Panicking that I've caused my family to ingest hazardous quantities of micro-plastics!! (pic included) Should I deep clean entire kitchen?

[Perspexacity]

I put a dark wash on and when I went to retrieve the clothes from the washing machine, they were covered in what looks like tiny bits of plastic. The bits were mostly on the clothes towards the front of the machine, and all around the rubber seals etc.

In cleaning everything up, I'm scared that fine dust of these particles has gone all over the kitchen and that I've unwittingly exposed the family to inhalation of micro plastics.

I can't think where this has all come from! I don't think I put anything in the wash that I shouldn't have done but equally I didn't put every item in one by one into the machine so maybe something did get put in by accident.

I attach a close up picture of some of it. Does this look like residue from something plastic that's disintegrated??

The bits sort of clump together but when you touch a clump it just as readily disintegrates into fine dust.

100% this.

You could spend the next 24 hours panicking about this and moving on to 12000 other things that will never happen and it will continue and you'll waste more of your life on that than you would lose to cancer because you aren't able to enjoy anything.

Imagine looking back in the next 30 years and regretting wasting so much time and potential happiness on things that literally never happened.

Watch the news for 20 minutes or even just read some other threads on here for a bit of perspective. But also get professional help.

@Perspexacity I think it looks like clumps of washing powder don't worry, smell it (if you can) hugs x

Posting about your anxieties will only feed them. Use techniques you have used to help with the anxiety.

With compassion, reassurance-seeking for your anxieties only strengthens them. It's far more helpful in the long term to practice sitting with these unpleasant thoughts and acknowledging that they're not as harmful or catastrophic as your anxious brain is making them appear.

I know that's far more difficult to do than to say, I also struggle with very intense intrusive thoughts that can loop endlessly and cause you to question both yourself, and reality as a whole. Mine are based more on morality, harm, and personal relationships however. I hope you're getting support in order to help you to cope with your OCD, and I wish you the best of luck! And please ignore the less understanding comments on here, it's hard to understand just how complex and life-consuming OCD can be unless you have personal experience in it.

Thanks all for taking the time to reply.

Yes, I realise that reassurance-seeking is very much counterproductive when it comes to OCD.

I suppose I'm trying to 'rationalise' my worry by seeking an alternative explanation (i.e. that it's not plastic, it's just undissolved washing powder, which I'd be much much happier with). I know that's reassurance-seeking but it does also feel like it's a slightly different, perhaps healthier, strategy - i.e. rather than catastrophise that it's the worst thing, I'm trying to say to myself "well, look, it could be something else so why don't you think there's a good chance it's something else, rather than letting worst case dominate your thoughts?"

@NippyNinjaCrab @Unrepentantfarter is it plausible that undissolved powder could take on a grey hue during the wash?

@MrsMoastyToasty I was thinking of most 'rubber' things (e.g. in the washing machine) which I imagine would be artificial - presumably plastic based - rubber.

Evidence, please.

Look it up yourself. Studies and newspaper articles discussing it, some debunk it partially in terms of quantity but none have said no micro plastic is consumed. The up to 5g per week of plastic per week through water, food and inhalation is worth a look.

It's little pieces of rubber from your washing machine seal - it won't have dispersed in the air and is not m plastic particles so we t get into food or anything similar.
Wipe around the inside rim of the rubber seal of your washing machine - it looks exactly like we had last week when OH's baseball cap got caught and rubbed around the seal and abraded the rubber.

@Musicalmistress you're right. That's exactly what it is. I've looked closely at the gasket and there are parts where it's worn away. And I've realised one of my bra wires was poking out so it must've been that that was rubbing at the seal.

Shit - that's plastic then! and my washing machine is right bang next to my oven, next to all my kitchen cupboards, utensils etc.. that's loads of plastic particles circulating!!

I know this is really difficult, any true ocd is horrendous to live with. You really need to seek a person in real life though, someone who understands and knows how to put your mind at ease. Most people here won't understand and your thoughts are gathering momentum you need real life reassurance if you can get it. Do you do any cbt or have any therapy for the ocd? Even if 90% doesn't seem to help there is usually something in there that sticks x

@Tdcp yes, I have had CBT. I know what I ought to be doing; it's just stronger than me a lot of the time sometimes.
I guess it would be helpful to know if others / "normal" people would on the whole be very anxious about this and want to clean everything in the room or if that is a disproportionate reaction? If I knew it was a disproportionate reaction and that most normal people wouldn't give it a seconds thought, I think I could find my way to 'sitting with it' too.

Microplastics don't work like this. They're small enough to cross the blood brain barrier, not balls of fluff in your kitchen.

OP, I’m not going to engage with the “is it plastic or powder” or speculate what it is, because that is not going to help you. It’s just going to feed your fear. I was crippled by OCD for most of my life, in my case a combination of contamination fear and health anxiety. I have lost whole days to googling contamination fears (I’m not going to tell you specifics as I don’t want to trigger the same fear in you). NONE OF IT HELPS. I’m shouting to try and get through to you. Even well-meaning posters here trying to talk you down with the fact that this is unlikely to harm you due to xyz reasons aren’t helping, because any form of engagement just feeds your brain the reinforcement that you’re right to be anxious, this is a legitimate worry etc.

It’s not. It’s your silly OCD talking, nothing else. You must tell yourself this and shut these thoughts down. It is ultimately the only thing that will help you. Reassurance seeking will not help you, it will further fuel the OCD which will feel temporarily reassured and then move on to something else
tomorrow.

Please see a doctor and discuss medication and CBT if you’ve not had them. You don’t have to live like this. I don’t, now, but that is because I worked through it and now I am very careful not to let myself spiral by using the strategies I’ve learnt. I really want you to seek help and don’t think things have to be this way. You can get to a point where you’re not scared of the washing machine.

By contrast OP, if I found that in my house I would throw it out and genuinely not give it another thought. It would never in a million years occur to me that plastic or any other substance would become airborne and be ingested by my family. That's the difference between OCD thinking and non OCD. Please don't do anything other than try to manage your thoughts. Good luck

Sorry, I wasn't meaning to sound patronising. My best friend has ocd and I've seen him at his worst.
Regarding the stuff in the machine, I'd probably think it was weird and work out what it is then I would throw it away and not think about it again. It is a disproportionate reaction in my opinion. I hope you're feeling alright x

Do you have a reputable source for that please?

Op, having this in smaller doses will be fine.
So don't worry about this. Having anything toxic in smaller doses won't necessarily affect anyone.

It's repeated stuff that's the issue because that builds op.
I'm not a doctor but my doctor relative told me this

Yes everyone acknowledges that some microplastics are ingested/inhaled. But if it's not 5 grammes a week (which it's not) then it's not 5 grammes a week.

Repeating an eye catching large number which you know to be overstated and then defending that falsehood by saying that the number is anyway definitely greater than zero is not OK just because you're on the side of the good guys.

Yup, me neither.

I would go "hmmm" for long enough to work out if I needed a new washing machine seal because I don't want my washing machine to break and give it now further consideration.

But what you have to remember is that we have so much knowledge available in the world today that there is always something you could be panicking about.

The only solution to this is talking therapies and potentially medication.

I have a friend with severe OCD. She found that being on medication helped an awful lot. It just calmed down the bit of the brain that she couldn't seem to tame. I couldn't say that she was cured by any stretch of the imagination, but it meant she was able to get it to a point where she didn't physically damage herself.

As a non medical person, it seems to me that contamination based OCD is particularly difficult because it's a bit like a binge eating disorder. You have to eat - you can't just give it up entirely, so it's a different type of battle. Similarly, we have to do a certain amount of decontaminating to live our lives. We have to wash up with hot water after cutting chicken, and wash our hands before cooking and after going to the loo, our clothes need washing semi regularly and so do our bodies and our sheets. Washing a hard floor is a sensible and legitimate household task. Washing the floor every day isn't. But you can't just go cold turkey on cleaning entirely which means you spend your whole life balancing and trying to make sure that the sensible part of your brain outweighs the part that's trying to make your life a misery.

Not micro-plastics and rubber is a natural material not plastic.

You know that rubber isn't plastic and plastic isn't rubber?

Aldo on one can what this substance is from looking at a photo. You'll not get any reassurance on this thread

I'm confused? Do you normal avoid all plastic? How is that possible? It will not contaminate you and you don't need to deep clean the house!

Mate, microplastics are everywhere. Including in our food and water. We also all breath radon to a greater or lesser degree depending on geographical area. All day every day

Plastic in your washing machine is irrelevant.

this for sure
did you notice a rubbery smell?
it can happen if clothes get caught around the drum/seal

those are big lumps of rubber and not microplastics

but as others have said, this is anxiety talking and our reassurances may not help you- when you start on this downward spiral its a constant internal debate of 'yes, but what if...'

microplastics are a big problem for sure, but the rational response is to take whatever small manageable steps we can to avoid them
and possibly take action on a larger scale through campaigning and activism

but really you need help for your anxiety, not for the microplastics