Finally free of emet
I don't remember a time before I was emet and I'm 33 years old which is why it still feels a bit strange not to be afraid of vomiting anymore.
I would always have periods where I was doing ok, I could live my life in a normal way full of friends, school, work, travel, eating out and not be anxious all the time. In those times I would only panic if I truly was going to vomit or if I encountered someone else doing it.
But the bad times would always come back, especially in the winter. I had several 'breakdowns' where I would be unable to work or go to school or do anything except cry and shake. I wouldn't sleep or eat or be able to think about anything except how terrified I was. Now that I look back on it, they were always times when other things in my life weren't going well either.
I reached my limit at the end of February of this year when my husband had noro. I had a 7 month old baby at the time and I spent an entire week barely sleeping or eating in complete terror of either of us coming down with it.
When I finally calmed down enough to think straight, I looked down at my daughter and saw how much she had changed in just that week that I had spent trapped in my own misery. She had 2 new teeth, was babbling differently and could crawl! For some reason that made me cry more than anything in my life. I pictured how much of my life I had already missed out on because of this phobia and how much more I could miss out of hers if I let it continue. That is the moment that everything changed, it was the beginning of the end of emet for me.
I decided that if I was going to get better it wouldn't just be one thing that fixed it because if it were that easy then I would have been fixed long ago. So I decided to attack it from every angle I could. I will lay out the steps I took in case anyone else wants to know what it took.
The first thing I knew I needed was to become less anxious over all so I could face things. That was the thing that always made me 'less' emet. It's different for everyone but I relax by a combination of exercise (long walks every day), daily hot baths and reading in bed. I made sure that I made some time for myself every day.
I also knew that I was less likely to be having obsessive thoughts if I had something constructive to obsess over, so I got myself a project. I went on a massive spring cleaning binge and purged the house of everything we didn't need. By the time I was done with that noro season was over and I was out of the habit of obsessing about it.
I started writing a book about my life with emet. I worked on it every day until I finished my first draft, then I started editing. I planned to add the final chapter when I was all better. That would feel like closure.
I went back to therapy. I had already met with a dr. and learned how exposure worked, but I got another dr. and would check in with my progress every 2 weeks while I did most of the work myself. She would make suggestions.
I did exposure. I found the pictures and videos easier to look at all the time. But it was the real life exposure that helped the most. If there was vomiting on tv, I wasn't allowed to turn away. It got less scary. If there was vomit on the ground I had to do a big stare at it. If I heard someone gagging/coughing in public I couldn't cover my ears.
I started letting my daughter touch everything and taking her to play groups. She picked up a bunch of stomach bugs and when she vomited I would make myself stay and comfort her, cleaning up afterwards. It got less scary every time she was sick because when I faced it I realized it wasn't going to hurt me. It was just chewed up food I realized! How is that dangerous?
I started letting myself experience the feelings of nausea without trying to stop them. I learned to tell the difference between indigestion, anxiety, being too hot or cold, ect without assuming I had noro every time I felt a bit off.
I signed out a big stack of CBT books from the library hoping to learn more. The best thing I found was a graph of anxiety vs exposure sessions. I saw how every time someone was exposed to something the anxiety went down a whole level and after about 5 exposures even the most terrifying thing became almost nothing.
I started looking all all other areas of my life and other behaviors and trying to change what was negative. I realized I was very passive aggressive, I never faced people directly when problems arose but would either deal with it by manipulating them, making offhand comments or 'bottle and blow' where I would put up with crap until I couldn't take it anymore and then cause a huge fight. I started telling people when they upset me instead. I also recognized which people were just poison in general and cut them out of my life.
I stopped forcing myself to do things I didn't like to do if I didn't have to. I had all these stupid little goals that made me feel bad for not doing them even though they weren't a huge deal. I gave up on any project that was holding me down. (I gave away all my yarn. I hate knitting.)
I got more organized so things wouldn't pile up and stress me out. I started a 'list book' where every week I write lists of things I need to do on one page, and the other page I would write my appointments and what I planned to cook for dinner each night. I also had a daily checklist of little things I need to do but often forget so I could remind myself.
I stopped letting my parents tell me what to do and did some soul searching about what I want to do with my life. THEY wanted me to have a full time career. I found I'm really happy as a stay at home mom and only plan to work part time once my daughter goes to school. It's my life, not theirs. If my mom hadn't have been stressed out all the time she might not have projected her own anxiety onto me and I wouldn't be emet.
Things were improving rapidly but still my fear of noro remained. This is because the last time I had it I was at a very low point in my life. I had left an abusive relationship the week before and my coping skills were terrible and my anxiety was out of control. My memories of that illness were awful as a result. I knew that deep down the emet wouldn't fully be gone until I got noro and faced it with my newfound strength, but the idea terrified me. I knew God would make it happen when I was ready, but I didn't think I was ready yet!
But then my daughter got noro and I helped look after her. And then when my husband got it I knew it was very contagious. I thought about how stressed out I was the last time he had it and made a concious choice to not go out of my way to avoid catching it beyond basic hygeine. I caught it.
The whole time I had it all I could think of was how it wasn't scary at all, just uncomfortable. I fought the sick feeling more than vomiting and when I did vomit I felt better afterwards, especially the second time when I decided that I LOVED vomited. I felt like a million dollars when i was done and wanted so badly to hold that thought forever!
That was one week ago and it's been a strange week. I've had some residual nausea, but the thought that always pops into my head is 'it's ok if you vomit, you'll feel better after'. I've also still had some anxiety attacks, but not because I'm afraid to vomit, just because my body decided to take over and feel anxious. It was weird to really think about them while they happened and realize how similar anxiety feels to nausea. It's uncomfortable. But without the fear of vomiting I can tell myself 'if you're sick you'll throw up and feel better, if this is an anxiety attack then it will just go away on its own in a few minutes'. Either way the anxiety fades pretty quickly when you think that way. I doubt I'll even have the attacks anymore at all soon.
I've been lurking here quite a bit in the past week, fascinated to be an 'outsider' for the first time in my life. Because I clearly remember being emet, but now I can also see the behaviors with a bit of disbelief, the way all the non emets in my life must have in the past. I always thought if I ever recovered I would want to do something with it, to help other emets. But now I find it too frustrating to even listen to some of it because I see how self destructive some of the behavior is and it's too hard to watch knowing that it's only making people worse. This is why like most recovered emets, I'll be long gone and far away soon. I've spent my whole life dealing with this, I would like to be free, really free from all of it now.
I'm finishing up my book now. I've written a novel before and now how competitive the publishing world is, but if I ever self publish it I'll put a link up here in case anyone wants to get a copy.
It's funny that after all this time I finally realized something huge that's so incredibly simple that I can't believe I never saw it before:
I wasn't anxious because I was afraid of vomiting. I was afraid of vomiting because I was anxious.
So to beat this phobia you only need to do two things:
1. Find a way to make yourself less anxious
2. Face your fear a little at a time as a less anxious person so you can discover that it never was a danger to begin with
You'll all find different ways to make yourself less anxious and you'll all find different ways to face it, but with that and the desire to get better more than anything else in the world, you can be free of emet too.
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Re: Finally free of emet
Let's hear it.
Originally Posted by lisalulu
