examining food

I've been sick this whole month. I got some horrible cold or maybe even a (non-stomach) flu, I'm not sure. For the first two-ish weeks, I was utterly miserable. Now I just have a few mild symptoms left, but even they are annoying me to probably an irrational level. I'm just tired of this illness dragging on. I guess my immune system is not what it used to be, since 1) I'm getting older 2) I hardly ever get sick because I stay inside all the time - I think the last time was early 2012 and 3) I still haven't cemented the habits of eating healthy or exercising enough. I'm going to have to try harder, and the thought of that makes me want to groan the mother of all groans.

I basically don't do anything good for my body but then have these high expectations I hold it to, that it can't be sick or in pain or feel heavy or unpleasant in any way. I don't like my body or particularly want to be in touch with it, even though it would help me so much to be more in touch with it and break down some of that dislike.

Due to the lack of positivity I've got going on right now, I've been putting off writing here. But there. I'm done with my sickness-complaining. Moving on. To something I've been thinking about that is one of the main reasons I have such trouble with healthy eating.

I seem to constantly be finding flaws with my food. I suppose I can't say it's a bad habit to look at your food before you eat it. Because yes, there could actually be something wrong with it. That just makes sense to check it out first, make sure it looks okay.

But it probably should be a quick glance-over, and my technique is more in-depth extreme fearful scrutiny. No surprise that I usually end up finding something wrong, some detail that leads me to think maybe I shouldn't eat this thing. These frozen waffles don't feel frozen enough (I also decide they're too frozen sometimes). This soup can has weird residue in the crevices of the top. These hamburger buns have too much white on the bottoms - which yes, I know is flour and I will still pick it off just in case it's dangerous in some way. These pudding cups have a tiny bit of glue on the packaging (tiny bits of glue frequently prevent me from buying something). One corner of this box of cereal is a bit crumpled. This container of hummus has too much condensation on the inside of the lid.

I mean, there are a million examples, and for almost every single one of them, I logically know it's fine, but I either won't buy the food or won't eat it. Sometimes when I am preparing something to eat, I will get frustrated to the point of wanting to cry because I will find five or six different things "wrong" with it and have to keep making the decision to proceed, and it starts to feel exhausting.

And of course it's ten times worse when it comes to fruits/vegetables, because they will not look the same every time you eat them. I still expect them to, because I so desperately want them to. I want to be able to look at a fruit or vegetable and know yes, that is exactly the way it's supposed to look. This is a possibility when you're dealing with super processed homogeneous junk food, but it will pretty much never be the case for healthy food.

I buy a lot of raw fruits/vegetables. Every week. And every week I probably end up eating a third or less of what I bought. I ask my wife to pick everything out for me at the store, because I know if I looked at them, I wouldn't think any of them looked edible. But this doesn't really help, because later at home, when I go to eat one, I get to inspect it for myself. Almost every time, I get scared and end up throwing it away. Apples, peaches, nectarines, grapes, etc. will have spots/dents or soft spots or discolorations or be oddly shaped or the first bite won't taste the way I remember it tasting last time. Carrots will have parts that are slightly green or gray or black. Bananas will have black spots. Clementines will have some green on the peels. Berries will be a little smushed and wet because of that. Etc.

Every single one of these examples is, again, something perfectly normal and not indicative of danger. I know that, but part of me is still terrified that if I stop being overly cautious, one of these "strange" fruits/vegetables will make me sick.

So I don't know what to do about this. I think I'm just going to have to suck it up and start eating them anyway to prove to myself nothing bad will happen. I have done this occasionally already, and then I will worry for a few hours, and nothing will come of it. But that doesn't seem to result in less fear next time.

Maybe it would help if I kept an actual log of these instances, so I could refer back to it and see that on such and such date, I ate a clementine with some green on its peel, and all was well. It would also be a good reminder of various "flaws" I might run into, because I will stop eating a certain fruit for a while and then buy it again and tell my wife something like "this clementine is green. I have NEVER seen this before" and she will laugh at me.

Anxiety amnesia confuses me.

avoidance behavior

I've been avoiding leaving the house a little more than usual because I keep hearing about people I know having stomach viruses. I hate that I'm doing this. I know it's bad for my anxiety, and it's not protecting me the way I imagine or hope it is.

First of all, most of these people live in other states. They are posting about being sick on Facebook, and even though they are hundreds of miles away, I'm still worried. So of course I know logically that makes no sense.

Second, I don't live alone. Any excessive germ-avoidance behavior I engage in doesn't really matter, because my wife is normal and still behaving in her normal way. One of my most important rules, if not the most important, is that I don't allow myself to control her behavior or suggest that she do things the irrational way that I do them. Because it's just wrong. Wrong to try to control someone in general, wrong also to try to encourage someone to engage in unhealthy behavior. But I can't even say I've been doing a good job with this rule lately, because I asked her the other day if she was being careful at work about avoiding sick people.

Third, even though it appears to me that stomach viruses are everywhere right now and then magically will go away with the warm weather, that's not true. They are always around, year-round. They are always around whether I hear about them or not, whether people I know have them or not. There is no reason to take any extra precautions right now.

One of the things I think emetophobics forget a lot of the time is that we have immune systems. We rarely factor that in when we're trying to figure out how "at risk" we think we are. In all likelihood, we're exposed to stomach viruses and other illnesses much more than even we could imagine, and our bodies fight them off. That's what is supposed to happen, and it happens most when we're taking care of ourselves. Eating healthy, getting enough sleep, exercising are all important, of course, but aside from those, it's important to lower stress as much as possible. Stress affects the immune system. In other words, working to fight anxiety related to this phobia, working to stay as calm as possible, is protection itself from physical illness.

So that is my thought for the week. Trust the immune system! It knows what it's doing. It's working hard for me, and that takes some of the pressure off. I don't have to work as hard or worry as much as I do.

I did have a very successful day yesterday. I was supposed to go somewhere in the morning. I woke up feeling "sick" and almost backed out of it. I wasn't even feeling as "sick" as I have on other days when I've still gone places. I have just been overreacting because of the references to stomach viruses I have seen. Anyway, I made myself go, and I started to feel better and ended up having a great time. I am sure if I had backed out of it, I would have ended the day feeling moody, knowing I had missed out on something fun because of anxiety, and instead I got to end the day feeling happy and reflecting on the memories of the fun I had.

Emetophobia shmemetophobia!