Emetophobic anxiety spiking, please talk to me rationally

[Elephantina]

We had visitors yesterday evening, and we all had takeaway pizza. They were all here for a few hours then left.

This morning, one of the visitors reported having been up all last night vomiting and feeling dreadful. One other person who had the same pizza topping as them was ok, as were the rest of us who didn't have that topping.

I am now convinced, as is the way with emetophobia, that the sick person was already incubating a bug when they were at our house, as it can't have been the pizza. And that they have shredded virus here that I or DH might pick up, and I have a really busy, really stressful week ahead and I'm going to get sick and wreck the week and let everyone down.

I can't seem to settle the panic down. Can anyone help me to see things more rationally? I don't mean as in the "don't worry" sense of being rational, that boat sailed and fucked off long ago, but as in the reasonability of fearing catching something!

I think I'm panicky because of my stressful work week, otherwise I might have been a bit more dismissive.

The possibility that the sick person is exaggerating is minimal but not impossible.

There was a noro epidemic country wide in 2007, so many hospitals and schools were closed it was all over the news - there was grave warnings that 3 million (I might be remembering that wrong) people would get it, and graphic descriptions of projectile vomiting! I remember ordering up massive quantities of anti-viral foams and carrying them everywhere with me. I lived in fear for months and lost quite a bit of weight. Put it all back on again when the crisis was over obvs!

At Christmas I hide all the threads on MN about it. I wish you could hide anything with a key word in it!

Ye Gods Starlight, there is a thread about leaving piles of vom on a carpet overnight!

Obviously I'm reacting to the child being ill, absolutely no judgement from me about whether to clean or not clean - personally I would've burnt the house down and left the country, so props to that OP as a single mum of 5. She's a better woman than me!

@elephantina I have definitely reduced my anxiety by working through Rob Kelly's Book "cure your emetophobia and thrive".

I would say that my anxiety about it has gone from severely impacting my life to able to think rationally when I need to.

Try it. it's cheap, its hard work but it helped me so much!

I have read/heard about that @sd249. Is is essentially CBT based?

I'll go and have another look for it. Thanks for the reminder!

Yikes, I could never leave vomit on the carpet over night...disgusting! No mater how tired! The night my son was sick, the first several times he managed in the toilet, but by 2:30am he was so tired and did it in his sleep on the cot bed I made on floor by toilet. Even though we both were exhausted, I had him take a bath, I changed all his bedding and put dirty ones in the wash. However, some people really do not care about vomit! Like my husband. When my dd was 3 and had a bag bug, she was sick in our bed (he was sleeping with her and thankfully I was in the other room!!). The first two times he let me change the sheets. And after the next few times he got angry at me for wanting to change sheets etc! My dd did not even want to sleep in the bed with him! She moved back to her room and thankfully was better by then. My dh just slept the entire night in the disgusting bed!!!! I still can not believe it! And no one ever caught that bug. Actually, my dh seems to have a good immune system (thankfully!).

I am going to check out that book.

Well I made it through 2 days of presentations and staying away from home without succumbing to anything awful, so having bleached everything in sight on Monday I think we're safe - anything being incubated from infection on Sun/Mon would've materialised by now.

Panic over...for now! Thanks to everyone who commented and supported, especially Starlight for sharing and sd249 for reminding us about Thrive.

Congrats elenphantina for making it through! I know what a relief that is!

It sort of feels alright to relax again! I had an IBS flare yesterday (unsurprising really) and had a brief panic wondering if it was something else brewing, but I managed to apply a bit of rational logic and got past it.

I haven't found out if anyone else in that household caught it, I must find a subtle way to ask!

My daughter is like you and had to have therapy for it. Cbt was very affective for her

I had CBT about 25 years ago - amongst psychotherapy, hypnotherapy and other such intangible things - and it was excellent. Doesn't always hold up in a crisis though. Hope your daughter is doing well now?

She is better than before but not 100% It is a question of managing it

If she gets ill, it sets her back always