Contamination OCD NOT about germs or chemicals

yes, absolutely, there are people in this community who have that same form of ocd. haha, hi! ive been through a lot of different therapists, and they always ask me about my fear of getting sick or infected and blah blah blah… but it has nothing to do with that. i have this awful fear of bodily fluids like sweat or saliva or urine, and some other stuff too. i cant touch surfaces that other people have touched, i cant sit on the couch, i cant eat off of dishes that other people use, going to the bathroom is an absolute NIGHTMARE, and ohhhh my god dont even get me started on physical contact. i was at my worst during quarantine, and all of the therapists and people i talked to just assumed i was afraid of covid, but.. no. there was actually a part of me that WANTED to get covid so i could lose weight. its literally just the fear of the bodily fluids. and it ends there. i always thought it “wasnt real ocd” because i had no problem with getting sick. i hate that youre going through this too, but youre the first person ive ever seen with the same issue as me, and you have no idea how good it feels knowing that im not alone in this.

You are so not alone. I totally understand. It’s heart wrenching and debilitating.

I have this type, and it's my most severe theme.

Same

I felt so alone because even the experts talk about the fear of something bad happening, but the fear is the contamination itself. It has been my main theme for over 30 years. It has been much better at times but mainly affecting every part of my life. The last couple of years it got the worst it has ever been where I could not function, but thanks to meds and my therapist I have stabilized from the crisis situation. In my twenties I got so much better with medication and just being able do more things that I thought were fun to do which relaxed me and I just found that I could do more and more and get back to normality. However ongoing stress later prevented that happening again and that was why I avoided ERP because I thought once my stress went down I could handle it again but things kept getting worse and people would come into my apartment without permission and it all spiraled out of control. Because I didn't fear anything bad happening i didn't think ERP would work for me, but now I realize I was actually doing ERP before and the more I did the easier it was. Sadly it isn't automatic this time and the habits and feelings are much more ingrained so it has been a matter of me getting out of crisis and slowly pushing the limits. Not sure how I am going to handle greater fears but I also know that I cannot waste my life anymore. I just don't know what should be normal anymore for me and can't really understand how people can touch things outside in shops etc. without feeling that they have to have a shower and change clothes when they come inside and prevent cross-contamination when in their car and home. I have so many things I want to do but I just find making the jump so difficult. It isn't like I can just try ERP to contaminate things and then step away, because once I have started cross-contaminating things then there is no undoing it so I would have to clean everything in the house and throw a lot out. So that fear of basically facing a 10, all or nothing is extremely difficult, whereas if you have a fear that something would happen and it didn't then that would be the relief point and in other themes, if you try some ERP and it creates too much fear then you can go back to calm and then revisit it again, but to me contamination is permanent and the ERP session either works or I lose a lot. Sorry, it is my first day on the app and it just feels good to talk here.