The Emetophobia Puzzle

[She's Gotta Write]

My emetophobia puzzle complete: Narcissistic Abuse caused Childhood Trauma which caused CPTSD which, for me, caused emetophobia.

I was raised by a mom that has NPD. I was chosen to be the "Scapegoat" child and my sister who is older by 9 years was designated "Golden Child" and a worse narcissist than our mother and I was often left in her care which meant more narcissistic abuse. Long story short, it's this chaotic narcissistic environment that caused childhood trauma in me which caused my emetophobia. I did not have a bad experience vomiting as a child. I was not traumatized by vomit, ever. I was traumatized by a cruel narcissistic mother and an even more cruel narcissistic sister. That's what caused my fear of vomiting.

Only after putting the pieces of this puzzle together does my emetophobia make sense and more importantly, am I starting to get better.

[jkl81]

Your puzzle makes sense. I am so so sorry you had to put up with abuse like that, and you will find many similar stories here. On the other hand, many of us, like myself had really good childhoods where anxiety/emet were the only things that were severely wrong with our childhoods, and you'll also find sort of a middle ground where people had good parents, but were from divorced families, where often he breakup was ugly. I don't know if there is any common denominator among us all. If there is, I'd think it might be that almost every person from here is a harsh critic of themselves, fairly intelligent or more, and a bit on the introspective side. The emetophobia puzzle is a complicated one with lots of pieces, some missing. I hope you have found peace after your difficult childhood.

[She's Gotta Write]

jkl81 thank you for replying and your kind words. I don't think there's one cause for everyone's emetophobia, we all have to discover our own "puzzle". I am determined to make 2016 the year I recover now that I know what caused my phobia and what I need to do to overcome it. I have to heal my childhood trauma and not desensitize myself to vomit, so it will be a long difficult journey but one that needs to be done because I don't want to live like this anymore. Again, thank you for your reply.

[Rinkosparrow]

I also have recently discovered my own puzzle, I just don't know what to do with the information now or how to heal from it intuitively. I have a therapist and a counselor, but I don't get to see them often, so I don't know what kind of work I can do on my own to heal from the past and grow.

[She's Gotta Write]

Rinkosparrow - maybe when you do see your therapist you can run this by them and get their advice on how to proceed?

I'm happy you discovered your own emetophobia puzzle because I believe that unless you know the root of the problem it's going to be very difficult to find the solution to the problem. Until you know what's causing the phobia, all you're doing is treating a symptom. I don't think emetophobia is the problem - it's a symptom of the problem. That's just my opinion.