The OCD Christian

I remember arriving at the end of John Bunyan’s account of his long struggle with severe doubts and blasphemous thoughts and feeling a kinship with him as he described the experience in this way,

“These things I continually see and feel, and am afflicted and oppressed with; yet the wisdom of God doth order them for my good.”( a.)

It took a long time for Mr. Bunyan to call the experience an affliction. He’d struggled long and hard, supposing it to be a crisis of faith, a spiritual attack, or a sinful stronghold. But in doing so, he’d only dug himself deeper into the pit of a disorder which thrives on the attention given to the questions, doubts, and intrusive thoughts that it creates. He stayed stuck in the mire of OCD right up until he decided to stop treating the doubts and thoughts as worthy of his attention.  

The problem is that it’s tough to ignore something that feels like a legitimate threat. That’s how OCD manipulates us into doing its bidding. The anxiety that accompanies these thoughts is so intense that the sufferer will feel that they must attend to the matter. That’s what OCD does with every obsessional theme.
“Am I sinning when these thoughts come? Is this because I don’t possess saving faith? Is this God’s way of warning me? Is this Satan trying to get me to turn from God?” 
Those questions are just a tiny sample of what people with OCD/Scrupulosity feel they need to address. But in addressing them, they are treating their disorder as though it’s a spiritual issue rather than an affliction. And, if you know anything about OCD, attending to these questions is the very thing that feeds the disorder.
Can OCD be oppression, as Bunyan suggested? Yes, it can, but not in a different way from any other kind of illness or affliction. The Bible teaches that Satan can and sometimes does oppress those who trust God, as seen in the examples of Job and the apostle Paul. However, in both instances, it wasn’t due to sin. God was still sovereign in His work in their lives through suffering.

If we want to make any headway toward alleviating the suffering of OCD, we must treat it as a legitimate affliction. We can be patient and teachable in distress while taking advantage of treatment strategies just as we would for any other illness.

Astonishingly, Mr. Bunyan concluded that what he was experiencing was an affliction. This mindset did wonders for him because he left off doing battle with the thoughts, which in turn relieved much of his suffering. He didn’t have the luxury of a diagnosis and effective treatments as we do today. But the first step in learning to manage OCD/Scrupulosity is to acknowledge it as an affliction and stop treating it like a spiritual issue that demands spiritual correction. If John Bunyan could do that some 350 years ago, so can we!  



(a. “Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners,” John Bunyan, Penguin Classics, Pages 83-84)

For more on how I managed my OCD please check out my book at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1517678447

OCD certainly generates a lot of questions, mainly in the form of a doubt and typically starting with the words, “what if?” Just when you think you’ve answered or solved the doubt that was plaguing you, the disorder comes up with yet another “what if?” 
Some examples might be, “what if this thought means I actually want to do this thing? What if this feeling is God’s way of warning me? What if I’m ignoring something serious?”
OCD is a compelling disorder. It’s compelling because OCD is more than just experiencing doubts, questions, or intrusive thoughts. It’s experiencing each one of those things coupled with intense anxiety. The anxiety is the igniting spark that makes the sufferer feel as though the “what if?” is something urgent that needs their attention. And, if you know anything about OCD, it’s the attention we give to the questions that will keep the cycle of OCD going strong.
When you have OCD, you will have worked your way through a seemingly endless variety of questions. Many of these questions will be variations of one another and none of the answers will suffice for very long. But of all the questions that OCD poses this is the one that everyone encounters at some point or another,
“But what if it’s not OCD?”  
This question can still crop up after a person has been diagnosed with OCD. 
“Yeah…I might have OCD, but this seems like a genuine concern. How can I choose to ignore it when it might not be OCD?”
The uncertainty about whether or not a feared obsession is actually OCD seems like a valid. But when you think about it, if we had confidence or surety that the thing, we’ve been wrestling with was OCD, then we wouldn’t be stuck. We’d just label it OCD, shrug it off and move on. We wouldn’t need therapy.
Managing OCD means learning to sit with uncertainty. In every case of OCD, one of the most important things we will need to do is move forward with therapy even when we aren’t feeling the slightest bit certain that the problem is OCD. This uncertainty is what makes OCD therapy so hard. We have to choose to employ Exposure and Response Prevention therapy when it feels risky to do so. There’s no easy way out. 
Don’t let the fear that it might not be OCD stop you from seeking therapy. Expect and accept that you will feel this way when you begin treatment. Pursuing treatment is the thing that will help you move past the obsessional theme.
OCD is a bully. Don’t let it use the question, “What if it’s not OCD?” keep you from seeking and pursuing treatment. Remember that everyone with OCD goes through this when they consider therapy. You are not a freakish anomaly, and your OCD is behaving just like everyone else’s OCD. 
Stand up to the bully of your OCD today!

As a person who suffers from OCD, I have had many encounters with people who haven’t a clue what my disorder entails. I would have to say that most people lack knowledge of what OCD is.  They don’t understand what causes it, they don’t realize how painful and debilitating it can be, but more importantly, they have zero education as to how it’s managed.   

When people don’t understand what OCD is, they typically aren’t going to bother to learn about it.  They are all too happy to assume that they know what it is and how it affects a person.  I suppose that would be fine if they didn’t share their ignorance with others.  The sharing of this ignorance invalidates the disorder. People assume that OCD is merely a minor nuisance or a quirky personality trait.  It’s common to hear people claim to be “so OCD!”  They aren’t saying this to express a level of extreme distress.  They are saying it to be comical.  A person who has OCD won’t express it that way at all.  They might say, “I suffer from OCD” or “my OCD is so bad right now that I can barely function.”

The obsessional themes of OCD are highly varied, but for the sake of what I want to discuss, I will focus on one type called OCD/Scrupulosity or Religious OCD. 
When Christians are afflicted with this form of OCD, things can go downhill very quickly if they receive the wrong counsel. 
Before I go even one step further as to why this is the case, I recommend that no one should try to counsel someone with this form of OCD unless they have a substantial understanding of the disorder as to cause and appropriate treatment strategies. 
In general, our Christian friends, though they mean to help, aren’t going to be able to.  The same applies to most Pastoral counsel. 
In OCD/Scrupulosity, the obsessional theme and all accompanying intrusive thoughts will be about the person’s security in their relationship to God.  Now that might prompt someone to think, “Oh, I can settle that for them just by pointing them to Scripture!”  But that’s not at all how you manage OCD.  What people fail to understand is that when you do that, you are only feeding the disorder.  Treatment for OCD  isn’t about pointing out errant thinking or providing reassurances.  It’s not about teaching a person to have more faith in God or correcting sinful attitudes.   It’s not about renewing the mind through thought replacing.  It’s not just that these tactics are wrong.  It’s that these tactics are counterproductive and serve to make the disorder so much worse.  So in helping, using these manners, you would be hurting the person with OCD/Scrupulosity. 
OCD is OCD, no matter what the theme and the treatment approach will be the same. 
The cause of OCD is not faulty thinking that needs to be corrected.  The person with OCD will have already considered most or all of the reassurances or correct information that you offer.   They already know that the level of anxiety that they are experiencing in response to the theme is inordinate.  Just merely pointing any of this out to them isn’t going to fix the problem. 
Will they ask for reassurance?  Yep!  That’s a compulsion.  And if you provide that reassurance, you will be feeding the cycle of the disorder. 
I can’t possibly go into what causes OCD, how it operates, and treatment regimens in this short blog.  There’s far too much to cover because OCD is a highly nuanced disorder that demands the expertise of someone specifically trained to treat it. 
Therefore, on behalf of those who suffer, don’t try to fix our thinking.   Instead, an offer to pray for us in the same way you would pray for anyone who is afflicted will validate our experience.  Words that encourage us to pursue help from our doctor and a psychologist would be much more helpful. And, finally, counsel which looks to the scriptures on perseverance and purpose in suffering also apply to OCD.  OCD isn’t the exception to the lessons of suffering in the life of a Christian.  It’s only a that it’s an affliction that’s sadly very misunderstood.

Yes, in one way, Satan could be involved, but no, regarding the way you are probably thinking.
The Scripture does reveal actual accounts of Satan’s involvement in afflicting some of God’s servants. We all know the story of Job and how Satan afflicted and oppressed him to try and get him to turn away from God. We read about the apostle Paul’s thorn and how he described it as a messenger from Satan sent to torment him.

What we don’t see in these accounts is God instructing Job or Paul to use a strategy to stop the attacks of Satan. Instead, in both cases, we see God shifting the attention of Job and Paul to who He is regarding His sovereignty, His power, and His sufficiency for what they were going through.
We aren’t privy as to whether or not Satan is involved in our experiences of illness or suffering. But, even if Satan were to be involved, we know that God is greater, that Satan’s power is broken, and that we need to shift our focus to God’s provisions for us rather than Satan’s persecution.

But, the question should be asked, that if Satan has afflicted a Christian with an illness, does that mean the person shouldn’t seek professional medical attention for it?  Or, should the person only seek help through the Scriptures and prayer?

I think that most of us would agree that God provides for His afflicted children through the expertise of doctors, medications, and therapies for their afflictions and that it’s wise to seek those things.

So, that’s one way that Satan could be to blame, but what concerns me is the other way people suppose that Satan is to blame when a person suffers from OCD/Scrupulosity.

Over the years, I’ve communicated with many Christians who suffer from OCD/Scrupulosity, and I’m still startled by how often they encounter the following types of statements about their experience:
“Satan has gotten ahold of your mind! You need to rebuke Him in the name of Jesus!”
“Satan is planting these thoughts in your head. He wants to destroy your testimony.”
“You have a demonic spirit plaguing you. You must take steps to cast it out!”

“This is due to the sin of your ancestors. It’s a generational curse that must be broken!”

 

The problem with these kind of statements is that they assume that the cause of OCD/Scrupulosity is spiritual, and the second problem is that in thinking this, the approach to helping the person isn’t just going to be wrong, it will be counterproductive and make the disorder worse.

OCD/Scrupulosity is not a spiritual issue. It’s just a case of OCD targeting a person’s faith in Christ. OCD obsessional themes are always attached to things that are of utmost importance to the sufferer. Things like close relationships, their health, their moral character, and their faith are common targets. I don’t want to go into the details of the cause, symptoms, and treatments for the disorder, but these things are knowable, and a person with OCD should avail themselves of them just as much as they would for any other illness.

What happens when a person with OCD/Scrupulosity is made to feel that it’s a spiritual issue causing the disorder, is that they will feel the need to fight against the disorder in the wrong way.  And all of the ways that they will fight against it fall into the category of compulsions. In OCD, the compulsions always make the disorder worse and keep the person from being able to recover.
Here are some of the most common ways that a person with OCD/Scrupulosity will engage in compulsions:
Rebuking the thoughts.

Focusing on the fear of Satan and how to escape him.
Attempting to “take the thoughts captive.”

Countering the thoughts with scripture verses.

Praying over and over for God to cleanse them from the thoughts.

Praying over and over for salvation.
Avoiding anything which triggers the thoughts in an attempt to escape the anxiety.
Intensely scrutinizing and altering their behavior and activities due to the fear of angering God.
Seeking reassurance from family or a Pastor that their position in Christ is secure.
Asking the same questions over and over about certain portions of scripture.
Researching topics like eternal security, losing salvation, or the unpardonable sin.

Therefore, if you want to help a person with OCD/Scrupulosity, the best thing you can do is to treat the disorder as a valid affliction rather than a spiritual issue.   If you do the opposite, you will be inadvertently influencing the person to engage in the compulsive activity of their disorder, which in turn will only serve to prolong and increase their suffering.
OCD/Scrupulosity is a highly nuanced disorder that requires the expertise of physicians who are trained to diagnose and to treat it. The best way to help someone who is suffering is to empathize with them about their suffering and to encourage them to seek professional help.

Stigma Says, “You Can’t be an Effective Christian if you Suffer from an Anxiety Disorder.”

Over the years, I’ve encountered many forms of stigma due to my being afflicted with various kinds of anxiety disorders. Stigma has spoken to me in many ways, but one of the ways that I haven’t yet talked about is this idea that a mature, effective Christian cannot suffer from an anxiety disorder.
There’s only one reason that a person would think in this way. They would think this way because they typically don’t believe that anxiety disorders are valid afflictions. They believe that the experience of an anxiety disorder is due to the sin of worry, a lack of faith and trust in God’s sovereignty, not applying the truth of Scripture, or even the bizarre notion that a person has a demon or evil spirit that needs to be cast out.
Therefore, if a person truly believes that the cause of anxiety disorders is spiritual then, they are going to think that those who are afflicted need to be rid of the experience of anxiety so that they can be a Christian with an effective testimony of faith.
Those of us who have a diagnosis of these disorders and have benefitted from the help of those professionals who specialize in treating them are fully aware that our disorders are valid and that we didn’t cause or choose them. This same knowledge and experiences with treatment are available to a non-Christian or even an atheist who is afflicted with anxiety disorders. The same medications help. The same therapy works. Why would that be? The answer lies in the fact that the disorders are just as legitimate as any other kind of illness that might afflict our physical bodies. Christians can develop diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and so do non-Christians.   The medical approach for these disorders doesn’t differ. When you go to the doctor to seek help for them, he or she won’t be changing their prescriptions or treatments based upon whether or not you are a Christian or a non-Christian.
If the problem were spiritual, then the treatment would have zero effectiveness for the Christian as well as the non-Christian.
Yet, no matter how many attempts are made to clarify and legitimize anxiety disorders as valid afflictions, those of us who are afflicted still get mini-sermons about trusting God when we dare to open up. Our Christian friends suppose that the reason they don’t have an anxiety disorder is that they have learned to apply certain Bible verses to their lives, whereas we haven’t done that yet. They suppose that we’ve never even read or memorized these common verses of scripture that speak about worry. What they don’t understand is that the experience of an anxiety disorder has absolutely nothing to do with worry about a difficult life situation or circumstance. What they don’t understand is that in those situations, those of us with these disorders typically respond to them in the same way that they would respond to them. They don’t understand what causes a panic attack or persistent social anxiety, or the intrusive thoughts and obsessional themes of OCD. They don’t understand the cause, and they don’t understand the treatment. And yet, without any attempt to get educated, they still project their notions and assumptions on to us, and in doing so, they are pointing a finger of blame at us for something that we can’t control.
Until these errant beliefs are corrected, the stigma that says, “you can’t be an effective Christian until you don’t have an anxiety disorder” will remain.
There’s more to write about regarding how God can and often does use the experience of anxiety disorders to increase the Christian’s faith and dependence on Him, but I’ll leave that for another blog on another day.

From an influential pastor and Christian author:

“I’m not saying that there won’t be some of you whose depression has its basis in a chemical imbalance and that you might need medication, but for most of you, the depression is likely to be based on how you think about your identity in Christ.   And, besides all that, if you need medication for your depression there’s less hope for you.”

From another highly esteemed and well-known Christian teacher:

“I could never say that it’s wrong to use antidepressants, but I’d approach them with caution because they affect the mind.”

Although many may think that these are reasonable statements to make, I don’t.  I would prefer that zero counsel as to the use of medication for mental illness be offered up by a pastor, teacher or Biblical counselor other than this:

“What does your physician/psychiatrist think?  If they are recommending you take a certain medication to manage your disorder, then I think it’s wise for you to bring up your concerns with them.  I’m not qualified to counsel you on the use of medication for your disorder. I’m qualified to teach you God’s Word and to pray for you, but I’m not a doctor so I can’t speak to this matter.”

You may offer up an objection that the pastor is just trying to warn the person about the possible negative side effects or dependency on these drugs, but my response to that is, why just these drugs? Have you read the pamphlets for your own personal prescriptions lately? And, why is this type of counsel only being offered up regarding mental disorders?

I fear that the answer is most likely that there remains this notion that the individual sufferer is somehow to blame for their mental disorder and that it’s not really a valid affliction.

Maybe the person with an anxiety disorder just hasn’t learned to fully trust God.  Maybe the person with ADHD just lacks discipline.  Maybe the person who is clinically depressed hasn’t learned to find joy in their relationship with Christ. Maybe the soldier with PTSD just needs to stop dwelling in the past.

And, if any of this is true, then a change in the way they think or how they behave will surely set the whole thing right rather than relying on medication.

Here are a few imagined scenarios to underscore my point that medications, when prescribed for mental illness, are often are viewed differently than when those same medications are prescribed for other types of disorders.

1. Congregant: Pastor, my doctor wants me to take a medication called Metoprolol to treat my hypertension. Should I do that?

Pastor:  Of course you should!  Listen to your doctor and take your medication.  I don’t want you having a stroke! Let’s pray that the medication will work.

Congregant: Pastor, my doctor wants me to take a medication called Metoprolol to help manage my Social Anxiety Disorder.  Should I take it?

Pastor:  Well, I think you’re probably just suffering from low self-esteem.  Maybe you just need to learn more about who you are in Christ so you won’t be comparing yourself to others.  And, besides that, you need to be careful about taking a medication which could alter your mood.  I would try a Bible study on your identity in Christ first.

2. Congregant: Pastor, my doctor wants me to take a medication called Seroquel to help with some of the symptoms of my advanced Parkinson’s disease. Should I do that?

Pastor:  I think you should certainly heed your physician’s advice and I’m not qualified to tell you whether you should take a certain medication.  Let me pray for you though that God would use this medication to decrease your suffering.

Congregant: Pastor, I have severe OCD, and my doctor wants me to try a drug called Seroquel to help control my anxiety symptoms.  Should I take it?

Pastor:  Well, why are you so anxious and obsessed about things?  The scripture instructs us to “be anxious for nothing.”  If you could just learn to rely on God for all your needs, then you might not need to rely on medication.  Let me pray for you so that you will learn to trust God for everything.

3. Congregant: Pastor, I have Epilepsy, and my doctor wants me to try a new medication called Lamictal to help control my seizures. Should I take it?

Pastor: I don’t know why you are even asking me this?  You need to listen to your doctor and follow his or her counsel.  I’m not qualified to make this call, but I can certainly pray for you that the medication will work and I want to be here for you and support you in your affliction.

Congregant: Pastor, I have been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, and my doctor wants me to take a medication called Lamictal to help with my symptoms.  Should I take it?
Pastor: Well, although you might need to take it, have you tried asking God to teach you to rely on Him for peace, stability, and joy?  A Christian should never be depressed, we’ve got too much to be glad about!  Maybe just saturating yourself in the Word and in prayer would be enough to relieve your depression.  It’s worth a try, and besides all that, you should be cautious of using a medication which might affect your mind.

My point in relating these “same drug different uses” scenarios, is that there seems to be a double standard in that these medications are considered fine to take for other types of illnesses but not for mental illness.  There’s not likely to be any cautions about the medication or any kind of suggestion that the illness is likely rooted in a spiritual issue.

These type of cautions and warnings carry a lot of weight with a person who is devoted to Christ and struggling with a mental illness. Warnings and cautions such as these can cause that person to be resistant to treatments which may save their lives and alleviate their suffering.  It’s a very serious matter and one that needs to be addressed as to the negative impact it has on the lives of those who are afflicted with mental disorders.
It’s time for Pastors and Biblical teachers to validate mental illness and to offer up the exact same counsel and support to anyone seeking their advice as they would for any other type of disorder.

It’s also time for those of us who struggle with mental disorders to quit putting our Pastors in the position of trying to be our doctor.  They are not qualified to diagnose and treat our disorders.  We need our pastors to pray for us and support us, but we shouldn’t be asking them for medical advice.  It’s not fair to them, and it’s not safe to follow their advice when it comes to things like medication.

The bottom line for all of us on both sides of this issue is to be able to get to the place where we give validity to mental disorders as very real and sometimes very serious afflictions which are best treated by those who are qualified to diagnose and manage them rather than treating them as spiritual issues.
So that’s my “caution” to those of us who suffer and to those of you who we look to for spiritual counsel and guidance.
We shouldn’t expect that our Pastor will understand the cause of our mental disorder. We shouldn’t expect that he will be trained in how to treat it. This is a highly skilled field which is why those who are qualified to help us have the title Dr. in front of their name.   God has given physicians the knowledge and the tools to help us in the exact same way he has given these things to physicians who treat other disorders and we need to be thankful for that and willing to work with them to help manage our disorders.

I suppose I’ve experienced just about every kind of Anxiety Disorder at different phases of my life.  I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder complicated by moderate Agoraphobia, Social Anxiety Disorder and OCD.  I haven’t yet experienced PTSD, but hey…there’s still time right? (Just so you know –  I’m also a pessimist.)

On top of all that, I struggle with specific phobias too.  Big surprise eh?  I am terrified of spiders, struggle with horrid anxiety about driving and last but certainly, not least I have Emetophobia.

Emetophobia is an intense fear of vomiting.  And when I say “intense” I’m not just bumping my gums!  I’m struggling with it right now as I write this blog.  I figured it might help me to articulate what it’s like right while I’m in the throes of it.

Last night while my husband and I were watching TV he started to rub his stomach well not his actual stomach but rather the abdominal skin which conceals his stomach.   He then casually mentioned that he felt a bit queasy and had the chills while continuing to watch his show.

What was my reaction to his statement?  My stomach went into an instant knot, my mouth started watering, my heart started racing, and I started trembling.  I felt the need to get up and flee the living room but tried to hang in there and show some compassion.  (Emetophobia can turn you into a jerk.)  Then, I remembered that we’d been passing a bag of caramel corn back and forth between one another earlier that evening while we watched TV together.  That took my anxiety up another notch, and I immediately figured that because of that I was most certainly doomed.

“Why, oh why had I eaten out the same caramel corn bag as he had?”  I remember even being hesitant about it because in general I’m pretty much hyper vigilant about germs from other people’s hands that might go into my mouth, but last night I had bravely thrown caution to the wind.

He continued to express that his stomach hurt while still managing to stay engaged with his program because apparently, he doesn’t go into full speed ahead freak out mode about stomach aches as I do.   I really wanted to stay in the living room with him and show some support, but it was all just too overwhelming for me.

What if he ended up vomiting and I heard it?

I knew that would make me feel ten times worse.  So I asked him if he’d be okay with me heading to bed because it was nearly 11 p.m. and, without any hesitation he replied “of course,” because he knew why I had to leave but it made me feel like the most horrible wife in the world.

So I went to the bedroom with my cell phone, switched on my white noise machine at the highest setting and put my earbuds in and found some YouTube downloads of guided imagery which are supposed to help assuage anxiety.  Just before I did that I checked on him again and said, “if you need me, you can come and get me” – even though I hoped –  desperately that he wouldn’t need me.  I felt awful because I didn’t want him coming to bed with me, but he knows how freaked out I get so he stayed in the living room.  Poor guy!!

As I listened to a bunch of guided imagery downloads, I’d start to drift off and then wake with a start and a sudden feeling of nausea.  I knew it was my anxiety making me nauseous because it ALWAYS does but the possibility that I might be wrong and I might actually be coming down with the bug my husband might have was consuming me with dread.  I think I finally drifted off sometime after two a.m. but woke up one more time with a horrible Panic attack.  And even though I’ve had nocturnal panic attacks for many years, some of them are so intense that at that moment, I feel that I might not actually recover from them.  I’ll either die or go completely insane with no hope of recovery.  I sat up on the edge of the bed, gasping for air, ears ringing, heart nearly bursting through my chest and started working on slowing my breathing: In slowly count to five, pause, and out slowly, count to eight, repeat, repeat, repeat.  When I was finally able to think, I’d had it and got up and went into the kitchen to take a stupid Xanax.  I apologized to my husband for stirring him and muttered something about hating myself.  I don’t really hate myself, but I hate how little control I have over this stupid Emetophobia.

My husband didn’t vomit, (so hard to type that word), but later on, in the morning he had a few bouts of diarrhea and had some body aches.  I had to go with my folks for an important Dr. appointment and then was scheduled to clean their house for them, and I was welcoming the distraction. Before I left, I took a couple capsules of activated charcoal, just in case and a teaspoon of a viral health tonic that I keep in the house during cold and flu seasons. I forced myself to eat a small breakfast too because I knew that low blood sugar also makes me nauseous.

The appointment went well with some really good news about my Mom’s health so that perked me up considerably.  The cleaning and taking time to visit with my parents were definitely good distractions but the whole time I was with them, there was another part of my brain which was preoccupied with the fear that I might still come down with whatever bug, if it even was a bug, that was plaguing my husband.

I called to check on him later on, and he reported that he was feeling some better, was heading outdoors for some fresh air and do a few chores and that his diarrhea had stopped after four bouts.  Now one would think that all of that would be comforting to me – NOT!  Instead, my thoughts were, “what if I get a different version of this possible bug that he has and in a couple days end up puking my guts out.  (So hard to type words like puke, vomit, wretch, etc. UGH!!)  Please, Lord, don’t let me get sick!”

I suppose I only thought about getting sick maybe three hundred times or so throughout the day.  It was always lurking in the back of my mind like a ghostly specter that could leap into action and make me sick at any moment.

So what are the things which make me so scared of vomiting?  Did I have some sort of horrid experience like severe food poisoning which has traumatized me?  Nope.  I don’t think I’ve ever had food poisoning, but I’m terrified that I will and won’t eat certain foods like chicken salad, things I think have been left out of the fridge to long on a hot day and any food that has gone past the “purchase by date.”  Am I prone to vomiting more than other people?  Nope.  Since adulthood, I vomited once when I was pregnant with my first child even though I had severe nausea throughout most of the pregnancy and couldn’t smell certain things without gagging, or even look at a McDonald’s bag without feeling like I’d hurl at any moment.  It was horrid, and I could barely eat until the very end of the pregnancy.  But vomit?  I fought that tooth and nail.  Then I vomited again when I got a bad stomach virus while in my 7^th month of pregnancy with my second child.  Then I went another twenty-seven years without vomiting until I threw up a couple of times while undergoing a colonoscopy prep.  I was on the bathroom floor in a pool of sweat and at that moment I think I may have actually felt a pretty high level of hatred for my gastroenterologist for putting me through such trauma.  By the way in case you’re wondering I somehow managed to survive and thrive after all three, yes all THREE of these nightmarish episodes.  I know what you’re thinking: “Man what a big baby!”  And, I suppose you’re right. But it’s not about the pain.  I had all three of my kids without the aid of any pain meds. ala natural if you will and trust me it took forever, and it was excruciating, but I never made a peep and trudged on to the finish line.  Oh, and I had a major muscle spasm in my upper back and neck at the age of fifteen and wow did that hurt.  I was twisted out of shape for several weeks unable to even get dressed without aid  but I was as tough as nails through that too.

So what is it about? To be honest, it’s been very hard for me to actually put my finger on it.  I only know that I dread it and that right now given a choice between vomiting and holding a tarantula I’d opt for the tarantula and like I said I’m absolutely terrified of spiders.  And given the choice of having to drive on the highway for ten minutes while having my usual panic attacks and vomiting, I’d pick the driving. (Wait till I write about my driving phobia!)   I absolutely dread the thought of vomiting.  If one of my grandchildren says, “Grandma, my belly hurts. I feel like I’m instantly transported into a horror movie as the main star.  Crazy eh?

So these are some of the thought I have about vomiting, “where and when will it happen? How many times will it happen? I won’t be able to stand it!  I’ll die if it happens in public! What if I can’t make it to a toilet?  It’s the most disgusting/revolting thing on the planet!  I can’t hear someone vomit!  I can’t see someone vomit! I can’t have someone see me vomit or hear me vomit.

It’s all very bizarre and horrid at the same time, and I can’t seem to control my anxiety when my Emetophobia is running the show.  If you are vomiting and needing help, instead of my sucking it up and helping you I will probably run as far from you as I can.  Like I said a phobia can turn you into a jerk.

I know that my social anxiety plays into this. I know that the fact that any time I have any kind of anxiety I’m nauseous so anxiety triggers nausea and nausea triggers anxiety for me.   I know that the idea of losing control of my body plays into this.  I know that an extreme level of disgust and grossness plays into this.  And it’s also very likely that my OCD plays into this, but I just don’t know why I feel like I can’t vomit without the world coming to an end.  I know, I know, I know it’s absurd, but knowing that does nothing to remove the severe anxiety and dread that I’m feeling right now and will continue to feel for the next four days or so when and if I feel that I just might be in the clear and dodge the bullet.

Meanwhile, I’ll barely eat, only small meals and soft foods; the kinds of things that won’t be so hard to throw up – just in case.

So that’s my Emetophobia and me.  It makes me feel like a freakish anomaly just like all my other anxiety disorders do, and I wish I could just be normal, rather than being overwhelmed by something so insignificant.  But I’m sure that there are others out there who know just what I’m feeling, and I want you to know you’re not alone.  We’ll survive and good days will come again.  Meanwhile, we can’t isolate ourselves, we have to press through the anxiety and do the best we can to work on this phobia just like we have to do with all our other anxiety “issues.”

Anxiety in all its forms pretty much stinks!  Can I get a witness?!