I'm new - Just hoping for support

[Erenkma]

Hello

I hope I don't bother anyone here, but I have a few requests that I really hope can be respected.

I'm sorry but I have to ask that anyone that wants to reply to me by telling me horror stories about what is going on around them currently and scaring them, please don't. I am afraid enough and just telling me detailed stories about things going on will scare me more. Please Please don't go out of your way to scare me - I wouldn't do it to you. The reason I ask this is because I tried coming to one of these forums many years ago and ended up having a couple of people jump on me right away telling me all about how they were sick and it wasn't so bad and they survived and so on... and another that started telling me that I should cause myself to go through what I fear as much as possible to get over it - that person obviously didn't understand what it was like being an E.

That is my plea for understanding. And like I said, I hope I didn't anger or even provoke anyone into wanting to jump on me.

So here I am online again, trying to find some kind of hope for my intense phobia. I'm an E - always have been. I'm not sure why it started or when, and to be honest, I don't want to know. I'm an E and that is just how I am. I'm recently married and hope my husband will understand. I hope we never have to face my E head on, but life is life. I just hope he doesn't leave me when he finds out how much of a basket case I can become when my fear takes over.

I won't talk about what scares me - I can't. All I will say is that for me, it is somewhat seasonal. I am pretty much only afraid it is is a contagious - you know - the big NV. Six months out of the year I am fine and live my life like everyone else does. The other six, I avoid watching the news and carry the remote around everywhere so I can mute at any moment when news ads pop on. For me, ignorance is bliss and you never know when they might start talking about something horrifying.

A few days ago I stepped away from the remote and BOOM wouldn't you know it - that one minute had a news ad pop on talking about - to me - a true living nightmare happening about twenty miles away from me. I shut down for two days and am still freaking out. I'm trying to hide my fear as much as I can from my husband, but I'm terrified of him only because he goes out to work everyday and he isn't an E and he will live his life as he does (although he washes his hands as often as he is near a sink because he wants me to stay safe and happy). I still fear him - and will for another 3 weeks or so until I feel I no longer need to be as afraid as I am of what has happened out there TOO close to where I am.

I know what I fear is out there - and a lot of it happens and I don't even know about it - I know it's just life and reality and all that - but I can't control my brain chemistry. I started going to phychiatrists at the age of 22 - I'm 46 now. I've been to my area's best. I've been through all the therapies, taken all the drugs, and guess what ... I'm still an E. As all of we E's know, this one can't be cured. It's not looking at a picture of a spider. It's not getting on an airplane or clinging to the wall of a balcony in a skyscraper. This one is with us for life. And yes,ten years ago I had to go through what I fear due to alcohol and for one moment afterward I thought I was cured, but another moment later, my fear was back. This one is incurable. I will never be free of this fear and I accept that. I've learned how to live my life with it and to avoid what I fear. But now I am married and want to stay married. I can't huddle in a corner and stop living for a week here and a week there anymore.

So my question to any fellow E's out there is - how do you cope? When you hear something on the news that scares you - how do you cope. Please don't tell me about how you cope when it is in your own home, or in you - I'm terrified enough right now without having to hear something that will make me feel like I will literally die of fear please. And I beg of you please don't tell me to go out there and catch it on purpose so I can be cured - please have a heart. Just saying that out loud scared the heck out of me. So I am asking a hypothetical question for hypothetical answers, using delicate language, because it is the only way I can comfortably.


I am not an extreme case - but when I'm scared...I'm REALLY REALLY UBER scared. And because I am scared right now, I have the feeling I won't be in this forum for long before someone pushes my fear beyond what I can deal with and I'll run away. It's what I do.


I hope for support and maybe a useful mental tool or two - but realistically - I don't think there is much of that hope I hope for.

I wish you all a very nice, fear-free day.

Thank you for taking the time.

R

[Erenkma]

I think I need to add:

Please don't be mad at me if I can't read your posts when you are afraid of what is going on. I guess I'm more of an extreme case than I thought. Just a quick scan of the topic titles and I'm out of my mind scared - WOW, it's so out there and looming. I feel like we are all doomed. I'm doomed. I had the freeling I wouldn't last long here. I'm afraid to even check back to see if anyone replies. I think I will regret having posted at all.

All I can say is that I hope that all of you that are scared right now find relief from your fear very VERY soon. I know how terrible it is to be so afraid. I wish you well - I really do. Stay safe and I hope happiness returns to you.

But again, if you don't have anything positive and hopeful to offer me, please just ignore me. I'm not being snippy, I'm just so frightened it's crazy. I hate life and living.

[Erenkma]

Me again. I came in to try and delete my thread but can't find how to do that. I can't be here. I'm sorry to have littered up this board. I hope the administrators can find this thread quickly and get rid of it.

Sorry to have bothered. I guess my way of doing things was the best for me. Avoid avoid avoid and if frightened or threatened, run and hide.

I wish for a vaccine for the NV someday, so we may all relax a little. Sorry again to post in your board.

[hairyfairy]

I know what you mean about people saying "it wasn`t so bad", that doesn`t help me either because they sound as if they want us to go off & buy some Ipecac & take it, so we won`t be phobic anymore. That certainly would`nt work for me, & it would probably make me feel a lot worse about vting. The only thing I really wish is that there was no such thing as v!

[Jess13]

Hi it is si hard for us not to run and hide. The fear can be so overwelming. I have gotten alot better after i got married. The more support you have the better you can do. After i had my son i got even better. I watch him learning and playing without a care in the world and i want to be like that. He inspires me to do better. When he gets sick i do the best i can. And my best keeps getting better. Im not cured but i cope. I still worry but not as much. I guess what im trying to say is there is hope for us. Im def proof of that. Things happen for a reason. My husband and son were sent to save me. Theropy didnt help me much. I realized i wanted to live my life and not miss it. Hold on to your hope sometimes its all we have

[Erenkma]

It's been a year since I posted that up there - I was in some pretty bad shape. I got through that - i'm still here. I'm going through another rough patch. What I fear hasn't come to invade my home. It hasn't since December 14, 1997 - and the person (ex-husband) that brought it home was because he did something so unbelievably stupid, I think he actually did it to spite me. He took a lunch from someone at work that didn't want it because she had nv the day before and still wasn't feeling well. Suffice it to say...17 hours later I feared him more than I have ever feared anything in my life. I ran. I spent a week in an upstairs spare room, with no heat and no furniture. I refused to come down, ate only maybe two bowls of cereal in five days, and did nothing but count. I have this thing now that I count and 17 seems to be the number. And then 24 of symptoms. And then 5 days of contagion. So 6 days after, I can put on my gloves, paper gown, and mask and start hosing down my house with bleach/water.

I never trusted him again and that lack of trust and extremely hurt feelings led to our divorce in 2009. He knew I was an extreme emetophobe but did what he did anyway, and then when the horror inevitably happened, he felt it was necessary to announce every detail loudly from the washroom - like it was a hockey game or something. He then seemed to derive pleasure in telling me every hour by shouting up the stairs. He was a selfish and cruel man - I don't know why but it doesn't matter now. He made an already terrible problem for me much worse.

I am mentally ill - I know that. I accept who I am now and I even think it is OK for me to be the way I am. But because of what that ex did to me, I am absolutely petrified of my new husband; a man that would take a bullet for me. He is the most loving person I've ever known and he treats me like a princess. I love him so much and I am so afraid of losing him. If he - lord forbid - ever becomes unlucky enough to get nv, I don't know what I will do. I'll run. I'll head upstairs in this new house he just bought for me and when I come down, will he hate me? I will be so ashamed of how I uncontrollably react.

But for today, I think I'm doing pretty good. In the last year I've actually become able to read about it. that is something I could never do before. I can look at the words. And I am almost numb to the useless media hype - it's learning that it is near that I can't handle.

Heart is pounding a little, but I'm good. I'm hanging on. And what is most amazing...I'm here in this forum and I'm OK.

[Grace47]

It actually makes me feel a little better to see someone my own age with it still. I go through cycles with this. It's been worse for me this year than some others. However, I know that will change again. When the news became plastered with the latest sv news, I turned it off and came here. Best decision I ever made. It also helped me when Sage (a recovered E and a psychologist) said that sv was not the worst thing in the world there were things much worse. This is so true. The worst thing in the world IMO is to be one of the Sandy Hill parents or the mother of that little boy trapped in a bunker with a crazy man for a week. I'm here trying not to scare myself with that news either. The thing is this site is what you make it. If panic posts scare you, don't read them. I usually don't. Feel out for yourself what's best for your recovery. You may never be entirely free of fear. However, you can get out of your house and enjoy your life a little more. I think you need to acknowledge a few major successes. A) you left a man who thought it was funny to scare you even if it harmed himself (which is just stupid, btw) and B) you got out and met a better man in spite of emet. You have things you have done to be proud of. You haven't been cowering in your room all the time.

[Erenkma]

Thank you Grace. You offer some very motivational words and I so very much appreciate that.

[Erenkma]

I am leaving this forum because I tried to post some very useful information for emets: I had undeniable proof of how the media can freely air/publish inaccurate and incorrect information; info that can scare the heebees out of us. I linked to an article that displayed just how deceiving what they say can be. My post did not make it on the board and I can’t be here knowing that something that would help everyone here to relax a little won’t be posted because the untruths I found and exposed on a huge site can come back to bite this board – I guess.
All I suppose I will be allowed to say here is that much of the media has overblown this season of NV by at least 50%. Activity is slightly elevated this year yes, but not at all out of the what is considered normal. Don’t be afraid of some of the numbers you may read or hear about – in a lot of cases those numbers are counts of media coverage stories and 50% of those stories aren’t reporting actual outbreaks, but are mostly just informative. News is news, bad news is better; that is how the media works and they have saturated the internet, our lives, and our realities. NV is no more prevalent now than it was five years ago – ten years ago – twenty years ago. The media IS and the worse the media gets, the worse they will make NV out to be.
I wish you all the best. I’m so sorry I wasn’t allowed to post something I really thought would help you. This post will probably be stifled as well. So be it and so long.

[Grace47]

Sometimes there is a glitch in the system which makes it so you can't post a thread. However, it usually clears up the next time you post. I'm not sure what happened here, but it has happened to me as well.

[spilled_milk]

Hey erenkma, the posts are not screened before they show up on the board. I for one would have loved to read your information, and I'm sure others would have found it useful too. Like Grace said, there is a glitch on the board that occasionally makes your post not show up, but if you post it again I'm sure it will.