This post should go two directions, and right now, it’s up to me to decide which one to take first. (Update, I didn’t take the second one at all. That’s ok.)
Emetophobia. Something that has plagued me from a very young age, the fear of vomit seems so… commonplace. “No one likes throwing up,” “just don’t be scared, you can’t control it either way,” “it’s not that bad, and it’ll help you feel better.” All things that I have heard dozens of times. If you don’t have emetophobia, you might not see the issue with them.
They don’t help.
You know what else doesn’t help?
“You get really mean when you’re like this. No one wants to be around you.”
Maybe you (you? Who am I writing to? Myself? I’m not putting this one on Instagram. I might send it to Trevor, but even that isn’t warranting of addressing the whole thing to him. Even when I am no longer performing, it’s all still a performance.) would be surprised to know that I am aware of that.
It alllll started when my little sister threw up on me. We were sharing a bed, and she caught a bug. That wasn’t the worst of it, the worst was me being forced to sleep on a hardwood floor in winter with no blankets for two nights because the bed was deemed unfit for human living. My mind always associated the bad with the TU though. I think I may have had a small fear of it before that. My early memories are all jumbled on the timeline, I can’t be too sure about anything.
Flash forward to today, I have gotten over the worst of my emetophobia. Gone are the days where I washed my hands raw every day for fear of catching an illness (dry, cracked, bleeding hands. No.) Gone are the days where I couldn’t share a room with someone. The days where I can’t share a bed with someone are on their way out.
I’m still bad though. I still have a pang of panic when someone around me talks about throwing up. I still can’t reasonably see myself having kids. I’m still hesitant to actually return to Thailand (or even Advance, those fears returned today).
Today at work, a coworker showed up, said her husband came home from work throwing up, and then ran to the bathroom in a panic, saying she was going to do the same.
I want to try and describe me to you. (Again with the you.) It’s the moment on a roller coaster when you start falling. It’s everything, all senses swirling together into a dark and stabbing mixture, settling in the stomach (is that anxiety or…), the mind (I need to wash my hands, I can’t touch that cart, that door, that counter, that keyboard, oh no her waterbottle is next to mine. No more water. No food either, to play it safe.), and the hands (crawling. Itchy. Burning. I can feel EVERYTHING. I have to touch this, but it will make the crawling worse. I need to wash my hands. There is no hand sanitizer. Ok, I’ll use Lysol). It’s the first 20 ish seconds of Surreal by Flawed Mangoes (it’s been stuck in my head, but it is perfectly fit). My hearing is gone. My hands are shaking. My mind kicks into high gear, and my feet prepare to run.
But I couldn’t leave. My boss had just commented on how much growth she has seen compared to when I left, so she was the first to notice my absent mind and panicked eyes.
Cara (coworker) doesn’t leave.
“I’m ok, I get like this.”
No.
I refuse to use her register. Causing a stir among the cashiers. I spray down everything, including my hands. I don’t touch anything.
Finally the day is over, I leave, I get in the car. Tell Mother about my day.
“It’s your fault. You are mean when you’re like this. It makes people not want to be around you.”
*STOP. I’m writing for an invisible audience again. Trying to make this sound better, or worse, or just different than what is happening in my mind.*
I flip out, yell at her, say I’m going to quit. She yells back, I can’t go to Advance, better quit everything while I’m at it. I am a mean person.
I yell back again. I KNOW I am mean. I don’t want to be. I can not control it. It is either I take mildly drastic steps to contain my panic while still functioning, or I leave. I tried so hard to be kind. I tried I tried i tried. If it is bad for you, think about how it is for me. You don’t get to hear my thoughts, feel my panic, you just get to watch it all unfold.
She returns fire, but the swirling colors of Those Thoughts makes a long awaited return, and I don’t hear her anymore, I only hear myself.
By the time we get home, I am sobbing. I run inside, go to my room, throw everything into a corner, not to be touched until Monday. I throw things. Kick my piano bench, to the point that I am limping the rest of the day (even with my boots on, the force was enough to bruise and swell). Run and take a shower. Scalding. Wash multiple times.
Showers aren’t strictly safe for me. They are where my thoughts run rampant.
*omitted for the sake of the narrative.*
I am terrified of being mean.
I don’t know how to word that.
Being told I am mean hit something deep within me.
The emetophobia makes me mean.
I fully snapped out of it once I started praying.
I wish I had done that first.
I went back to my room.
The spiral was violent and rough. But I don’t have work until Saturday, so I have a day to let it air out.
This brings me to a side tangent.
When I was in Thailand, and Nan got sick, a key part of my spiral that evening was because I am like this, nothing will ever work out in life.
Unless I find a man who has or is willing to understand emetophobia, it won’t work. Kids are out. Realistically, traveling is out. The big thing though, I can’t staff like this. I can’t lead like this. What happens if I am leading an outreach, and one of my students falls ill? What happens if there is a noro outbreak on the base (again) and I have to approach it from a leader perspective. What happens when today repeats itself? I can’t staff like this, I can’t go overseas like this, I can’t work like this, I can’t get married or have kids like this. Does this damn fear cripple everything about me?
I think it just might.
I can ignore it most of the time, but then days like today happen.
Days like the day Nan got sick.
Days like the days JT, Ethan, and Charlie were all sick.
Days like when Milana told me to stop asking about Ellie.
Days like when I wouldn’t go to my great grandfather’s funeral because my brother threw up the day before, and I couldn’t ride in the car with him.
What do I even do about this?
I can’t do therapy. The only option is exposure therapy, and I mean this in the most literal sense of the phrase, I would rather die than ever undergo anything like that willingly.
Final side tangent. Dbs starts in a week.
The envy that consumes me is ugly.
But not near as strong as I thought it would be.
I want to be back in community. I want to see Ashlin, Charlie, Matthew, everyone again.
I want to be able to talk JT and Trevor into driving down to see me.
But I don’t fit there anymore either. The anger and unfortunate personality traits that God worked so hard to get rid of while at DTS are back. Stronger.
I’m scared to go back and see any of them again. I am not the same, and I feel I have disappointed everyone.
I wonder if the pictures that they’ll post will make me happy or bitter.
I am in a state of neutral right now. If I had to go to work tomorrow, I would be worse. If I had DBS in a week, I would be better.
But I am ok.
I’m coming to realize that there are ugly and bad parts of my personality that I can’t fix. I knew about them before, but I always thought that with enough effort from me, I could fix them myself.
Only God can.
And his process is a lot slower than mine.
I am ok.
Songs: Bleed (Dead Calm) Surreal (Flawed Mangoes). Surreal again because the guitar is absolutely fire. Oh it seems I have gotten stuck on this song. I listened to it literally the rest of the time.
Rainy Ramblings 