How Does He Not Worry?

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I have written before about my panic disorder, which is combined with OCD. My brain creates a million scenarios in which I or my loved ones could accidentally be poisoned (either naturally by food poisoning or by somehow consuming a toxic chemical) and it causes me to panic. I spend a ton of time washing my hands to try to rid myself of any perceived contamination. Earlier my boyfriend had to remove the battery from his old car, since he wants to try to recharge it and get the car up and running again. It was already after dark when he did this so he had me hold a flashlight while he removed the battery. I didn't come into contact with anything in the engine, but he did. Once he got the battery out, he blew on the top to knock some corrosion off, which then fell on the ground, and caused me all kinds of anxiety about all the possible scenarios in which some poor, unsuspecting kid or animal comes along and gets that crap in their mouth and it kills them. I have been trying to shut my brain down over that all evening. But wait! There's more. My boyfriend put the battery in the trunk of his other car, wiped his hands on his pants, and then we were off to run errands at the store. He did not wash his hands after handling any of this stuff and he was grabbing things off the shelf and handing them to me, and all the OCD freak-out sirens went off in my brain telling me that all of these things were now contaminated, I had to get home and wash my hands or else I was going to somehow ingest whatever perceived toxic crap was on his hands and oh no, I'm going to die. Now, there was no physical evidence that he had any contaminant on his hands, other than the fact that he pulled a car battery out of a dirty engine. But my brain is broken and doesn't listen to logic, even when I actively try to calm myself down with logical thinking. When we got home he of course touched things in our apartment, which caused me more distress. I think he washed his hands in the bathroom but I am not 100 percent certain. He has since eaten things (with his hands -- cheese and crackers and whatnot) and he appears to be fine. He is probably not even thinking that he touched anything that could even remotely be considered "dangerous." I, on the other hand, have had my entire evening ruined with nonstop panic. I had to go through the apartment and wipe down everything he had touched with a wet cloth just to give myself some peace of mind. I washed my hands a million times, and then I washed them some more. I have been careful not to come in contact with anything he has just touched. But when he pulled out a plate from the cupboard and handed it to me for dinner, I felt like I had to use it or else he would be offended and very angry if I told him, "I'm sorry, I can't eat off of anything you have touched." Then when he was scooping mashed potatoes out of a bowl, the bowl kept scooting close to the edge of the stove and he kept bumping it back in place with his hip. Which is covered with the same clothes he wiped his hands off on after moving the car battery. So now I am sitting here, slowly picking at my dinner and trying not to let my brain get carried away with crazy delusions that there is somehow battery acid in my mashed potatoes. Once the intrusive thoughts worm their way in, it is difficult to pick them out. I hate being this way. My therapist gave me a book to read on OCD and I'm starting to recognize OCD behaviors that I've had since I was a kid (extreme paranoia over battery acid and gasoline, for instance -- I have always had a fear that I would somehow accidentally consume those things and die, and have gone my entire life carefully avoiding any contact with them.) It's difficult to explain what I go through during one of these attacks, if you yourself have never experienced anything like it. I can't even explain it to my boyfriend, since I don't want to hurt his feelings. After all, he is one of my biggest triggers, as he unhygienically bumbles through life, without a care in the world about somehow being poisoned.