Do you think we are missing the logical part of our brain?

[Miss_Pink24]

Do you think being an emet has just made the logical part of the brain shrivel up, so that all our thoughts are irrational, making the fear worse? I have two examples as to why mine definitely has...

1. I had a nightmare the other night (weirdly enough featuring *v, not myself, but someone else) so woke up in the middle of the night. When waking I felt slightly *n and had a really watery mouth, plus slight stomach discomfort. My first thought was "Oh God, its noro!". You know my symptoms couldn't possibly have been caused by the anxiety from the nightmare or the fact that we had left the heating on and so the bedroom was really hot. Or that I have IBS and had an episode before I went to sleep that night. It was definitely because of noro.

2. I walked into the locker room at work the other morning and two girls in there were saying about another girl who was off sick as she had been up all night with *d. Again my first thoughts were "Oh no, she's got an *sv, she's going to bring it to work with her, we are all going to get it!". Not that it could have been FP, or that she has some other underlying health problem that causes the symptoms or even that she has some other kind of illness. Nope, definitely noro. She is still off sick now, 3 days later, so it could have been anything.

Anyone else feel like this? It actually annoys me how much my logical brain ceases to function whenever *v is involved.

[Skittles04]

ok, i can see why you'd think that, but there is no way emet shrivels up the logical part of out brain. i'm pretty sure thats biologically impossible, so you don't have to stress about that :P

thing is, emet is described as an "intense irrational fear of v*" it's not that we're dumb or have a shriveled logic brain area, its just the irrationality of the fear clouds over any other reasoning. those two situations you described, im pretty sure every member here would have experienced before, its just the way our minds seem to work :/

[turbokinetic]

I don't think there's any way this phobia causes the brain to lose any capability. Especially not logical thinking ability. I can do some very involved logic and cause-and-effect programming work with a brain that was emetophobic for years. It's just the defective EMOTIONAL thinking of the phobia makes you ignore the logical side of your brain. In my opinion, anyway!
David

[chris_alice]

You asking this question proves the logical part of your brain is still alive and well because you know that your automatic fear thoughts are irrational. That kind of negative thinking is part of the phobia because we choose (yes choose) to listen to, and believe, the phobia instead of listening to and believing the rational part of our brain.

[john f.]

Not at all. I do pretty well with logic, always have. In fact I've always felt the opposite to be more true in that it stems from too much logical thinking, particularly about the future and "what if's". Making logical and intuitive connections that most people would never think of. I definitely see my thought process as logical, or at least intuitive, even though the degree of the fear itself is irrational.

[ditchy_jon]

Its probably the opposite, its maybe because we are too logical. Emts work things out logically and logically stomach pains in winter may equal norovirus.

[Miss_Pink24]

Thank you for the replies! I was not totally serious about the logical part shriveling up into nothing-ness, I know this is not possible. It just gets to me how strong my irrational thoughts can be, even though I can justify the situation to myself, my illogical thoughts just seem to take over all the time. I have to concentrate on thinking in order to shift them from the irrational to the much more logical explanations.

[julybabe]

Thank you for the replies! I was not totally serious about the logical part shriveling up into nothing-ness, I know this is not possible. It just gets to me how strong my irrational thoughts can be, even though I can justify the situation to myself, my illogical thoughts just seem to take over all the time. I have to concentrate on thinking in order to shift them from the irrational to the much more logical explanations.

I think you are partly right in so far as the fear and anxiety take over the logical thinking, and you are also doing the right thing by challenging your thoughts into more logical ones. The fear becomes overwhelming and with it anxiety brings on symptoms like n* which just add to the fear and seemingly add fuel to the thoughts that something awful is wrong. It is surprising how many emets find that once they actually v* it is not as bad as they feared it would be, which would tend to indicate that the fear has blown things out of all proportion, their anxiety has told them that they could not possibly cope with v* when in reality this is not true, anxiety is the real problem here rather than v* anxiety is the root of all phobias, take control of the anxiety and whatever it is that you fear will no longer appear frightening. Anxiety is feeding the phobia, stop feeding the anxiety and you are starting to take control. In my experience avoidance of the thing that you fear also feeds the anxiety, I think it is good to take strength from the fact that whenever you have faced the thing you fear most and probably it was not as bad as you thought it would be. I think exposure to the thing you fear is definately helpful, although I am not suggesting that anyone should deliberately set out to expose themselves, I think continually avoiding the source of the anxiety is not helpful because you never get to prove to yourself that in fact you can cope and it is from this that hope of recovery comes.