Hi everyone! I guess you can say I am new here, although I have been reading on and off since last summer. My name is Alexis and I live 20 minutes outside of Manhattan in the lovely state of New Jersey (haha). Cannot wait to get out of here, as I've lived here my whole live and hope that I can sooner than later relocate to the west coast. I love warm weather, baseball (Yankees! - but I follow it all) trying to learn crochet (so I can make cool scarves), belly dance, fashion blogs, 90s hiphop/R&B (although I do like something from all genres), and trying to learn how to cook (oddly enough with this phobia, I will eat/try almost anything. )

Emetophobically speaking, I've been afraid ever since I can remember...and I haven't actually been ill since the early 80s. Oddly enough, I can't remember it that well, despite my near photographic memory. Both my mother and younger sister have this fear to some degree, but they drink alcohol and don't avoid things in life. I despise alcohol and I rarely do bars or parties. But I assure you I am still a good time

This phobia has changed with me throughout life. Like some of you here, there were points where I always felt ill, had panic attacks, anxiety, never wanted to leave the house, eat, you name it. Stayed home from school, jobs, got fired. The whole nine yards. Over time, it became less about me and more about everyone else! I can pretty much trust myself at this point, but at times I live in fear of being out in the world and seeing *it* or having someone else do it. My friends all know about this thing I have, and it's kind of a little joke between us...so they know they need to calm me down, take me away, or perform CPR (haha) if God forbid an unfortunate event happens in my presence.

I found this site last summer while my mind was racing...up late Googling in OCD fashion. I was about to take a plane trip and my latest hang up is someone being ill near me or ON me. Although I was looking for horror stories to torture myself, I wound up on here and found someone else discussing a similar fear. Being that I have a future trip hopefully coming up, I decided I should probably just join and talk openly here with you guys because I can feel those crazy thoughts creeping back again!

I look forward to sharing and reading here. Hopefully we will all come away with something that can help us.