New Member

[jds]

I found this site after basically searching for the phobia. I was pleasantly surprised to find there is an acutal phobia for this instead of classified as general anxiety.

I know exactly when this problem started for me and probably why the fear is deeply embedded in my psyche. For me this all began in 12/1986, and I was 11 years old. I was to be in a Christmas program for my church just before our Christmas vacation started. The night before the program I got very nauseous, but not from nerves. I've done that program for many years before so I was pretty accustomed to it. My nauseousness was definitely some kind of virus or something. The morning of the program I was still feeling really sick, but my parents didn't believe me. They had me do the program anyway. I still remember clearly sitting in the front of the church, in front of probably over a thousand people, scared to death of getting sick right there. Fortunately, I did not get sick at all during the program, but I was still very nauseaous, and my parents finally realized I was not pretending.

After that, it seemed like that fear never went away. Over the years I was exposed to a lot of other people getting sick so seeing that took away the fear of 'seeing it' or being around it. My particular twist of this phobia is related to public humiliation. I get very anxious and panicky around large groups of people, but not because of exposure to germs, but I just might get sick. I've reduced a lot of that stress by going to places where there are a lot of people and I've reduced or eliminated a lot of that anxiety, but yet a few places remain to be unconquered and that is public transportation, especially airplanes.

Now, I've never gotten sick in a car, or boat, or bus, etc, but nonetheless, I think that this time is different, something will be different this time and that will spawn the anxiety. With airplanes the combination of being locked in and panicky are really nasty for about 1-2 minutes, but those 1-2 minutes are like a constant battle between the conscious mind and subconscious. It is not until the adrenaline wears off does the conscious mind win and then I enjoy myself (I love airplanes and air travel, ironically). The weird thing is that if there were no one on the plane, that is a very comforting thought for me. It's the people in there that set off the phobia.

Maybe my phobia is not emetophobia, but public humiliation or something. I definitely know what it is like to be afraid of a bodily function, however odd that is.

I hope I can help others with things I've done and I hope to overcome this phobia one day. I'd love to go skydiving, but I am terrified of getting sick and going nuts in that little crowded plane.

[alisha27]

Thank you for sharing your story and welcome to IES. Majority of us who suffer from emetophobia have similar fears. I myself fear of being sick out in public, I don't feel safe on public transportation much either. I guess it's that feeling of being trapped and no place to go and be alone during times of panic. I hope you do over come this phobia someday, it feels good to know you are not alone and lots more people like you suffer from the same fear.

[Sheesh4]

Oh gosh. Well I'm so glad you joined! New members are awesome and this is a wonderful community with tons of active members. Everybody and everything is so informative and amazing!