"I mean, no one likes being sick."

My best friends for the last week.

**Trigger Warning: Stomach Sickness and Anxiety**

This past week has been closely related to my worst nightmare. I know I'm going to sound very dramatic here and many of you probably think I'm over exaggerating but please take some time to read this post before assuming that I'm trying to be funny or attention-seeking (all things I've been called regarding this topic).

I have Emetophobia. Emetophobia is the fear of vomit or vomiting. I also want to make sure I disclose the definition of phobia. A phobia is a "marked fear or anxiety about a specific object or situation" (definition provided in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition: DSM-5). The main thing to remember about phobias is that they are often irrational and, in my case, lack some logical connections. Commonly associated with a phobia is OCD as the person suffering with a phobia can develop compulsive behaviors in order to ease their anxiety or in my case "prevent" the object or situation from occurring at all. I know...it's a lot.

Having said all of that, let's dive into what the last week of my life has looked like from my perspective. This is some dramatic YouTuber storytime level stuff.

Sunday afternoon, my husband and I went to go visit my sister and brother-in-law. They had been dealing with what they assumed to be food poisoning that day and needed some help taking care of their 4 month old baby (my nephew). My mom had been there all day so we decided to stop by to check up and see if we could help. I was extremely nervous about this because of my emetophobia but since it was just food poisoning and my sister said she was feeling much better by that time, I figured I could suck it up to be a good sister and aunt. Upon walking into their house, I got very distracted by things that I believe people without my phobia probably didn't notice or think much of. The bowl on my brother in law's night stand and thinking to myself "I hope they don't plan to use that ever again", for example. Side note: The last time I got sick was October 2016. I took a trash can with my to the ER and I told my husband we were throwing that trash can away. A TRASH can.

Monday morning, I woke up feeling like I was catching a cold which was very inconvenient since I've been job hunting and wanted to be 100% for interviews should they occur. It was fine though, colds don't really bother me that much except that they make me super tired. HOWEVER, Tuesday morning was when everything really shifted. (My heart is pounding and I'm shaking just writing this by the way.) Tuesday morning, my mom told me that she had caught whatever my sister and brother in law had, that it must not have been food poisoning, and that she was going to stay in bed. My anxiety shot through the roof. I had an errand to run that day and I purposefully took my time even though I still had my cold symptoms. I also bought Lysol spray and hand sanitizer (see photo above). When I got home, my dad also got sick which makes sense since he was around my mom. This told me that whatever this was is super contagious and I freaked out. I grabbed all my sanitizing stuff, came upstairs to my room and had my first full-on panic attack I had had in a while. My anxiety is usually at a constant, semi-manageable level but this was a can't breathe, wash my hands until their raw, crying uncontrollably attack.

Me laying on the couch all sickly snuggling with my dog.

I managed to hang out downstairs in the living room on Tuesday and Wednesday, spraying myself, my spot on the couch, my blanket, and everything around my with Lysol spray about every 10 minutes (not exaggerating), wiping the remote with a Lysol wipe every time before and after I touched it (even if no one else was touching it), and applying hand sanitizer every time before and after touching anything. Wednesday night, I started noticing my eye was super irritated and there was some, um, "substance" coming out of it. I thought it was just an element of my sickness but a quick google search told me that it was definitely PINK EYE. What the heck? I haven't had pink eye since I was a child.

Thursday, My mom came up to our room and told me that dad was still really sick but that she was feeling kind of better. At this point, my cold symptoms were in full swing and I was a congested, miserable mess. She and I decided to make me a doctor's appointment for that day, especially since the pink eye had shown up and I wanted to get rid of that asap.

My cat snuggling under the covers with me when I refused to leave my bed.

Since coming home from the doctor on Thursday, I have refused to leave our bedroom with the exception of food (which I'm not eating much of anyway). I found out when I went to the doctor on Thursday that I had a sinus infection and of course, pink eye. I was given a bunch of meds including eye drops for the pink eye and an antibiotic. Antibiotics scare me a little bit because a common side effect of them is nausea/vomiting.

To recap: At this moment I have a sinus infection, pink eye, extremely high levels of anxiety, surrounded by two people who have been vomiting, and I'm quarantined all alone in our bedroom because my husband has been going to work and I'm scared to be around anyone. Like I said, it's A LOT.

Now it is Sunday. Luckily it's a three-day weekend so I'm getting to spend a lot of time with my husband which has been a huge comfort. I went with him to one of his tournaments on Friday night just to get out of the house. Yesterday we went to lunch and ran a few errands to get out of the house and spend time together. We bought a blu-ray player and brought one of TVs up to the bedroom so that we could be quarantined together and watch movies. My poor parents feel so bad that they have caused me so much anxiety which really sucks because it's not their fault. They can't help being sick. They feel so bad actually that they got my husband and I a hotel room for tonight so that we can get out of the house. We are about to head there now but I want to say something really quick regarding my thoughts and experiences with Emetophobia in hopes to educate you or at least help you understand why this week has been so tormenting for me.

Whenever I bring up the fact that I have an irrational fear (or phobia) of vomiting people usually say something like "Well, no one likes to throw up" and it's like yes, I get that. However, I would actually rather wake up in the middle of the night because I'm having a heart attack than to wake up because I'm going to get sick. I know that sounds ridiculous and absolutely untrue but again, irrational. The worst part is that I know it is irrational and I know I am being hurtful to the ones I love but I can't help it. The fear overcomes every other emotion in my body. I even worry about when I have kids one day if I will be able to handle them being sick or if my selfish fears will force my poor husband to have to do all the work while I hide under the covers with Lysol spray. Yes, no one likes to throw up, but I would honestly rather risk death than get sick or see someone else get sick.

I could go way more in detail about my OCD and Emetophobia but I think this post is long enough. I'm sorry if there are typos and grammar mistakes but this post gave me so much anxiety to type that I can't read back through it to check for errors. If you have any other questions, comments, or concerns about it, please let me know and I can go more in depth about it at a later time.

Thank you so much for reading all of this if you did. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time to hear my story and hopefully educate yourself on something you may not have known anything about.