Lived Experience Forum

[NatureLover]

Hi @anewhope , I've only just seen your lovely reply, sorry, as the tag didn't work! 

You're right, having to do the cleaning / washing / wiping routines all the time is exhausting, and time-consuming. 

I'm sorry to hear that it can take 2 days even after showering, to feel that a part of your body is 'clean'. 

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@anewhope wrote:
My assumption is that if I have cleaned myself well enough after cleaning top to bottom to my feet I am clean enough to wash my hair and repeat.

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I can relate to this. Something else I do is that I wash the soap. So after the soap touching a part of my body, I wash it before using it for the next part of my body. 

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@anewhope wrote:
Could I please ask what your feeling is like when you hold back washing and what your feeling is like when you wash your hands? Do you feel "satisfied" or is the temptation to want to wash worse the more you wash (in a way the more unsure you have washed properly enough).

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I feel panicky if I can't wash or sanitise my hands straight away after an exposure to possible germs. When I was my hands I feel relief, and safe again. (I don't mean the word 'safe' as it refers to feeling suicidal, I mean it as it refers to germs.) Yes, I do feel satisfied, I don't usually need to wash more and more. However, I do have about 4 levels of 'dirtiness' in my head, so I will wash according to how 'dirty' I feel after an exposure. 

I'm glad to hear that you're not adversely affected by Covid-19. Yay! I can understand enjoying the feeling that other people are now as concerned about cleaning well as you are.

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@anewhope wrote:
Have you had any particular success in exposure therapy? For me it has unfortunately felt like things got worse as mine was triggered from a trauma.

Would you mind if I could ask your earliest moment your triggers felt like they set in? Mine were in my teenage years 😞

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To be honest, I have had zero success with Exposure Therapy so far. However, I have put that on the back burner for now, as it's been more urgent to work on my complex childhood trauma and my Hoarding Disorder first. Also, I have had some success with the germophobia but it wasn't through Exposure Therapy. I used to put as much as 2L of disinfectant into my laundry wash, and I also used to sometimes wash my hands in pure disinfectant. I no longer do these things.

I think my OCD started when I was a young child, but it wasn't as bad then as it is now. I think mine stems from my childhood trauma, and that it's got worse since then as I am somehow trying to control my environment against threats in this way. 

I am sorry that your exposure was triggered by a trauma - that would make it harder to deal with. 😞 And it sounds like your trauma was in your teenage years - maybe a bit similar to me. 😞

It's good to be able to talk about these things with someone who understands. Thank you, @anewhope . 🙂