emergency! please help!?

Question

at school some girl puked in class and i touched the door after she went out cuz i had to use the bathroom. what if i get sick? my friends said i won't and that i should chill. whenever someone gets sick, i always get sick. whenever someone pukes at my house, i wash my hands like crazy and lock myself up in my room for two weeks until the bug is completely out of the house. that's how much i don't want to puke. what if i get sick? every time someone is sick, i worry like crazy and wash my hands till they are raw and bleed. you got to help me. i have a week immune system and i touched the door after she left the bathroom. what if he is sick? i can't get sick. it's so awful. i washed my hands before touching the door. but not after. how can i worry less. today some girl threw up in class and i started whinning to my friends about getting sick. they just rolled their eyes. how come they dont care if they get sick? why don't they worry? please help me! i swear. it's ruining my life.

Answer 1

I applaud you on being a hand washer...so many people aren't but you seem to carry it to extreme levels. It sounds like you have a phobia. It would probably be very wise for you to seek some counseling to come to grips with your unreasonable fears of getting ill. You might also have OCD - obsessive compulsive disorder - brought on by your phobia. It is not normal to be so obsessed that you lock yourself away and wash your skin off your hands. I highly recommend that you see a psychiatrist for diagnosis to see if you have an issue. If you do and it goes untreated, it will eventually take over your life and you will live in constant fear.

Your friends have a normal attitude. You can't control who touches a door handle before you. You saw it in this case but, in many, you have no idea the state of health of the person who touched the door before you. If you get ill, it will not be from the door unless her hands were covered with puke and then you put them near your mouth. Many illnesses are spread via air droplets so you can get sick simply by being in the same room that person is in. Since these situations can't be controlled, your friends don't sweat it. You are in school every day with people who come to school sick. You will be in a mall where people are sick. That's life. Since you say this is "ruining your life" you are aware that your attitude is not normal. Please see a psychiatrist.

Answer 2

It appears you may have OCD (Obsessive-compulsive disorder). Many people have it. My sister has it. It is characterized by overly obsessive behaviors or tendency to become fixated one a subject. Many are fixated on a fear of germs -- like my sister.

A co worker's daughter got really sick after swimming in a clear lake. However, you see children in third world countries playing in polluted waters daily without serious effects. So exposure to some germs is not necessarily a bad thing. It makes your immune system stronger. (Did you know that kid's who grow up in ultra-sterile environments are more prone to juvenile leukemia)? Being too germ free may actually make you more sick more often.

But this information won't sway you as it did not sway my sister because there is evidence that OCD is caused by serotinin, a neurotransmitter in the brain that regulates anxiety. Many OCD patients benefit from the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibiting drugs.

When you say "It is ruining my life", it is time for you to let your parents know and that it is time for you to seek medical help. And it can help, as it did for my sister.