To wash my hands with domestos bleach spray?

[germsgoaway]

I've NC for this and I'm fully prepared to be told I am BU and that I have a problem. I know it sounds odd. I'm just wondering if anyone else has a similar issue.

I am severely phobic of germs and getting unwell (it's mostly tummy bugs that terrify me). Whenever I take my toddler DC places like soft play etc i have so much anxiety when she picks up all the things and then puts her hands near her mouth. I feel an internal panic but try to just be as normal as possible for her sake. I do insist on washing her hands before she eats anything, but she will put her hands in her mouth in between times anyway (as toddlers do). So I'm usually filled with anxiety around this when we go out places.

I have to scrub my own hands several times before I'll eat anything, no matter where we are. If there's no toilet / hand washing facilities I just won't eat.

I've just come home from a soft play and I've felt compelled to spray my hands with Domestos bleach before washing them with Carex. I washed them for a good 60 seconds with just the spray on, and then with Carex for the same length of time. I do this because I'm aware that things like norovirus can only be killed by bleach. I had to do this before I will make myself a cup of tea or anything to eat. It's the only way I feel that I am "safe" from the germs I may have picked up from the soft play by touching things.

My question is: am I strange for doing this? Is it unusual behaviour or does anyone else feel the need to go to this extent due to worry about germs and illness?

💔 That's really sad :( Sounds like Social Services need to be involved there

You're really not helping

You're heading for pain OP. Noro is better washed down the plug hole than absolutely anything else. Bleach just comes the closest to killing it. Just use soap man.

You need to get on top of this before the bairn catches on.

@YellowPlumbob

I read that norovirus in particular is highly resistant to being killed, though. And that it's really good at surviving outside of the body on surfaces etc for weeks. Is this not true?

Yes, that's why you need to just wash it down the plug hole. You don't need to put bleach on your hands. It's pointless.

I was like this OP, I washed my hands so frequently, for so long, and with a varying range of cleaning products.

I didn't realise how much it was affecting me until I looked down at my hands which were dry and cracked from fingertip to wrist. My palms would ooze, I thought it was eczema (and treated it as such), but it was just from the infernal washing.

I went to the GP and was referred for CBT for OCD, I wasn't ready for it, it felt too hard (I was doing this to keep myself 'safe' and other people 'safe' from contamination - why would I possibly want to stop?).

Five years passed. The washing ebbed and flowed. Sometimes I'd find other things to obsess over, though I always kept my hands clean.

I went back for CBT, I completed the sessions just before Lockdown. These days I still feel the need to wash my hands URGENTLY the moment I get into my house (or wherever I'm visiting) and I rarely if ever eat with my hands (if I'm on my own ill eat crisps with chopsticks... yeah, I know).

But I use soap and water. I probably don't wash my hands much more than the average person, and the skin is no longer peeling off and I no longer have tidemarks on my wrists where broken skin meets healthy skin.

Do I worry about contamination? Yes. But my behaviour is now in the realms of normal.

I wouldn’t OP.
Years ago (just had baby) I bleached my bathroom and didn’t use gloves. Got very dry hands, then eczema.

Ended up with infected eczema and needed antibiotics.

Have you thought about using hand gel? You could carry it out and about and hopefully knowing it's there will help with that anxiety as you know you can always clean your hands.

It doesn't replace soap and water but is a good substitute for in between and maybe comforting?

But totally agree it sounds like you've developed OCD as a reaction to being so poorly. Reactive anxiety is a thing.

My mum was like you and she’d only wash our hands with soap and water but it destroyed the oils and dried out skin out so we’d always gets cuts and infections.

My hands would also feel like they were burning if I didn’t wash them enough and at school I needed to keep washing my hands so I was definitely seen as weird.

Please don’t inflict your issues onto your child.

You washing with handwash and water or alcohol gel is more than enough.

Your DD needs some germs though to build up her resistance so try not to wash them too often.

You have to be infected to spread it. Think of the chain of cross infection; it has to be on your hands, then you touch surfaces. Someone else comes along and picks it up then puts their hands in their mouth.

So if you have it, you break the chain by washing your hands after using the toilet, and you use dilute bleach or wipes in your bathroom and kitchen surfaces.
If you don't have it you aren't spreading it.

As @unicormb says. I treat OCD as a CBT Therapist. OCD isn’t about the content of the intrusive thought but what you do with it. Everyone has instructive thoughts, that’s human nature. The difference is that someone with OCD totally believes their thoughts and believes they have total responsibility for managing the catastrophe they believe. The behaviour (compulsion) can be external: checking, cleaning for example or internal; thinking a “good” thought after thinking a “bad” thought for example.

The good news is that therapy with a good evidence-base like CBT, carried out by a properly BABCP accredited therapist can make a huge difference. You can ask your GP for a referral to IAPT (talking therapies provision) or self refer. Or if you are able to go private you can find a therapist here: babcp.com/CBTRegister/Search#/
more the psychology today listings (but make sure they’re BABCP accredited).

The CBT waiting list in the NHS can be long so You may find Break Free from OCD by Prof Paul Salkovskis, Fiona Challacombe et al a useful book.

@germsgoaway you really can change this. It’s not uncommon but it IS treatable. I wish you the very best in getting on top of the OCD bully 💐

Also - I meant to add that EMDR alongside CBT (some therapists trained in EMDR are also CBT qualified) can work wonders on phobias. It's not cheap but if you can afford it it's well worth it. Emetephobia is often related to fearing a loss of control (it is in my case) and once you can relinquish some necessity to control situations then this helps massively.

*intrusive thoughts, not instructive - they’re definitely not that!

I think the thing is your fear. It’s disproportionate - norovirus isn’t lovely, or other viruses, but it sounds like your fear of them is worse than actually getting them.

As someone who suffers from OCD. Please go and speak to someone. There are ways they can help you x

I mean Norovirus is horrible but the only time we've ever had it was when it went around at nursery. We've never caught it from casual contact on an outing. And even if you do get it, it's nasty but it doesn't last long.

You're very fixated on Norovirus. I've had it once in 36 years and I am a slattern, and there was no way to avoid it really once it did the rounds at nursery. All the hand washing in the world wouldn't have helped as I got spewed directly on

I sometimes use bleach on my hands if I know I've contaminated them with something "bad" - eg poop when changing a baby's nappy or cleaning up after a pet or raw chicken. This is OCD behaviour but it's fairly minor in the scheme of OCD. I also found I was much less inclined once my DC were over 5 ish and less inclined to touch really gross stuff. I'm also on Prozac 40mg daily which has massively helped my OCD tendancies. And OP, that's all this is - OCD tendancies. I'm not saying don't speak to your GP (absolutely do, and soon) but also don't panic that you're weird, crazy, batshit or anything else you might get told on a thread on here! I'm a fully functioning 40 something adult with a well paid job and a lot of responsibility. I just need some Prozac to help me cope with all the AH's I encounter on a daily basis! I've worked with people with full blown OCD and bleaching your hands and being a clean freak isn't it. 💗

My nan used to wash her hands with watered down bleach, never did her any harm. Neat bleach might be a bit more damaging.

OP, this is the advice I was given by a GP:

^The skin supports a rich diversity of normal flora, like a rain forest, and left undisturbed it is self-regulating and will eliminate pathogens in a very short time.
Once you start putting antiseptics on it you disrupt the balance and the nasties may thrive. This makes sense if you consider the effect of eliminating a major predator from a locality - it buggers everything up.^

Your own skin is already equipped pretty well to clean itself and spraying bleach on it is a bad idea.

Stop looking for things to reinforce the fear and seek help. This isn’t a normal way of acting.

Yes, it’s true. But bleaching your hands won’t help - it’s mostly spread person to person via droplets, or when you’re cleaning up the mess from someone with Noro. Washing your hands with soap is more than enough.

It’s a fucker to get rid of from surfaces.

Using your clothes to flush things etc is also ridiculous, much better to use your hands then wash.

Ive had Noro, twice - when my youngest was in daycare. It’s highly contagious and there’s fuck all you can do.

I'm fixated on it for the reason I've already mentioned - I am severely emetophobic so this represents the worst possible illness for me. I have never had a sickness bug as an adult up until my late 30s. I believe this is because I have always been so meticulously careful with hand washing and hygiene etc. However since DD has been in childcare over the past 10 months she's had THREE sickness bugs in that time, and I've caught them all. It was horrific. I'm absolutely petrified of this virus in particular and feel susceptible to it at the moment with a toddler in childcare who is catching it seemingly every few months. Hence my anxiety is sky high in relation to this virus.

So deal with the anxiety. But not by washing your hands in bleach.

You need to get the anxiety dealt with.

I say this as someone who’s spent several years under CMHT for various reasons, one of which being crippling anxiety.

It’s entirely normal to catch sick bugs at childcare, and, generally speaking, they’re usually so weak that adults who have had sick bugs as children/teens themselves do not catch them. It’s only Noro that children bring home that adults catch as there’s no immunity to it.

No I don't think it's strange but then I have emetophobia and have also washed my hands with bleach especially when my kids had a sickness bug. I wouldn't wash my kids hands with bleach but I recently bought some hand gel that someone told me kills notorious so use that now as well