can someone with ocd be dirty

i have erry single type of ocd apart from the cleanning one. i am the dirtyest person you will ever meet. but then i feel that my dirt is to do with my ocd because i feel my immune system will improve if i am dirty.

[PaperTigers]

I wondered the same thing because my apartment gets so cluttered. I'm trying so hard to do better but the fact that I don't obsess over cleanliness had me questioning my diagnoses as much as it fits in other areas. I think it's totally possible to be messy and still have OCD. I definitely relate mostly to what is known as "pure o" cause my mental rituals are nuts. I hope you get the answers you need. I'm curious too.

[Hidden in reply to PaperTigers]

i just realised i bacame dirty when i started my science classes and realised that people where more likely to be ill if they were too clean. my dirt became like my protection and i felt if i became clean my immune system would weaken. its pretty bad to be so dirty but i think i would actually be scared to become clean as ever single clean people i know are always sneezing and always ill. i am never ill and never at the doctor. i dont even catch cold and it is due to my dirt. i really need to work on this as it is affecting my life and relationship.

[111cas111 in reply to PaperTigers]

Please don't feel like you're diagnosis is any less valid because of how clean you are! Ocd comes in all shapes and sizes, from intrusive thoughts to compulsions in your head and outside, to a need to repeat certain patterns, I am generally not the cleanest but I haven't once questioned it because of other symptoms (and for me anyway, I find overtime the most prominent ocd symptom sort of changes e.g. bouts of different types of ocd). The idea that you have to be clean to have ocd is a generalised stereotype many people have had battered into them through misdiagnosis and the watering down of the term ocd! Even if you have contamination ocd, that doesnt necessarily mean your clean- I find I relate most currently to contamination ocd, not specifically because of germs or the need to feel tidy, but the idea of other people touching my stuff repulses me to the point it doesnt feel like my thing and isn't 'safe' anymore- nothing to do with germs, but still completely valid! And to the op, even the need/ impulse to 'become' dirty can factor in as a symptom of your ocd, as it sounds alot like health anxiety/ obsessions, so I would recommend you bring that up if you're seeing a proffesional! As always, I'm always free to talk if either of you need to x