Mental Health: My Journey with OCD and Emetophobia
Hi everyone. I want to start this post off by saying that this will be a very personal entry regarding mental health. I hope whoever reading this will find this helpful or even relate to anything I talk about in this post.
My mental health journey started in July 2019 when I was on holiday with family, I randomly felt unwell and neither me nor my family knew what was wrong. I went to the doctor while we were away, they did tests but nothing seemed to show up. I was feeling constantly nauseous and had stomach aches very often, which made it basically impossible for me to eat. I lost a lot of weight that summer and because of the lack of food, I didn’t have the energy to do anything. During that time, I didn’t find any joy in life as I was constantly uncomfortable and terrified that I was suffering with a bad illness. This long time period of stomach issues began my struggle with emetophobia. After summer ended, my symptoms weren’t any better, which caused me to miss a lot of school. I visited the doctor numerous times over those past couple of months, was tested for celiac disease, H. Pylori infection among other things, but still nothing showed up. One of the doctors I saw after the many tests I took suggested anxiety was causing the problem which I was really surprised about, since my symptoms made me believe the cause was a physical issue. After a lot of research on my own, I understood why he came to that conclusion, it really helped me to recognise my symptoms and calmed them down a lot. My symptoms improved gradually over the next few months as I ate more in baby steps, eased into school and worked on my anxiety based off advice from my school counsellor and my own research of anxiety. I still struggled a lot at the tail end of 2019 but it wasn’t constant like it used to be.
At the beginning of 2020, my anxiety was up and down but I was trying to get used to it. Prelims and exams started around that time which made my anxiety worse and caused me to miss out on lessons again. Before the pandemic began, I found hope in photography as I discovered the distraction of taking photos really helped me calm down. When the lockdowns came, I found comfort in staying at home with my parents as it helped me slightly to figure out my interests and ways to improve my mental health at a slow pace. My anxiety spiked as restrictions eased and got to see family again which was expected as I was used to the isolation. I started college that September and was still struggling a lot with my anxiety at that time. There was a gradual but drastic change in my eating habits between 2020 and 2019, I was restricted to a small group of foods, only ate at certain times and was very slow at eating due to my symptoms. I got extremely anxious if I couldn’t eat my safe foods or eat at my preferred ‘right’ times. I started getting more symptoms of anxiety that year like chest pain, hot and cold flushes, high heart rate, dizziness, lack of air feeling, etc, which would change up a lot, like a cycle.
I still struggled with my anxiety in 2021, having ups and downs but I was a lot more used to it. Between 2020 and 2021, I was really struggling with health anxiety alongside generalised anxiety disorder. The health anxiety came to a head in 2021 as I had to go to the hospital because my heart rate was really high for hours and wouldn’t go down no matter what I tried. I was really scared there was something wrong with me, After I got tests done and was checked out, the doctor said it was a panic attack, which I was relieved but surprised by as I assumed panic attacks lasted no more than an hour. She prescribed me propranolol and after I began taking them, my anxiety calmed down significantly. It felt like a big turning point for me.
My mental health was quite steady most of the time between the end of 2021 and beginning of 2022 as I was more used to the way anxiety made me feel but was helped by the beta blockers. In January, one of my parents was sick with a suspected stomach bug, which made my emetophobia much worse and began my fears of contamination. When college started again after the Christmas holidays, I felt a lot of pressure with the increased difficulty of work and worsening of my mental health. It was hard for me to keep the balance between my coursework and mental health, to the extent that I contemplated dropping out many times.
My fears relating to emetophobia were present in my mind the most throughout 2022 and I started considering at the beginning of the year whether I was struggling with more than just health anxiety and generalised anxiety disorder. When my anxiety got a bit better, I tried to become more confident by staying over at my sister’s, going to a concert, going on holiday, and trying foods I hadn’t eaten in years. When college finished, my mental health worsened as I got constant intrusive thoughts about being sick, which were present when I was at college but were much less frequent. They made me anxious all the time about my worst fear happening, controlled my everyday life, and got worse very quickly. It was really difficult for me to wrap my head around, how my mental health could deteriorate so quickly. It was around that time that I suspected I was suffering with OCD. The more severe my symptoms became, the more sure I felt about my suspicion.
I really struggled with hand-washing, over time it became so bad that it would sometimes take me up to an hour as I felt my hands weren’t clean enough, it really stressed me out. I was worried about chemicals too, to the same extent as germ contamination because I was scared I would harm myself by accident. My fears took over so much that I couldn’t do what I wanted or needed to do anymore, I couldn’t go a day without feeling extremely distressed. My night routine would take so long that I couldn’t get to bed until 1 or 2am even if I wanted to go to sleep earlier. I became scared to go outside and felt isolated from everything, like everything was being gradually taken over and ruined by my OCD symptoms. I felt like I wasn’t in control of my own life anymore.
I phoned the doctor before my symptoms were at their worst as I really believed I had OCD but the mental health practitioner the doctor referred me to came to the conclusion that it was just health anxiety, which I felt wasn’t accurate based off how severe my symptoms were, which continued to worsen throughout the year. At this point, my mental health was at its worst, I felt hopeless. I started with my current counsellor in late September when I was at one of my lowest points, after struggling to find the right counsellor for me after college finished. Around this time, I also joined an OCD support group which I found unhelpful for me. I exhausted all of my options at the end of 2022, which made me feel very depressed as I didn’t feel anything was helping, things were only getting worse. I felt like I was at a dead end. I considered medication for months because it was the only option left for me to try, but I was too scared of the effects it could have on me.
This January, I plucked up the courage to contact the doctor about getting medication and after I got some tests done, she prescribed me with sertraline, I really felt an improvement in myself after a few weeks of taking it. When I started taking it, I was scared about the potential side effects but I didn’t get any, that I was aware of. When I went to the doctor about medication, she also referred me to a psychiatrist who talked to me about my issues and formally diagnosed me with OCD and emetophobia in March, as well as upping my dose of sertraline. My OCD symptoms have improved a lot since I started medication.
Many things have changed for the better personally this year. I've achieved lots that this time last year I wouldn’t have thought I’d be capable of doing. I met my boyfriend this year, he has helped me a lot with my mental health and has stuck by my side. I’m very thankful to my family, my boyfriend, my counsellor and everyone else who has helped me get better to the point I’m at now. I am still working on things but I am now miles better than I was.
As I said in my introduction, I hope anyone who is reading this finds this helpful or relates to anything that I’ve written in this post. I’ve attached links to the end of this post if anyone needs more information about what I’ve mentioned or are in need of any support. Feel free to leave a comment if anything resonated with you and thank you for reading this.
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