My Weekend of emetophobia a OCD classic

So it has been a quite stressful and tireing weekend for me, It would seem my Mum had got food poisoning, more on that in a moment, but the whole saga bought back a classic OCD illness and phobia of mine which is the fear of germs as i am also a Emetophobia sufferer.

I have had a few other scenarios which has tested my Emetophobia, but this has been the first in a while which has also been germ related so it was a challenge which i had not taken on in a while.

So how did i handle it? Well to be fair not very well at first. It all started when i was outside and came back into the house to the sound of my mum being very sick in the toilet, she hadn't been feeling well before now but this was the first moment she had been vomiting.

Now of course my instinct to help kicked in and i asked my Mum if she was ok and needed anything, but at the same time my OCD was in over drive

"Why is my mum sick? Food poisoning? A Stomach bug?"

"How contagious is the situation i'm dealing with?"

This is the classic reactions of most OCD sufferers regarding germs that involve someone close to them becoming ill. So i help my mum as best i can, getting her a bucket and anything else she needed, but to be totally honest i did not want to get too close to her in case i caught whatever she had caught.

So she is in her bedroom, i am in mine, of course if she really needed me i would be there, but otherwise anywhere she's been was now off limits to me.

Need the toilet? Well i will be blunt about this, embarassingly i was resorting to peeing in a bottle in my room.........Nobody else knows i am doing this, but that's why it is more important to show the anxiety and legnths real OCD sufferers go to, to avoid there fears.

Need to wash my hands after? Well at least i can go downstairs and wash my hands, but that does involve having to cover my hand with my shirt to use door handles and the taps, after all my mum had touched these taps earlier so what if they been infected?

Drying my hands means getting a new towel, NO sharing tea towels for now :O

Later on i decided to go out to my friends, try to relax and avoid the germs, usually i would go out and buy food to take to my friends to but not now

"If i have got these germs, then eating a lot of food is going to make me sick, so easier to avoid food"

STOP

Ok i am literally Stopping as i admit this is now setting off my OCD and i am "Not allowed" to finish this right now according to my OCD, worth mentioning how something as simple as this can effect sufferers

Update:

So here we go again, after that unexpected stop

So by now i have avoided food up until my stomach is begging for it, a poorly stomach wouldn't beg right?

So in my eyes if i am ok after 48 hours i am safe to resume "normal" eating habits, but for many sufferers of Germ related OCD this is a day to day thing, not just a weekend like it must of been for me.

Sure we need to raise more awareness of the rare forms of OCD but lets not forget what these sufferers of more common forms of OCD have to go through as well, don't let them disappear in the stigma of false OCD sufferers known as perfectionist.