I hope this story inspires you , and helps you believe that we CAN overcome this :)
PLEASE NOTE, THERE MAY BE A FEW SMALL TRIGGERS IN THE INFORMATION BELOW, BUT IT IS WORTH READING IF YOU NEED HELP BELIEVING THAT YOU CAN OVERCOME THIS PHOBIA.
First of all, I would like to start by giving you a bit of background information about my experiences with this phobia, and the severity with which I have experienced it. If I started by telling you what I have achieved , then you probably wouldn't believe that I have it that bad ; I wouldn't believe myself either.
I have had emetophobia since I was nine months old. I know this because they say it is caused by a traumatic child hood experience with it, and I got severe food poisoning at the age of nine months. My worst childhood memories happened before my parents knew, and I had to deal with it all on my own. However, once when I was four, my sister threw a skirt at me that she had been ill in two years previous to that day. I started screaming, ripped all of my clothes off, jumped in the shower and scrubbed myself raw, until my skin was actual bleeding. That's when they knew. My parents have been incredibly supportive since then, and have spent hours driving me to various types of therapy to see if anything would help get rid of the phobia. Nothing worked.
Despite the fact that no therapy could help me, I was quite good at dealing with the phobia. However, it caused me to miss out on so many important opportunities and experiences. For example, I barely went on school trips when I was younger, for fear of someone being ill on the coach. I never enjoyed theme parks , never played on the spinning rides at the park , rarely went to the cinema for fear that the movie would have a scene where someone was ill . For two years I didn't eat chicken or dairy products, because I worried that they would make me ill.
The worst stage was when I was ten years old. Myself and the rest of my family got norovirus, which lasted for about three days. It was easily the most traumatic experience of my life. After that, I missed months of school, and when I did go in to school, I had to be dragged there by three members of staff. I neglected my friends, and went from being a relatively popular person, to the school loner. My teachers hated me because I made their lives difficult, and I remember finding my mother crying because she didn't know how to help me. I was referred to the local psychiatric hospital, and was in and out of therapy for a long time.
It has been a slow climb back to normality since then, but I am 15 now and I can do things now that I never dreamed of being able to do. I can stay in the room if someone says they feel ill at school, and even take them to reception. I can convince myself that I am not going to be ill if I feel nauseous. I can watch movies with S* scenes in them, can eat without rigorously washing my hands and scrubbing my surroundings.
However , the things that I really want to talk about , what I came on here to say , is that last week , I embarked on a seventeen hour coach journey across Europe to Berlin , with people who get severely travel s* sitting two seats behind me. And then I did the same on the return journey. Admittedly, I was petrified, but I did it, which means you can too. On top of that, someone was ill, twice, but I stayed on the coach, and was even able to talk to them a couple of hours after it had happened. That is a long way from avoiding my own mother for two weeks because she had been ill.
There were many instances on the trip where people said they felt ill, but I did not run. I even stayed seated when the person sat next to me on the coach said they felt ill. And at one point, I had the person who was ill on the trip out sitting behind me.
To me, this story sounds impossible, so you may find it hard to believe, but it is true. I hope you now see that no matter how bad it is, it can get better, and this phobia does not need to run, or to ruin your life. There were points in my life where I considered suicide, and now I am able to do something like that. That trip was one of the best experiences of my life, and I almost missed out on it because of this phobia. Do not let that happen to you. Do not let it run your life. Let this story tell you that you CAN overcome this phobia. Do not lose faith.
I hope I have given you the courage to overcome this phobia. I don't think we can ever make it go away, but we can certainly stop it from ruining our lives, and from interfering with what really matters.
If anyone is having a really bad time with the phobia, feel free to talk to me. I wish that I had had someone who understand exactly how I felt when I was in those bad places , so if you need someone to talk to , even about the smallest , silliest things , contact me , I am more than happy to help you through it.
Lots of Love
Jessica☮ ♥ ♫ ★
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Originally Posted by katherines6
