New Member- in need of some help, moved away for the first time x

[sophie94]

hi everyone, i am a new member here and have had emetophobia since as long as i can remeber, probably around the age of 12.

Im now 19 and have moved away from home for the first time and am living with 4 other lovely girls in a halls of residence. One of my flatmates has gone down with a really nasty bug (shes been sick for 24 hours so am assuming its the norovirus) and im now in a state of panic having panic attacks in my room and really just feeling really low about the whole thing.

We have our own bathrooms and ive gone around with my trusted detoll spray sanitising everything, and she is lovely and has been doing her best to bleach as she goes however i am really in a need of support as i am pacing up my room in a constant state of panic and fear of getting ill. i feel perfectly fine and even hungry but im scared to leave my room. If this would have happened at home i would have felt a lot more comfortable as i would be able to have my mum around and its just really overwhelming. i had almost beating it at home but this new situation has taken me down lots of notches in terms of beating it.

Does anyone have any tips on coping with this situation in a different environment , not panicking, cleaning and also being a supportive house mate and trying not to let my own personal phobia come across as unkind ?

Thank you, Sophie xoxox

[mes5344]

I remember my first year at school when one of my friends got sick too. I panicked and called my mom and wanted to drop out of school and move back home. Thankfully, it did not spread to anyone else and I did not drop out of school (lol). It seems like when you do get sick, you have no idea how you caught it, and when you know someone who is sick, you don't end up catching it. If you are sanitizing everything, you should be good! Personally, my emetophobia is worse when my overall anxiety level is higher. It will take a few months before you adjust to your new environment and have less anxiety, which happens for everyone. Before you know it, you will be calling your residence hall home and your roommates your family! I've always been straight forward with my friends. I'll tell them outright that I will do anything for them to be a supportive great friend, but when they are sick, to go to someone else. For example, I will go to the store and buy them pepto, ginger ale, or whatever they may need, but I will never in a million years deliver it to them. Up to this point of my life all of my friends have been understanding and accepting of that. Everyone has something that they are afraid of and avoid. Rather it be spiders, heights, or whatever.

[sophie94]

hey mes5344 thank you for your reply! i did read it at the time and it helped so much but i wasn't able to reply for some reason

Luckily no one else has been infected with the virus and my flatmate is miles better. She was very sick though!

When my flatmate was back to normal i sat everyone down and fully explained about my phobia to them and they were really understanding, my formally sick flatmate even said she had no idea i was panicking. One of the other girls say that she feels exactly the same and was having a panic attack about it too so thats really helpful for us both to know we feel exactly the same and another girl says that she gets like that over spiders.
I even had jumped to her defence when some guys in the flat across from us were being childish about her and like over the top covering there mouths when she returned to college the next week. I think it helps a lot to understand exactly how you catch stomach bugs and once i knew she wasnt contagious any more i was fine, today i gave her a massive hug and we sat in her room for a while. If this phobia was anything like it used to be i wouldn't go in her room for about 3 weeks. Im still very OCD about my hand washing though, and wont use my plates and cups in the shared kitchen for a while.

anyway, thank you so much, im still a little worried about how im going to handle it being away from home but with any luck its going to only get better