r/ContaminationOCD

Hi guys,

This issue has been mostly going on for around a year. It takes me hourss to poop. I am not even joking. I am on the toilet for usually two hours. One hour is a blessing. The last few weeks, it has gone up to 5 hours. Today it was almost 6 hours. I’m so tired. On top of it, I always shower after pooping and that too takes me an hour now. I’m genuinely so exhausted. I dread going to the bathroom and it’s gotten to a point where I hold it in for days. Recently I don’t want to shower without pooping first because I fear that something will leak from the back. I am someone who takes two showers a day to stay clean. Recently I have gone days without showering too because I am too scared to poop. My longest was a week and I’m so disgusted with myself. I am eating my best to be healthy. I am straining a lot until I basically see nothing for several wipes. It’s the straining that takes hours. It hurts so much and I’m so tired of this. I use two rolls of toilet paper everytime I poop. When I shower I genuinely use a whole bottle of soap in two days basically. I don’t remember how I used to do it before. I used to take 30 minute showers too not 1 hour long showers. I am so scared of leaving poop and being dirty. I feel so disgusting. I am 20 and a university student. I want to have fun. I used to always do sleepovers trips with friends and family But I am so worried abt all of this and when I would need the bathroom and when I do it will take hours and everyone will be disappointed. I even wear pads every day because I’m scared I will leak and dirty my clothes. I even put a towel on my bed. I’m so tired of this and I wish I can just live like how I used to. I don’t know where to stop I am missing out on so much. I am so drained and I hate myself. I used to wake up between 3-4 am just to start pooping so I wouldn’t be late to my classes. I am scared to make plans. I disappointed my family I am even getting help when there were other things last year that got really bad. But I feel like I am only going backwards and I don’t want to live the rest of my life like this.

hey all, wanted to give an update/put this into words rq because i don’t see my therapist until next week and just had something major happen. my neighbor asked me to feed her cat till next week.

im weirdly excited. i think this could be an incredible opportunity to take the steps me and my therapist have been working towards. my biggest issue is being able to put my outside shoes on and come back into my apartment without needing to mop and it’s fucking exhausting. i keep my shoes outside my apartment, the issue isn’t wearing shoes inside, it’s my feet touching the inside of the shoes. it’s insane and i don’t even remember when it started. but i don’t leave my apartment to avoid mopping. it’s the most isolating compulsion i have because it limits me to my apartment 24/7 unless it’s a day i set aside to leave/clean/mop.

i’ll need to feed kitty twice daily, and there is just no way i can keep up this compulsion. i’ll be forced to confront it, and accept that my floor will be ‘dirty’ from the inside of my shoes and whatever my feet have come into contact with and contaminated in my shoes. holy hell. can i really do this? i sincerely hope so. i want to BE DIRTY because it means i get to be human, to be alive, to experience life to a quality that i deserve.

anyway, thanks for reading, if anyone has any tips or words of encouragement it would mean a lot. my thing lately has been phrases of acceptance and i’m definitely going to need to use them. god i hope i can cope.

whenever theres no water around or anything to wipe off the contamination, wipes somehow save anything and everything. i dont know whats the logic behind it but it just works for literally anything like shoelaces, shirts, skin, i dont know why

TW, I’m telling what happened at my appointment that made me anxious. If reading this will make you uncomfortable or anxious please be aware.

I just left my yearly gyno appointment. Mammogram and pap. Anyway she did the mammogram no gloves, okay fine I can manage that. Then she put on gloves to do the Pap smear. She did the papa then touched the trash can with her gloved hands to throw out the tissue. Then kept the same gloves on to then feel for my ovaries and uterus. (Obviously anyone who has gone to a gyno knows that they insert to feel for these things).

So her gloved hands that just touched the trash can were in my body😭 I feel not only violated but so anxious. I keep thinking of all the germs and viruses that could’ve been on that trash can. I keep worrying what if there was hepatitis on that trash can and now I have hepatitis. Or what if I get a UTI or a yeast infection?

I am spiraling and just say in the car and cried for I don’t even know how long.

And I wanted to ask her to change her gloves but it all happened so fast I didn’t even have a chance to say anything. I’m so upset and idk maybe looking for reassurance or if anyone had been in a similar situation. Idk I just needed somewhere to talk about it tbh.

TLDR: Gyno touched a trash can with gloved hands before pelvic exam and now I’m freaking out and so anxious.

Edit:spelling

¿can someone please explain to me the relation between ocd and dissociation and from dissociation to suicidal ideation? in having a hard time getting out of this cycle.

my ocd gets worse and i begin to experience dissociation symptoms and from there to suicidal ideation and i get better and the cycle restarts ¿can someone explain to me why this cycle happens? and if some of you experience this ¿what are your tips and how to overcome it?.

sorry for my bad english and thanks to all of the amazing people in this subreddit

Wow I can’t believe that so many people do the same compulsive actions that I do everyday it’s honestly crazy reading everything on this sub and comparing it to my own life. My COCD is rooted in emetophobia, scared that I’ll contaminate my “safe” spaces which will in turn expose me to germs. Anyone else relate?

Every time we seek reassurance - googling symptoms, going to the doctor "just to check" - we get temporary relief. But that relief is exactly what keeps the circle going. Your brain learns the only way to feel okay is external confirmation. So the threshold gets lower, not higher.

The thing that feels like help is actually feeding it.

Randomized controlled trials on CBT are pretty clear: the path out isn't finding reassurance - it's learning to sit with uncertainty without resolving it. Sounds awful. But apparently it's the only thing that works long-term.

Has anyone here experienced this click? What made it finally make sense for you ?

What is something that you do better at than you did say last year or whatever? 🤔

Example: don't wash as much or feel like certain things are contaminated as much.. etc..

And if not really much it's ok too. 😊

I have severe contamination OCD, life just does not give me a break on top of it. All my friends suck, my girlfriend is just so problematic all the time, all i do is go to work and come home and she still starts fights with me and then even when i do exactly what she wants, she just creates another problem. I have no family at all, i have a decent job as a bridge operator I make 31 an hour rn but idk it just doesn’t feel like I am alive, existence is painful, when i am home i am constantly cleaning things, I just got my first apartment with my girlfriend the OCD has made the move rough, I try to see a doctor but the doctor in my area is only taking undocumented migrants at the moment and yeah i could just go on and on and on and idk i just don’t want to do it anymore i feel like these next few days are the end for me.

hi ! i’m looking for help in finding a phone case that doesn’t flare up my contamination ocd.

the main issue i have is all phone cases get oily/greasy. it doesn’t matter how much i clean them oil from my hands seems to cling to every case i ever buy.

i’ve been carrying my phone without a case for months but with the plan to buy a new phone i want to be able to protect it.

does anyone have any suggestions of cases that dont feel greasy over time OR suggestions on how to clean my case so it feels better ?

thanks !!

Cognitive behavioral therapies, while, again, are crucial approaches towards neurotic expressions, can be quite ineffective on their own in addressing fundamental causes, complex cases, or when existential crises arise; particularly if severe traumatising experiences are linked to them. Somatic experiencing, psychodynamic, internal family systems, Coherence, EMDR therapy, and whatnot —which can be integrated into a larger, trauma-informed framework, such as a phase-based one, among others— would be better suited to heal from those griviences leading to neurosis while engaging into cognitive behavioral work to address the former.

>A Freudian (psychoanalytic) analyst would approach Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) by focusing on uncovering and resolving unconscious conflicts that are believed to be at the root of the symptoms. Unlike modern, evidence-based treatments like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), which focus on managing and changing thoughts and behaviors, Freudian psychoanalysis aims for deeper insight into the "why" behind the OCD. [¹]

>A Jungian (analytical psychology) analyst [for instance] would approach Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) differently from a Freudian analyst, though both share a focus on the unconscious. While Freud emphasizes unconscious conflicts and repressed impulses, Jung's perspective expands to also include the collective unconscious, archetypes, and the process of individuation. [²]

Jungian Quotes;

>If we follow the history of a neurosis with attention, we regularly find a critical moment when some problem emerged that was evaded .. ⌚

A teen patient's dream; >He is walking along an unfamiliar street. It is dark, and he hears steps coming from behind him. With a feeling of fear he quickens his pace. The footsteps come nearer, and his fear increases. He begins to run but the footsteps seem to be overtaking him. Finally, he turns around, and there he sees The Devil, in deathly terror he leaps into the air and hangs there suspended. This dream was repeated twice, a sign of its special urgency.

His interpretation; >It is a notorious fact that the compulsion neuroses, by reason of their meticulousness and ceremonial punctiliousness, not only have the surface appearance of a moral problem, but are indeed brimful of inhuman beastliness and ruthless evil, against the integration of which the very delicately organized personality puts up a desperate struggle. This explains why so many things have to be performed in ceremonially “correct” style, as though to counteract the evil hovering in the background.

>After this dream, the compulsion neurosis started, and its essential feature was that the patient, as he put it, had to keep himself in a “provisional” or “uncontaminated” state of purity.

>For this purpose he either severed or made “invalid” all contact with the world and with everything that reminded him of the transitoriness of human existence, by means of lunatic formalities, scrupulous cleansing ceremonies, and the anxious observance of innumerable rules and regulations of an unbelievable complexity. Even before the patient had any suspicion of the hellish existence that lay before him, the dream showed him that if he wanted to come down to earth again there would have to be a pact with evil. ⌚

>Once a young man came to me with a severe cases of compulsion neurosis, he produced a voluminous manuscript, which, so he said, contained the history and analysis of his case. He called it a compulsion neurosis quite correctly, as I saw when I read the document. It was a sort of psychoanalytical autobiography, most intelligently worked out showing really remarkable insight. It was a regular scientific treatise, based on a wide reading and a thorough study of the literature. I congratulated him on his achievement and asked him what he had really come for.

>"Well!", he said, " You have read what I have written. Can you tell me why, with all my insight, I am still as neurotic as ever? In theory I should be cured, as I have recalled even my earliest memories. I have read of many people who, with infinitely less insight than I have, were nevertheless cured. Why should I be an exception? Please tell me what it is I have overlooked or am still repressing. "

>I told him I could not at the moment see any reason why his really astonishing insight had not touched his neurosis… " .. there remains only one, perhaps quite foolish, question: you do not mention where you come from and who your parents are. You say you spent last winter on the Riviera and the summer in St. Moritz. Were you very careful in the choice of your parents? ” “ Not at all. ”

>“ You have an excellent business and are making a good deal of money? ” “ No, I cannot make money. ”

>“ Then you have a big fortune from an uncle? ” “ No. ”

>“ Then where does the money come from? ” He replied: “ I have a certain arrangement. I have a friend who gives me the money. ”

>I said: “ It must be a wonderful friend! ” and he replied: “ It is a woman. ”

>She was much older than himself, aged thirty-six, a teacher in an elementary school with a small salary, who fell in love with the fellow who was twenty-eight. She lived on bread and milk so that he could spend his winter on the Riviera and his summer in St. Moritz.

>“ And you ask why you are ill ! ”

>He said: “ Oh, you have a moralistic point of view; that is not scientific. ”

>I said: “ The money in your pocket is the money of the woman you cheat. ”

>He said, “ No, we agreed upon it. I had a serious talk with her and it is not a matter for discussion that I get the money from her. ”

>I said: “ You are pretending to yourself that it is not her money, but you live by it, and that is immoral. That is the cause of your compulsion neurosis. It is a compensation and a punishment for an immoral attitude. ”

>An utterly unscientific point of view, of course, but it is my conviction that he deserves his compulsion neurosis and will have it to the last day of his life if he behaves like a pig.

>He went right away like a god and thought: “ Dr. Jung is only a moralist, not a scientist. Anybody else would have been impressed by the interesting case instead of looking for simple things. "

>He commits a crime and steals the savings of a lifetime from an honest woman in order to be able to have a good time. That fellow belongs in jail, and his compulsion neurosis provides it for him all right.⌚

>The more projections are thrust in between the subject and the environment, the harder it is for the ego to see through its illusions. You promise yourself all the time new countries, new chances, wonderful things, and are lured on and on, living the provisional life. That is very typical of the specific psychology of the neurotic; part of the neurosis consists of that suspended life, or rather, the provisional life. I learned that term from a patient who had suffered from a compulsion neurosis since he was twenty and had become completely cut off from their world. He said: " The trouble is, I am living a provisional life, and the name of it is Happy Neurosis Island, where nothing has come off yet. I am now forty-five, and I know I began my provisional life .. went to Happy Neurosis Island when I was seventeen. And I cannot be cured because, if I should remember again, I should wake up a boy of seventeen and have to realize that so many years had gone by wasted[neither did he enjoy a hedonistic life of boyhood and youth, nor did he accomplish significant achievements]inferred—I can never admit to myself that I've wasted the best twenty-five years of my life!— Now, I have hope and I can live. "

>I told him in the beginning that he would not put it through, because he could not bring off the sacrifice of thirty years; it is a bloody sacrifice to cut away thirty years of your life! He could have done it if he had wanted to be cured, but he didn't.⌚

>You see, it is very typical of human beings that as long as they are suspended and they have a chance to move on, they always have hope of finding the good thing round the next corner, so they never insist on having happiness where they are. But when you settle down and assume that now it will come off, you are up against a brick wall. Happiness does not descend upon you, it is even a considerable strain to keep quiet. And then you think regretfully of former times when you could escape and disappear somewhere in the clouds on the horizon. ⌚

>Carelessness of all kinds, neglected duties, tasks postponed, willful outbursts of defiance, and so on, all these can dam up their vitality to such an extent that certain quanta of energy, no longer finding a conscious outlet, stream off into the unconscious, where they activate other compensating contents, which in turn begin to exert a compulsive influence on the conscious mind.⌚

>Instinct stimulates thought, and if a man does not think of his own free will, then you get compulsive thinking, for the two poles of the psyche, the physiological and tegmental, are unsolubly connected. For this reason instinct cannot be freed without freeing the mind, just as mind divorced from instinct is condemned to futility.⌚

>More acute cases develop every sort of phobia, and, in particular, compulsion symptoms. The pathological contents have a markedly unreal character, with a frequent moral or religious streak. A petty fogging captiousness follows, or a grotesquely punctilious morality combined with primitive "magical" superstitions that fall back on abstruse rites.⌚

>History > https://www.treatmyocd.com/blog/how-long-has-ocd-been-around#h-people-were-describing-ocd-long-before-it-was-called-that

>Warning ⚠️ https://iocdf.org/expert-opinions/ineffective-and-potentially-harmful-psychological-interventions-for-obsessive-compulsive-disorder/

[¹] 🔗https://www.reddit.com/r/psychoanalysis/s/b3bl817V0n

[²] 🔗https://youtu.be/bNFSqiadG60?si=fpuQhwLj9NWZGj3U

my main theme is contamination specifically in regards to feeling like my family is contaminated. they just do things that are not up to my hygiene standards and my brain considers them as human beings contaminated.

anyway, i 22F have a loving partner and we’re starting to plan for our future about marriage (don’t want kids). but i come from a traditional chinese family. traditional in the sense that during the new year, it’s expected that we either host or visit my current house which would be my mum’s house when i move out with my boyfriend. i view the house to be superrrr contaminated, i can barely stand living in it. on the other hand, if she visits my house, i would probably get so stressed out with the contamination brought in my house. and also having my partner sit in contaminated areas of the house or touch things i deem as contaminated means i can’t touch him anymore and have to divorce to get away from him.

my brain makes me think things like these. obviously i know it’s illogical and i so desperately wish i could be normal and just hug my family and have my partner be so well integrated with my family. i’m seeking a diagnosis, hoping to go on meds and seek some therapy. maybe it’ll get better for me.

but in the meantime, i’m just wondering if i’m COMPLETELY alone in this or anyone else has the same struggle.

I recently bought an apartment and of course have cleaned it perfectly, now it is my safe haven.

My brother is coming to sleep over only for 1 night on the weekend and I cant stop thinking about how to protect it from him. Especially my new couch and my carpet which is quite thick and heavy, are two main trigger points for me because of how hard they are to clean back to perfect.

I bought other pillows for my couch and a cover for it, and I can also put a blanket down on the carpet. But I cant stop playing over how I'm going to proof it in my head, it's still 4 days away and I think about the setup over and over.

I also feel sad because I want my family and friends to see my cool new place and feel comfortable being here, but it fills me with so much panic already at the thought of him coming. Even just the way people enter, I put a safe zone mat for shoes but then people always step on it after they take off their shoes which defeats the whole purpose.

I don't know anyone else with OCD and even though all my friends and family know I have it, I still feel ashamed and panicky every time I have to ask for something in particular, and they "try" but they don't do it right and then they get frustrated or dismissive when I react.

It's just such a hard disease, I hate it so much.

I feel like it's getting worse everyday. I have to carry a separate clean bedsheet wherever I go in the house if I want to sit or lay anywhere to avoid getting my clothes dirty. I re wash my hands everytime before eating if anything touches my hand even a tiny tiny bit. I don't even sit on my own bed unless the bedsheet's washed again if somebody else has sat on it. I don't let my outside clothes touch tiniest of space where I sit/lay with inside clothes on.

I have to ask my mom/anybody if thry have washed thrir hands everytime when handing over the food to me.

I've got into fight with my brother and parents because they sit on my "clean" space many times, atleast 15+ in the last 2 weeks.

I don't want to live like this, on top of that my mom dad taunt me everytime and that I'll never get anywhere in life if I keep acting like this but I just can't help it.

Fear of Semen, Bathroom, people touching private partts then touching muy stuff without washing and/or the private parets touching my stuff;. I keep washing electropnics like a bass guitar amplifier that shouldnt be washed. Please i need help, my goal is to start living

im 17 so I still live at home with my parents and i have been scared to touch them / they touch me / or I even brush up against them (it’s very obvious when i like move out of there way suddenly and always avoid getting close…) without washing every inch of me, what im wearing, everything on me at the time (like i have a backpack on i will put that in the wash to and sanatise everything inside) and all the clothes im wearing so i have just resorted to avoiding all contact because doing all of that de contamination is exhausting, this has been happening for around 10 months. im from australia so tomorrow is Mother’s Day and i feel like such an awful daughter for never hugging my mom or letting her in my room but i am just so terrified that if im contaminated then everyone around me will think im disgusting, so they will all hate me and I will be alone forever, i know that probably sounds stupid and i need to grow up but I can’t even explain why I am so terrified. she has said to me a couple times this week that she wants a hug but I just say nothing and then today she said how about for Mother’s Day I sit on your bed, I want her to know that I love her so much and she means the world to me but she doesn’t understand my ocd, I think she just sees it as annoying and it makes her just hurt by me which is never my intention and I hate it. in the last month I have had three dreams that haven’t been the same but in each of them my parents have entered my room and touched stuff and the amount of panic I could feel in the dream was crazy I just wanted to cry and never stop, and then the relief I felt when I waked up and realised it never happened was just like wow. please just any advice is welcomed I have no idea what to do

Like oh idk you got a clogged sink so go to snake it out then some of gunk gets on you like your arms and a little on your face. But you say " nope not stopping". But the snake didn't work good enough so you got to remove the trap underneath and that gets on you too Then you decide hey might as well do the shower drain as well. And then you just say screw it I'm cleaning the toilet bowl too and then you accidentally touch it but you just stay calm and clean on. Saying to yourself "nope not stopping".

Oh and all the whole time you cleaned you did it without any gloves on!?.. I did wash my hands a lot cuz I kept having to stop and Google things regarding the sink but I honestly didn't really get much anxiety or anything bout it. And you look back at it and realize hey that was pretty freaking amazing of me. I'm stronger than I thought i was. I'm a bad ass! 😎🤣