Hi there. It's a great relief to find this site, just to know that there are others out there like me...even though acknowledging the fear to this level is enough to make me a little uneasy.

I work at a restaurant, and one of my guests today came out of the men's room and proceeded to describe, in graphic detail, that there was v* in one of the stalls and asked if we could get someone to clean it up. Reasonable behavior, I know, but dear god it freaked me out. I was trying not to breathe for the entire rest of my shift, terrified that the air was contaminated.

This is really not that unusual an occurrence, and didn't motivate me to seek help at all on its own. But then, later this evening, I was reading a really moving article about a woman with PTSD who had successfully gone through therapy and had a much improved quality of life without the constant anxiety. That, plus the incident today, prompted a quick Google search. And here I am.

Many of the symptoms I'm reading about here are very familiar. However, I do seem to have one particular quirk I haven't seen mentioned yet. I have absolutely no problem eating out, possibly because I've worked in restaurants for almost ten years now. My fear is my own cooking. I very, very rarely buy meat and cook it myself - like, maybe once or twice a year. I'm terrified that I'll cook it wrong and make myself sick. And because I overcompensate so much, it ends up way overdone and tasteless. I really wish I could get over this...anyone else do the same thing?