Treating Contamination OCD | Common Contamination OCD Compulsions

Treating Contamination OCD | Common Contamination OCD Compulsions

https://www.restoredminds.com/5-Rules-For-Recovery

In this episode, I discuss Common Contamination OCD Compulsions. Contamination OCD is a common form of OCD and is recognized when a person develops a specific fear around germs or contamination. This will lead the person to perform various compulsions that primarily include washing and cleaning routines. In this episode, I discuss in detail common compulsions that people engage in to find relief.

TRANSCRIPT

00:04 All right. Hey everyone and welcome to another episode of the restored mind show. In today's episode we are going to be talking about contamination, OCD. And again, this is going to be part two in this series on contamination. And so in this episode, in the last episode we talked about just kind of what it is and in this episode we're going to be talking about some treatment nuances or you know, just different things you could be doing if you do struggle with this and ways to be successful in treatment. And so, um, one of the first things that I'm, you know, kind of point number one that I want to make on this is if, if you struggle with contamination, right? It's this idea of the four main components of you, of a what if thought about a certain object or item or situation being contaminated.

00:48 And usually that leads to the idea of you contracting a specific illness or something like that, right? So, you know, it's not necessarily as the doorknob is contaminated, it might be contaminated with blood and because it's contaminant contaminated with blood that will lead to you getting some bloodborne disease like AIDS, right? And then we have the anxiety that accompanies that, right? And so when the anxiety that companies that then we do the thing to neutralize the anxiety or the fear like washing our hands, putting hand sanitizer on all that stuff. And so when we, and then ultimately you get to relieve, so the treatment, right? It's not about necessarily treating the thought itself, right? Of what if this happens? Because what if thinking is, is a very natural form of anxiety, right? It just, we come up with these, what if thoughts, what we do is we eliminate the behavior that reinforces that whole loop, right?

01:43 So we want to show ourselves that washing our hands never kept us safe in the first place. And that's the, that's the mistake that people, um, you know, kind of fall into in this particular form of OCD is that they think that washing their hand because they wash your hands and then didn't get the disease, well then washing their hands must've kept them safe. But the problem is that they were never actually going to get a disease in the first place. So they falsely conditioned themselves to believe that the behavior of washing or cleaning or whatever actually kept them safe. Okay. So when it comes to treatment, there's a couple of things that you know, I wanna I want to talk about. So first is yes, treatment is all about eliminating the compulsion's, right? And on the surface contamination, OCD is really straight forward, right?

02:25 You just don't wash. But the thing is, is that compulsion is, can come in many shapes and sizes and all of them are created equal when it comes to, you know, their, their effectiveness and creating that, that loop. Right? Um, and, and so we have the, at the outward washing compulsions, right? And so obviously the idea is to stop that, but then there's all the other compulsions that people do that you don't see, right? And people with anxiety disorders or OCD, um, can often be very sneaky on how they engage in compulsion's. Right? And the thing is with the compulsion, it's never about what you do, but why you do it. Right? Because if we just did a blanket statement that washing your hands is a compulsion, well that's not true for someone who has, let's say, harm OCD, right? Washing their hands is just washing their hands.

03:13 The reason that it's a compulsion for someone with contamination, OCD is because that specific behavior eliminates the fear, right? It, it reduces the anxiety. And that's really what we're looking for is what behaviors do you do to reduce the anxiety. Okay. Or the fear or the threat or the feeling of contamination. Okay. The feeling of being dirty. And what what we do is we need to remove all of them so that you can experience the uncertainty and ultimately that uncertainty can drop and you can habituate and then realize that there was never a threat in the first place. Right? And that's really what we're doing in any form of anxiety treatment is we're exposing ourselves progressively to our feared stimulus, whatever that might be. And then removing all our safety behaviors. And then as we do that, our brain is learning that it's actually not dangerous, right?

04:03 Because, because nothing's happening. Right? So let's go into some of the other compulsions that, um, what w then, and that's where they would want to talk about in this episode as some of the other compulsions that people do with contamination OCT. Okay. So we know that on the surface we have our behavioral ones like washing our hands and using hand sanitizer. Those are kind of the two like bread and butter compulsions that you'll see with contamination, OCD and um, but, but then there's also the other aspects that I want to talk about. Okay. So obviously we know washing is something you need to eliminate. But what I want to talk about are some of the mental ones. So the first is this idea of self reassurance, okay? And this is when you're constantly telling yourself that you're going to be okay or that it's not actually dangerous, and you're, you're verbally in your mind telling yourself something to reassure yourself to make yourself feel better, okay?

04:59 This is an example of a mental compulsion, okay? And a very common one with, with contamination, OCD, right? Is you're just going to tell yourself you're okay. You're okay. You're okay. And you can see how that's totally counterproductive to an exposure exercise, right? So if you go and touch the door knob and it's contaminated and you don't wash, but then you mentally ruminate and tell yourself, I'm okay, I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay. The problem is, is that that actually is the compulsion that just replaces the other compulsion and in the loop continues. Okay? So then when you touch things, you need to verbally tell yourself. Um, and then so then there's many forms of mental compulsions here that, um, you know, we can talk about things like thought replacement, right? Or like replacing it with a good thought or distracting yourself or analyzing and ruminating.

05:45 So this is a really big one that people fall into too, is this idea of ruminating and analyzing something, right? So they'll touch something and be like, okay, well what does it really contaminating? They try to logically think it out, right? So they're like, well, you know, this person touched it and I know they don't, you know, and they'll go through in their head all these different scenarios. The problem is, again, with anxiety disorders, the problem is not that you are experiencing anxiety, right? And that's one of the main misconceptions I think as well, is that we think that the presence of anxiety is the bad thing. And that's just not true because you know, everyone experiences anxiety. The problem is, is that you're experiencing anxiety and you're engaging, you're engaging with that anxiety so much that you're eating up the most valuable thing you have, which is your time, right?

06:34 And, and you're investing your time into worrying about something that's not actually a threat. And the more and more you do that, the worse and worse it gets. So you end up investing, you know, hours even, you know, days sometimes focusing on a fear that's not actually real. And that's really the tragedy of anxiety disorders in my, in my opinion, and having lived with this, I can speak into this, you know, personally, um, is that you invest the most valuable thing. You have your time into something that you didn't need to invest it into. And you know, if you've dealt with this for any length of time, I mean, that's, that's, you can probably attest to this. It's like that is the hard part about anxiety disorders is that you're investing your time into something that doesn't, doesn't deserve your time and energy. Right? And, um, and more importantly, not investing your time into the things that you really want to.

07:23 Right? So, um, so the mental compulsions are the big things that, you know, I want you to be aware of if this is something that you struggle with. The other thing that I want to talk about is the idea of, um, is the idea that all the, all the things you do to avoid, right? And, um, anything you're doing to avoid touching, right? So this is one of the big tricky compulsions that people get into when it comes to contamination and it's avoidance. And it's when like, you know, you and I, let's say are sitting in the room or I'm sitting in the room with someone who has contamination fears and all they do is they know they have to get up and open the door. And what they do is they just simply wait for me to get up, right. And walk over the door and open it and then they can walk out behind me without ever touching the door handle.

08:09 Now, we all would never notice that. Right. And that's, that's one of the hard parts about this particular, you know, avoidance, um, as a compulsion is, you know, even as a therapist, it's like I never, I don't always know when my client's avoiding something, right. Cause they'll just won't tell me. Right. Um, you know, and there's so many instance of this where I'm I talking with them, I'm like, and they, they say they avoid them and I didn't, I didn't even know they were doing it because avoidance is something you do. It's so internal that you know, you can't always know when someone's doing that and when they're not, only the person knows when they're avoiding. And that's something that, um, you know, I really want to kind of tie up with this particular episode today is just realizing that with contamination, yes there is the washing behaviors and yes, we know we need to get rid of those.

08:52 But there's also all the internal things you do, like the self reassurance. And then more importantly, avoiding, because even when you avoid great, you're still reinforcing that loop, right? You're reinforcing the idea that that door not was dangerous. And that's why when it comes to exposure assurance prevention and really attacking our fears, we need to realize that when we, when we attack our fears and we move towards them on purpose, that is actually the most liberating part of exposure and response prevention is saying, Hey, not only am I going to face my fear, but I'm going to choose to face it on, on a, you know, like I'm going to attack it, I'm going to move towards it. Right? And that's really, um, you know, one of the main aspects of, uh, of contamination, fear and, and, uh, you know, any really overcoming any fears, your willingness to be on the offensive and not wait to see if it shows up.

09:41 Purposely seeking out situations that might trigger you. Right? So going into public restrooms, touching things at airports, you know, going to public places and touching handrails, all this stuff that you avoid, you need to understand that avoidance is, is reinforcing that loop just as much as washing just as much as all the mental behaviors and all the other reassurance behaviors. Um, you know, getting any kind of verbal reassurance or you know, searching online for reassurance, checking to see if, you know, you have certain illnesses going to doctors, these are all other examples, right? And obviously I can't cover everything. Um, but the main point that I really want to drive home with compulsion's is it's never what you do. It's why you do it, right? And if you're doing something to purposely Aleve or relieve the anxiety, um, or the concern or doubt or anything that you have, you need to realize that that is actually what's reinforcing and making the loop stronger and stronger and stronger.

10:37 So again, in this episode, just to recap, um, you know, we're talking about the idea of contamination of city in this series. And what I wanted to talk about are the different types of compulsions and why engaging in these compulsions not only makes the loop stronger and makes you worse, but more importantly when we're moving compulsions and really engaging in ERP, um, it's important to realize that we not only needed to remove the physical ones, but the mental ones as well, right? So, and then any avoidance, checking in, controlling your reassurance compulsions as well. So hopefully this was helpful. And, um, again, if you, if you, if this is something that you struggle with or if you're looking for help, um, you know, with anxiety, things like that, um, you know, please visit our site, restored minds.com. We also have some links down below for some free resources that will help you on your journey free assessments, um, and you know, ways to help guide you and more, most importantly, that you're using the tools that you need to be using to really take your life back. Because again, that's what this is really about. It's about taking your life back and not letting anxiety and OCD control any aspect of your life so you can go and live the kind of life that you ultimately choose to live. So thank you so much for tuning in this week, and I will see you next week on our next episode. Take care.