Hi. Having a flare up today. By the way I want to thank UK OCD massive for being so helpful. In the states where I am from there is not the level of support from groups as I see there. I feel lucky to be able to post to you all...oh yeah Back to the OCD!
So I am living by myself and trying to take care of myself. Just took an hour shower and used multiple clean clothes to dry myself off and looked for a perfect pair of underwear to put on, all this because my calf touched the underside of my car door area. Worried about getting a deadly disease...taking so long for my nerves to calm down, please everyone tell me I will be okay so I can ignore you and worry anyways 😬😬😬
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It is very uncomfortable to feel you are contaminated in some way. But as far as I know, no one has ever got a horrible disease from the underside of a car door.
I'm concerned that you are not getting the help and support that you need. I know that medical care in the USA is limited to those who can afford to pay, so many people who need all sorts of care go without.
However there are self help books which can alleviate OCD and many good articles and resources are available on the internet. Even if you are getting professional help, they can be a good supplement.
Thanks my OCD is now concerned with things like animal born diseases especially fatal ones. I just passed a lost/abandoned dog in my neighborhood and I am having a bad reaction worried that it’s saliva may have gotten on me or my feet. Overall I am
Doing better. I was unable to pass construction sites or shake hands or grab door handles, etc, but so can do that but now it’s this new thing.
I read one book that was pretty good on OCD what do you recomend?
Good that you can do more! But OCD has a habit of shape shifting, and it's all too easy to have a new obsession take over.
No need to worry about the dog. The poor dog is highly unlikely to give you any disease. Just passing it won't harm you. If it bit you, it might be good to go to the doctor, but the remote possibility that you got dog spit on your shoe isn't going to harm you.
There are lots of good OCD books, but I have found Overcoming Obsessive Compulsive Disorder from the Overcoming range of self help books very helpful, and it does have case studies of people with similar OCD problems to yours.
Remember that if you are concerned about contamination, then you are going to be constantly on guard for any possible contaminants, even where they don't exist or present a threat.
Another helpful book is The OCD Workbook by Bruce M Hyman and Cherry Pedrick.
Thanks so much for you ur support. I had bad dreams last night. I dreamt that I was in a yard speaking with my mother who I have a poor relationship with and a Lynx (large wild cat) came to us and pounce on my back. All it did was paw and knudge my jacket with its nose but I then went into OCD overload. Had a couple of other OCD related dreams regarding related to social phobias, then woke up. I think my ocd is losing real estate as I challenge myself more but comes back with a vengeance. I still don’t understand the motivation for OCD whether it’s repressed creativity, an unhealthy coping skill for death, or perhaps just the physical symptoms of a brain overwhelmed by some predominant gut microbe. I will read the first book you mentioned. I have the workbook but lack the attention span to do the work. Thanks again for your response.
My husband has very similar experiences to yourself. He has worried about infection through blood, and through animals. He lived on a farm at one point in our relationship and every day he worried about the sheep and what he might pass on to others when he got work. We also have a cat and had two dogs at one point, and although he loves them dearly (they are his pets through his choice), there are moments where the can really trigger his OCD. I often wonder whether having them makes him worse, but I also appreciate that this is his effort to try and live a "normal" life and by having them he has no choice but confront the things that worry him.
When he stresses about these things we always have conversations about it. We have come to the conclusion that although he stresses about passing on infection, in the past twenty years how many people does he know that he's come in to contact with that have been infected. He works in a busy industry and is contact from anything from 20 -30 people on a normal day, but will meet and greet over a thousand when he's at industry shows. The answer is always the same. None. Nobody he knows has ever caught anything because of him. Now, this doesn't always take the stress away as in his mind there is still a possibility that it might happen even if it hasn't yet. And yes, that might be true. But I have been around animals all my life, and he, as a once practicing vet, has also spent a considerable time around them and nothing has ever happened to either of us.
When he's worried about friends and family coming to visit because of the animals, none of them have ever caught anything from coming to our house.
It's really tough to rationalise when you're unravelling, I've seen what he goes through and how he goes in to himself when he has to try and figure things out. But it can be done, he very rarely worries about these things any more. Occasionally something will trigger him - he had a moment just a couple of days ago where he took our dog in to his new office, the dog messed on the rug in the kitchen area, walked in it and then jumped up at him. This was 20 minutes before the heads of the company were coming to view the premises. he called me in a right state as he didn't know what to do. It took a while, but he had to accept that he had cleaned up the best he could, both the rug and himself and that this was not going to hurt anybody. They are still in the animal industry and most of the people he works with have dogs, they will have probably experienced worse and they are all fine and well. The incident, in the grand scheme of things, wasn't going to do anything to them. It was all ok. The only person out of the 40 people their who cared about what had happened was him.
I don't know if this helps or not, but I wanted you to know you're not alone and that these thoughts can be rationalised and can be controlled to some degree. A sense of perspective sometimes helps, when my husband understood that the only person there the other day who was upset by the situation was him, it did help him realise that if the others don't care about it why was he getting so upset.
As Sallyskins says, there are some great books on OCD (I've read most to try and get some understanding of what my husband goes through), and I hope you're able to get some help you need. I would also strongly recommend making sure you have a couple of close friends to talk to, who understand, so if crisis happens you have a support network around you. My husband used to be deeply ashamed of his mental health issues, but he has a small group of friends around him now who understand what he's going through and are able to support him when he needs it.
Thanks for your candid response. And thanks for hanging in with your husband with OCD. It makes me feel good to know that two animal professionals after all their experiences have never passed on or got any diseases. I am not kidding, I went into a take out restaurant and after I ordered my food I was waiting and saw what looked to be a small bit of dog poo on the floor. I think it may have come off some guys construction boots as he ordered his food at the counter. I felt jinxed. Got my food and after 2 hours of debate as to eat my food I compulsed so many times. And then later on a saw an alley cat by my car and was so anxious an old friend yelled at me for my behavior. I felt horrible. It seems your significant other is more concerned about infecting others; I am more selfish than that! I worry about getting something myself, not that I would ever want to pass it on to someone else. I am slowly losing my friends though so in some way I am affecting people with my OCD to the point they don’t want to deal with me.
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