I don’t know if anyone here has been through this… but I eat a lot of fast food because I have a fear of using anything to cook, if it’s for me to make something like bread and butter, that’s fine, it’s just a fork that I need, but when it comes to using a furnace or those kind of things, I just have a fear I might mess up somehow and start a fire or something… I know it sounds stupid but it’s a nightmare I have in my head for some reason =/, I thought I’d try getting over it so I could cook my own meals and get more healthy but thar’s a barrier stopping me… can anyone who has been through this give me any advice on it?
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Maybe start with more simple things? What I feel is simple is like oatmeal or pasta.
Maybe take a cooking class? They can teach you how to do things so it won’t be as scary.
My wife suggested watching a lot of cooking YouTube videos.
Salads, sandwiches, wraps, ramen (using an electric kettle to boil water).
If OP has a fear of fire, a rice cooker, or crock pot, or instapot, or air fryer, or panini press can do so much without ever having to see flames.
This is an irrational fear that is having a severe effect on your ability to function in a normal way. You should seek therapy if that is practical.
We don’t know how rational or irrational this is. Kitchen fires do happen. If you don’t know how to prevent or handle them, then it’s a very rational fear to have.
I’m always annoyed when people say “You should just get therapy”, because of how completely inaccessible it is to those of us not wealthy enough to be in the upper middle class, which is most of us these days.
They’re basically saying “Your problems are fixable but only if you’ve got thousands of pounds to throw away on a therapist, if you’re a normal working class person you’re fecked”.
You might as well be saying “Homeless? Just buy a house duuh”.
I know you yourself mean well (and you do use the “practical” caveat which is appreciated), I don’t mean to sound overly harsh, it’s just this comes up a lot and as someone suffering greatly from mental illness destroying my life that I can’t afford to get treatment for it’s very depressing :-(
In Finland therapy is free for students and also otherwise free if you can’t afford it. I’m guessing this is a thing in other European countries as well.
