In an earlier post (the poll for 'How long has it been for everyone?') I wrote this at the bottom of all the comments. I wanted to copy and paste it in a new post just in case people have stopped reading the other poll because it got quite lengthy. Incidentally, the number of people that have responded is amazing (to the poll 'How long has it been for everyone?' But I wanted to just add these words. Hopefully, they will help. If you have no time, please bookmark it and come back and read it. If you've already read this on the other poll, then you've already read it. But here goes....
Could it be that it is the FEAR we are fearing and not the actual act itself? Could it be a control issue, rather than the act itself? Are we identifying the ugly feeling of the 'thought' of it to the worst thing ever, to the thought that it is a weakness? In other words, think about it this way..... When you are ill with it, you are scared and it feels disgusting. Somewhere along the way, you trained yourself to think (and subconsciously remember) that the feeling that comes along with it is lack of control (to stop it), ugly, gross, scary, and nerve wracking. All of those negative feelings are 'posted' to the 'instance' of getting sick. We fear the fear of it. Essentially, we are our own worst enemies. **IS IT POSSIBLE THAT WE DO NOT FEAR THE ACT ITSELF, BUT RATHER WE FEAR WHAT WE HAVE TOLD OURSELVES ABOUT THE ACT? Hmmmm.... food for thought? And why does it get worse?? Possibly because let's say that you 'feared it like the plague' one year when you heard a lot about people getting ill with the virus. You were in fear constantly of getting. You became obsessive about washing yur hands, not getting too close to people, etc. You were creating a space in your mind (not even realizing it) for the newly grown fear. You created a habitat for the fear to live in, right? You even prepped yourself by going out and buying hand sanitizer, Lysol, anti-bacterial soaps (cause God forbid regular soap isn't good enough, right???) and then as you wer putting mental energy into this, you were allowing the habitat in your mind to enlarge the more thought you put into it. Why wouldn't it get worse and worse the more you heard about it? It scared you more, and your mind became used to that scared feeling. It became habit. You got used to the fear because you gave it a home in your mind, again, not even realizing it..... so, henceforth, you gave it power to dominate your thoughts and feelings.... and now you're angry, and you just want it to go away, right??? So what do you do??? First, give yourself a chance to figure out if something in your earlier years made you fear the lack of control? Did someone treat you like crap and scare you and you associated the feeling of 'gross, ugly, scary, mean and uncontrollable' to the event or person? Look at those words again that I just wrote. Think about it.... did something or someone make you feel those things as a kid? Did you somehow learn it? What if you can't remember? What if you have no idea? What if you don't want to go back and face whatever that is that could be responsible for your fear of lack of control? What if you don't believe in any of these things anyway and think it's all crap? And what if you're just confused and scared and wanna make it go away?? What do you do???
You stand up and you fight against it and you kick it out of your mind. FORCE it to leave! ALLOW yourself to make the DECISION to punish this nasty 'thing' called a 'fear'. Realize that you unknowingly put it there, but it CAN be removed. You have all the tools necessary to DEFY it (ie: charcoal tablets, stomach meds, etc) And once you got sick, and it may have been scary, but it doesn't need to CONTROL you. You fear the fear. You fear what you'v
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