Severe contamination worries

[phil06]

For the past year it's over taken my life basically I fear being dirty and poo and urine are my largest fears.

Basically the issue is clothes, surfaces and chairs are becoming off limits and I have rituals where if a chair is dirty I won't sit unless I am wearing an old pair of jeans.

My toilet always gets blocked as I said in my other posts and the my parents dump the bags wherever on the carpet or round the door handle rather than deal with it right away.

My other hygine issue stains on my backside the odd time if I need the toilet and don't go or have bad wind I get marks there when I go to the toilet this makes me want to throw away my clothes. The other day I never knew about it till I went to the toilet but I was using my phone ect and now I fear it's dirty to the degree I want to get rid of these items.

Not sure how common it is for others but I also shower a lot and if I poo I require a shower so I tend to make sure I fit my day round showering and going to the toilet once a day.

I'm moving out my parents soon so hope to control the blocked toilet issue but realise my OCD will keep going in another house and I fear within another year I will find reasons to avoid carpets or door handles ect. Perhaps others are not always perfectly clean? That also worries me but I try not think about it. But when the odd mark is there it's causing me a lot of worry and I throw under wear away ect..

My worries are all based around toilet germs these days not sure it's my biggest worry but I do like to be clean and the harder I try more anxious I get and its becoming impossible to cope each day with so many routines and ocds :weep:

[Fishmanpa]

Forgive me Phil.... your post history spans many years and I didn't read it all. Are you in treatment or on meds for your illness? It just appears in writing to be quite severe. I hope you find some peace.

Positive thoughts

[phil06]

Forgive me Phil.... your post history spans many years and I didn't read it all. Are you in treatment or on meds for your illness? It just appears in writing to be quite severe. I hope you find some peace.

Positive thoughts

I have been but not at the moment. My toilet OCD seems to be out of hand at the moment am I right to worry or is there ways to ease these fears? How clean can people be or is some germs normal?

[MyNameIsTerry]

Germs are normal, Phil. As babies we are exposed to many things that actually help our immune systems build. We are more resilient than you probably realise given that bacteria is everywhere.

I really do think you should visit your GP and ask for a therapy referral because you can get help with this. Contamination fears are often tested through exposure therapy and a good therapist is needed for this as you are going to be asked to expose yourself to situations that people without anxiety might not do in order for your fear to be taken away.

CBT can be a bit poor through the IAPT network but NICE guidelines for OCD are more specific than they are for things like GAD as they make recommendations for multidisciplined teams where anxiety is more severe and they can offer longer term and more effective therapy than the bland IAPT routes.

You don't seem to get many responses on your threads which I find frustrating. I've not have contamination issues myself so I'm not very knowledgeable of it so I find it harder than many other OCD themes. Have you considered trying to get support from an OCD charity forum as there are no many of us with OCD on here? Somewhere with a free forum like OCD UK? I'm just wondering if you might get a lot more support on there than you do here, not that I'm saying you should leave because this place can help with more general concerns.