Question......(from a newbie)

[slallen2009]

Hey all,

My family is convinced I have OCD, germaphobia and emet. Well I am pretty sure I have emet and anxiety. My question is......wouldnt having emet produce the above "problems"? I wash my hands so as to wash away the germs, I chart my symptoms so I can keep track .......so does that mean I have OCD and an Germaphobia? I have no issue's with anything that would not have the end result of throwing up, make sense? I could cut a finger off.....and as long as I didnt have to take anything for the pain since it could possiably make me sick...I would be ok with it......well you know what I mean..it would suck missing a finger.....you get my point. I have clearly not had enough coffee......I will return when I am properly caffienated.....oh and Good Morning everyone! ...............Slallen

[turbokinetic]

Those things (emetophobia, anxiety, and germ phobia) go together, in my opinion!

I'm pretty well recovered from emetophobia. I wasn't ever extremely OCD and or germ phobic - but I am anxiety-prone, even after recovering from emetophobia.

Interesting how you chart your symptoms. I hope you don't have a very long chart! Because that means you don't have symptoms very often!

For me it wasn't germs; it was obsessing over sounds and feelings inside my body; and freaking out when I felt like I might be getting nauseous.

Anyway nice to see you here and hope you can move past this frustrating phobia quickly!

Sincerely,
David

[slallen2009]

Thanks for the reply David. I chart.....everything I eat, drink, pretty much everything I consume...vitimins...etc. I chart how they make me feel.....how my body reacted. I chart how I feel on certain days.....so as to create a pattern to figure out if this is just my body and how it proceeses the food, pill, drink, etc. I am on a quest to figure this out......and if I can create a pattern....and connect the dots....maybe this can be "cured". I also chart sypmtoms of colds, women "stuff", ANYTHING I find significant. I even chart any stressful days, arguments, weather (on a bad day) so as to see if this seasonal (its not) or related somehow to anything going on in my life. Yeah.....after reading what I wrote I am probably schizophrenic as well. GREAT!!! Just teasing....I think that I can omit that from my disease
de jour! Again, thanks for your reply!

[turbokinetic]

You must have a very scientific mind! Do you feel nauseous alot? With that level of charting and looking for patterns, do you have a scientific job?

It seems that most of the recovered emets here have made leaps and bounds of progress by 'disconnecting' from the anxiety surrounding the phobia. After that; nothing matters anymore because it wouldn't be 'bad' if it were to happen.

I'm very physical and sensative to things I can touch, feel, hear etc. That's probably why I began obsessing with things I could hear and feel inside my body. I use my senses to troubleshoot and diagnose machinery for my work so it's also a good thing that I can detect small things. When the phobia developed, it took advantage of my sensing abilities. Possibly your phobia has taken advantage of your scientific mind?

After I got past the anxiety and fear of the phobia, life has been wonderful! I don't worry anymore about puking, but I still have the awareness of myself that develped while I was phobic. So I am changed a little but not necessarily in a bad way.

Peace,
David

[slallen2009]

HAHA "scientific job" ....BECAUSE of this issue, I currently work at a dollar store.....( I MADE myself get this job to fight this fear of being exposed to sick people).........I used to work on an ambulance....I’m an EMT! I am not nauseated much....until I think about it or something "triggers" it.....but I chart all....so that when I am I can go to the "book" and see if I can correlate what I am feeling now with something I may have felt before.....like I was mentioning connecting dots....so as to lower my anxiety......for example.....if I ate Mexican food and I don’t feel good.....and the last time I ate it, it made my bowels go crazy.......and months later I eat it and it does the same I can deduce that the grumbling in my stomach is not food poisoning or a norovirus or rotavirus it is the pile of nachos I just ate........if I see that the pattern has repeated itself...which I guess is exactly what a "pattern" does.....then somehow I feel better and my anxiety is a bit more controlled. Which I believe anxiety is a huge factor in this...but it only exacerbates the problem....Thanks for your replies....it is GREAT to talk with someone who understands.....Peace, Stacey

[turbokinetic]

Yeah, anxiety is a HUGE factor in it. Seems like people who are anxiety-prone are prime candidates for emetophobia.

I remember taking a personality / IQ kind of test that was heavy on the pattern recognition stuff. It was numerical patterns and math is NOT my thing! In spite of that, I could recignize the patterns and scored in the 99th percentile on that part of the test.

I'm SO aware of my stomach it's unreal. Before I eat something, I can predict what it will sound like during the meal (depends on how much I ate previously that day) and what it will sound and feel like for a couple hours afterwards (depends on the texture of the food I ate). It works so consistently.

Also if I'm happy and relaxed, my stomach will be more active and bubbly than when I am anxious or uptight.

I guess you are just a few steps ahead of me and WRITE DOWN what you feel, whereas I just remember the basics of it!

Later,
David

[slallen2009]

I only write down because that way I can "prove" to my mind it is fact. It's somewhat a trick on the mind. I hear ya on the knowing all your sounds.....lol....I am the same way. I am NOT math inclined either....when I took my math entrance exam for college....it didnt come back with a numeric score only a bunch of "HAHAHAHAHA's" 80) BUT I know somethings ARE a science and some have more of a variable result. Have an awesome Sunday......Im off to enjoy our tiny bit of snow.....YAY!! I love snow...it "seems" so clean! 80)

[turbokinetic]

Enjoy the snow! It's 70°F here.

David

[sage]

Both emetophobia and OCD are anxiety disorders. OCD just means that you obsess over something (which you do) and that you feel compelled to do something to calm your anxiety. So that's the question. Are you just charting so you can one day draw conclusions and stop being anxious in certain situations? That would be a good thing. Or are you charting because your obsessions drive you to it and you can't not do it without feeling a great deal of anxiety. That would be OCD. But it really doesn't matter because the treatment for all of the above and even germophobia is exactly the same. It's about stopping doing the things that don't make sense and starting to do the things you previously avoided while at the same time controlling your anxiety.

[slallen2009]

Thanks for your input Sage...I think I chart for a little of both...a bit of compulsiveness and to one day draw a conclusion.