the quiet between us

Hi there! My name is Ellie. Welcome to my blog! ♡

Current Story:

And They Were Roommates (On Hiatus)

Two uni boys, one slow-burn romance.

18+ Story / Trigger Warning

Most Recent // Beginning // Character Intros // Extras

My OC's:

Xavier // Cassius // Yuna

Other:

Lookbooks // Answered Asks // WCIF

To start, when I started this blog, I never anticipated (or even wanted) to share much personal information about myself. But as I’ve gotten closer with several of you and gotten to know so many of you over time, I’ve become more comfortable sharing bits and pieces of my life.

This is something that has affected me for most of my life (as you’ll see below), and I wanted to give some context for what I’ve been doing the past few months given my infrequent posting and online presence (though I really do try my best 🥲)

I’ve had OCD and emetephobia since I was three years old, triggered by an innocent stomach flu that somehow changed my life forever. For about a year afterward, I carried a bowl around because I was scared I might get sick. My mom brought me to my pediatrician and was told I’d grow out of it (they were… very wrong lol)

In elementary school, I barely ate at school because in my brain: food = something in my stomach = something that could be thrown up. My mom would spend part of her lunch breaks with me trying to get me to eat. Eventually I’d only eat the exact same lunch every day, which was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, grapes, and carrots.

I wouldn’t eat at restaurants or other people’s houses either. It would make me panic and cry, which my parents didn’t understand at the time because they didn’t know the severity or where these fears were coming from.

As I got older, eating away from home got easier, but the fear of vomit itself stayed. I couldn’t even watch cartoon characters get sick without getting extremely uncomfortable, let alone seeing it happen in real life (which would trigger full fight or flight and send me literally running away while crying 😭) And if I got sick nobody could see. I’d lock myself in the bathroom and hide.

As a teenager and young adult, I got really good at hiding the worst of it, but a lot of habits stayed. Then life happened and some progress chipped away in general but things got significantly worse when I started birth control and ended up vomiting weekly for YEARS without realizing that was the cause. I went through so many tests that led nowhere (including a colonoscopy 😭) Eventually I figured out the connection and improved physically… but my emetephobia had become completely out of control. For me my most common “rituals” looked like:

* needing to know where the bathroom was everywhere I went

* obsessively checking expiration dates

* excessive handwashing / utensil cleaning while cooking (food safety professional btw 😏 silver linings?)

* needing to know WHY someone felt sick (“cold? stomach? food? contagious? are you going to throw up??”)

* going straight home after eating out just in case

* refusing food if something seemed even slightly off

* not eating before travel (sometimes starting the night before)

* avoiding foods I had eaten before getting sick

* skipping scenes in shows/movies if someone threw up

BUT HERE IS THE GOOD PART 🥲

The last six months have been some of the hardest work I’ve ever done and I’m so proud of where I am. With therapy, medication, and forcing myself to sit through discomfort instead of doing what anxiety tells me to do for temporary relief… things are changing.

I force myself to watch videos of people being sick (which used to make me nauseous and give me pounding headaches and now I don’t even have a physical reaction).

I eat out and don’t rush home afterward.

I can eat things slightly past expiration without spiraling for days thinking food poisoning is coming.

Food looks “off”? Too bad. I’m eating it. (Mind you my standards for “off” are wildly unrealistic 😭)

I can eat before road trips.

And the biggest one! I vomited for the first time in years and went out the next day.

That may sound small to some people, but for me it’s huge. For most of my life, if I got sick for ANY reason, I’d lock myself away for like 48 hours and be terrified of the world afterward. (Disclaimer: if I was contagious I obviously wouldn’t have gone out 😭 this was from too much greasy food + caffeine + candy + walking in the heat all day.)

I’m just really proud of myself.

My OCD / emetephobia has consumed so much of my life that I genuinely can’t express how exciting it feels to see progress after all these years.

Sorry for rambling and thank you if you read all of this 🥲❤️ And on a final note, if you suffer with your mental health in anyway, just know there is always hope if someone as consumed with anxiety as me can get better, so can you.

Coming soon...

°‧★ WRITTEN IN INK °‧★