phineas gage
New member
Hello all,
One of my biggest issues when conducting exposures by myself (i.e. not under the guidance of a therapist/counselor) is the worry that I am going too far with the exposure. Essentially I worry that I am crossing the line from an OCD exposure into actually possibly causing myself harm. My obsessions center around the concern that I will somehow get brain damage, primarily through contact with toxic substances (gasoline, paint, pesticides, etc.). So in my dorm room at my newly renovated dorm at school, I've been making myself touch the dust that accumulates on a ledge running around the circumference of the room about halfway up the wall. My concern with paint (aside from the fumes from fresh paint) is that it will be lead-based and thus there is the possibility that I will get lead poisoning and brain damage. Rationally, I know that the walls are not painted with lead-based paint since the dorm was renovated last year, but it is still difficult for me to touch the dust (which I have deemed to be paint dust) on this ledge in the room. On the one hand, it seems like dried paint, paint dust and paint chips should be relatively harmless if the paint does not have lead in it, but when I was brushing this ledge that runs around the room with my finger and then came up with a small speck of dried white paint on my finger, my anxiety went through the roof. At one point, I swept up some dust from this ledge with my finger and rubbed it off on the blanket on my bed. This also caused quite a bit of anxiety. In both cases, I felt like I had crossed a line with the exposure, that I had crossed into real dangerousness by A) getting a small paint chip on my finger and B) wiping some of the dust (the perceived paint dust) onto the blanket that I sleep with every night. The compulsion is to wash my blanket, and my concern is that if I don't I will get lead poisoning and brain damage, etc by sleeping with the blanket and inhaling the paint dust I wiped on it. Even though the dorm, as I said before, has just been renovated, my concern is that since I go to a school that is quite old (founded in the 1800's) lead paint certainly was used around campus at some point, and even though the buildings have been repainted since then, there is still a possible hazard. It sounds ridiculous the more I type, so I'll stop here. Basically, I have trouble sometimes distinguishing between real health hazards and what my OCD perceives to be hazardous. Let me know if anyone has any advice/comments about my exposure described above, or in general about the making the distinction delineated in the previous sentence. Hopefully it doesn't sound like I'm just looking for reassurance here. Thanks and keep fighting the good fight everyone.
Phineas
One of my biggest issues when conducting exposures by myself (i.e. not under the guidance of a therapist/counselor) is the worry that I am going too far with the exposure. Essentially I worry that I am crossing the line from an OCD exposure into actually possibly causing myself harm. My obsessions center around the concern that I will somehow get brain damage, primarily through contact with toxic substances (gasoline, paint, pesticides, etc.). So in my dorm room at my newly renovated dorm at school, I've been making myself touch the dust that accumulates on a ledge running around the circumference of the room about halfway up the wall. My concern with paint (aside from the fumes from fresh paint) is that it will be lead-based and thus there is the possibility that I will get lead poisoning and brain damage. Rationally, I know that the walls are not painted with lead-based paint since the dorm was renovated last year, but it is still difficult for me to touch the dust (which I have deemed to be paint dust) on this ledge in the room. On the one hand, it seems like dried paint, paint dust and paint chips should be relatively harmless if the paint does not have lead in it, but when I was brushing this ledge that runs around the room with my finger and then came up with a small speck of dried white paint on my finger, my anxiety went through the roof. At one point, I swept up some dust from this ledge with my finger and rubbed it off on the blanket on my bed. This also caused quite a bit of anxiety. In both cases, I felt like I had crossed a line with the exposure, that I had crossed into real dangerousness by A) getting a small paint chip on my finger and B) wiping some of the dust (the perceived paint dust) onto the blanket that I sleep with every night. The compulsion is to wash my blanket, and my concern is that if I don't I will get lead poisoning and brain damage, etc by sleeping with the blanket and inhaling the paint dust I wiped on it. Even though the dorm, as I said before, has just been renovated, my concern is that since I go to a school that is quite old (founded in the 1800's) lead paint certainly was used around campus at some point, and even though the buildings have been repainted since then, there is still a possible hazard. It sounds ridiculous the more I type, so I'll stop here. Basically, I have trouble sometimes distinguishing between real health hazards and what my OCD perceives to be hazardous. Let me know if anyone has any advice/comments about my exposure described above, or in general about the making the distinction delineated in the previous sentence. Hopefully it doesn't sound like I'm just looking for reassurance here. Thanks and keep fighting the good fight everyone.
Phineas
