Public bathrooms and contamination OCD

There are things I don’t want to touch. There are places I don’t want to go. There are things I don’t want to see.

I have contamination OCD.

Over the years, it has morphed from an obsession with germs on my hands that led me to compulsively wash them to an obsession with bathrooms.

That obsession led me to clean my bathroom compulsively for hours at a time.

Over the years, the length of time it takes me to clean the bathroom has become a lot shorter.

But one obsession has remained, and that is one about public bathrooms.

I hate to use them. I hate to even go into them because of what I might see.

I used to wonder what it was that I was so afraid of about public bathrooms. I didn’t have the same fear I used to have about hand washing, that I’d pass along germs to others and make them sick. I wasn’t afraid of getting sick myself. So what was it?

Months ago my therapist mentioned that I could be afraid of feeling disgust. But I didn’t really relate that to OCD.

Then I read what Jonathan Grayson wrote about contamination OCD in his book Freedom from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Personalized Recovery Program for Living with Uncertainty.

Grayson wrote, “Most obsessions have consequences that you are afraid of” (p. 29). Considering contamination OCD involving bodily fluids like saliva sweat and blood, he named “four different feared consequences that can appear singly or in combination: (1) harm to oneself; (2) harm to others; (3) finding the idea of contact with bodily fluids overwhelmingly disgusting; and/or (4) feeling that having thoughts of contamination is too awful to contemplate” (p. 29).

Numbers three and four fit my contamination OCD. I don’t want to touch or see anything disgusting. I don’t want to even think of anything disgusting.

And there can be plenty of disgusting things to see in a public bathroom.

I’m not talking about things that I imagine are contaminated. I’m talking about stains and smears that I can see.

I’m having a problem with the public bathroom in the building where I work. It’s on the first floor of a building that houses several businesses and gets a lot of traffic. The bathroom is not cleaned often enough.

That’s not just my opinion. Other women in my office also find the bathroom unclean.

But sometimes I have to use it. I have to spend hours at work without leaving sometimes.

When I do go into the bathroom, I try not to look directly at anything. I glance around and try to quickly measure which is the cleanest stall. I cover everything in toilet paper and don’t touch anything barehanded except the water faucet to wash my hands.

I dread going to the bathroom. I get anxious about it. I avoid it when I can.

And I sometimes make plans about going somewhere based on whether or not I’ll have to use a public bathroom.

I know I should do some kind of exposure.

At this point, I am not willing to go into a public bathroom and touch a stain or smear that someone else has left behind. It makes me want to throw up just writing it. I’m not going down that exposure road.

But since I’m trying to avoid feeling disgusted, would it help to put myself deliberately in positions of seeing something I find disgusting? To not turn away, but to stare at it?

I’m frustrated with myself and wonder if I’m not willing to do enough to overcome this obsession.

How can I deal with this aspect of contamination OCD? Any suggestions?

The things we do because of OCD: Lying

My apartment building in Bowling Green.

Have you ever lied because of your obsessive-compulsive disorder?

Jean at her Writer, Heal Thyself blog recently wrote a post about lying in response to her compulsive overeating disorder.

And I started thinking about the effects mental illnesses can have, especially relating to the fear of others finding out about our problems and judging us harshly because of them.

I have lied out of fear stemming from my OCD, but there’s one particular incident I remember well. It happened in 1989 or around that time, when I was a graduate student living in Bowling Green, Ohio.

I lived in a small one-bedroom apartment and kept it sparklingly clean, especially the bathroom.

I cleaned the bathroom every Friday. I would start at about 7 a.m. and finish about four hours later. What took me so long?

I wiped down all the surfaces—the floor, the sink, the toilet and the tub—with a water and disinfectant solution. And I didn’t wipe once. I wiped over and over, making sure I covered every inch with the solution.

After I finished that, I doused the whole room with disinfectant spray in order to ensure every bit of the surfaces were reached and cleaned.

The bathroom ended up being quite wet, and I wouldn’t use the toilet until it had completely dried.

But the day I lied to one of my best friends was not a Friday, and I had not just finished cleaning the bathroom.

B came over so we could go do some shopping together.

I had known B since I moved to Bowling Green in 1985, but we became really good friends during my last two years in town.

I was at her house almost every day, and she fed me and listened to me and studied with me. B offered her hospitality to anyone who needed it.

On this day that we were to go shopping, B arrived and asked if she could use my bathroom before we left.

Now I was very obsessive about protecting the cleanliness of my bathroom. I put a lot of time and effort into getting it clean to my OCD specifications. When I used the bathroom, I was careful to now mess anything. When I was finished, I would clean the toilet seat with disinfectant spray and toilet paper, to make sure any germs were killed.

I didn’t like other people using my bathroom, and if they did, I cleaned the toilet after they left.

I was inwardly panicking in response to B’s request. I wouldn’t be able to clean the toilet until I got back from shopping. I knew that I would think about it the entire time we were out.

“Oh, B, I just cleaned the bathroom, so it’s too wet to use,” I said.

“Couldn’t I take a piece of toilet paper and wipe it dry and use it?” she asked.

I panicked some more. I didn’t want her to go into my bathroom to use it. I also didn’t want her to go into the bathroom and see that it wasn’t wet, that I had lied.

So I told her no again. She looked hurt and confused.

Then we left my apartment and went to a big box store, where she used the bathroom. I was sorry she had to use a public bathroom, but at the time, I wasn’t sorry that she hadn’t used mine.

I refused to let a friend use my bathroom. I lied to her about it.

B would never have told people they couldn’t use her bathroom unless it was broken. I had been inhospitable to B, and that’s the last thing she would have been.

What about you? Have you ever lied because you were afraid?

OCD: An exposure I didn't plan

In my last post, I said I was going to do some exposures that I would write about.

In that same post, I also wrote about some physical health issues I’ve been having.

This post is about an exposure, but not one I was planning when I wrote that post on Sunday.

And it involves those health issues.

I wasn’t going to write about this. It was too personal, I thought, and my readers might not like it.

But this blog is about my life with OCD and the accompanying issues. I decided to share this exposure because it was about real life issues.

When I saw my family doctor last Friday, she ordered blood tests, a urinalysis, and a stool sample.

That last one got me. I could feel my mouth draw up a bit. I thought, doesn’t she remember that I have OCD? I just told her I was having anxiety from starting cognitive behavioral therapy. And she asks for a stool sample?

The doctor, of course, was interested in finding out what was causing my stomach pain and problems that have been ongoing for a while. So she went on talking to me, continuing to tell me what the course of action would be. She said that the nurse would give me what I needed to take a stool sample to the lab.

After my appointment, I walked out to my car and sat there while I talked with my husband on the phone. Then I realized that the nurse hadn’t given me the stool sample kit.

I admit, I wanted to just forget it. I wanted to take that as a sign that I really didn’t need to do it. Obviously, it wasn’t that important if the nurse forgot to give it to me, right?

But my husband said I needed to go back and get it. He was right. And I did.

Back inside, as the nurse told me what to do, I again could feel my mouth turning up.

“I think I’ll just wait until after all the blood work results come in,” I said.

The doctor had told me it would take about two weeks, so I thought that was a safe reprieve. And—this was my really, really good reason for waiting—the blood work results might reveal something that could be taken care of and I wouldn’t even have to do the stool sample.

The nurse gave me a look. She was probably thinking that I was a very weird woman.

“OK,” she said. “But you need to call me and let me know when you’re going to do it so I can fax the orders to the lab.”

All weekend, I ate very carefully, wanting to get better quickly so, again, maybe the stool sample wouldn’t be needed.

The nurse called me yesterday and said my white cell count was elevated.

“When are you going to do the stool sample?” she asked.

I guess she had forgotten my “wait until all the blood work comes back” excuse. I decided that I would try to make myself look a little more compliant.

“I’ll wait until after the urinalysis comes back,” I said.

It was going to be another couple of days, so I could continue to avoid the problem. Avoidance can be so sweet.

The nurse called me today. The urinalysis was negative.

“Then what’s wrong with me?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “That’s why we want to test your stool.”

I asked her to fax the orders to the lab.

Then I agonized about what to do. With my bathroom and contamination issues, I knew it would be a nightmare.

And there was the logistics matter. I had to get the sample to the lab within the hour of producing it. The lab was a good 45 minutes away.

I just wanted to forget all about it.

But I went to the doctor in the first place to get help. If I wanted help, I needed to follow through. Was I going to let OCD stop me?

I decided very quickly that I had to do it. I wouldn’t think about it anymore. I finished up some work and then went home.

It was not easy. I pretty much freaked out at one point. I wanted to clean the bathroom from top to bottom. I wanted to take a shower.

I didn’t have time, though. I had to get the sample to the lab, or—horrors—I’d have to do it again.

I made it out of the house after washing my hands only twice. I was feeling anxiety at a scale of about 9 all the way to the lab.

I kept glancing at my car clock, calculating how much time I had left. I worried about possible detours, or doing something that would cause a state trooper to pull me over. That would delay me. Then I figured I would just wave the biohazard bag at him, and he’d let me go.

I finally arrived at the lab, in time, and hurried inside, eager to get rid of that bag.

Ah, but there was a problem.

The woman at the front desk looked through the paperwork and said they hadn’t received the orders. Then she didn’t say anything.

I internally freaked out again, thinking I’d have to do all of this again and come back.

“Can I still leave it?”

“Yes,” she said. “But make sure your name and date of birth are on the cup.”

“It is,” I said, pointing to the label on top.

“It has to be on the side of the cup,” she said, and handed me a marker.

So I had to take the cup out of the biohazard bag and write the required information on the side of the cup.

I doubt if the outside of the cup was contaminated, but I did not want to touch it again.

I followed her instructions and then used the hand sanitizer at the door to the lab. I hoped that since it was in a lab, it would be extra sanitizing.

I thought later that I should have just asked where the bathroom was so I could wash my hands there. Anxiety makes you forget vital things.

Back in my car, I could feel my anxiety going down. I had done it. The worst was over. I didn’t have to do anything else but wait for the results.

I’m very tired, but I’m glad I did it.

Please don't use my bathroom

One of the manifestations of my OCD that has endured since I was a child is fear about bathrooms.

At my worst, when I was a young woman, I spent hours at a time cleaning my small bathroom. I used at least one bottle of cleaner a week, sometimes more. And I went to great lengths to keep anyone else from using my bathroom.

My symptoms have greatly improved, but I still practice avoidance in this area. My husband and I have separate bathrooms, and I still don’t want anyone else to use my bathroom.

I had a revelation about my bathroom fears when I was talking with my new therapist this week. He led me through a series of “what ifs” to get at the heart of my fears.

It’s not really a contamination issue. I’m not afraid of catching some disease or illness from a dirty bathroom. Rather, I’m trying to avoid being disgusted at the sight of a bathroom mess.

My bathroom issues have also played a part in socially isolating me to a degree. If I don’t have really close friends, I don’t have to invite them to my house. If they’re not in my house, they won’t want to use my bathroom.

That’s awful. I don’t want to do that to myself or to my husband anymore.

To give you an idea of how my bathroom fears work, I’ll tell you about when I was in my 20s and living alone for the first time.

Cleaning my bathroom was a weekly ritual that I dreaded. But it would have bothered me more to not do the cleaning.

I slowly wiped down the sink, toilet, tub and floor with a cloth soaked in a solution of water and cleaner. I had to make sure I didn’t miss a spot, not even an inch of space. That meant looking at the surfaces from different angles, making sure each part was wet from my cleaning cloth.

There was never any obvious dirtiness to wipe away, because I was vigilant about cleanliness every time I used the bathroom. I sprayed the seat with disinfectant spray and wiped it with toilet paper after every use.

But I believed that I might have missed something, and I knew that many germs were invisible to the naked eye. So I scrubbed and wiped for hours every week.

After I finished the cleaning part, I doused all the surfaces in the room with disinfectant spray, using it as a blanket way to get any germs I had missed.

Even though I was particular about my own use of the bathroom, I couldn’t be sure that other people would be as careful as I was, and I would have to clean the bathroom once they were through and gone.

It was easier for me and for my peace of mind if I could just keep people from using my bathroom.

One day when I was still in my 20s, a friend stopped by my apartment to pick me up. We planned to go shopping together.

She asked to use the bathroom. I didn’t want her to use it, even though I had no rational reason to believe that she wouldn’t be clean in her use.

I lied to her and told her that I’d just cleaned the bathroom and that it was damp and couldn’t be used.

She suggested that she could wipe the toilet seat with toilet paper to dry it for use, but I still resisted, telling her no.

My friend had to use a public bathroom at the store we went to rather than use my bathroom. I was embarrassed but too ashamed to tell her the truth.

In later years, sometimes I had to share a bathroom, and it was a nightmare. I tried to shut down my senses when I used the bathroom and not notice any possible stains or dirt.

I want to work on my cleaning issues, especially with bathrooms, with my new therapy. I’d like to be able to better handle these fears that I’ve carried for so long and stop them from isolating me.