Need some advice on embarrassing OCD fear

Hey I've been really struggling with my OCD recently and I was wondering if I could get some advice on it.  I'll start with some background info about my OCD.  I'm currently 17 and I've been dealing with OCD for a year and a half.  My OCD fear is about contamination fears and results in hand washing.  The hand washing usually takes around 2 hours.  The problem is I haven't been honest about what really bothers me with my therapist because I feel she'll think I'm weird.  I have said my fear is of germs and that's what causes the hand washing.  I'm really not sure how to say it even online since its embarrassing but the real cause of my hand washing is masturbating.  The feeling I get is an unclean feeling on my hands and touching things spreads this feeling.  After I get this feeling I have to wash my hands excessively and I avoid touching anything until I wash my hands.  Washing my hands once does not remove this feeling and doesn't help with the anxiety.  Should I be bothered this much about it?  I'm really not sure what to do to try to resolve this and I'm not sure how I'd even tell my therapist this.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  
Thank you

It's not weird. I feel the same way.

I've found sometimes it's easier to write my feelings than talk about them. Maybe handing your therapist a not will be easier.

My Mom is an expert on bacteria. Bacteria are everywhere and washing hands is a token ritual that is recommended after things like going to the bathroom, touching yourself below the waist and on returning from the grocery store and prior to preparing food. Only for surgeons and nurses in hospitals is obsessive hand-washing essential.

for talking to a therapist, it can be very good if you write it down on paper and have them read it. you can also say it is happening to a friend if that is easier. if it is a particular thought about the cleanliness, you could do more research on how safe it is.

for taking less time for compulsions, have you tried using gloves? would that help?

houses wrote:if it is a particular thought about the cleanliness, you could do more research on how safe it is.

for taking less time for compulsions, have you tried using gloves? would that help?

I feel like both these lines of thinking are actually extremely detrimental, they would have you focussing on you researching ways to exacerbate or take an interest in your already unreasonable compulsion. Do not do this, I don't take to discrediting people lightly given my own OCD experiences and the fact I believe everyone needs to forge their own path, but yeah please don't obsess about these poorly contributed ideas. To research your problem will only lead to your problem telling you it's different and special and somehow isn't in line with standard definitions. It's a bottomless OCD hole, regardless of whatever OCD you suffer.

My advise would be:

(A) Talk to your therapist and own up to them, all you can suffer is a little embarrassment, and if they're in place to help you with your problem and you're withholding on them that's not good. (B) If they really make you feel like an idiot about it, get a new therapist. (C) If they're of the opposite gender, and you feel uncomfortable, get a same gender credible therapist.

I had to tell someone I was worried I'd sneak up behind my partner and break her neck, and the GP I confessed it to didn't act like it was ridiculous or brand new information. If you do reveal this to a therapist, and they treat you like a punk, as I said get a new therapist. Your worries are unequivocally OCD related, and if you respond well to therapy sessions, can be overcome with therapy - don't let people make you feel otherwise.

SilverRain wrote:It's not weird. I feel the same way.

I've found sometimes it's easier to write my feelings than talk about them. Maybe handing your therapist a not will be easier.

That's good to hear it's isn't weird. Also that's a good suggestion about writing it down, I should try that sometime. Thank you for the reply too

dhammapal wrote:My Mom is an expert on bacteria. Bacteria are everywhere and washing hands is a token ritual that is recommended after things like going to the bathroom, touching yourself below the waist and on returning from the grocery store and prior to preparing food. Only for surgeons and nurses in hospitals is obsessive hand-washing essential.

Thank you for the reply. Those are all great points especially the last one about the surgeons and nurses. I try to tell myself it's a good idea to wash my hands once but not excessive hand washing. I have to try to resist excessive hand washing after touching something that bothers me.

houses wrote:for talking to a therapist, it can be very good if you write it down on paper and have them read it. you can also say it is happening to a friend if that is easier. if it is a particular thought about the cleanliness, you could do more research on how safe it is.

for taking less time for compulsions, have you tried using gloves? would that help?

Writing it down seems like a great idea. I haven't tried it yet but it seems like a good alternative to saying it in words to my therapist. I actually have researched it a bit but it seems there isn't too much about this particular fear on the Internet. I've only seen a few of them. There were other topics like should you wash your hands after going the washroom which is a bit different. Wearing gloves might be a good stepping stone before doing it without gloves, I should try that.

MagicSteve wrote:

houses wrote:if it is a particular thought about the cleanliness, you could do more research on how safe it is.

for taking less time for compulsions, have you tried using gloves? would that help?

I feel like both these lines of thinking are actually extremely detrimental, they would have you focussing on you researching ways to exacerbate or take an interest in your already unreasonable compulsion. Do not do this, I don't take to discrediting people lightly given my own OCD experiences and the fact I believe everyone needs to forge their own path, but yeah please don't obsess about these poorly contributed ideas. To research your problem will only lead to your problem telling you it's different and special and somehow isn't in line with standard definitions. It's a bottomless OCD hole, regardless of whatever OCD you suffer.

My advise would be:

(A) Talk to your therapist and own up to them, all you can suffer is a little embarrassment, and if they're in place to help you with your problem and you're withholding on them that's not good. (B) If they really make you feel like an idiot about it, get a new therapist. (C) If they're of the opposite gender, and you feel uncomfortable, get a same gender credible therapist.

I had to tell someone I was worried I'd sneak up behind my partner and break her neck, and the GP I confessed it to didn't act like it was ridiculous or brand new information. If you do reveal this to a therapist, and they treat you like a punk, as I said get a new therapist. Your worries are unequivocally OCD related, and if you respond well to therapy sessions, can be overcome with therapy - don't let people make you feel otherwise.

Thanks for the reply Steve. Those are good points about it not being beneficial to research about my fears and the gloves thing. I did some research about my fears a few months ago and there wasn't a lot on my particular fear and the info that was there on the web available wasn't very helpful. I can see how wearing gloves could be detrimental too. It would be something that encourages you to avoid instead of dealing with it head on. I thought it might be a good stepping stone though.

That's very true that the worst that can happen is a bit of embarrassment. It's definitely better than continuing to struggle with this everyday. I thought someone's suggestion before to write it down might help with telling my therapist for the first time. That's very true that it isn't good to withhold info from them. My therapist has been really helpful but hasn't been able to help 100% since she doesn't know everything. That's great to hear that your therapist was understanding about your OCD fear. It's encouraging to hear that and makes me want to confess to my therapist as well, hopefully my therapist is understanding too.

Just to echo what the other commenters have been saying about your therapist, this is not an uncommon fear and I'm sure your therapist has heard this before I was so afraid to say "crazy" things to my therapist because I didn't want her to have the gut reaction of "Wow, what's wrong with you?" but it's amazing how unsurprised she is by all of it. I feel like I could pull words out of a hat ("I'm afraid that if I don't wear three watches then the moon will implode") and she'd say "Yeah, I actually worked with a guy with that exact same fear..."

Therapists are professionals. Not only do they want to help and are trained to respond encouragingly (never showing surprise or judgment no matter what), they have many years of education where they studied allllll sorts of individual case studies. Nothing is new under the sun and they're more than ready to respond helpfully and appropriately, especially for fears like this, which really isn't particularly abnormal or embarrassing