Germaphobia Psychology & My Reluctance To Hoover
There is a little joke in our house that I hate hoovering. Because I work from home my fiancée asks me to do the hoovering while she is at work. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. It's not that I don't like to do the hoovering but more that I am happiest to do it when I can see that it needs doing. In her mind though, it needs doing once a week, but that means she's asking me to run the hoover around without really getting any job satisfaction as I can barely see anything disappearing as I go.
This tends to come up in the odd (affectionate) eye roll, or during a friendly squabble over a glass of wine while swapping relationship notes with friends. Now I have to be careful using 'smart arse' explanations as excuses for neglecting my duties and the purpose of this blog post is not to justify my lackadaisical attitude to hoovering, but I am trying to make a point.
We both live in the same house. There is no difference in the amount of dust or detritus, but she can sense it there when it gets to a week like some sort of extra sensory perception, even if it is not visibly obvious. I on the other hand operate on a strict out of sight out of mind policy.
We all live in the same world. Putting the differences in our living and working environments to one side, we are all exposed to germs, bacteria and viruses. Some people are very uncomfortable with this and have rituals, regimes and a lot of products to help 'protect' them whereas others of us operate to a strict out of sight out of mind policy, bar an appropriate level of personal hygiene habits in most cases.
So what is the difference between these different reactions. Germs, bacteria and viruses are not detectable to us without specialised equipment so how come some people feel more aware of them than others? How come my fiancée can be so much more aware of the microscopic, ground-residing detritus of our lives than I am until I can see it?
The fact is that this hyper-awareness is a response to your internal world rather than the external world. It is a response to the inner representation of germs, bacteria and viruses rather than the the microscopic critters themselves.
Germaphobia Treatment During Pandemic And After
An equally marvellous ability of the mind that is almost the complete opposite of 'out of sight, out of mind' is the ability of the imagination to fill in the blanks. If unseen things such as germs are perceived as a threat then your imagination makes them into monsters in order to give you a better chance of fighting them, avoiding them or staying alert. You experience them as an uncomfortable awareness, as images in your mind of getting ill in the future, or words along the lines of 'I have to wash my hands for two minutes' or 'I must wear gloves' when all you really need to do is take the same sort of precautions as everyone else and go about your daily business as you are in no more actual danger than anyone who does not worry excessively about these things. These monsters feel real to you though. Your excessive behaviour is really to protect you from the anxiety rather than the germs themselves even though they feel like the same thing.
My fiancée doesn't let me hypnotise her for stuff like this so I can appease her by doing the hoovering or allowing her to do it at the weekend if I am feeling really generous, but if germaphobia is ruining your life, whether a an OCD symptom or a stand alone phobic response, I can probably help you adjust your inner representation of dirt, germs, bacteria or viruses to a more appropriate threat level to enable you operate a more 'out of sight, out of mind' policy. Imagine how that would feel!