My OCD started up in the summer of 1998, a lot of people have symptoms of OCD as children. For me, it seems to have been related to a traumatic childhood experience, I was now exposed to another person's germs, and couldn't feel clean enough. fast forward to current day its more of a coping tool.
While many people's OCD takes extremely different forms over time, mine has been very very consistent. My OCD takes the form of a mild version of "checking," mostly doors and the stove before I leave the house or go to bed at night.
my main OCD has always been "contamination" OCD. I hate being touched, hate being around sick people, have trouble with public bathrooms. I always want to inspect things before I touch them or sit on them, and (have the urge to) wash my hands about 50 times a day. OCD's quirky, though, because while the sterotype of OCD is the person who takes a 2 hour showers, my showers are about 15 minutes long... honestly, Just a simple hand wash is all it takes to make me feel better. It's just that sometimes those simple handwashes have to happen every 10 minutes. Suddenly it's not so simple.
But I don't stop there. I often try to make other people I'm around wash their hand more than they'd like, too. For some reason, people don't like that. Go figure.
And, add to that what I call the "OCD Cascade." It goes something like this:
-I didn't wash my hands after riding the bus
-I'm sure to get a cold, or a stomach flu, or disease x from all the germs I touched on the bus
-I will give it to my family
-they will be sick and will attribute it to me
-they will hate me
WOW!! My rational brain can see it's silly, but there's a part of me that really believes that not only is it possible, but that it's LIKELY.