In my twenties I developed what I would call "quirky" behaviors around cleanliness and things being in symmetry. I spoke to my therapist about it because I noticed it gets worse if I'm feeling stressed. She did mention that if your life feels out of control, you may find the need to control things in your environment. Because mine didn't interfere with my life more than an hour or so a day, meaning I wouldn't be late to work to make sure all the labels in my cabinet were facing forward, that it wasn't really OCD, but more of a quirk or need to control.

It can be overcome by training yourself to desensitize yourself to the particular issue, but it can be stressful. I would not recommend trying to fix if you're experiencing high levels of stress already. Hope this is helpful.

@A MyFibroTeam Member
Thank you. I understand this. Flares to me can feel surreal at times..I get nervous..sometimes agitated..but when I slow down and understand what's happening..I can usually do what I need to do to mitigate the flare effects. Its tough on a down phase...trust can be harder I find.

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A MyFibro...

I would say that I am somewhat untrusting of others, suspicious and maybe a little paranoid when I have a flare up. things are way out of their normal perception. When the flare up goes, wow, I feel like myself. Family have noticed this and are quite accepting of it. We have a good laugh about it because sometimes my behavior can be abnormal during flare ups. I really do not trust my thought process at this point. Germs on door knobs etc are all cleaned and double checked.

I tend to be a bit of a germaphobe too. I think it is explainable. When people give me a common cold, it develops into bronchitis and even pneumonia probably 50% of the time. I carry hand sanitizer and will get up and move in public places if people near me seem sick.

Yes. This is very normal. As a woman I carry a purse that has darn near everything in it and then some when I go out. I am OCD about everything and it gets in the way especially of going to the hospital. Yes we are afraid of germs most of us because we can get sick much easier now. Our immune system is weaker. Try to battle it with taking supplements to keep you strong and healthy as possible. Vitamin D is a great one for us. Do some research into natural things we are lacking and you will begin to ease off the germ fear a little bit. It will get better.