151- Interwoven phobias that complicate my life

I talked vaguely about three of my worst phobias, which complicate my life. I will tell you more about this in order to give an idea of ​​the difficulties I have encountered every day since I was a child.

I must here set a trigger alert to all those who suffer from the same phobias. I share so you can understand me better, not to hurt anyone.

These three phobias are imbricated all together, in the following scheme:

Hemophobia: fear of being in contact and seeing blood; Very close to it, I also have the sub-category of blood-injection-injury phobia, whose title is rather evocative.
Coprophobia : Fear of excrement. And yes, the natural need of practically all animals, including humans, causes me a lot of difficulties.
Each of these phobias being very strong, they cause me great anxieties, nausea, and support another equally serious one: emetophobia, the phobia of vomiting.


My other posts about these phobias are : 
Hemophobia
Coprophobia
emetophobia

Let me illustrate my most common interactions between these phobias :

• I begin with hemophobia. Its complications were much worse during my youth and adolescence, because I often had nose bleeding, due to a badly formed bone that moves regularly - especially during temperature changes, more so in passing to summer heats. I spent long minutes bleeding from my nose, having to find a way to stop the hemorrhage on the one hand, and not to faint, on the other. 

Sometimes I failed to do this, and people would wake me up after I'd fainted, whether in school or elsewhere.

I had an operation to fix this nose, and for this past decade or so, I almost never bleed anymore; It is not that this phobia has left me, since I must always carefully chose movies and shows that I watch, not to mention periods when my attention is not at the top, and I tend to have small domestic accidents, cutting my finger as I cut food, for example - and then I wobble very often. So I have to avoid looking, but like social phobias, avoiding does not help!

Indeed, by avoiding, I never forged my psyche against it, and thus even in adulthood, my head spins very quickly when I see blood, even in small quantities ...

I am very impressionable regarding all this, and although I know the blood in movies and shows is not real, I cannot look.
I have, nevertheless, seen a few series where blood was present, as well as violence; I do it only if these elements are not the majority and I hide behind my hand or knee so as not to see the difficult moments ...


On the contrary, I avoid anything that contains too many of these elements, just like gore of horror movies, or medical shows (that's where the injury type phobia comes in).

• I will now turn to coprophobia, the description of which will have given you an idea, but I want to say a few additional words - partly to force me to face up to a future series of CBT sessions whose purpose will be to treat all these interwoven phobias.

Every day, billions of people go to the toilet, and although many suffer from constipations, I suffer from it only in case of extreme anxiety. Like everyone else, I eat, and I finish visiting this room of doom, where things get complicated for me. 

First of all, because of the dirtiness of people, I cannot often go to public toilets, although I have not had the choice sometimes (travel, cinema).


Whatever the place, you have to clean up after yourself, and there I get seized with enormous nausea, and the only remedy I find is to run to the window, breathe a good bowl of fresh air (I run after washing my hands, but on the days when I feel my fragility aggravated, I open the window before entering the room of these horrors).

I can tell you that I absolutely hate all this, and wished more than once that biology would have spared me these inconveniences which paralyze me almost every day, several times a day ...

To give you an idea of ​​the magnitude of this problem I'm over 40 years old already ... Although I do not know exactly when it started, it's been well over 30 years, or 32,850 or more opportunities to be nauseated, with my body trembling, eyes hurting through tears, my throat tightening, stomach hurting ... all this weighs me heavily ...

Therefore, I hate all toilet jokes in some comedies, and if I know it beforehand, I don't ever watch, or stop as soon as they appear.


For me, toilets are nightmares; they are small, and feed my claustrophobia, coprophobia and emetophobia. I do not see what is funny in all this ... nor an idea to furnish works of fiction ...

• I end by the emetophobia, because it is related to too many others; it holds itself, and receives others.

You have seen, the other two types of phobias have several physical effects, including nausea. I have them on many other occasions: seeing or being present at something that disgusts me, whether it be spits, urine, bad smells of garbage, sorting dirty laundry (especially early in the morning, or after eating) ; Often, even washing dishes is painful to me.

Wet hairs in sinks (kitchen or shower alike) are also a major stress for me, triggering my emetophobia. 

Actually, anything slimy does it ; I cannot drain a washing machine or a sink, and always had to rely on someone to do it for me. (forget working as a plumber). 

I hate it that I must brush my teeth, and the idea of going to the dentist petrifies me. Yet I brush as I can, though I cannot be watched, and I must do so long before bed time, or enough after getting up - to avoid nausea. I also don't look at people brushing their own teeth.

Seeing everything that is viscous and sticky makes me sick of nausea and also launches this painful phobia.

Anatomy, internal organs, blood, wounds and foam, all this nauseates me, and I must avoid some aisles of the food stores, because, to top it all, I am not vegan just because of my philosophical choices: corpses make me literally sick and are part of several phobias, as well as my extreme sensitivity and compassion (subjects outside of the current topic).

If I write all this, with great difficulties and many small sessions to type these lines, it is not to complain but to explain the impacts of each of the phobias here exposed in my daily life and thus help you better understand me.

I have already told my therapist a little that I do not know how I will be able to talk to her in detail about these phobias, because the simple fact of talking about it gives me strong nausea. 

So, at first, I will show her my posts on this subject, and pass notes, hoping to find ways to manage and reduce all impacts - making my life less painful.


As usual, thank you for reading.