Recovery question

[Iluvijb]

I have a feeling I'm not alone in this, but when I told my husband he looked at me like I was crazy. I've been to therapy because I was having panic attacks and that really helped me. I feel I probably need therapy in order to cope with this phobia as I go to a very dark place when someone around me gets s*. My problem is (and this is where the weird look comes in) that I think oftentimes I don't get s* because of sheer willpower and I'm worried that if I stop caring and freaking out so much, I'll start getting s* more. Obviously that's a circular issue, but it's one of the things preventing me from really committing to try and beat this thing. Anyone else feel this way?

[thecheesecake17]

Yeah definitely! And in all honesty that's probably when our chances of catching it are higher cos we can relax with our cleaning but seriously, I'd much prefer to be super cautious than to spend a few days in bed, that goes for any illness like the flu...I can't risk it as my illnesses last forever lol..

Also, this sounds scary and controlling but I don't think we emets can just 'switch off' our emet heads....I have times when I realise it isn't on my mind anymore and even on those days if I use a bathroom at university I'm like 'Hmmmm who's been in here!'...
It's the worst time to be carefree but I've felt ALOT more chill about it for the past few weeks and I haven't gotten s*... Usually I wake up at 3/4am panicking that someone in my house will get sick and somehow it's vanished, I just have the thought before I sleep and I dream nice things and WAKE at a decent hour.

Being carefree won't make you sick but I think youre being rational cos it means we drop the 'extra carefulness' that really does go a long way in terms of germ spreading... I haven't flushed any chains with my foot recently and I have been OK so far!!

[Malalcala]

I don't think this is true at all!! Of course the point of recovery would be that even if you DID get sick more often it wouldn't be a source of anxiety (personally if I could get to that place in recovery it would absolutely be worth a few extra stomach viruses in my lifetime).

But I really don't believe that our willpower or our emet habits are as powerful/useful as we think they are... For myself, when I was at my lowest point with this phobia I would get sick every 5 years or so and that hasn't changed as I have moved closer to "recovery". I think a lot of what makes people more prone to catching a virus is totally outside of our control i.e.: genetics, immune components, environmental factors. Many, many people hardly ever vomit and take no extra precautions or spend any time worrying about it.

I think that in many ways recovery is about letting go of the idea that we even have control over getting sick and thereby not allowing the phobia to control us!!
I think its pretty awesome that you are taking steps to fight this demon & I wish you the very best!

[Afdpt]

Like Malacala said, you want to shift your focus away from not getting sick and instead on how it's not big deal if you do get sick. Recovery is when you accept that you may get sick on any given day, but it doesn't matter, and it doesn't instill fear. For me, it was deciding that I would rather have a stomach bug every single year but live each day care-free then to stress every single day of my life and then still get sick every few years anyway.

I used to just wish and hope that my phobia was going to go away on it's own some day. The severity would increase and decrease at times. When it was low I would think I was getting better, but I wasn't. The idea of getting sick still scared me even if it didn't consume my every thought.

Then it occurred to me that I have to stop being afraid of getting sick, not figuring out how to prevent myself getting sick. You can never guarantee that you won't get sick. No matter what, no matter how careful you are - you're still going to be at risk and you're almost certainly still going to get sick here and there. No matter what precautions you take to try to make yourself feel better, at the back of your mind you still know that you can't make guarantees. That's part of the reason it doesn't work to just hide from it, you're encouraging the fear, you're justifying it. You're telling your mind that being sick is something to be afraid of.

You want to work (whether on your own or with a therapist) on convincing your brain that it doesn't matter if you get sick. Until you can think to yourself, "maybe I'll get sick - so what?" then you're still struggling. So my advice would be to work on that with every bit of strength you have. Then you won't care about getting lax on your rituals/precautions because you'll know that it doesn't matter if you get sick because you'll also get better again. Also - giving up your rituals/precautions and will power to not get sick is the only way to stop relying on them (if that makes sense.) So what are the things you do to keep yourself "safe?" You have to stop doing them one by one to prove to yourself that they're unnecessary. Each time that you do something out of your comfort zone and still don't get sick is going to help convince your mind that the safety precautions you feel you need don't actually matter that much at all.

It sounds like you're in a pretty good place with your phobia right now. You sound like you're about where I was last spring right before I started working hard on stopping the fear. I've come so far in just 2 seasons and have full confidence you can too! If there is any way I can help you, please let me know. You can message me any time!