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Contamination & Health-related OCD: Obsessions, Fears, & Worries

What are common obsessions in contamination/disease/illness/health-focused OCD?

OCD Contamination, Health, Illness, and Disease

Health- or contamination-related OCD involves the fear of getting sick, making others sick, experiencing disgust, or being responsible for an unwanted outcome.

OCD: Fear of Getting Sick

Contamination- or health-related OCD is associated with persistent worries about one’s health or the health of loved ones. Common obsessions in contamination-related OCD include the fear of getting sick with a serious illness like rabies, ebola, H1N1 (swine flu), Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, mad cow disease, hepatitis, or avian influenza.

Other frequent obsessions focus on the fear of contracting sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs) such as AIDS/HIV, herpes, HPV, syphilis, or chlamydia. Chronic progressive diseases, like AIDS, that have no known cure tend to evoke extreme anxiety. Individuals with OCD fear both getting sick and the negative consequences associated with illness, which may range from pain and discomfort to serious repercussions such as death, sterility, or deformity. Some individuals have a strong fear of vomiting (also known as vomit phobia or emetophobia).

OCD-contamination-exposure-ERP-long-shower

Have long showers because of contamination OCD? Use our ERP shower exposure room to shorten your shower times!

OCD: Fear of Making Others Sick

Other individuals’ obsessions focus almost exclusively on potentially infecting other people. These individuals may be convinced that they are carriers for certain illnesses and may worry that they will spread disease to children, loved ones, or strangers. This type of OCD is common in parents (especially mothers) who are afraid of infecting their children. Because OCD is based on fear rather than logic, these worries tend to persist even if the individual is in perfect health.

In other cases, individuals with OCD are actually disease carriers. These individuals often experience extreme guilt and fear over the possibility of infecting others with their illness. They tend to be very conscientious and possess a heightened sense of responsibility for guarding others’ health. This type of OCD is especially distressing in the context of chronic illnesses like STDs (herpes, HPV, AIDS), because the individual may feel guilt over having contracted the original illness.

OCD: Fear of Getting Sick in the Future

In still other cases, OCD health-related obsessions tend to focus more on negative health events that might occur at some future date. These fears include getting cancer, having a stroke, or developing Alzheimer’s disease. These events might occur relatively unpredictably or might involve exposure to present risk factors (e.g., smoking, exposure to asbestos/lead/mold, carcinogens, chemicals, or radiation).

OCD: Fear of Disgusting Things & Situations

Sometimes contamination-related OCD is triggered by exposure to “disgusting” things. Common triggers include oily and sticky substances, body fluids and bodily secretions, and animals. Feces, urine, sweat, saliva, blood, sexual fluids, and body hair can illicit a strong disgust reaction that may not be directly linked to the fear of a specific illness. Common worries focus on accidentally ingesting these substances or spreading them to others.

OCD: Fear of Specific Unwanted Outcomes

Some individuals have feared consequences that are linked to specific OCD triggers. For example, some men fear accidentally impregnating their partners (or even strangers) through non-sexual contact or through unintentionally spreading semen residue. They fear that they may cause an unwanted pregnancy by “contaminating” public places. These men often know logically that their fears are irrational or even impossible, but yet the worry persists.

Contamination- and health-related obsessions are effectively treated through exposure and response prevention (ERP), a form of cognitive behavioral therapy that was specifically developed to treat OCD.

Join me next time when I talk about the idiosyncratic nature of feared outcomes associated with health-related OCD.

Questions? Comments? If you have health-related OCD, what are your fears?




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5 Comments

  1. When I was outside at the playground something wet hit my lip. Of course I immediately thought it was rabid bat saliva.

    The biggest thing that is keeping me stuck in anxiety about this episode is what I did with whatever the liquid was after it hit my lip. All I did was wipe it off gingerly with my shirt, but I did not wash up right away, not until about 2 hours later, at home. I was at my child’s school, and did not go to the bathroom there, and besides the building was probably locked by then, since it was after school. So I worry and have anxiety about whatever it was getting into my mouth because I did not wash right away. But even if I did wash, I am sure I would flip out about that because washing your mouth means liquid getting into it. Ugg!!

    So I keep reviewing what I did or didnt do.

    And I want to rush off to get rabies shots for something I have no proof of.

    How do you deal with the OCD anxiety?

  2. Hi – I recently spilled some household ammonia in my back yard (about a quart) and I can’t stop thinking about it getting into the groundwater and hurting people. We have well water where I live. Most of the information that read says that household ammonia is very diluted – about 3% to 5% ammonia and that the bacteria in the soil will absorbed it, but I am still obsessing about it.

    • The fear of causing harm to others is a common theme for some individual’s OCD. For the obsessions to decrease, it’s important to address any avoidance or compulsions you might be engaging in — e.g., reassurance seeking, compulsive online research, etc.

  3. I sat in a chair at the police station recently where I know many other unsavory people have sat..when I got up it looked as if there was dried feces on the chair. Is it possible for me to have got it on my pants then it got transferred to my vehicle seat? I feel as if everything is contaminated now.

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