Does anyone else *think* like this?

[madisonsmom]

My husband and I had went out to dinner tonight. My aunt volunteered to keep my kids so we could go. We never get to go out by ourselves. Anyway, my husband wanted to go to Red Lobster...for some reason I really wasnt hungry. I swear I think I am becoming agorophobic (afraid to leave my house).


Well I dropped Madison off at my aunts...Conner wanted to go over my mother in laws. I was worried to drop him off for fear someone was sick over there[img]smileys/smilies_05.gif[/img]. We get to the restaurant and have to wait like 10 minutes. I hate sitting in there because I wonder if anyone has sat there that has been sick. We get a table and I am wondering "I hope the people before us were not sick" UGH! I hate this sh*t. I am sitting there thinking "I hope the employees are all in good health, especially the ones handling my food." I dont say any of this to my husband because he would really think I was pathetic.


I hate this because it is my main focus. I know "it" is out there making people sick and I want to avoid it at all cost. This phobia really consumes a lot of my energy, thinking, time............I am really going to get help for it. It affects me everyday unless I am home and dont go anywhere.


I am constantly faced with this fear whenever I have to leave my house. When I go to work (of course, I am a nurse. Boy, I am in a bad field huh?)when I go to the grocery store (which I actually like to do), when I go to the doctor, when I take my kids to the doctor. When Madison was sick the doctor asked me if I wanted to take her to the hospital...I said "Not really unless you think its necessary and she said no" This was when she was running this fever with no symptoms. The hospital is the LAST place I want to go!


Sorry...had to get that out[img]smileys/smilies_06.gif[/img] It is an awful fear...

[jennyleigh1975]

I think the same things. I am also eyeing everyone to try and see if they look sick to me or not. I wouldnt ever tell my hubby some of the thoughts that run through my head!!

[mitch4133]

I think the same way too!! You are not alone. In fact I haven't eaten out in a resturant in almost a year. I just don't even bother because I become so filled with anxiety after that it just ruins the rest of the night. I used to eat "safe" foods from resturants, but now I think nothing is safe if someone could touch it, so I don't eat out. I hate it!!

[shiva]

I do all that stuff as well. I even wipe my silverware off with a wipee and ask for a straw so that I don't have to put my mouth on the glass.


Today my dad is coming to have lunch with me since he will be in town and I haven't eaten out in so long that I am very nervous about it. We are going to a deli in the plaza that I work and I have already started with the.. "I hope that whoever cut up the lettuce and stuff was or is not sick and I hope they washed it all off as good as they are supposed to."


I think that it is only natural that we think this way. Afterall, we are only trying to protect ourselves from what bothers us most. It is funny, though that no one else worries about this stuff and it does not seem that the rest of the world is any more sick any more often than we are


It will be nice when the day comes where I will go to the store and not wipe off the handle on the shopping cart or go out to eat without worrying myself to death about kitchen cleanliness/ cross contamination/ and kitchen help hygeine


So trust me when I say that you are not alone at all on this one. What does everyone think? I know that a lot of us feel that there is an element of control issues to this illness that we have. Doesn't it seem though sometimes that with all of the things that we go out of our way to do to aviod being sick, even though we feel like what we do is controlling our emet, it's still like our emet is controlling us.


I say we all just say F&*%@it and live like normal people and see what happens Yeah, right... Like I have that in me right now.. But, seriously, do you think that would help us??? You know, just to say.. "Whatever will be will be" and stop worrying ourselves to death? Seems to me that either way we still have worry... ARGH!!!!!!!!!

[matmysunshine]

I am right with you, last night for the first time I had a panic attack in a resturant, it seemed that the smell of the bar on the outside just made my stomach turn, I tried to ignore it and talk to my husband, but then it started, the what if i get sick thought, and then I startedgetting all sweaty, and shaking.. it lasted maybe 4 to 5 min if that. But i have never been that way. I started to talk about my son and the how happy I was that his birthday is today and I calmed down. Today I still feel sicky, and am really concerned and scared. I have never been this way, I feel like I will lose control and go nuts.. What a night.. Christy

[SimplyMe]

I do that too. It sucks because you go out w/ nonemets who don't even think about it! They don't even wash their hands before eating! They figure they didn't "touch anything" not thinking of the door, the menu etc while we sit there and worry rather than enjoy.


As far as being a nurse i bet you're a wonderful and compassionate nurse which is what sick people need. If it makes you feel better both my grandmothers were nurses and so is my Mom and my Mom told me that she had asked her Mom how come she doesn't get sick and her Mom used to say that God takes care of those who take care of others.

[japa]

Well, I am going to share how things are with me. I do fear myself getting sick, and I am too superstitious to say how many years it has been since I have been. It was when I was a very young child, and now I am almost 33. I freak out if anyone I live with has any SV because of my fear of catching it. Right now I live alone and that makes things easier for me.


However, I eat out ALL THE TIME. I wash my hands before I eat, but I will touch the menu and all of that and still eat without washing again. I don't monitor what I eat. I really don't think much about it. The reason that I am posting about this is to see if it would alleviate anyone's fears of monitoring their food and not eating at restaurants and so on because I don't do it, and I haven't V in such a long time.

[madisonsmom]

Japa ~


How do you do it? How do you not get sick. I take it you dont have kids and you live alone.

[japa]

Hmmm... well my living situation has changed over the years. But no, I don't have kids, so that definitely helps.


Of course, I grew up with my sister and parents and even lived there for a while when I was an adult. My mother hada couple of SV over the years, but I just never caught them. She had a different bathroom, so that probably helped. Once my sister had a bad SV, but I only got D from that. We did share the same bathroom. I lived with my brother-in-law and sister for two years, and my brother-in-law hadat least twoSV's. But again he had a separate bathroom that he shared with my sister. I am starting to think as I am writing this that a different bathroom for the sick person helps.


I lived in a 4 bedroom apartment with 3 roommates for 3 years while I got my Master's degree in English Lit. I don't remember any SV's in the house. One roomie V from drinking, but that didn't bother me because it wasn't contagious. Same thing with another roommate. He would V at least once a week due to nerves, and I am not even kidding. I would get a little nervous hearing it, but again, I knew it wasn't contagious.


Since 2003, I have lived alone, so I don't have to worry about any sick roommates, which is good. I am a doctoral student in an English program, so I do hang out on a college campus all the time. During and after my Master's degree, I taught writing classes, so I was in contact with a lot of students. One semester I had over 100 students spread out among 6 different classes. One of the best is when they come up right to your face and say, "I was throwing up last night, so I couldn't do my assignment" or some variation of that. Of course, you never know when they are making that up to get out of the assignment.


Well, I guess that you have gotten my life story, huh? [img]smileys/smilies_10.gif[/img]And I still haven't answered the question of how I don't get sick because there is really nothing in particular that I do to avoid it except trying to avoid a sick person in my house as much as possible, which doesn't really apply right now. This could get me wondering quite a bit ... Gosh, I don't know. But one way that I was hoping it could make people feel better is that even if we were to become less diligent in some of the protective measures we take, it wouldn't mean that we would necessarily get sick.


I guess that I am really wondering the same thing about you. You are a nurse. How can you ever handle having a patient who would V? I could never be a nurse. I would freak out so badly. I wonder how you don't get sick much since you are a nurse.

[2jo2]

This is what my life is like every day. I always say that every single decision I make, everything I do, I think of emet. I think about the people at the restaurant, the people who opened the door before me, everyone, everywhere. I have OCD and luckily I'm able to control it to a degree with meds, but it's a work in progress. Just know that you are NOT alone in thinking this way.