So ridiculous (rant, nothing graphic)

[joubes]

Thank you for your support. Her and I had a long conversation about this whole thing last week. It seems like she's just finding out how much it affects me.

As anyone on this forum knows, explaining emetophobia (or any phobia) to someone not suffering from it isn't easy. After all, it makes NO SENSE, even to emets! Half of what I was telling her made no sense, even to me, so I couldn't possibly expect her to comprehend it all. My best attempt was to take her back to specific events that she was present for where emet had affected me in some form, and describe to her exactly what I was experiencing. She quickly realized that what she actually saw was only a small part of what was going on in my head. The last time I had a bad panic attack was on her birthday last year. She had too much to drink and the drive home from the bar took about 1.5 hours when it usually takes 25 minutes. I was either roadside, or driving very slowly so I could stop quickly, as I needed to over a dozen times. She had a hard time listening to exactly what I was going through at each stage of the evening, even before the car ride home. The worst part of the conversation was when I looked her straight in the eyes and told her that my biggest fear is actually seeing her v*. Not the v* itself, but the fact that, in a split second, despite of how hopelessly in love with her I am, my brain could make me want to be as far away from her as possible for an unknown period of time. It may be minutes, it may be days. I think both of us were on the verge of tears as that sunk in. To this day, it is the single most terrifying thought I've come across in my entire life.

Again, it seems like something hit her when she saw my reaction Wednesday night. I do not want her to feel bad for me, or feel like she has to take precautions around me because of it. I'm the one that's done my best to hide this from her for so long, which after living together this long, it seems like quite a feat. Not sure if it's a good one or not. She knew early on that I had issues with v*, and she has been continuously understanding about it. But the more she discovers, the more she wants to know. I can't deny her that, especially when it's done out of such a caring heart.

I ended up buying Rob Kelly's book this weekend. I need to do something about this before I have kids. I cannot possibly have this get in the way of me being a good father. I've only been proactive about it for a very short amount of time, because like anything that's been part of your life for 20+ years, you accept it. After discovering the amount of support out there for it and the fact that there's hope in getting rid of it, my outlook changed a bit to say the least.