Sensory issue? Germaphobe?
I am 31 years old and was diagnosed with ADHD a few years ago and was put on medication back then to combat mental focus and attention issues. I am not currently medicated since I felt like the medicine wasnt really doing anything and I have always been highly functional when it came to my day-to-day life.
However, just recently within the last few months, I have had some serious sensory issues with touching things. It's mostly when I touch wet things. Here are examples:
1.) my infant niece spits up and some gets on my hand or body
2.) my dogs gently cooked food which comes frozen and needs to be thawed out and once it's thawed out it's slimy and wet
3.) if my bathroom counter is wet from me washing my face/brushing my teeth and I accidentally touch the counter and get my hand wet
4.) doing dishes where the sink drain is clogged and causes a sink full of water and I have to put my hand in the standstill water with soggy food in there to unclog it
Like obviously I know these things are not life threatening things and can seem like no big deal, but these things send my brain into fight/flight mode and I end up either dry heaving, panicking/spiraling/crying, or lashing out and getting angry. It's the thought of my hands never being clean again no matter how much I scrub them clean.
The things I listed above are creating disruptions in my life because I now try to avoid them at all costs which isn't healthy. I don't clean much because of the anxiety over it, I don't do dishes I buy all paper/plastic products to avoid it, I don't hold my niece as much and I completely gave up on feeding my dog something she was thriving on and put her on dry food.
I would love to know if someone else has struggled with this and if so, what were things you did to overcome it?
Side note: I have tried wearing gloves when I know I'm going to come into contact with something wet but it doesn't help at all.
Thanks in advance!
Posted Mar 28, 2024, 10:20 AM UTC