Contamination ocd

[Blueskies]

I have really bad contamination ocd. But the part that's most troublesome is when I'm washing my hands after a number 2. When I'm soaping up, I imagine soap splashing back on me. I don't know how real it is. It's almost never visible. I end up washing upto my arm or worse, changing my top that I thought I got a splash on. But what are the chances of poo being in those splashbacks?

Iv tried ignoring it, but then I cave in and clean everything that I came in contact with, with my "contaminated" arm or top. Yes I get the ick with anything related to bodily fluids.

[howard]

Yes I have similar problems. I think you have a choice, you can carry on down a route, which could get worse, if you give in to it;

First you're anxious about the 'splash backs', anything that could have been contaminated by those, then if you accept that you start to get anxious about further contamination, etc.

(I'm still thinking about this, so hypothetically).> I'm making myself realise that all these fear or anxieties are only in my mind. That doesn't mean I've stopped with the excessive washing and cleaning, but I keep it to a minimum, where I feel okay about it. A sort of managed balance.

But where I really need to deal with them is in my mind. So no I don't think that if you wash your hands after going to the toilet, that any excrement is going to be on your hands, and is going to splash back on you.

You could just change the way you wash your hands, do it under a running tap and move soap downwards.

Good luck with it though.

 

 

[James M]

From my experience, ignoring only compounds the issue. I have had to face my fears via exposure and whilst it was really uncomfortable, I feel so much better and clear headed. Unfortunately I might not feel this way tomorrow, but have to grab these moments 

[Blueskies]

Thank you for the comments guys. I didn't realize others had splashback problems too. It's so frustrating. @howard unfortunately it's during the washing under the tap too, that I experience these splashes. I don't know if it's the water pressure or my imagination. And if you want to wash your hands properly you need to scrub up and down, scrubbing downwards only to avoid the splashes just wouldn't cut it for me

[howard]

I have contamination OCD about mostly chemicals. But to me it seems reasonable, to not want to come into contact with; dirt, excrement or chemicals. All pose potential dangers to humans.

I've had this IBS problem and that combined with OCD cleanliness is a nightmare. I even clean the toilet seat, the floor around it, the sink after I've scrubbed my hands.

But I am exaggerating all this in my mind, I'm still very against chemicals, but in reality our skin is designed to protect us from bacteria and our immune system evolves to cope with bacteria and viruses. I could buy a Japanese toilet.

[L.M.]

Have you done any CBT @Blueskies? 

I've had lots of issues with contamination and washing and stuff and by working through the cbt practices it has gotten way way better.

With cbt the goal would probably be to address a lot of your beliefs around body fluids/contamination. And then to work through ERP by reducing time spent washing and accepting the anxious or unclean feelings and just moving on with the day. But this is done in small manageable steps...

 

[Ross Knight]

Hi, I have contamination OCD too and also experience this obsession with splashbacks when I wash my hands. I've had OCD for just about four years and it has only become a problem in the past few months as my condition worsened. Have you ever done any treatments before?

[Handy]

So you’re concerned that something that is already inside you might get inside you again? How does that work exactly?

[Blueskies]

@howard I'm sorry that you are going through all that with the IBS on top. Why wash the sink? It's self cleaning because of all the water we use to wash our hands

@L.M.  @Ross Knight no I haven't done any cbt or therapy and I'm dreading getting into it because if the exposure aspect of it. Being exposed to the things I'm avoiding horrifies me. Also I wouldn't just feel anxious by reducing washing time. I would feel that I'm still dirty. And then that would spread to things around me. @Ross Knight what therapy have you had?

@Handy no I'm worried that something from inside me might not get washed properly off my hands and then spread onto my surroundings, mainly my most loved material things or comfort items like my bed, handbag, clean clothes.

[Ross Knight]

@Blueskies I can relate to that regarding CBT, I started CBT last year and recently give it up after about eight sessions because I found it too stressful for me personally and found it difficult to say how I felt to a therapist. I have not tried any other treatment options as of yet but I am hoping there is something out there that hopefully works for me. I will be visiting my doctor pretty soon to see what other treatments are available to me. I think that people have different opinions and respond differently to CBT and another type of therapy or medication might work out better for some people, I hope you find something that helps.   

[L.M.]

6 hours ago, Blueskies said:

no I haven't done any cbt or therapy and I'm dreading getting into it because if the exposure aspect of it. Being exposed to the things I'm avoiding horrifies me. Also I wouldn't just feel anxious by reducing washing time. I would feel that I'm still dirty. And then that would spread to things around me

Yes that's all part of CBT--I also have that fear of making everything contaminated around me if I don't engage with the compulsions. I think that would be a common fear with a lot of us with the contamination theme. That is why we work our way slowly up with cbt so we don't get overwhelmed by whatever our triggers are.

I would recommend either getting a good ocd cbt self-help book so as to gain a good understanding of how cbt works, or talking over your fears with a cbt therapist. Working through the cognitive aspects (or the 'c' part of CBT)  will help you address the dreaded feelings of working with the ERP aspect. I know my self help book has a whole section on just trying to address getting up the motivation to work with cbt to deal with ocd. I found that really helpful and still go back to that section when i am trying to address my current ocd issues. 

Remembering our motivation to work through this stuff can really help us stick to it even when it's really hard.

 

 

[howard]

@Blueskies I think you asking my why I wash the sink, illustrates the absurdity of our thoughts. I have to order and control all aspects of my life not to feel anxious.

And that leads to habits and rituals. So actually because I'm thinking about this, I stopped today and thought, 'why do I wash the floor?',

I don't have an answer.

But I also hate the habits and rituals, that satisfy one part of my mind.  I have experimented with Diceman ideas and can break the habits, but the rituals of cleanliness, I need and don't take up much time. It's just about managing it for me. 

 

[Blueskies]

Thanks everyone for your replies @L.M. please can you give an example of something you have overcome because of the cbt? And what is it that motivates you? I feel like my compulsions are stronger than anything that may motivate me.

@howard I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound condescending. Heck, I probably clean more surfaces than you and noone has been able to stop me doing this so far. But I do feel that when someone who has similar compulsions as me questions my compulsions, I tend to think differently, as opposed to when a regular person questions them. Because I think if the compulsive person doesn't do that , then why should I? Surely we are of the same "clean level".

[Blueskies]

@Ross Knight, which part was difficult? Was it because it involved doing things that you were uncomfortable with? I too would NOT be ok with that.

[snowbear]

2 minutes ago, Blueskies said:

Was it because it involved doing things that you were uncomfortable with? I too would NOT be ok with that.

Unfortunately, if you want to recover from OCD it means that at some point you will have to step out of your comfort zone. That's where the cognitive part of therapy can help as you explore the way you think and what consequencxes that has, then look at alternative ways of thinking about things and how different you would feel if you chose to think about life in a different way. Hopefully you'll be able to see it's the way you think about doing these things that makes you uncomfortable rather than that actually doing the things would make you uncomfortable.  And then you test that out with ERP, which no longer pushes you quite so far out of your comfort zone now that your thinking has shifted a bit.

On 19/05/2022 at 12:21, Blueskies said:

When I'm soaping up, I imagine soap splashing back on me. I don't know how real it is. It's almost never visible. I end up washing upto my arm or worse, changing my top that I thought I got a splash on. But what are the chances of poo being in those splashbacks?

It isn't about whether there is or isn't any splashback. The point is that any splashback which might occur isn't significant. By washing up your arms you're reacting as if the splashes are highly significant and can't be ignored - the result of your current thinking and assigning great importance to feeling 100% poo-free when being 99% poo-free and a normal quick rinse would suffice. Again, it's not about being 100% clean, but feeling / believing that you've cleaned enough. So what needs to change is the over-importance you put on your feelings over and above what's real (how clean your skin actually is.)

I'm a bit tired so I hope I've explained that in a way you can follow!

[Ross Knight]

Hey @Blueskies, I would say the communication with my therapist was the hardest part for me, but yes it was also quite uncomfortable for my to do the exposures and I think I felt quite unmotivated to complete them due the several issues I faced. I also have co-morbid ASD so I think I generally found it overwhelming for me and I struggled to communicate openly with my therapist. Thanks for your reply. 

[howard]

1 hour ago, Blueskies said:

Thanks everyone for your replies @L.M. please can you give an example of something you have overcome because of the cbt? And what is it that motivates you? I feel like my compulsions are stronger than anything that may motivate me.

@howard I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound condescending. Heck, I probably clean more surfaces than you and noone has been able to stop me doing this so far. But I do feel that when someone who has similar compulsions as me questions my compulsions, I tend to think differently, as opposed to when a regular person questions them. Because I think if the compulsive person doesn't do that , then why should I? Surely we are of the same "clean level".

Excuse me, I just meant you asking me why I clean the sink would be like someone asking you why you feel the need to change your top.

My mind is thinking in several directions about this and I was meaning my thoughts are absurd. So I really don't need to clean the floor. I clean the sink because it has been contaminated by me washing my hands into it. I find those rituals calming and reassuring.

I was thinking the only people who worry about contamination at this level, small or airborne, in droplets; are surgery staff, who scrub up.

So obviously it's a good idea to get help.

[Blueskies]

14 minutes ago, howard said:

Excuse me, I just meant you asking me why I clean the sink would be like someone asking you why you feel the need to change your top.

My mind is thinking in several directions about this and I was meaning my thoughts are absurd. So I really don't need to clean the floor. I clean the sink because it has been contaminated by me washing my hands into it. I find those rituals calming and reassuring.

I was thinking the only people who worry about contamination at this level, small or airborne, in droplets; are surgery staff, who scrub up.

So obviously it's a good idea to get help.

Yes I definitely need to seek some kind of therapy because living like this isn't realistic or comfortable.

What treatment have you tried?

[Blueskies]

2 hours ago, snowbear said:

Unfortunately, if you want to recover from OCD it means that at some point you will have to step out of your comfort zone. That's where the cognitive part of therapy can help as you explore the way you think and what consequencxes that has, then look at alternative ways of thinking about things and how different you would feel if you chose to think about life in a different way. Hopefully you'll be able to see it's the way you think about doing these things that makes you uncomfortable rather than that actually doing the things would make you uncomfortable.  And then you test that out with ERP, which no longer pushes you quite so far out of your comfort zone now that your thinking has shifted a bit.

It isn't about whether there is or isn't any splashback. The point is that any splashback which might occur isn't significant. By washing up your arms you're reacting as if the splashes are highly significant and can't be ignored - the result of your current thinking and assigning great importance to feeling 100% poo-free when being 99% poo-free and a normal quick rinse would suffice. Again, it's not about being 100% clean, but feeling / believing that you've cleaned enough. So what needs to change is the over-importance you put on your feelings over and above what's real (how clean your skin actually is.)

I'm a bit tired so I hope I've explained that in a way you can follow!

Yes thats a wonderful explanation! Are you a therapist or something?

But how can I believe I'm clean if I am not? Surely everyone wants to be 100percent poo free?

[howard]

1 minute ago, Blueskies said:

Yes I definitely need to seek some kind of therapy because living like this isn't realistic or comfortable.

What treatment have you tried?

It's difficult for me because most of my life has been with OCD. So I try to work with it. But when my stress levels were high it started getting worse. Having to keep going back and check if switches were off(even when I knew they were), just because I left something on once.

It's started to escalate into different areas of my life so I just got some counselling, but that was also about stress and what causes high stress and anxiety levels in some people.

So now I'm back down to my 'normal' level.

[snowbear]

1 hour ago, Blueskies said:

how can I believe I'm clean if I am not? Surely everyone wants to be 100percent poo free?

Absolutely they do!

For most people a simple soapy hand wash reassures them they are 100% clean. They don't believe they need to go to the lengths of surgical scrubbing to the elbows, they don't consider any splashes as significant or capable of undoing the hand wash and 100% cleanliness.

You, on the other hand, can wash and rewash and soapily scrub away at every miniscule splash and then you feel compelled to mentally check yourself and your surroundings for cleanliness perfection and at the end of that you can still believe you might have missed a speck. You feel like even a 0.000000000001% chance of a single speck of poo on you is unacceptable - as if it was the the equivalent of covering yourself in dung.   You believe that you could transfer that (imagned) contamination to any subsequent surface your 'unclean' hands touch next.

The difference isn't in how clean your hands are versus everybody else. The difference is how you think about it, how you feel about it, and how you behave as a result of those thoughts (beliefs) and feelings.

OCD isn't really an anxiety disorder. It's a thinking disorder. And the distorted thinking causes anxiety.

So to recover from OCD you need to change your thinking. Re-evaluate the importance you place on a single possible miniscule speck of poo. Discard the belief that you can transfer 'contamination' from surface to surface no matter how miniscule the risk, no matter how improbable that your hands remain unclean even though they (at first) still feel unclean and (again just at first) even though the anxiety persists.

Thoughts, feelings and behaviours interact in a never ending cycle. You can intervene at any point in the circle.

Change your thinking > your feelings change (anxiety reduces) > you are more easily able to change your behaviour (stop doing he compulsive washing) > your thoughts and beliefs change as you re-evaluate and then accept there is no significant contamination risk > you feel safe > you wash normally again.

Or

Change your behaviour (do ERP) > your feelings change (increased anxiety which you ride out til it passes) > you re-evaluate the need to do such intense washing > you wash normally again.

Or

Change your feelings (apply mindfulness and relaxation techniques) > you feel calmer and are able to process your thoughts more normally > you wash normally again.

Thoughts> feelings> behaviours > thoughts > feelings > behaviours > thoughts ....and so on.

Each time you change one aspect of the cycle you get the opportunity to re-evaluate your previous interpretation (that you're contaminated, that you feel unclean, that you need to wash.)

 

[L.M.]

5 hours ago, Blueskies said:

Thanks everyone for your replies @L.M. please can you give an example of something you have overcome because of the cbt? And what is it that motivates you? I feel like my compulsions are stronger than anything that may motivate me.

Sure! I used to have cleaning compulsions that took me about 10-15 hours a day. Showering (including cleaning it before and after)  took me 7 hours but I still  had to take one every day... washing hands took forever, and then would be all the other rituals...my hands looked horrific, I was lost so much weight because I couldn't fit meals in (and needed them prepared for me) I was in severe distress...so that was easy to find the motivation back then! (That was all around 10 years ago now)

I did also end up taking medication to help me with the cbt but even that required overcoming fears around taking medication...So I worked my way back from all those compulsions using cbt methods...A shower now takes me about 15 minutes, and so many other compulsions just completely gone, or greatly reduced. Now my ocd is much more manageable and I live a pretty happy life. However, I do get times when the ocd gets worse and then I need to go back and find that motivation again to drop compulsions.

So a more recent example was when covid hit I developed lots of rituals around grocery shopping. I had to change and shower after shopping, and had to clean all my groceries. So I worked through this one recently facing that feeling of contamination when I didn't do those things. My motivation was I hated all the extra work shopping took me, it was painful and tiring. Also I hated all the extra laundry, I hated all the unnecessary garbage i was creating by wiping the groceries with paper towel...

I worked with my book and did lots of posting on this forum about that and got lots of support to help me let that go. Now I love the feeling of just popping into the store without any anxiety or compulsions. Whenever I get a good success like that it further motivates me to drop more compulsions as I know that while facing that fear or feeling of contamination in the short term is uncomfortable, it gives me so much more freedom and joy in the longterm.

2 hours ago, Blueskies said:

Yes I definitely need to seek some kind of therapy because living like this isn't realistic or comfortable

This right here is a wonderful place to begin with seeing your motivation to begin cutting out compulsions!

[howard]

3 hours ago, Blueskies said:

Yes thats a wonderful explanation! Are you a therapist or something?

But how can I believe I'm clean if I am not? Surely everyone wants to be 100percent poo free?

The thing is you could in practice prove that you are clean after just washing, by going outside the bathroom and using a UV light.

But anxieties around contamination are the real issue. If it wasn't this it might be something else.

And this reached panic proportions during the pandemic. So I wonder if more people are now concerned with contamination.

 

[Blueskies]

On 21/05/2022 at 15:08, snowbear said:

Absolutely they do!

For most people a simple soapy hand wash reassures them they are 100% clean. They don't believe they need to go to the lengths of surgical scrubbing to the elbows, they don't consider any splashes as significant or capable of undoing the hand wash and 100% cleanliness.

You, on the other hand, can wash and rewash and soapily scrub away at every miniscule splash and then you feel compelled to mentally check yourself and your surroundings for cleanliness perfection and at the end of that you can still believe you might have missed a speck. You feel like even a 0.000000000001% chance of a single speck of poo on you is unacceptable - as if it was the the equivalent of covering yourself in dung.   You believe that you could transfer that (imagned) contamination to any subsequent surface your 'unclean' hands touch next.

The difference isn't in how clean your hands are versus everybody else. The difference is how you think about it, how you feel about it, and how you behave as a result of those thoughts (beliefs) and feelings.

OCD isn't really an anxiety disorder. It's a thinking disorder. And the distorted thinking causes anxiety.

So to recover from OCD you need to change your thinking. Re-evaluate the importance you place on a single possible miniscule speck of poo. Discard the belief that you can transfer 'contamination' from surface to surface no matter how miniscule the risk, no matter how improbable that your hands remain unclean even though they (at first) still feel unclean and (again just at first) even though the anxiety persists.

Thoughts, feelings and behaviours interact in a never ending cycle. You can intervene at any point in the circle.

Change your thinking > your feelings change (anxiety reduces) > you are more easily able to change your behaviour (stop doing he compulsive washing) > your thoughts and beliefs change as you re-evaluate and then accept there is no significant contamination risk > you feel safe > you wash normally again.

Or

Change your behaviour (do ERP) > your feelings change (increased anxiety which you ride out til it passes) > you re-evaluate the need to do such intense washing > you wash normally again.

Or

Change your feelings (apply mindfulness and relaxation techniques) > you feel calmer and are able to process your thoughts more normally > you wash normally again.

Thoughts> feelings> behaviours > thoughts > feelings > behaviours > thoughts ....and so on.

Each time you change one aspect of the cycle you get the opportunity to re-evaluate your previous interpretation (that you're contaminated, that you feel unclean, that you need to wash.)

 

Thank you so much for this explanation. I get it, I really do but it's easier said than done I'm afraid. Of course I have already told myself that I overdo the washing and that maybe it's not necessary but it's like my mind doesn't want to listen to me. 

Yes I need to change the way I think but I just can't. I guess this is where the cbt could help and I am in the process of getting it.

Is it unnecessary for me to clean under my nails though? I do this alot and I know others don't. 

[Blueskies]

On 21/05/2022 at 16:45, howard said:

The thing is you could in practice prove that you are clean after just washing, by going outside the bathroom and using a UV light.

But anxieties around contamination are the real issue. If it wasn't this it might be something else.

And this reached panic proportions during the pandemic. So I wonder if more people are now concerned with contamination.

 

I Googled the uv light straight after I read this! Unfortunately it has really bad effects on the user otherwise I was very ready to buy it in order to prove to myself my hands are clean after a quick wash and I don't need to go into so much detail when washing.