Living with emetophobia (the past)

My story...

I created this wordle to express how I felt having Emetophobia

For around 20 years (possibly even longer) I suffered from a phobia of vomit (Emetophobia). I thought this was just part of who I was and although it was a problem, I didn't see it as something I would ever be able to change.  After all...who likes being sick?

I'm going to try to give an overview of how I felt without going into too much detail (I don't want to 1. bore you and 2. become a colluder for another sufferer - that's not the aim of my blog)

Over the years, the phobia became worse and I was more and more anxious about situations where sickness might be involved (even if sickness wasn't involved, I imagined it would be, creating anxiety about a situation before it even happened).  I often ended a day thinking phew, I didn't have to deal with anyone/me being sick today!  What a way to live my life!

All day every day I thought about sick…’What if I’m sick’ ‘I feel sick’ ‘Will someone be sick?’ ‘He/She looks like they might be sick’ ‘Will that (food, activity) make me sick?’ ‘There’s a bug around, I can’t cope if I catch it’.   When I felt nauseous I would start to panic and worry 

which made it worse.  The worse I felt, the more panicked I became, often to the point of physically shaking with fear.

I don’t have children (my choice and not based on my fear) but I look after my nephew and niece occasionally, and this in itself caused great stress.  Where possible I made sure I wasn’t alone with them for too long and for the duration of their visit I was on edge.

I can remember every situation I've been in that involved vomit....one particularly bad experience had me standing outside a friend's house aged about 20 when I was at university where another housemate came home at the same time as us (having drunk too much) and started vomiting in the alley that we had to walk through.  He was so ill he fell to the floor and I stood at the end of the alley unable to move and screaming in panic.  My friend managed to move him out of the way while I ran past and into the house.  

I remember feeling relieved when I finally found out that it was a 'real phobia' and there were other people in the same situation as me.  I read forums which I can now see enhanced my fear as these other people were offering ideas of how to cope, although what they achieved was just adding to the foundations of the original fear.

I carried out so many safety behaviours on a daily basis to ‘prevent’ myself from becoming ill.  Just to give you an idea, these included ALWAYS carrying hand gel and anti-nausea tablets in my bag, not using public toilets, not touching handrails or door handles with my bare hands (I used sleeve, knuckles, elbow!!), avoiding public transport as far as possible, becoming concerned about my own health if I even saw the mention of sickness on facebook, hiding my eyes or leaving the room if there was a suggestion of sickness on a film or TV programme.  

I thought I was positive, thought I had my life together, I was forty in the summer of 2016 and I felt I was embracing it but now I can see that really I was putting on a brave front to cover all of the insecurities and fears that went with having Emetophobia.

In the main, I have always been resilient, able to bounce back and not afraid of challenging myself.  I knew that I became worried and nervous in a lot of situations but again, I thought that was just who I was and I could manage my feelings and push through to cope with them.  This summer, however, I dropped briefly into struggling mode, having two panic attacks and feeling so emotional that I cried every day for a week which was totally out of character.

A significant day was a Monday in July and a very traumatic visit to the dentist after a weekend of panic and worry about it.  When I came out I broke down and although my sister had suggested I visit the doctor, I knew that wasn't going to be the best thing to do.  I was certain they would have prescribed anti-depressants which I didn't feel was the right thing for me.

I returned home determined that I was going to do something about it.  That's when I found the Thrive programme by Rob Kelly and I ordered this book from Amazon.

Cure your emetophobia & Thrive

Next time - Starting the Thrive programme