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I haven't posted here in a long time, my contamination OCD has been the best it's been in years. The only real issue that persisted was constant checking my shoes for cat or dog feces, it only takes the smallest of brown marks, which could be anything, and I will throw away my shoes, I purposely buy cheap slip ons for that reason, in the past 6 years, my estimate is around 1000 pairs of shoes.

So today as usual I check my shoes, and there is two brown pieces of something on my shoes, I had only worn them around the house, we do have a cat, that goes to toilet outside, and eats and sleeps indoors.

So I'm in instant panic mode, I watch the floor where I walk all the time, I can't work out what it is, bread, cat meat, or feces, I'm panicking so bad, I smelt the shoe, and couldn't smell poop, so I threw away the shoes anyway, now I'm stressed about where I've walked, I feel my hands are covered in poop, everything I touched after I smelt the shoes, I'm worried I inhaled poop bacteria, I feel like calling 111 NHS helpline to ask if I will be ok, I'm so scared, I'm just eating junk food to make myself feel fractionally better, my head is pounding so bad, I can't focus or think about anything, I feel sick.

I need to clean everything now, even then I won't relax, I just wish I knew what it was, sorry for posting I've just done it out of desperation for anyone that deals with the same issue to try and help me.

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But you know that other people seem to survive without the excessive cleaning and frequent shoe changing ? And we all step into poo from time to time. 

But I really do understand you. I don't like the idea of coming into contact with poo either and when I step in it, I take reasonable measures like to leave the shoes by the door till I "walk them clean". Its true that poo can contain pathogens but humanity is still around  so it seems our are bodies are equiped to handle some amount of contamination. I indeed I think it is needed for our immune system to stay awake. Germs are everywhere anyway and i think too much cleaning is a waste of time and probably counter productive in that you need to leave some germs in your home to keep your immune system trained.

I know it's difficult cause there is some level of risk and it's hard to know how big it really is and the OCD makes you think is really huge. But the OCD is distorting your judgement here.

Also with OCD it i think has to be perfectly clean otherwise it is completely dirty. But again, it's not possible or desirable to have this unrealistic degree of perfection.

So I am pretty sure you have an OCD issue here that you should work on with the usual methods. I am not an expert. Just reading a book called "brainlock" and it describes very closely your situation and what to do about it.

Edited by Flipfix
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Thanks for your reply, I appreciate it. It's the following morning, anxiety has dropped, it's just lingering in the background.

I know what you say is right, and I have been doing so well in recent times, lots of exposures that I have overcome, it's just the shoe checking remains.

I will look up that book now, and see if I can get it, I know what my problem will be, I'll have all the knowledge, all the confidence, then when it happens, I crumble into anxiety again. Seems like I can never prepare myself enough for the immediate moment it happens.

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You really have to persevere and not let a small setback demotivate you. You say that you have been getting better, so well done ! Continue doing the right work and your brain will rewire itself to handle this stuff when it happens.

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On 21/10/2018 at 10:19, Jack Russell said:

I haven't posted here in a long time, my contamination OCD has been the best it's been in years. The only real issue that persisted was constant checking my shoes for cat or dog feces, it only takes the smallest of brown marks, which could be anything, and I will throw away my shoes, I purposely buy cheap slip ons for that reason, in the past 6 years, my estimate is around 1000 pairs of shoes.

So today as usual I check my shoes, and there is two brown pieces of something on my shoes, I had only worn them around the house, we do have a cat, that goes to toilet outside, and eats and sleeps indoors.

So I'm in instant panic mode, I watch the floor where I walk all the time, I can't work out what it is, bread, cat meat, or feces, I'm panicking so bad, I smelt the shoe, and couldn't smell poop, so I threw away the shoes anyway, now I'm stressed about where I've walked, I feel my hands are covered in poop, everything I touched after I smelt the shoes, I'm worried I inhaled poop bacteria, I feel like calling 111 NHS helpline to ask if I will be ok, I'm so scared, I'm just eating junk food to make myself feel fractionally better, my head is pounding so bad, I can't focus or think about anything, I feel sick.

I need to clean everything now, even then I won't relax, I just wish I knew what it was, sorry for posting I've just done it out of desperation for anyone that deals with the same issue to try and help me.

Well, 1,000 pairs of shoes is over the top. That's 1000 needless compulsions. And look at the other compulsions you mentioned: watching the floor whrre you walk, smelling shoes, thinking about cslling NHS (checking compulsion), thinking about cleaning everything. It's no wonder you are in such a state.

Do you realize that everyone else does not do what you do? Do you realize we don't much care what the bottoms of our shoes look like? 

You do because you have fallen for an OCD lie. It's all a big lie. OCD screams st you that you must check, you must throw away shoes, but it is a lie. You can have a perfectly normal life without checking and without new shoes. The rest of us do. So can you.

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