What mental illnesses do you have?

[Divey]

Not really a mental illness but when I was little I used to be a massive germophobe.

In Britain we have something called the 'Giraffe Lady' who visited primary schools now and again and would inform the students about different things in life such as germs, alcohol and other stuff. Well on one of her demonstrations she talked about the danger of germs and it for some reason or another it made me really scared of germs, to the point where I wouldn't touch anything and if I were to touch something I'd have to instantly wash my hands thoroughly (I believe that it was at the point where I wasn't living with my family, so perhaps that was a contributing factor to why I was so afraid of germs.) and so this resulted in me having extremely dry and painful hands, they were sore most days.

After a while my parents finally became concerned and sent me to a therapist and I talked about why I hated germs so much, I can't really remember much but I remember being so scared about going back to the therapist that I ended up forcing myself not to be a germophobe anymore.