Hey everyone,

For the last year or so I have been dealing with some anxiety problems that started to get a little worse recently due to some unrelated meds I am on. The other night I was browsing the net and decided to see if there was an actual phobia for vomiting... and sure enough, I found this site.
I never imagined that so many people were going through what I was.

After doing some reading here and actually evaluating my own life I have discovered that I don't really have problems with general anxiety. I have problems with emetophobia!
Everything in my life that caused anxiety was all centered around emetophobia, but I just never knew it.

Seeing other people's experiences here has showed me that in all these situations in which I feel suddenly anxious and then get indigestion/nausea is actually stemming from my fear of being sick.

The problem is, it's getting worse. I've always (since I can remember) been fearful of myself vomiting and of others around me doing it. However, I thought as I got older (24 now) it would get better, but it has actually gotten worse. Things that never bothered me when I was young make me anxious in relation to vomiting now.

- When being in a movie theater I cannot sit in the middle of the row, locked in because I don't have easy access to a bathroom incase I get sick.

- When on the subway or a bus I usually get pretty uncomfortable because I feel like I have "no way out" if I feel sick.

- I hate long car rides or road trips for fear I will get sick. Yet, I've never actually gotten car sick ironically. Same thing with planes.

- I do not like crowded areas for this reason, and whenever I enter a restaurant, house, bar, etc... I absolutely HAVE to know where the bathroom is. And if I somehow cannot get to a bathroom I get anxious/panicky and start to get indigestion/nausea. I mentally do it to myself.

- I go to a college in the city that uses elevators. Often the elevators get crowded and stop at 6 or 7 floors before I can get out. So I am stuck in an elevator, shoulder to shoulder, with 10 other people for over a minute sometimes. I start to get panicked about feeling sick while in the elevator and thus, I actually work myself up into feeling ill. When I get off the elevator, 10sec later I am fine. This NEVER used to bother me.

- I used to be GREAT at giving class presentations. It was one of my strong suits. Now, just this year, I have developed a fear of doing it because I feel "trapped" giving my presentation. As if, I felt sick I had no where to go, and I was stuck. Naturally, during my presentation, I work myself into a frenzy of nausea!


Many of these things never bothered me in my teens, but they do now. It seems so silly that all these problems that inhibit my daily life are revolved around the issue of "what if I vomit".
Just the same I don't like hanging out with friends when they drink heavily due to the potential of them getting sick. And I can't stand being around sick people.
I always thought I just had a phobia of vomit and it was no big deal. And in the past it never was "that" big of a deal... but now, it's getting out of hand!

I am afraid to fly, take road trips, give class presentations, be on the subway, etc... All stuff that didn't bother me 2 years ago. I can't explain why it's so bad now, and why it's causing so much anxiety. I can't put the pieces together.

I am not really sure where to start in regard to fixing this problem. It keeps getting worse so I need to stop it in its tracks and overcome my phobia before it controls every aspect of my life.