The feelings of mental contamination share some qualities with contact contamination but have some distinctive features. Mental contamination is a more recent area that researchers have only just started to get an understanding of. In addition to the more familiar type of contamination OCD involving someone that washes their hands repeatedly after coming into contact with potentially dirty objects or environments, there is also a less obvious form called 'mental contamination'. There is also a cost implication of the constant use and purchase of cleaning products, and also of items, especially electrical items like mobile phones, that are damaged through excessive liquid damage. A person may also avoid entire places, people or objects if they experienced contamination fears previously. Some people have also gone to the extremes of bathing in bleach.
The time this takes can have a serious impact on a person’s ability to hold down jobs and relationships and there is also a secondary physical health impact of the constant scrubbing and cleaning on the skin, especially the hands where people will scrub until the hands are bleeding. The cleaning or washing is often carried out multiple times often accompanied by rituals of repetitive hand or body washing until the person ‘feels’ it is clean, rather than someone without OCD who will wash or clean once until they ‘see’ they are clean. More recently we have seen people have a fear of the entire town of Salisbury because of the recent poisenening with nerve agent of the former Russian spy.
Some people fear places so will not only avoid going to those plaves, avoid all contact with such places including accepting mail from those locations, avoid ordering items from companies in that area. Another consequence of checking compulsions is that they can often damage objects that are constantly being pulled and prodded or over tightened. This can impact on a person’s ability to hold down jobs and relationships, which is why the phrase ‘a little bit OCD’ is so inaccurate and offensive. The primary obsessional fear is that they may leave and lose the valuable item, but the fear may also lead to feelings of guilt and worries about being irresponsible for not checking, making them a careless and a bad person.Ĭhecking is often carried out multiple times, sometimes hundreds of times and might last for an hour or even longer causing significant impact on the person’s life, being late for school, work, social occasions and other appointments. Even when they can see the documents, sometimes the checks will continue until the person ‘feels’ the check is complete which can impact to such a degree that they are unable to proceed with their day or journey until the checks are complete. The person with OCD will be repeatedly checking their pocket and bags for valuable items like their wallet/purse or bank cards, mobile phone, or important documents they keep on them each time they leave somewhere.