hey everybody!

im new to this forum, but im so glad that i found it. reading some of these posts about people overcoming this horrible phobia has made me think that there might be hope for me to.

ive been dealing with emetophobia for as long as i can remember, possibly starting when i got a bad stomach virus as a child and was praying to the porcelain god for 8 hours straight, but thats neither here nor there. anyway, ive been handeling it fairly well for the majority of my life, i do what most do, stay away from foods and activities i think might lead to vomiting and also stay away from situations where others might get sick (im one of the few guys on earth that cant stand the jackass series for this whole reason). it hasnt lead to too many issues until last night. my girlfriend of 6 months and i met up with a friend from my childhood to get some drinks at a local bar. everything was fine for the night until i dropped my friend off and me and my gf were driving home. she said she started to not feel well, and as im sure you all know that set of my oh crap sensor. then the worst happened she told me to pull over and she got sick. no matter how hard i plugged my ears i could hear it. she hadn't eaten enough during the day and it came back to bite her. after the deed was done, i panicked. my heart started racing, i began hyperventilating and the ride home was just a mess. we got home and she went to bed to pass out but that was just the beginning of my horrible night. ive had for my entire life, at times severe, ocd. after many years of therapy ive been able to keep my ocd under my belt in a pretty amazing way. after we got home and she went to bed my mind just snapped back into full swing ocd. i couldn't go to bed because i had to keep getting back up to recheck the lock on the door and each time i went into the bathroom it was a 20 minute ordeal of handwashing and light flipping. this went on from midnight when we got home until about 6 am when i finally passed out on the couch from just pure exhaustion. now its the next day and i figured the worst was behind me, i subdued my ocd tendencies and was having an ok morning, that was until my gf woke up. because of the incident last night everything in me is telling me to stay away from her. she's beyond apologetic for the events of the night prior but i cant bring myself to even go near her and its not making things any better, not by a long shot.

heres where hopefully you guys can come in. i desperately hoping some of the amazing folks here could give me some pointers, not only in just dealing with emetophobia itself, but also dealing with my situation at hand. normally when i would have any kind of relapse of this kind i would go see my therapist, unfortunately, he is no longer in my medical coverage network, and im a 22 year old trying to make ends meet with an apartment and all sorts of other bills on my plate so a $250 doctor visit is a bit out of the question. ive read some amazing stories on here and hoping someone out there could give me some pointers as how to deal with my situation at hand. looking forward to hearing back from you all!!

M. Bishop