Posted by Dinah on April 16, 2003, at 16:04:20
In reply to Re: Dinah, another comment » Dinah, posted by leeran on April 16, 2003, at 10:24:06
Chuckle. Yes I think maybe we were wired in the same factory. Mixed blessing there. As my therapist told me yesterday, it's good in that I see things no one else notices, but it's bad in that - well, you know why it's bad.
I don't watch The Sopranos, but ER gets to me on occasion. Shudder.
Dogs don't bother me. But they did at one time. Travelling with my carsick-prone dog was a nightmare, a private hell really since we would go on long trips with her. I guess I finally got accustomed to it, because it doesn't bother me.
Getting "over" the phobia was actually one of the conditions my husband put on getting married because of the impact on kids. Fortunately, I can go on auto pilot if need be and take care of what I need to, even if I'm in shock inside. And I pop a klonopin immediately. And my husband is a sweetie about it. He takes the major role in caretaking those circumstances while I play a support role, if he's home. And he takes off from work if it's pretty certain there will be vomiting. So far I've managed, if not beautifully, then adequately at least. Fortunately (again) my son has a hardy stomach like his parents and rarely throws up and baby spit-up didn't seem to bother me. It is completely different. How do you manage with your son?
For me at least, a sibling was no help. Of course my phobia took full form at age eleven when my newly adopted brother threw up almost on me at a restaurant. I promptly had my first ever full blown panic attack in the corner of the restaurant, while everyone took care of my brother. I didn't know what a panic attack was, and thought I was dying. :( Turns out my brother had a verrrrry sensitive stomach and threw up all the time, especially after he figured out that it drove me literally nuts.
My bedroom was next to the bathroom, and I would always think I heard him being sick in the middle of the night. I had a hard time figuring out how much was real, and how much was imagination. I had my mother sleep with me for a while. When I got a stereo in the room, I found out that if I put the speakers on that wall at loud volume, I could mask any sounds or possible sounds from the bathroom. Later I turned both TV and speakers on at very high volume. I guess my parents thought it was a teen thing, although my tastes ran to easy listening, gregorian chants, madrigals, etc. Hardly your typical rattle the roof fare. At those times he really was sick, I would turn them on and then go to my walk in closet and sit or sleep there with the door closed. The bathroom there was permanently contaminated and I treated it like the worst sort of public toilet, hovering over it. And those were the relatively normal things I did over the combination of my brother and my phobia. There are some things only my therapist will ever know.
So many things were going wrong at the time. We had just adopted my brother (the son my mom always told me they wanted and I was supposed to be), I was the appointed picked on kid at my new middle school and torment was my daily lot, my best friend didn't want to be thisclose any more and wanted to hang out with others (and then she moved), my mom shifted overnight from my mamma to my mother as she reacted to my no longer being her sweet compliant daughter due to my emotional problems. It was all too much for an eleven year old. It was a whole lot easier to focus all my fear and anger into this obsession with vomit that consumed my days and nights, and distracted me from the rest.
And it was all so lonely, because I couldn't tell anyone the truth of why I did any of those things. No one really understood or believed me. I think I may have tried to tell my psychiatrist at the time once, but he obviously didn't get it and I never tried again. I was alone with my terror, and with figuring out ways to appear as normal as possible.
poster:Dinah
thread:219511
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030414/msgs/219867.html