History Main / ScrubbingOffTheTrauma

* This is a common symptom of [[SuperOCD Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder]] -- a feel of "dirtiness" and a compulsion to somehow clean it, often resulting in germ/cleanliness obsessions and frequent, almost continuous, hand- or body-washings. Because it's one of the most conspicuous symptoms of [=OCD=], along with intense adherence to routines and nervousness when these routines aren't followed, this trope is one of the most common associated with [=OCD=] in fiction, though it doesn't necessarily accompany every case in reality.

* ''Series/KamenRiderFaiz'': This is the reason that Masato Kusaka obsessively cleans his hands. He wasn't the murderer but he ''did'' witness the massacre of his classmates and was killed himself. [[BackFromTheDead They got better]]. Still, this could partially account for why he's such a [[ManipulativeBastard manipulative]] {{Jerkass}}.

-->'''Tom Servo:''' Ross tries to towel away the evil, but nothing doing.

* ''Series/TheDrewCareyShow'': Drew has cybersex with Mimi and doesn't realize it until the deed is done, whereupon we cut to a fully-clothed Drew sobbing in a hot shower.

* ''The Bloody Lady'', a fictionalized account of the life a 18th century noblewoman/serial killer Darya Saltykova, has killing her husband and later ordering her maids to clean the blood drops off the tiles. However, guilt-ridden, she sees the whole wall get covered in dripping blood as she watches them work, so she lashes out at the maids for doing such a horrible job and beats one of them to death. This, in this version of the story, is the final push down the path of becoming a murderer and torturer of hundreds of peasants that history knows her as.

* ''Film/AceVenturaPetDetective'', wherein the title character burns his clothes after he finds out that [[spoiler:[[UnsettlingGenderReveal Lois Einhorn is really Ray Finkle]]]]. And then at the end, [[spoiler:[[ReallyGetsAround the entire police force]] ''[[UpToEleven (and even the]] [[InterspeciesRomance dolphin)]]'' starts puking upon that revelation]].

* At the end of the ''Comicbook/BatmanTomKing'' storyline "The Gift", [[spoiler: Booster Gold, who created a world where Bruce Wayne's parents weren't killed in a misguided attempt to help Bruce come to terms with it, ''Comicbook/ForTheManWhoHasEverything'' style, finds himself with the alternate Bruce in a certain alley in Gotham thirty years ago. When Alt!Bruce (whose already seen Thomas and Martha in his own timeline die) sees what happens he shoots himself, and Booster gets splattered with blood. We then cut to him confessing what he's done to Batman, and he says there's a speck of blood on his goggles that just won't come off. "You see it too, right?" The goggles are immaculate]].
* The issue of ''ComicBook/SagaOfTheSwampThing'' that resulted in the title no longer carrying the Comic Code Authority seal features a truly horrific instance of this trope, after Abby [[GoMadFromTheRevelation realizes]] the AwfulTruth behind why her husband [[DealWithTheDevil has]] [[DemonicPossession been]] [[CreepyUncle acting]] [[RapeAsDrama differently]]:
-->She ripped all of her clothes off, tearing them up. They were dirty. They'd touched her skin. She tried to burn them, but her hands were shaking and the matches kept going out. In truth, she was a little crazy by this time. It was the smell. She couldn't get rid of the smell. In the shower she used up all of the soap, the shampoo, the bubblebath, the perfume... the smell was still there. Have you ever burned an insect with a magnifying glass? Just once, long ago, when you were a kid and didn't know any better? There. You know it. You know the smell. When the soap wouldn't get rid of it, she went to the kitchen and fetched the wire brush that she used for scraping the potatoes... twenty minutes later she passed out. Twenty whole minutes. Even then she could still smell it. She could smell it in her dreams.
* In ''Comicbook/TheSandman'' [[spoiler:after mercy killing his son Orpheus (who has spent millennia as a disembodied head)]] Morpheus is seen washing the blood from his hands in a bowl of water looking sadder than he ever has in the series.

->''"He'd scrubbed and scrubbed, but it seemed to have no effect. Eventually he'd gone down to the dungeons and borrowed one of the torturer's wire brushes, and scrubbed and scrubbed with that, too. That had no effect, either. It made it worse. The harder he scrubbed, the more blood there was. He was afraid he might go mad..."''
-->-- '''''Literature/WyrdSisters'''''

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''. Melisandre uses a [[CastingAShadow shadow assassin]] created from Stannis' LifeForce to [[spoiler:kill Stannis' younger brother Renly, who is disputing Stannis' claim to the Iron Throne]]. Stannis never outright admits to being aware of her plan but implies it, talking about how he was asleep in his tent at the time, having a nightmare [[spoiler:about Renly's murder. "I was in my tent when Renly died, and when I woke my hands were clean."]]

* At the end of the ''Comicbook/BatmanRebirth'' storyline "The Gift", [[spoiler: Booster Gold, who created a world where Bruce Wayne's parents weren't killed in a misguided attempt to help Bruce come to terms with it, ''Comicbook/ForTheManWhoHasEverything'' style, finds himself with the alternate Bruce in a certain alley in Gotham thirty years ago. When Alt!Bruce (whose already seen Thomas and Martha in his own timeline die) sees what happens he shoots himself, and Booster gets splattered with blood. We then cut to him confessing what he's done to Batman, and he says there's a speck of blood on his goggles that just won't come off. "You see it too, right?" The goggles are immaculate]].

[[folder:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]

[[folder:Comics]]

* ''Series/TheFalconAndTheWinterSoldier'': After John Walker beats a terrorist to death in public with Captain America's shield - both literally and figuratively sullying Steve Rogers' legacy - Sam Wilson takes the shield back, and numbly sits on the floor trying to wipe the blood off with his bare hands. ''He can't.''

* ''Series/TheFalconAndTheWinterSoldier'': After John Walker beats a terrorist to death in public with Captain America's shield - both literally and figuratively sullying Steve Rogers' legacy - Sam Wilson takes the shield back, and numbly sits in the back of a vehicle trying to wipe the blood off. ''He can't.''

* ''Series/TheFalconAndTheWinterSoldier'': After John Walker beats a terrorist to death in public with Captain America's shield - both literally and figuratively sullying Steve Rogers' legacy - Sam Winston takes the shield back, and numbly sits in the back of a vehicle trying to wipe the blood off. ''He can't.''

* ''Music/{{Coheed and Cambria}}'''s song, "In the Flame of Error", does this with "These dirty hands just won't come clean".
* The TitleTrack from Music/TomWaits's ''Music/BlueValentine'' has:
-->I can never wash the guilt or get these blood stains off my hands

* In Erutan's ImageSong for Beatrix from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'', "Rose of May", one of the lyrics in the chorus:
-->The blood on my hands\\
Won't wash away, wash away

* From Music/AnnieLennox's "Dark Road":
-->There's no water that can wash away\\
This longing to come clean

* Inverted, interestingly, in the [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare poet's]] ''Theatre/JuliusCaesar'', in which Brutus suggests:
-->''...Stoope Romans, stoope,''\\
''And let vs bathe our hands in ''Cæsars'' blood''\\
''Vp to the Elbowes, and besmeare our Swords:''\\
''Then walke we forth, euen to the Market place,''\\
''And wauing our red Weapons o're our heads,''\\
''Let's all cry Peace, Freedome, and Liberty.''

* In ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness'' for the Gamecube, Alex Roivas comes across the ghost of a maid cleaning her grandfather's carpet. When the ghost hears Alex, she looks up and screams "I can't get the blood out!" Soon, she finds her grandfather's chapter of the ''Tome of Eternal Darkness'', and discovers that the maid died on that spot forty years ago.
* ''VideoGame/SilentHill2'' is essentially the protagonist's guilt over [[spoiler:the murder of his wife]] manifest as a variety of physical monsters.

* In ''VideoGame/AlphaProtocol'', TheDragon, Conrad Marburg, wears black gloves at all times. At their first meeting, if the protagonist has accumulated enough of Marburg's dossier, he can accuse him of wearing them as a feeble psychological crutch to avoid feeling that he has blood on his hands.
* In ''VideoGame/SoulNomadAndTheWorldEaters'', this leads to one of the assassins, despite saving hundreds of lives in the story, committing suicide in front of his friends. No matter what he does the blood won't come off. So he decides to put his soul in the washing machine.

* Also appears in ''Webcomic/{{Oglaf}}'' on [[http://www.oglaf.com/shaft/4/ page 4]] of "Shaft".

* Parodied in an early episode of ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'' where Edd is shown desperately trying to scrub off a grass stain from his arm, and, when this fails, giving a SkywardScream.
--> '''Edd''': STUBBORN GRASS STAIN!!!! AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!

* In the ''{{Series/Firefly}}'' fanfic ''Fanfic/{{Forward}}'', River has a few of these types of moments, even using "Out Damned Spot".

[[folder:Radio]]
* Ensemble comedy troupe ''Radio/ImSorryIllReadThatAgain'' subverted this trope. As Lady Macbeth wanders bemoaning the dire stains she sees, she finally points to the cause of her woes and intoners ''Out, damned Spot!" At which a dog is heard to bark, no doubt Spot the Dog...
[[/folder]]

* The line itself was parodied in ''Webcomic/IrregularWebcomic'' when Will Shakespeare uses the line to get his dog out of the server room.
** And previously on ''VideoGame/CarmenSandiegosGreatChaseThroughTime'', when he tries to get a dog out of his theater.

* Creator/FyodorDostoyevsky:

* Marnie in ''Film/OneHundredFeet'' repeatedly paints over the bloodstain left by her husband from the KillingInSelfDefense she was forced to. His ghost keeps bringing the bloodstain back.

* In ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'', Cassie is disgusted and horrified by all that she's done and the deaths that she's responsible for. In one book, after ripping out a Hork Bajir's throat with her teeth while in wolf morph and finding a piece of flesh still lodged between her teeth after demorphing, Cassie brushes her teeth until her gums bleed.
* Parodied in ''Literature/WyrdSisters'' (naturally, since it's a parody of ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'') where Duke Felmet becomes so obsessed with washing the metaphorical blood from his hand, he tries scrubbing it with a wire brush, among other things. (It's implicit his measures ensure that his hand will always have blood on it, just not the victim's anymore.) At one point he's even seen with a cheese grater, and bandages on his hand. The parody starts to turn very dark, though, when towards the end the narration describes "the remnant of his right hand," culminating in him [[spoiler:falling to his death because he no longer has any (working) fingers with which to grab on to a wall]].

* This is taken to extremes in the Creator/RayBradbury short story [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fruit_at_the_Bottom_of_the_Bowl "The Fruit At The Bottom Of The Bowl"]], in which a man becomes so obsessed with removing all his fingerprints from a murder scene that [[spoiler:he actually forgets that his main objective is to escape and get away with the crime -- the police eventually find him at three in the morning, polishing old coins he'd found in a box in the attic, by which time he seems scarcely bothered about being caught and is only concerned with making sure he polishes the handle of the door as they lead him out of the house.]]
* In ''Mila 18'', which is based on true events in German-occupied Warsaw, Poland during WWII, one of the Nazi leaders is constantly bathing. At least one of the more astute people around him is aware he is trying to wash away his guilt in the slaughter of Polish Jews.
* In ''Literature/TheOtherBoleynGirl'', UsefulNotes/AnneBoleyn takes an extremely hot bath and rubs her skin raw the morning after she [[spoiler:takes a potion from a witch to induce a miscarriage.]] She [[spoiler:believes the baby to be dead, but probably still harbors guilt on the offchance that it may have been alive]] and [[HeirClubForMen the male heir she needed to bear to secure her position as Queen]].
* After hearing [[spoiler:[[ManipulativeBastard Smerdyakov]]'s]] explanation of events in ''Literature/TheBrothersKaramazov'', Ivan begins to continuously recount the events prior to his father's death over and over again, trying to convince himself that [[spoiler:he is not the one responsible for murdering him.]] This ends up with him talking to [[TheDevil Satan]] and eventually [[FreakOut freaking out spectacularly]] at the trial of his brother.

* ''[[Literature/{{Redwall}} Outcast of Redwall]]'': Veil suffers something similar. His victim was poisoned, and the Abbey herbalist puts out an announcement that it will be easy to find the killer because the particular poison used will stain one's skin and fur red within two days if one touches it with bare paws. Veil, unaware that this is a complete and utter lie, starts frantically scrubbing his paws at every opportunity, even with sandstone, thus making them look red. He breaks into the infirmary to find the "herbal solution" the herbalist supposedly left there and dips his paws into the basin without looking, only to find that said basin actually contains beetroot juice, thus leaving his paws very obviously [[RedRightHand red]] and proving his guilt.

* ''Mortal Stakes'': Robert B. Parker uses this very line from the mouth of PrivateDetective Literature/{{Spenser}}, who thinks this after he's forced to kill two mob men in self-defense.

* The Hungarian ''Ballad of Agnes'' by János Arany tells the story of a woman who has her lover stab her husband in his sleep, and afterward she spends day after day at the river, trying to wash the (imaginary) bloodstain out of the sheet, though said sheet has already been reduced to a handful of ragged cloth from all the scrubbing. Even when she's taken to court, she just keeps saying she has to go back to her washing; the judges take pity on her and decide her own guilt is punishment enough.
-->''Mistress Agnes in the streamlet''
-->''Washeth still her ragged sheet;''
-->''Downward are the cover’s remnants''
-->''Carried by the current fleet.''
* Robert Harris' ''Literature/{{Fatherland}}'' has a disturbingly understandable version. The protagonist, a former U-Boat captain, finds out that [[spoiler:some of the uniform clothing he was issued while in the service was manufactured from the hair of Holocaust victims]]. He describes not feeling clean after bathing repeatedly for days; more justified than most given the close physical contact involved...

* ''Literature/RedeemingLove'': When she first begins to see that Michael is a genuinely good man, Angel feels that because of her past as a prostitute she is unworthy of him; she [[ShowerOfAngst plunges into a river]] and frantically begins trying to make herself feel clean. Michael eventually finds her rubbing her skin raw with gravel and sobbing.
* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''. Melisandre uses a [[CastingAShadow shadow assassin]] created from Stannis' LifeForce to [[spoiler:kill Stannis' younger brother Renly, who is disputing Stannis' claim to the Iron Throne]]. Stannis never outright admits to being aware of her plan but implies it, talking about how he was asleep in his tent at the time, having a nightmare [[spoiler:about Renly's murder. "I was in my tent when Renly died, and when I woke my hands were clean."]]
* In Fyodor Dostoyevsky's ''Literature/CrimeAndPunishment'', Raskolnikov obsesses over cleaning up the murder of the pawnbroker. He compulsively washes the axe used to commit the deed, tries to clean off the coin purse and stow it in the wallpaper of his room, only to later decide to just bury it somewhere. Then he realizes that he got the blood on his sock, and desperately tries to work the stain out. While the stain fades to unrecognizability, Raskolnikov is unable to not see the blood on his sock.
* Near the end of ''Literature/MixBeerWithLiquorAndYouWillGetSicker'', Corbin scrubs blood off his floor that has gotten there when he'd mistook a person in his house for a burglar and brutally hit him over the head, only to discover afterwards that it was actually a friend looking after him. Said guy has survived the incident, but still got a pretty nasty injury out of it, and Corbin works himself into a [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone guilt loop]] and keeps cleaning the spot even though the blood is long gone. He doesn't even realize that his hands have gone sore and blistering from the work.
* {{Downplayed}} in ''[[Literature/TheMoomins Moominpappa at Sea]]''. Moomintroll finds a wonderful secret spot, but it's infested with ants. When he mentions this to Little My, she kills all the ants with paraffin, which is not at all what he had in mind. (Or, as she claims, he did have that in mind but was deceiving himself about it.) Coming back after discovering this, he feels like the smell of paraffin is never going to come off of him.
* Early in ''[[Literature/TheMagicians The Magician King]],'' Eliot mentions his first meeting with [[BrokenBird Julia]] at a spa, during which she had taken to obsessively taking steam baths - often at such high temperatures that nobody else could stand to be in the same room. Eliot speculates that she was trying to cleanse herself of something she can't remove, but the reason why doesn't become apparent until the end: [[spoiler: Julia had taken part in the summoning of a goddess, only to get the attention of Renard the Fox, who brutally murdered all but one of Julia's friends - and then raped Julia herself in exchange for sparing her one remaining friend.]]

* ''Series/OneStepBeyond'': In "The Hand" Tom Grant, a piano player at a run-down dive, murders a beautiful young woman in a jealous rage with a broken-off beer bottle. After the police arrest a drunken derelict for the crime, Tom figures he's in the clear. Although he at first seems to have covered his tracks well enough, he soon discovers that, no matter how hard he tries, he cannot get the woman's blood off his hands. He forces a doctor to bandage the hand only to cause the blood to seep through. Eventually, he breaks down when he is called into witness for the murder and has to lay the hand on Literature/TheBible and swear to tell the truth.

* Referenced in ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'': While watching a short film about Ross, an animal wrangler who captures wildlife for zoos, Joel's and the bots' commentary makes Ross out to be a villain on par with those from ''WesternAnimation/{{Captain Planet|and the Planeteers}}''. Then, there's a brief shot of Ross wiping his face off with a towel, at which point Servo quips:

* ''Series/TheDrewCareyShow'': Drew has cybersex with Mimi and doesn't realize it until the deed is done, whereupon we cut to a fully-clothed Drew sobbing in a hot shower.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': "Bad Girls". The final scene of the episode briefly shows [[spoiler:Faith]] desperately trying to clean the blood of the man she accidentally killed, out of her shirt. Also, when Anya becomes a vengeance demon again, and murders a frathouse who laughed at a girl who was broken up with at a party. Complete with a "what have I done?"
* ''Series/DarkShadows'': In the old supernatural soap, the young witch Angelique lays a curse on her husband/enemy Barnabas Collins in a moment of transcendent rage, a curse on him to die and rise as a vampire. She almost immediately regrets it and tries without success to lift it, and tries to scrub up a bloodstain on the floor from the incident, only to find that no matter how hard she scrubs the blood won't come off the wooden floor.

* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000''. One of Tom Servo's repeated riffs: "But you'll never be able to get rid of the stain on your soul."
* ''Series/{{MASH}}'' turns this into a [[TearJerker/LiveActionTV Tear Jerker]] in "Heal Thyself," when a [[TheAce talented and experienced new doctor]] has a HeroicBSOD after a grueling session in the OR.
* On ''Series/{{Lost}}'', having just killed Ana-Lucia and Libby, Michael asks Eko about Hell while scrubbing Libby's blood off the floor. The conversation ends with Michael going outside to throw up.
* ''Bad To the Bone'': The 1997 TV movie had an example that eerily echoes ''Macbeth''. Francesca ("Frankie") Wells (Kristy Swanson) is a FilleFatale (she is 19, but often behaves as if she is several years younger) who has [[SelfMadeOrphan killed her own mother]] in order to [[InsuranceFraud get her hands on the family inheritance]] and then talked her younger brother into killing her latest boyfriend so that they can take over the nightclub the boyfriend owns. Both are eventually arrested and charged with the murders, but Frankie jumps bail, gives herself a false name, and eventually winds up living on a seacoast villa with a rich man she has seduced. She spends one morning swimming in the ocean. The rich man sees her coming in from the surf and mentions that he once heard that the ocean is supposed to wash all one's sins away. In a splendid display of dramatic irony, Frankie tells him that, unfortunately, that isn't the case. A subtle yet effective CryForTheDevil, especially given Frankie's [[FreudianExcuse Woobie-ish backstory]].
* ''Series/TheOriginals'': Elijah is always immaculately dressed in a suit, no matter the occasion, and has notably better impulse control compared to his other vampire siblings. It is revealed in the second season to be something of a compulsion, to disassociate himself from the wantonly violent deeds of his past.
* On ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'', Earl's mother slept with their next-door neighbor some 20 years prior. She broke it off, since she felt ashamed, and she kept it from her husband all that time. And when he found out, he left her. After having a good cry with Earl about it, he came back, and she was scrubbing the chairs in the garage where she and the neighbor had sex all those years ago, with bleach.

* In ''Manga/DescendantsOfDarkness'', after [[TheEmpath Hisoka]] has to [[spoiler:[[MercyKill kill Tsubaki]]]] at the end of the cruise murder mystery arc, he continues to see blood on his hands even though there is nothing there. His partner Tsuzuki comforts him.
* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'': After destroying Leliel, Shinji becomes scared of his own hands, because he can't get rid of the smell of blood.
* ''Manga/KamisamaKiss'' has two examples. When Tomoe first met Mikage he was trying and failing to wash blood off of himself. Later on, Tomoe kills a demonic spider and is trying and failing to wash to blood off when Nanami shows up to help.
* A filler arc in ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' explores [[spoiler:Kakashi]]'s life in the wake of killing [[spoiler:Rin]]. He gets a few montages like this.
* In ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'', [[spoiler:Reiner Braun]] is so crushed with guilt over his actions as TheMole that he begins suffering from bouts of self-inflicted TraumaInducedAmnesia, creating a sanitized version of his identity and memories. During his various breakdowns, he stares at his hands more than once in disgust.
* In ''Manga/FushigiYuugi'', Miaka scrubs herself with a twig until she bleeds, trying to make herself "clean" again, after believing that Nakago raped her, and [[DefiledForever therefore she was no longer worthy of the title of Priestess of Suzaku...or Tamahome's love]]. [[spoiler:He didn't. He just roughed her up a bit and let her come to her own conclusions when she came to, just as with Yui.]]

* At the end of the ''Comicbook/BatmanRebirth'' storyline "The Gift", [[spoiler: Booster Gold, who created a world where Bruce Wayne's parents weren't killed in a misguided attempt to help Bruce come to terms with it, ''Comicbook/ForTheManWhoHasEverything'' style, finds himself with the alternate Bruce in a certain alley in Gotham thirty years ago. When Alt!Bruce (whose already seen Thomas and Martha in his own timeline die) sees what happens he shoots himself, and Booster gets splattered with blood. We then cut to him confessing what he's done to Batman, and he says there's a speck of blood on his goggles that just won't come off. "You see it too, right?" The goggles are immaculate]].

* Subverted in the ''Series/TheWestWing'' fanfic [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3014491/1/Band_of_Blood Band of Blood]]. Toby has this reaction to Josh's blood all over his hands while waiting in the hospital after the WhamEpisode, although he wasn't even indirectly responsible and his guilt was fanciful guilt over the possibility that his decision to take down a protective canopy for PR reasons might have caused the shooting.
* In the ongoing ''Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers'' fanfic ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6139380/1/Clinging Clinging]]'', Ivan (Russia) has a couple of these moments. [[spoiler:At 9 years old, he killed his father, who was trying to rape his older sister. Six years later, the owner of the orphanage where he and his sisters wound up repeated Ivan's father's actions, this time directed at Ivan himself. He killed the owner in self-defense.]] Even though both of them were at least ''somewhat'' justified, he has had at least two Out Damned Spot moments. So far.
* In ''Fanfic/IncarnationOfLegends'', while being attacked by terrorists as a concert in Altena, Bell immediately thrusts one of his sword through one of the culprit's shoulders, but can't bring himself to kill him. After the ordeal is suppressed by the Odin Familia, Bell finds that no matter how much he cleans his sword and hands, the blood didn't seem to come off, showing just how haunted by his murder of the man holding Haruhime captive.
* In ''Fanfic/MutantStorm'', after Harry kills [[spoiler:Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange]] (one of them with his bare hands), he goes through a HeroicBSOD and just sits in the shower for a while he tries to clean himself. They have to knock him out to treat his injuries.
* In ''Fanfic/FalloutEquestria'', main character Littlepip discovers that the town of Arbu has been [[spoiler:killing caravaneers, travelers and bandits so they can eat them, even feeding them to their children. Littlepip and her group of adventurers had "dinner" with the citizens before she discovered this. The revelation is so sickening and horrifying that she breaks down and murders every pony in the village bearing a 'mark of Arbu' (which signifies they've killed and consumed a victim)- in the chaos, she might have inadvertently or purposefully killed a child as well.]] Afterwards, however, she's sickened and horrified with herself and how far she went, unable to see herself as anything but a monster covered in blood. And she's the ''protagonist''!

* In ''Foal'', whenever Rainbow Dash thinks about her responsibility for [[spoiler:her brother]]'s death, she hallucinates that his blood is on her hooves and can't wash it off.
* Done rather melodramatically in the ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' fanfic ''The Chong Sheng Trilogy''. When Jet dies in Katara's arms, she snaps and [[{{Squick}} uses actual blood as bending fluid to kill several enemies]] before Sokka has to snap her out of her insanity. When Katara realizes what she's done she screams and goes [[AngstComa catatonic]] until late that night, when she leaps into a dangerously rushing river and tries to scrub away her sins. [[RescueRomance Zuko has to rush in to rescue her before she drowns or is swept away]].

* ''Film/{{Bullitt}}'': Used rather beautifully at the end.
* ''Film/RepoTheGeneticOpera'' has Nathan Wallace. He's very good at repossessing organs, but the fact that he actually enjoys his work leads to a lot of Out Damned Spot moments. It doesn't help that he's constantly being guilt-tripped by Dead Marni and taunted by the Genterns.
** A good example comes at the end of "Thankless Job" - when the song ends, it [[http://i47.tinypic.com/30cu9dw.jpg hits Nathan]] about what he's doing ''while his arm is still in the corpse'', and he ends up spraying down his uniform and tools.
* As Creator/AkiraKurosawa's ''Film/ThroneOfBlood'' is ''Macbeth'' [[RecycledInSPACE in feudal Japan]], it is unsurprising that Asaji freaks out over blood only she can see.
* ''Film/ScotlandPA'' (which is ''Macbeth'' in a rural '70s Pennsylvania fast-food joint), Pat [=McBeth=] gets a small burn from frying oil when Duncan dies. As she sinks into madness, she becomes convinced that the burn is getting worse, even though it completely healed in reality. In the end, [[spoiler:she's driven to cut off her hand with a kitchen knife, then promptly faints and bleeds to death]].

* ''Film/TheMachinist'': Reznik is constantly seen washing his hands with bleach and lye. [[spoiler:It turns out he once killed a young boy and has repressed the memory.]]

* Parodied in ''Film/BatmanReturns'', by Catwoman: "The thought of framing Batman makes me feel so dirty. I think I'll give myself a bath right here." Then - being a [[CatGirl cat-person]] - she proceeds to ''lick'' herself!
* ''Film/AceVenturaPetDetective'', wherein the title character burns his clothes after he finds out that [[spoiler:[[UnsettlingGenderReveal Lois Einhorn is really Ray Finkle]]]]. And then at the end, [[spoiler:[[ReallyGetsAround the entire police force]] ''[[UpToEleven (and even the]] [[InterspeciesRomance dolphin)]]'' starts puking upon that revelation]].
* A subtle one in ''Film/PulpFiction''. After dealing with IJustShotMarvinInTheFace, Jules and Vincent wash their hands. Then they wipe them clean and Jules points out that Vincent's left some bloodstains on the towel. Which is symbolic of how Jules chooses a different path, but Vincent doesn't.
* In ''Film/OnlyGodForgives'', Julian is given to sullenly staring at his hands and watching them slowly turn into fists. At one point he washes his hands, but he sees the water become blood. This is implied to be guilt over [[spoiler:having beaten his father to death]].

* ''Film/TheHungerGames'': After [[spoiler:Rue's death]], Katniss attempts to scratch off the scabs she suffered during the forest fire escape in a manic state, along with [[spoiler:Rue's blood]]. The trope applies because Katniss had just [[spoiler:killed Marvel.]]
* ''Film/BlackHawkDown'': During the denouement, after everyone has come back to the base, General Garrison is visiting the wounded soldiers at the field hospital. He sees that some blood has spilled on the floor and grabs something to clean it up with, but only succeeds in spreading it around on the floor. In this case, it's not guilt for an evil act he has committed, but rather [[TheChainsOfCommanding the burden of being responsible for the men serving under his command.]]
* In ''Film/HarrietTheSpy'', when even her friends turn on her when he spying is exposed, Harriet jumps (fully-clothed) into a bathtub and furiously tries to scrub off their friendship tattoo.
* In ''Film/AprilShowers'', Jason tears off his clothes that have the blood of the dead girl on them, only to find that some of the blood went through the fabric to his skin.

Compare with BrainBleach, which is used to scrub away unpleasant mental images instead of guilt. Compare also with TerribleTicking, where the guilty person hears something symbolic of their guilt. Can be one of numerous tics that result from a SympatheticMurderBackstory... or [[DirtyBusiness not so sympathetic.]] Sometimes accompanied by a MadnessMantra. See also MustMakeAmends, BloodIsSquickerInWater. Often part of a DarkAndTroubledPast. Contrast TheseHandsHaveKilled, which tends to be a more temporary reaction.

* In ''Theatre/{{Woyzeck}}'', the title character murders his unfaithful girlfriend and obsesses over fear that someone will find the murder weapon. His determination to hide it in the river and wash off the blood gets him drowned. [[AuthorExistenceFailure Probably.]]

* This is a common symptom of [[SuperOCD Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder]] -- a feel of "dirtiness" and a compulsion to somehow clean it, often resulting in germ/cleanliness obsessions and frequent, almost continuous, hand- or body-washings.

* Early in ''[[Literature/TheMagicians The Magician King,'' Eliot mentions his first meeting with [[BrokenBird Julia]] at a spa, during which she had taken to obsessively taking steam baths - often at such high temperatures that nobody else could stand to be in the same room. Eliot speculates that she was trying to cleanse herself of something she can't remove, but the reason why doesn't become apparent until the end: [[spoiler: Julia had taken part in the summoning of a goddess, only to get the attention of Renard the Fox, who brutally murdered all but one of Julia's friends - and then raped Julia herself in exchange for sparing her one remaining friend.]]