Emetaphobia

Recently, I’ve been struggling a ton with what I eat/put into my body? I’m a first year college student with a few different health issues (including IBS), and lately it’s been hard for me to find food on campus that doesn’t upset my stomach. I also have pretty severe emetophobia, and feel extremely anxious when I feel sick. The ironic thing is that being anxious makes me feel even worse, so I end up sticking myself in an impossible loophole. My OCD has taken hold of these fears over the past few months, and it’s been such a struggle. Especially since people have been getting food poisoning from various dining halls on my campus lately. My OCD has gotten so bad that sometimes I’m too afraid to eat food other than what I buy myself. I feel so trapped. I don’t want my OCD to affect my physical health or prevent me from eating, bc I love eating!! It’s the fear of getting sick that’s the problem. And it’s even harder when everything is so unfamiliar. Just wondering if anyone could relate. Advice is appreciated!

Idk whats going on…my mental state hasnt been great these past two weeks. My eating is being affected in a neg way due to transition between therapists, school, and ignoring my sexuality….Ive been taking several different kinds of quizzes over the past week regarding mental health and ED and i realized that if i dont eat enough to feel full i’ll end up sick or worse dead. It doesn’t help that i also just started my period. And i just woke up in the middle of the night with food, hydration, and possibly not waking up in mind. And tried going back to sleep but then i realized that I might actually have a problem on my hands and that jolted me awake. Now im scared of sleeping and not making it through the night….i could easily get up and make myself an oatmeal even though im not hungry atm, but dont wanna wake family that are sleeping in the living room. Im scared of dropping more weight than I already have been and having my nutritionist intervene…. Im realizing that im fucking myself up from not eating well and being too picky and i wanna slap a bandaid on it and just eat everything to hopefully gain some weight before my next nutrition appt. I’m just scared of things getting worse….is this part of OCD or is it just me just plain out ignoring my body cos in feeling like it??? Idk what to believe about myself anymore….

This has recently developed into something much bigger than it originally was. When this past winter season started, i noticed more people were getting the stomach bug than usual. I was fine at first, until I was noticing almost one person in every class was saying they recently had it. I researched about it, and I found what I was looking for unfortunately. Norovirus cases were surging across the U.S because of a new strain of NoV that recently had been spreading. This immediately altered my way of thinking. Everywhere I went, I would be overly cautious of what’s around me and whose around me. The first obsessive compulsive problem I had was that I couldn’t eat at lunch anymore unless I washed my hands. One time, I didn’t have an option to wash my hands, so I didn’t eat lunch. That’s when I knew it was interfering with my daily life, and it was becoming a serious issue. There was another time where some guy threw up near me in the hallway trash can. My mind was spiraling. all. day. long. It felt like it was consuming me alive. Not a minute would go by where I wouldn’t think about it, and the high possibility of me catching this virus. There’s been so many other scenarios where I feel myself losing it. I’m not the best of explaining in detail how my mind feels when it spirals, but the best thing I could say is that I could feel myself slowly losing my mind. It takes over my life. I HAVE to act on my compulsive acts, if not, i’ll have these obsessive thoughts until it consumes me whole. I’ve had nervous breakdowns, panic attacks, anxiety attacks, insomnia, and it almost feels like it’s causing me to have an eating disorder. Most recently, I went to use the bathroom and saw what looked like puke on the toilet seat. I was already using it, so I just finished my buisness and rushed out there asap. I figured, if I fasted for two days, what’s there to puke if I do catch NoV? So, I did. I missed school because on the second day of fasting, I became very dehydrated. I was weak, and couldn’t move. I realized what this all rooted back to. That’s when I knew I needed help.