Roomate made chlorine gas. Please help.

[magicalgirl]

Okay my mom's friend is currently living with us. My mom left for work tonight and her friend started doing the dishes. I wasn't paying any attention until she started telling me how she added bleach to make it better. I'm freaking out. Adding bleach with dish soap creates chlorine gas. The back of the dish soap bottle clearly says DON'T ADD BLEACH.

I'm freaking out. I tried telling her that chlorine bleach can kill you and she got super crappy with me saying how she wants to die anyway. Someone please help me. What do I do? My mom isn't even home right now. I'm going to sit outside for a while.

Is it true chlorine gas can kill you without much warning? I'm way to afraid to Google anything right now. Someone please please please help me. I'm having a panic attack.

[MyNameIsTerry]

It's about volumes. Chlorine gas can kill if it's made in the right proportions needed to do so. But you would know about any effects very quickly if it occurred. I doubt you would be typing on here, effects would hit before you had the chance too.

To kill you without much warning you are talking chemical weapons, serious industrial exposures, etc. Far higher levels. If such levels were possible mixing some bleach with some soap then I think your government would be very concerned about how it can't control chemical weapons, as would the UN. In those volumes you definitely wouldn't be on here right now.

Get some air into the room. You may smell what she mixed but if there is no irritation then you are fine. Even if there is irritation, and strong chemical smells can do that anyway without being dangerous, then it doesn't mean the scenario you are worrying about.

[magicalgirl]

Thank you so much for the quick reply. I’ve been sitting outside since I typed this and im a little nervous about going back in. When she first started doing the dishes she was coughing and talking about how her chest hurts. This kind of freaks me out.

Should I go inside and wipe everything down that touched the bleach with plain water? And maybe open the windows? Ignore it?I have no idea what I should do.

[MyNameIsTerry]

If there is a strong smell open a window to clear that out. But I'm not saying it's gas, bleach can smell pretty strong on it's own and breathing it in can make you feel your throat feel dry.

Unless you feel any symptoms I would ignore her because she sounds like she may do it to annoy you given her initial reaction to you asking about it. If she was experiencing coughing & chest pain, which are symptoms of poisoning then she would need attention. If you feel this, consult a medical professional, I'm just a bit sceptical about her as the response she gave you seemed to be aiming for attention.

I think it's worth raising with your mum though.

[Andrash]

Okay my mom's friend is currently living with us. My mom left for work tonight and her friend started doing the dishes. I wasn't paying any attention until she started telling me how she added bleach to make it better. I'm freaking out. Adding bleach with dish soap creates chlorine gas. The back of the dish soap bottle clearly says DON'T ADD BLEACH.

I'm freaking out. I tried telling her that chlorine bleach can kill you and she got super crappy with me saying how she wants to die anyway. Someone please help me. What do I do? My mom isn't even home right now. I'm going to sit outside for a while.

Is it true chlorine gas can kill you without much warning? I'm way to afraid to Google anything right now. Someone please please please help me. I'm having a panic attack.

Hi Magicalgirl (nice nickname btw).

Well, after seeing this post (which, no offence, was a clear indicator your health anxiety had gone through the roof), I took a liberty to check out your other threads. Sure enough, I found what I expected to find - a lot of panic mode queries about symptoms of strange, extremely rare diseases that you absolutely do not have.

I can totally sympathize with you, because, 3 years ago, I was at the exactly same place (you can check my first thread if you want). And naturally, my only problem was health anxiety. It is the same with you. Deep in the heart of hearts, you know it too - you know that a bit of bleach could not have made a Syrian war zone out of your kitchen, you know that seeing (and killing) some strange looking bug could not have infected you with a rare tropical disease, you know that getting kicked in the head by a volleyball couldn't have caused you to drop dead of aneurysm and so on. You know it, but the irrational, anxiety - affected part of you is making you obsess about it, spend a lot of time googling about it in some vain hope you will find reassurance, and instead you just feed your anxiety more, thus completing the vicious circle.

What I suggest is the following - radical change of how you think and fighting the beast (anxiety) head on. That means the following:

1. NO MORE GOOGLE. If the temptation is too hard to resist, just block all medical sites from your search engine. It is essential that you do this, believe me.
2. Start CBT. There are free online courses on this site and they HELP. Well, at least they helped me and a lot of other people here, so it is worth a try.
3. Since your anxiety is strong and long lasting, think about seeing a psychologist and starting some counseling. I know that money/insurance can be the problem, but perhaps your school/college can help. If you are still in high school, I assume you have a school psychologist - try that.
4. Accept that anxiety IS a disease that needs to be cured and that anxiety ALSO causes physical symptoms (stress headaches, migraines, panic attacks, irregular heartbeats, nausea, dizziness etc). Every single doctor (except Dr Google) will tell you so.

As for other condition you do have (iron deficiency) - it is an easily curable thing - you just have to take more iron. But anxiety is not easily curable - it will persist, intensify and continue ruining your life unless you tackle it and soon. You are young, you are healthy (yes you are), you got accepted to one of the finest art schools in the country (congrats for that) and you totally deserve to live your life to the fullest and anxiety free. With a bit of effort, you can get there!

PS Sorry for the long post and if your roommate continues experimenting with bleach and chlorine gas, send her to Bashar al Assad, he will find some use for her :)

[ankietyjoe]

That smell you smell in a swimming pool is chlorine gas.

IF.....you mixed the soap and bleach together in a jar and put your mouth around the jar and sucked it in you MIGHT burn your throat or airways, but even then you'd recoil before you did any serious damage.

You are overthinking something that absolutely cannot harm you in those volumes and timeframes.