forums / support groups

I'm reading Leslie Jamison's The Empathy Exams, and it is a really amazing book. She's such a good writer. There is a part where she is talking about a conference being held for people with a specific disease/condition, and it reminded me so much of how I feel about emetophobia forums:

When does empathy actually reinforce the pain it wants to console? Does giving people a space to talk about their disease - probe it, gaze at it, share it - help them move through it, or simply deepen its hold? Does a gathering like this offer solace or simply confirm the cloister and prerogative of suffering? Maybe it just pushes on the pain until it gets even worse, until it requires more comforting than it did before. The conference seems to confirm, in those who attend, the sense that they will only ever get what they need here. It sharpens the isolation it wants to heal.

She says it much better than I did. It's why I sometimes feel like I am walking a fine line with this blog (because let's face it, a blog focusing on a phobia is not all that different from an online forum focusing on it). Am I actually helping, or am I making things worse for people? By sharing my perspective and what it's like for me to be living with this, am I encouraging others with the same problem (maybe even a milder version of it) to fear situations/objects they wouldn't fear on their own? Am I setting a bad example by avoiding so much? It's why I try to always show my bravest and most positive face when I write here and leave out details of some of my more irrational (harmful) anxiety thoughts. I don't like to post anything that doesn't include some bit of hope or advice.

I guess I'm over-thinking this and that it's up to each individual to know their limits and what they can or can't handle reading. I'm somewhat inclined to avoid reading what anyone else has to say about their experience of emetophobia, which seems like a silly philosophy for someone who blogs about the same topic. Sharing symptoms is just a strange practice, but especially so when it's a mental illness. It's already "all in your head" and that makes it easy to pick up a new aspect, to think "oh, that person's right, I should be afraid of that, why haven't I been avoiding that too?" The line between body and mind, or health and illness, gets very blurred with this phobia.

But I can't say that we should absolutely never be communicating with each other about our issues either. Especially when there is still so little awareness of this phobia (and such a stigma around mental health issues in general).

I don't know what conclusion I am drawing here, just musing about this. I guess I want to say that if any blog or forum is giving you new worries, it's probably best to take a break from it. And that you won't only ever get what you need from other people with emetophobia. Yes, it's nice to know they're out there, but sometimes it's better to seek out someone who can be a good example of how to live as if you don't have this fear. Maybe that won't be someone who can completely understand what you're going through, and maybe that's a good thing. We don't want to get so wrapped up in our reality that we forget there's another better reality we're supposed to be trying to reach.