did anyone else ever get paranoid about germs growing up

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i used to get paranoid about germs or people coughing near me growing up, because i was worried it would stunt my growth

I was, but then I did biology at college, where they said most germs are harmless.
Supposedly 9/10 of the human body is made up of germs, i read a long time ago.

I realised that i've only gotten sick from food that's been left out, or airborne viruses, and washing hands is fine.

I didn't care about germs when I was growing up. As an adult however, I do worry a lot about germs, and I have made my hands sore by using too much hand sanitizer when I'm out in public, and I worry about eating meat out at restaurants in case it isn't cooked properly. I don't avoid eating meat out, but I do check cautiously before eating. I've heard of people getting severe food-poisoning from undercooked at restaurants and they were ill for weeks with it, like vomiting and diarrhea - both of which I fear. I'd literally rather die than vomit.

My non-AS parent was the one with the fear of germs. In particular, he imagined every fly rubbing its legs as cleaning off the feces it had just visited. I still have pretty good hygiene, but don't obsess. A medical doctor friend was always after his wife to relax about dirt, lest their son develop allergies later.

I wasn't really afraid of germs as a kid because I was more terrified of getting vaccinated with needles than I was of the illnesses they prevented. I was also much more terrified of going to the dentist than having cavities. I didn't know how lucky I was back then, my mother told me recently when *she* was a kid they didn't use any kind of anesthetic, and she once literally fainted in the chair. And this was back in the late 1950s!

Not me.

It's one of the traits I cannot afford to have among others.

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When I was a kid I developed a phobia of germs, but it wasn't as severe as the one my brother developed. As an adult I still vigorously wipe my hands on my clothes whenever I touch anything that doesn't belong to me + only gets touched by me (I know that does absolutely nothing, but my brain convinces me I can "feel" the bacteria on my hands and that fixes it). For me it's more of a compulsion now than an obsession.

I was never paranoid about germs, except for at the start of Covid. That's because my daughter is severely immunocompromised. As a child ... nope. I don't remember thinking about germs at all. I was afraid of dirt but that's because I was afraid of worms.

In my early 20s, I got paranoid about giving other people germs. Due to severe allergies, I blew my nose all the time and my stepfather made a comment that I was probably giving everyone germs. I worried about it a great deal. I began washing my hands excessively and carrying disinfectant wipes everywhere. It took me years to get over it. Nobody else I knew at the time worried about germs the way I did. Then, decades later, COVID happened and it was almost like society had taken up my line of thinking from that time, though their concern was a lot more legitimate with an actual pandemic going on.