Having to deal with this irrational fear has left me with many, many thoughts about the experience. I will attempt to list them over time in categorized bullet format to help raise awareness to the disorder and draw parallels to your own experiences. My hope is that you may be able to see something from my experiences that will resonate with you and help you to understand that I personally have become able to manage my Emetophobia. How I have managed to reach a comfortable part of my life will come in a later postings.

• It Sucks!
• At its apex it completely consumed my thought process 24/7.
• It made me extremely cautious about everything that I would put into my body:

• Does the food smell right.
• Does it look right.
• Does it taste right.
• Is it the right temperature.
• Has it been cooked long enough.
• Has it been sitting out too long or is it too warm.
• Was it in the car too long on the way back from the store.
• Has someone else touched it.
• Has it been in the refrigerator too long.
• Has the expiration date passed.
• Was it food from a buffet.
• Did someone take a bite or drink from it before me.
• Has it been in a bowl where anyone can touch it.

• I would wash my hands a lot and use hand sanitizers in between the hand washings for insurance.
• I would also throw out things close to or on the date of expiration, something I still do today.
• I wouldn’t and still limit my touching of various public things in my life:

• Public door knobs
• Escalator handles
• Elevator buttons
• Water fountains
• Food set out to be sampled
• Public toilets
• Public seats especially the arm rails
• Handles on people movers
• Handrails in general
• Public phones or electronic equipment
• Restaurant Menus (This one is hard to avoid)

• I try my best to limit human contact with strangers without being offensive, in my line of work it can be difficult to not shake someones hand when meeting them.
• You will avoid places that people may be ill or have the potential to become ill

• Hospitals
• Clinics
• Theme parks where there are lots of children and stomach churning rides
• Work or social events if someone you know has a bug, etc.
• Deep Sea Fishing
• Cruises, mainly because of sea sickness and norovirus outbreaks –
  • I have a theory, just a theory, about norovirus and moisture laden environments, I will write some on that later….
• Flying as a passenger, this was big one for me since I am a licensed private pilot and absolutely love flying.

As always, hang in there it does get better! More to follow…..

—- Rich