Hello @Dahlia100 and @Brena74 , I've popped over from the Lived Experience Forum in response to @Shaz51 's tag - thanks @Shaz 🙂
I have OCD (germophobia). I always had a little bit as a child, but it developed more as an adult (I'm 51 now). I can manage to live with it as I'm incredibly fortunate to be able to live alone. I take meds and see a psychologist and psychiatrist, but I have 5 other MIs (mental illnesses) too, plus childhood trauma, so those tend to take precedence in therapy.
I agree that OCD is about control - control and terrible fear. The compulsions are to avoid something bad - something worse than the compulsions. For instance, if you could find out what those underlying fears are, it might help. E.g. "If I don't do X, mum might be in a car accident." Then you can work on reassuring that underlying fear.
@Dahlia100 wrote:I wish the hospital stay included a daily intense erp therapy.
Another thing I want to point out is that ERP is terrifying - absolutely horrifically terrifying. You can't just launch into it. You have to work up to it gently for months and months, that's even after getting you to accept you can even attempt it, which could take months or years in itself. Then you have to start it with tiny, tiny, tiny steps, very slowly, with the support of a therapist.
I can't face ERP. For instance, I've done a little bit with my therapist. When I make breakfast, I wash my hands after touching things. So I put the kettle on (the kettle is "clean" in my head because I've disinfected it) and then touch the sugar and coffee - then because the sugar and coffee were bought at a shop where sick people might have touched them, I wash my hands. Then I pour the boiling water (clean kettle) and touch the (semi-clean) spoon, then wash my hands, then touch the milk ("dirty" meaning "germy" carton), then wash my hands. Same goes for making toast. I end up washing my hands a hundred times a day, and my OCD is not severe...well, I would say it's moderate with some severe spikes sometimes when I get exposed to a sick person and start shaking and panicking and not coping or functioning.
So my psychologist wanted me to stop washing my hands after touching shop items at breakfast - just at breakfast. I did it, but it was terrifying. Each item would contaminate the kettle, the spoon, etc. till I could see it contaminating the whole house which would then become "unsafe" to live in. I had to stop the ERP as it was too distressing. I can only live with the OCD because I live alone and can carefully control what I touch and washing my hands, washing myself and my clothes after I've been out, etc.
Also, OCD is utterly exhausting. All the thoughts in your head, needing to know (or assume) the entire history of what every single item you touch has touched in its lifetime...Plus allocating every single item you touch into 4 levels of cleanliness...plus sorting every single thing into 3 sections of cleanliness in the house. I know OCD takes different forms but I assume the thought processes and overload are the same - utterly exhausting. There's not much room for rational thoughts in there.
So my compulsions are all about keeping me safe.
Also, I want to point out something very upsetting - I'm so sorry 😞 There is a heightened risk of suicide with bad OCD. It's because ERP seems utterly impossible, but being trapped in the fearful thoughts and compulsions is so incredibly draining and exhausting and loathesome and depressing - you think you'll never get out. For instance, I hate disinfecting things...but I need to do it, to keep me safe. Your daughters might actually hate doing some of their compulsions, but the fear of not doing them is so awful, they need to, to keep themselves or others safe in their mind.
Also, the more we do these compulsions, the more entrenched they get, sorry to say 😞
I think someone would have to reach rock bottom (maybe a suicide attempt?) to want to change, to want to tackle and face the dreaded ERP.
Sorry this post is not more hopeful. I actually manage well, going out to my volunteer job twice a week (using spray disinfectant a lot while there), going out socialising regularly, keeping about 120 washcloths neatly stacked on a shelf ready to ritually wipe library books and other things in the house, and doing a laundry wash most days. I like my life at the moment and I have accepted my OCD and can manage it as I can thankfully live alone. I couldn't live with other people though, so I feel for you both.
