emetophobia is not strange!

[aurora0917]

Recently I've opened up to a few people about my emetophobia. My immediate family knows about it; my sister and husband were less condoning of it, but my parents are sort of confused about it and keep going "what's so terrifying about vomitting? sure it's unpleasant, but it's a natural response from our bodies, etc."

My boss at work who's also friends with my husband and I had the reaction of, "That's so strange. That is such a strange phobia to have." I also watched a few videos on youtube of that one discovery channel series called "My Strange Phobia". A lot of the phobias were really, in my opinion, quite odd. But emetophobia was also featured in part of the series, and I could definitely relate to the girl in the video. Only personally, I don't find emetophobia to be odd enough to be featured in that series. Probably due to the fact I've been suffering from it for so long that it seems normal, i guess. What do you guys think?

I've been in this realm of fear for so long... fear of my bodily responses, digestive sensations, with any subtle shift from my body's normal state setting it off... the panic attacks, the anxiety-induced nausea. Honestly it's just really hard for me now to tell whether i'm truly sick or just experiencing anxiety nausea. I'm sure many of you readers can relate...

What I don't understand is normal people, lol. How can they NOT be afraid of V*ing? There's so many reasons as to why i'm afraid of it: for one, losing control of my body. Another, it's gross, vile, violent, and traumatizing. Finally, it happens so suddenly and most of the time it's associated with mind-numbing nausea and an overwhelming/incapacitating feeling of sickness. If I could be unconscious while my body contracts a stomach bug and has to V, that would be swell. But unfortunately we cannot do that, and if V strikes, we have to live through the experience. That's why I act like i have OCD with the whole germaphobia/excessive handwashing thing. Sure there's tons of unpleasant bugs and illnesses out there, all of which suck.. but there's only one major one i'm trying hard as hell to avoid, and that's (as you all probably have guessed) the norovirus.

Another thing is V*ing has never been a common occurence for my throughout my life time. I'm turning 24 years old soon. and i've only ever suffered 2 bouts of illness in my lifetime that resulted in V*ing. Maybe if I had to deal with V*ing on a daily basis (as terrible as that would be), like how we all urinate/poop daily, then perhaps it wouldn't be so horrifying/foreign to our minds/bodies.

Sorry for that long rant into thin air... it's just that, in summation: i don't find emetophobia to be so strange! And why do people think it's so weird? What's so wrong with being terrified with such a gross reaction that happens in the human body? Rhetorical questions, of course. Any responses or bouncing opinions/ideas about this subject matter is welcome =)

[TheSweetThinker]

Well...honestly I think everyone fears (or at least anticipates) vomiting, just not enough to have developed a phobia. Nobody wants to v*, nobody likes it...it's just that some people (namely we emets) have experienced traumatizing events associated with v*. Those events screwed with our brains I think, leading us to immediately associate v* with imminent death, danger, or unbearable misery, even when that's not the case and our bodies really just want to rid themselves of something foreign.

That being said, I don't think emetophobia is all that strange either...you explained some of the most horrible aspects of v* precisely, and when all that's clustered into one big traumatizing event, then BAM, you have yourself a phobia...or some form of PTSD...or both! It's all just the way our fragile human minds work, unfortunately.

[chocolategirl]

its kind of like the things people don't understand they find strange haha i do that sometimes. like think of ghosts and paranormal, we dont get it so it is strange!

[Ikari]

People think it's strange, because they don't understand it. I think fearing books is weird; I love books. But indeed to someone who fears them, it can be quite scary. Think about it: as a young child a bookshelf falls on you, books fly out onto the floor hitting you etc., perhaps trapped for several minutes gasping for air, then I can easily see why someone would have such a fear. They are missing out on some good reads! Good thing you don't really need books to read anymore. You can just purchase ebooks.

[JadeNight]

I also watched a few videos on youtube of that one discovery channel series called "My Strange Phobia". A lot of the phobias were really, in my opinion, quite odd. But emetophobia was also featured in part of the series, and I could definitely relate to the girl in the video.

That girl is actually a member of this forum! Her username is gcepeda

here's the thread about it http://emetophobia.org/showthread.php?t=27776

[rachel1989]

I agree with you Aurora.

For example- someone who is scared of like the number 13 or the number 8- I'm not slagging off anyone on this forum if they have such a fear... but it's such an irrational fear because the number 8, 13 or 2 etc. etc. cannot hurt you, it can't make you feel unwell or put your life in danger.

However, being sick feel gross and horrible and sometimes can put your life in danger. For example, if you are an elderly person there are issues with dehydration.. so when people say to me, I can't believe you are scared of being sick! it's just a natural bodily process. I say- Oh right, well if it is so natural how come it hurts and feel so awful? and when people see sick, they either retch or are completely disgusted by it!

Lol- my boyfriend is probably a bit different though and has helped me with recovery to a certain extent. he was very sick as a child and I mean always v* sick.. so he is so used to throwing up. He says that throwing up gives him a good "clear out" and he feel awesome after doing it. I always say but if it happens again like a bug, u start feeling sh*t again and he says, yeah but just throw up and it goes away.

But out of the massive list of phobias out there, I think the fear of v* is definately not a strange one. xx

[KaydeeJayde]

I say- Oh right, well if it is so natural how come it hurts and feel so awful? and when people see sick, they either retch or are completely disgusted by it!

I'm not arguing here, but there is a reason for this. It's (I've read) a primal thing for other people to get sick when they see someone else being sick. This might be completely wrong but I've read it somewhere and it seems to make sense. Consider this. You're in a group of people and you're early humans. You kill a something or other and eat it. One person gets sick from it because it's gone bad or there's a parasite or something. If you've eaten the same thing, doesn't it make sense for the rest of your group to get sick to eliminate whatever was in the food that might be harmful? It's just something that we never got rid of. Anyone feel free to correct me if this has been proven wrong or something

I do agree though that it's not such a strange thing. My therapist said to me once that emetophobic behaviours are just normal ones exaggerated.

And yeah, it doesn't seem strange because it's so normal for us to be afraid. I don't remember what it's like to not be afraid of this constantly, so it's now my daily life.

[aurora0917]

That girl is actually a member of this forum! Her username is gcepeda

here's the thread about it http://emetophobia.org/showthread.php?t=27776

Wow, that is really neat! I didn't know she was an IES member. Unfortunately i didn't watch the entire episode because I can't find the full version anywhere online... hopefully she's doing well as a result of all of the treatment and therapy.

[aurora0917]

I do agree though that it's not such a strange thing. My therapist said to me once that emetophobic behaviours are just normal ones exaggerated.

And yeah, it doesn't seem strange because it's so normal for us to be afraid. I don't remember what it's like to not be afraid of this constantly, so it's now my daily life.

Ah, that is a refreshing perspective. I mean, "normal" people obviously try to avoid getting sick (within reason) I'd imagine, and I'm sure most of them would prefer not to V if they had the choice. It's as if, like you said, our dread/fear/avoidance of V is amped up to drastic proportions compared to them.

[aurora0917]

I agree with you Aurora.

For example- someone who is scared of like the number 13 or the number 8- I'm not slagging off anyone on this forum if they have such a fear... but it's such an irrational fear because the number 8, 13 or 2 etc. etc. cannot hurt you, it can't make you feel unwell or put your life in danger.

However, being sick feel gross and horrible and sometimes can put your life in danger. For example, if you are an elderly person there are issues with dehydration.. so when people say to me, I can't believe you are scared of being sick! it's just a natural bodily process. I say- Oh right, well if it is so natural how come it hurts and feel so awful? and when people see sick, they either retch or are completely disgusted by it!

Lol- my boyfriend is probably a bit different though and has helped me with recovery to a certain extent. he was very sick as a child and I mean always v* sick.. so he is so used to throwing up. He says that throwing up gives him a good "clear out" and he feel awesome after doing it. I always say but if it happens again like a bug, u start feeling sh*t again and he says, yeah but just throw up and it goes away.

But out of the massive list of phobias out there, I think the fear of v* is definately not a strange one. xx

Lol, my husband is similar to your boyfriend in that throwing up doesn't phase him at all. As a child, he could literally make himself throw up on demand when he wasn't sick so he could skip school. He always tells me that throwing up is a way of the body getting rid of the toxins/its way of eliminating an illness more efficiently. And if i always suppress/fight the urge to V*, then the illness will only prolong itself and i'd be sick for much longer than i should be. Of course this doesn't stop me from fighting full force against V*ing when i'm ill, hah.

As for the fear of numbers... that seems like a whole other realm/facet of phobia. I feel like it falls more along the lines of feeling superstitious and terrified of the unknown in some way. Of course fear is the underlying trait of any phobia.... but it's ironic in that the body's natural response to anxiety/fear due to any phobia actually exacerbates episodes of emetophobics because those very symptoms feed into out fear! It seems like we have it worse, in that respect, when it comes to looking at phobias as a whole. Not that i'm saying other phobias suck more or less... i'm pretty sure they're life-sappers of all sufferers.

But yeah, emetophobia is more of a phobia of the body, of its bodily reaction to certain illness... of its vile, gastric reaction to varying situations. It feels harder to run and hide away in that respect... because we can't run away from our bodies if we get the stomach flu! Like, arachnaphobics and acrophobics can just run away from spiders and situations with heights. We can't run away from V*ing if it should happen.

[Erica1649]

I think the word "strange" can be seen in different contexts thru different peoples eyes...my office manager said that to me too, but it was more or less a surprised really? Like it was almost facinating because she's never heard of it. I actually never heard of the term until College where a friend of mine wrote an article about it. I was so amazed that it was an actual thing.

I even describe it when I'm talking about having a phobia of vomiting I say, "I really don't know how it came about, it is really strange!!"

I guess each phobia, issue, etc makes all of us individuals. At least its good to know that we are infact not alone in this.

[NatalyKay]

Emetophobia is actually one of the most common phobias. I used to do a bunch of research on it, and it's supposedly not that strange. I think people are just ignorant.

[aurora0917]

Yeah... just a year ago, i never knew this was an actual phobia. I thought i was some neurotic weirdo with a strange aversion/terror to V* that nobody really understood. When i finally googled "fear of v*" on google, i was pleasantly surprised and a huge wave of relief swept across me: i was no longer alone with this struggle!

[NatalyKay]

Did you look it up on wikipedia? At the bottom of the article it names a few celebrities that have it. Cameron Diaz is one of them

[JessalynV.]

I know exactly how you feel! I'm very open about my emet, and sometimes my friends and family think its funny to make vomiting noises by me. To me its not funny, and everyone thinks its stupid or overreacting. People even tell my that there is no way I can do my dream job (surgeon). It bugs me cause they say right out "you aren't going to be a doctor, you would suck at it" and "Wow you are going to be the worse doctor ever" and "Your "phobia" is going to get the worst of you and you won't even make it through your residency, come up with a better option." Well guess what everyone who doubts me, emet IS real, and I'm not being silly. I looked it up like 5 months ago, read the page on Wikipedia . Anyways, I plan to prove them wrong, by getting help on here, kind of ranting huh? Sorry, it just is annoying how arrogent people can be about emet. :P