Fear of Food Poisoning

How the fuck do I get over my fear of food poisoning? It weighs on me every single day of my life. I got it once a few years ago and that was enough to do damage on me, how the fuck do people nonchalantly go around eating sus shit and leaving food out for hours? I can barely leave food out for 10 minutes without thinking I'm gonna get sick. Anyone else share this irrational fear?

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Have you ever actually had it? It sucks but it's really not that bad. I think if you went through it, it would settle your fears a lot

I did have it, it made my fears even worse and kick started this whole nightmare lol. I used to not be picky, I took risks with food but then I had some chinese with my friends and a few hours later I was puking my guts out. I honestly hate the feeling, the uncertainty, the fact it catches you off guard. I was having a good time playing vidya and watching fucking Jeopardy dude, I was so pissed. I hate the idea of eating something I love and it making me sick, I just fucking hate it so much

At the end of the day, getting food poisoning is really not that big of a deal.

You might throw up and feel shitty for a few days, but if you're a healthy normal person, odds are you're not going to die or have any issues.

There's so much worse shit for you that I can't understand fearing any of this in a first world country.

Boy, OP, that's pretty rough. I have a pretty irrational fear of spiders, it's pretty much a phobia. The way I have dealt with it (it's gotten better, I can even kill them with my bare hand if I'm drunk) is by putting myself near them/learn a lot about them.
So my advice:
>Research food poisoning, common causes, best ways to prevent it, symptoms, etc - just REALLY know about food poisoning, even if you forget over time.
>Start to slowly but surely put yourself out of your comfort zone. When I moved to FL there would be huge spiders every where chilling in my house, I started to understand their behavior and it really calmed me down. So slowly start leaving food out more, etc.
Baby steps OP, but sooner or later you may kick this. I don't think I'll ever be completely unafraid of spiders, it's rooted just too deep, nothing even happened to me, just afraid.

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Yeah but again it's not even being scared of long term effects, only the short term. I don't wanna go out for a slice of pizza, which i fucking love, just to be regretting it later on. And for what? To "live my life"? I'd rather live my life AND not be sick, is that so much to ask?

I'm the same with bees, and for the most part bugs are predictable in a way. You know they're gonna buzz and make weird noises and show up in random places you don't want them to, but that's guaranteed. Food poisoning is subversive unless you're eating at an obvious shithole or eating something rotten.

I don't know OP, I have eaten some ridiculous shit, in fact I thrive off shit man I am a fatty and I fucking love shit food. Trying to change that lol, but still.
I ate pizza once at this place that had a wheel barrel full of dirt, the floors were filthy, and the guys hands who made my pizza were black from dirt. I went home had a couple slices and was too disgusted to keep eating. Not even a cold sore from it so.
You're young so your immune system is good, I think you're really blowing it out of proportion. Perhaps you need to get completely loaded on booze for a few days straight and then THAT will be the worst you've ever felt and you won't even fear food anymore, just booze.
Bees are cute OP. I'm going to be a bee keeper in a couple years.

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Lmao how in the fuck? More importantly WHY in the fuck. A place like that would send me running for the hills, what's the point of that? To say you "lived"? I guess my immune system is good, I'm sick maybe 2 or 3 times a year with the cold, but fuck man I ain't about to get some dirty ass pizza and take my chances. Bees are alright, they were once and enemy but now we have an uneasy truce..

Yeah I mean I didn't realize how disgusting everything was until after I had paid for it, and then I felt uneasy myself - which is saying a lot because I have literally dug in the trash for food, never told anyone that, to be fair it was in a separate plastic bag from the trash.
Yeah I wouldn't say to take your chances on shit that LOOKS sketchy, but, you gotta live your life man, just go and have a quick slice from a decent establishment, chances are you're going to be fine.
I had food poisoning maybe 10 years ago, seriously it is not that common OP.
Yes, uneasy truce with the spiders as well, I feel it. Good luck mate.

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It's actually super common for a bad bout of food poisoning to cause anxiety about eating, but it's usually only anxiety over eating the same food that gave you the poisoning in the first place.

Godspeed my friend thank you for your words of wisdom

yeah, i have a fear of vomiting in general, definitely because of traumatic experiences as a kid. i hated getting sick at night because i was always peacefully asleep as fuck until my stomach decided to jettison its contents, so that sorta ruined vomiting for me. i think i've thrown up during the day maybe 5 times in my entire life and i'm 27, it's always been at night while i was asleep. that chinese food bout wasn't the worst, it was pretty fucking bad but again it was the buildup and me being blissfully ignorant of what was about to occur. you're also right, i still haven't touched chinese since then, but now it's all food prepared outside of my house that i'm weary of

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I caught a pretty bad strain of gastro from my toddler nephew who caught it at daycare, and it was pretty typical vomiting diarrhea stuff but I barely ate more than a couple of dry biscuits in 4 days. On the 5th day I was feeling more okay and I tried to eat some plain salted corn chips just so that my body would have some calories to work with, but I put the first one in my mouth and almost vomited on the spot, and now about 6 months later the thought of corn chips is enough to make me feel nauseous.

Dude first of all, let's get it off our chest. Fuck babies. Second of all, I know how that feels man. One of my worst cases of gastro/possible food poisoning was a night i ate a bunch of moon pies and shrimp cocktail. couldn't look those delicious chocolate bastards in the eye without feeling a deep sickness.

You have OCD

i do, i threw away my pork chop the other day because i didn't feel like it was cooked enough.

... put it back in the pan?

Just buy a can of Skoal and make yourself vomit. That'll help you get over your fear. Or just get alcohol poisoning. Both helped me.

My sister hasn't touched a drink in 10 years because of one incidence of alcohol poisoning where she was a moron and drank like 12 standard drinks despite being 5'5 and thin. She swore up and down that her drink must have been spiked or something until her blood work came back clean and the doctors explained that she was an idiot and needed to keep track of how much she'd had much better.

i did, but i still didn't trust it. when in doubt, throw it out.

that'd probably work, strong cigarettes used to make me gag and feel nauseous too

dont let the rituals get control over you, it gets fucking bad man, the more you give in the more powerful the compulsion and relief becomes and it turns into an addiction

i know, i'll be honest it's been there for a while now. i'm going through a personality change and i'm starting to lift those habits slowly, but it's tough

op i have the exact same thing as you. also always had a really bad fear/obsession with vomiting since being a kid too. this is a mental health issue that is tied closely to anxiety/OCD/PTSD, thats what ive been able to figure out from therapy and having a lot of tests and bloodwork done. i think the only way you can deal with it is to try to always compare your fears to like a really logical realistic mindset. Like you have to really rationally appraise the situation instead of falling to the automatic food avoidance course of action. I actually had to get my food handlers license and take an online course on food safety and all of that so having that knowledge really helped me to balance the line between being realisticlly cautious and being irrationally afraid. but yeah op i really do have exactly the same thing you talk avout and it does affect my life every day and diminish my ability to function if i let it get the best of me. the techniques i mentioned have honestly helped me a lot but i still struggle sometimes.

Most of the time I feel like there isn't anything realistic to tie my feelings to, other than the fact that outside food is being handled outside of my view, probably by people who are dirty or have a poor sense of hygiene, for the sole purpose of making someone else money(who probably doesn't care about proper hygiene even more). I really do not trust outside food sources unless I've been there often with no incidents. Even then people leave or get fired, and new people get hired and I can't trust them anymore. I'm assuming you're in the food business, how often does shit like that happen? Like sketchy food practices that definitely will get someone sick, or times people have gotten sick and said something to management, and they ended up not caring?

I have the exact same issue. I started washing my hands excessively after getting sick from not washing my hands after playing and eating as a child. After my last food poisoning episode 2 years ago my anxiety is even worse. When I go out I only eat from the few restaurants I ate since I was little, sometimes I even refuse the food my mom makes if I feel she left it out the fridge a little too long and if I get a bit nauseous I start to panic and think what bad stuff I could have eaten. I also carry a hand sanitiser in my pocket every time I leave home and refuse food people give me if they touched it

I've eaten all kinds of food left out over 24 hours. It depends on where you live (temperature/moisture/mold exposure) and what the food is, but otherwise, trust the fact that you're a product of millions of years of evolution and that you're meant to eat a lot of bullshit to survive.

If it seriously bothers you, take foods you know for a fact won't spoil and do some behaviorial therapy for yourself. Let it sit for 10 minutes. Then eat. Then 20 minutes, etc

Have faith that microwaves nuke most bacteria that would ever fuck you up to begin with.