Emetophobia is wrecking my life.

[beezus]

I turned down a date because the man touched the shelves at his workplace and then touched his mouth. All I could think of was that the next time he licked his lips, he'd be ingesting god-knows-whatever was on those boxes and blister packaged merchandise. Viruses. Bacteria. And, if I accept his offer, he might end up kissing me. When I was married, I refused to kiss my husband after he gave me the gastric flu.

Worst of all, my son offers me food sometimes and I can't eat it because his sweet, grubby little hands have touched it. He has low blood sugar, so his lips get white similar to when he's about to be sick.. I never know when he's really ill, so I find myself asking him 10 times a day "How's your tummy? Are you sick? You'll tell me if you're feeling poorly, right?". It makes him nervous. I mean, the boy is 6 years old and he deserves normalcy. But the words just come flying out of my mouth at times when he needs support rather than to have an earful of my neuroses.

It's gotten out of hand since my ex husband died back in September. The hand washing until they crack and bleed. Peel. But, here in TN, it's difficult to find a therapist dealing in emet. I've tried bibliotherapy, exposure therapy (I have two children. Ha!), and Zoloft (among other things).

It just seems impossible to look at somebody, anybody, in a normal or rational light anymore. I look at them like they are a viral bombs just waiting to go off and give me the cooties!

Not sure if this is posted in the correct section. Thanks.

[elizam]

It's hard, isn't it? I worry about getting germs from my husband and children too. Kissing my husband doesn't bother me for some reason, but I have never been willing to eat or drink after my children. No way. Luckily they are all understanding of my germ-o-phobe tendencies. I joke about it with them. They don't know about my emet, though. I've never told anyone outside of this forum about it. They just think I'm afraid of germs in general.

Having someone die is traumatic so it's no surprise that your emet got worse after experiencing that.

I used to bother my kids with "Are you okay? Do you feel alright?" when they were younger, but I managed to stop myself from doing that because I didn't want to pass this phobia on to them. It wasn't easy, though. I'm still inclined to question them about how they're feeling, but I try to just keep quiet about it as much as possible.