand in a toilet, forgoing washing his hands.

And please, don't go down the path of thinking we are leading you astray. Some of us have been here years and we know what we are talking about.

I don’t plan on doing exposure therapy to recover from my ocd. Stopping the thoughts and hand washing reducing it works better it just takes some time. I heard removing anxiety often helps remove ocd. Am sure there’s other ways to get over ocd without touching dirty stuff to be honest just as there’s lots of meds and tools to get over anxiety.

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Respectfully, you don't know what works better. CBT is the only proven treatment for OCD. It involves changing the way you think and behave about the thoughts. Primarily it is about reducing and eliminating compulsions. And yes, ERP is an integral part of CBT for OCD.

 

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7 hours ago, Phil10 said:

Stopping the thoughts

Anyone who is in any form of recovery, be it partial or complete will tell you the "stopping of thoughts" will never ever happen because of the nature of how the mind works. The more you try to stop or 'resist' the thought, the more the thought stays ever present as the attempt to do so actually fuels it and keeps it current rather than preventing it. In fact, thought stopping itself is a compulsion.

Stopping or suppression of thoughts will always backfire when used to treat OCD. 

It is both counter-productive and an exercise in futility.

7 hours ago, Phil10 said:

I heard removing anxiety often helps remove ocd. Am sure there’s other ways to get over ocd without touching dirty stuff to be honest just as there’s lots of meds and tools to get over anxiety.

There are definitely lots of medication and tools to get over anxiety. I use meditation and exercise to help me keep my stress and anxiety levels down. I abstain from alcohol and watch my caffeine consumption too. These are just tools which are used to complement CBT, though, very useful, are just supplementary, the key to recovery is still the change to perception of intrusive thoughts and subsequent response to them.

The removal of anxiety or any uncomfortable emotion only comes about when you realised that there is actually nothing to fear, to be anxious, to be guilty etc, about the thought in the first place. It is the result or the product of changing your perception to your intrusive thought. It comes after, not before.

You can take medication and temporary 'remove' the anxiety or go to the gym and workout for 5 hours, but as long as the skewed thinking and perception remains, the anxiety will return. This is addressed in the cognitive and behavioural aspects of CBT - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy - the Gold Standard in treating OCD.

I admit, in my opinion, CBT is still an evolving science and therapeutic method because I am a proponent of augmenting CBT with mindfulness and loving-kindness but I take nothing away or disagree with what is currently done at the moment. It is a discussion for another thread and another day.

Edited by St Mike
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Guest Phil10
10 hours ago, St Mike said:

And Yes, recovery would involve you touching 'dirty' stuff or what you currently think or perceive as 'dirty'.

Yes but how do you deal with false thoughts like we don’t know the envolope even was in bin and same with the cupboard issue the stuff wasn’t on the same spot as dirty washing. I can think something is dirty just in my head and make up these situations not always fact?

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Guest Phil10

Also the thoughts of something being dirty cause my hands to tingle and feel unclean just by the thought like “maybe I never washed my hands” so unless I wash them I fear they are dirty.

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You deal with false thoughts by not dwelling on then - you accept the uncertainty and move on without entertaining the thoughts.

With many false thoughts, you can also deal with them by not caring - so what if the envelope came from the bin? That's why deliberately 'contaminating' yourself through exposure is so important - it teaches you to stop caring so much because it's not a big deal.

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Guest Phil10
16 minutes ago, bobfish said:

You deal with false thoughts by not dwelling on then - you accept the uncertainty and move on without entertaining the thoughts.

With many false thoughts, you can also deal with them by not caring - so what if the envelope came from the bin? That's why deliberately 'contaminating' yourself through exposure is so important - it teaches you to stop caring so much because it's not a big deal.

Haha yes but if it did come from the bin I do care :/ 

I find uncertain thoughts the worst right now and it’s these ones I dwell on..

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46 minutes ago, Phil10 said:

Haha yes but if it did come from the bin I do care :/

You may care now, but if you continue your therapy and make a conscious effort to change, then soon you won't care about it, trust me!

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Guest Phil10
1 hour ago, bobfish said:

You may care now, but if you continue your therapy and make a conscious effort to change, then soon you won't care about it, trust me!

So do you think the therapy will help rid me of these contamination thoughts I have? First few seasons has not helped much but may take longer? 

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Yes, but you need to persevere. Understand that OCD takes time to recover from. You've only had a few sessions so far, so don't worry if you're not seeing a noticeable change yet. You have to be prepared to keep working at it even if it's hard to see the end of it at the moment.

Well done for not replacing the front door. Well done for touching the envelope and then touching other things without washing your hands. It's a great start, it really is - but you're just scratching the surface at the moment. This takes time and commitment, but you're not alone in the struggle. Good luck with your therapy.

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Guest Phil10

I still feel worried by this and feel only a mail box which is quite an ugly thing to attach to the house or a new door is the only option. I still refuse to touch my anxiety book or bank card that came though the post.

I was going to try some fairy up liquid and soapy water to clean the door tonight but not sure it will help much. 

I will have it tell the theripst I need this new door no matter how skint and poor it will make me

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It depends what you mean.

Is the letter box now clean? Likely, since you washed it.

Will your thoughts go away about the letter nox being contaminated? Unlikely. By washing the box you did a compulsion. It won't help. Far from ending turmoil, compulsions reinforce the faulty belief in your mind that there was something wrong in the first place.

The letter box was not contaminated before. After washing it is still not contaminated. But you will likely continue to get thoughts that it is.

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Guest Phil10
18 hours ago, PolarBear said:

It depends what you mean.

Is the letter box now clean? Likely, since you washed it.

Will your thoughts go away about the letter nox being contaminated? Unlikely. By washing the box you did a compulsion. It won't help. Far from ending turmoil, compulsions reinforce the faulty belief in your mind that there was something wrong in the first place.

The letter box was not contaminated before. After washing it is still not contaminated. But you will likely continue to get thoughts that it is.

Yes exactly my thoughts are not going away I feel if I get an online order it will be dirty as it comes though letter box if I buy something in shops it’s dirty as I will have touched the bank card that came through the door I can’t win everything is contaminated in my head right now. 

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2 hours ago, Phil10 said:

Yes exactly my thoughts are not going away I feel if I get an online order it will be dirty as it comes though letter box if I buy something in shops it’s dirty as I will have touched the bank card that came through the door I can’t win everything is contaminated in my head right now. 

Phil, before you compulsively post your thoughts every single time, have a read through all the advice we've given you already. We've already told you what you should do when these thoughts arise.

The bottom line is, you're going to get thoughts about contamination for a while yet, and they're going to cause anxiety. If you want to get better, you have to try and resist these thoughts and compulsions every single time. It's hard, but it works. Simple as that. Honestly the best thing for you to do is not to do any further cleaning for the time being.

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4 hours ago, Phil10 said:

Yes exactly my thoughts are not going away I feel if I get an online order it will be dirty as it comes though letter box if I buy something in shops it’s dirty as I will have touched the bank card that came through the door I can’t win everything is contaminated in my head right now. 

'In your head' being the important words. That's the only place these things are contaminated.

Edited by PolarBear
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