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Fear of Causing a flood


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Hi,

I have developed an  obsession with causing a flood by leaving damp clothes or towels in my flat.

My safety behaviors have gone from drying clothes on the radiator everyday to carrying my jeans in a bag when I go out and staying in my flat to make sure there is not going to be a flood.

I have had this as a minor theme for a while but it is only recently that it has started to cause me problems.

How can I go about treating this obsession?

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Hi zx,

By identfying the safety behaviours you're carrying out, you're actually already a good way into the treatment process for this obsession.

I think you've also begun to work on exposing yourself to other fears, that's how you'll also need to tackle these around flooding. That's the great thing about CBT, whatever the nature of the specific, sometimes changing fears we each have, it can be used to tackle them all.

Think over the compulsions you're doing and which would cause you to feel the least anxious if you didn't carry it out, and work on up until you get to the one that's causing the most anxiety.

From there, choose the least anxiety producing one to resist doing, and when you feel little to no anxiety move to the next to work at.

I know it probably sounds quite daunting, but at each stage our confidence in ourselves also builds and we feel that bit more resilient to face the next challenge we've set ourselves to achieve.

That's a really brief outline of what's involved, but the charity's main homepage has a lot more information and there are also quite a few self-help books geared towards overcoming OCD that go into a lot more depth....one I found particularly helpful was 'Break Free from OCD,' by Professor Salkovskis et al.

I hope that may help a bit, the fact you've got the insight to see what's going-on and that it's becoming more of a problem you need to begin working at to overcome, are both good signs you'll be able to nip this in the bud:)

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Hi,

thanks for the reply.

I can see that this ocd theme is gradually encroaching on my life as I now find myself going out much less than I used to.

I have written down the problem so that I can clearly see what I am dealing with, but the problem is that I am not sure how to make a hierarchy, which would enable me to tackle it.

I am trying to tackle it, but so far I am not making much progress.

Do you know of any self help resources I could use?

I found the challenge ocd website but it doesn't seem to be working.

 

 

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I started by drying my clothes on the radiator everyday morning, then I started carrying my clothes around with me in a bag.

 I have been trying to avoid doing compulsions by leaving my clothes in the flat, but if I do I get an obsessive thought that there will be a flood. 

I have been doing drying my clothes for a while and it has only become more of a problem.

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