My Experience of finding a cure for Emet

[helsbels]

Hi Guys... I haven't been on the site for probably a year or so... the main reason being that I have been pursuing a cure for my Emetophobia and I felt that spending time on the site was bad for my recovery.


Anyway, to cut a long story short, I had a course of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (free on the NHS!!) about this time last year and I finished it just after Christmas. It was really hard work and required a lot of extra input and soul searching over and above the sessions with the therapist. Then I did a lot of work by myself (and continue to do so on an almost daily basis) since the sessions ended and I've been feeling 100% better.


I know a lot of people have tried various treatments and I also know that a lot of people feel very frustrated when it appears to have not worked. That’s why I thought it might be useful to share some of my experiences to hopefully reassure you that it can work if you are prepared to stick at it and really work hard at making it work for you. I think that the key to successful CBT is being prepared to actually let go of the fear and that can be really hard when you have lived with it for your whole life. Letting go of the fear means accepting the fact that one day you might V and for a lot of people that's impossible... certainly that's the thing I found the hardest but I was at the point where living with the fear was harder and I was completely and utterly fed up with it and wanted to change my whole life.


I waited for a year before I finally got to see a therapist, but when I did she was really nice and really supportive and we developed a good relationship over the months. I'm not sure if she knew much about Emetophobia, (and I’m not sure that’s even important) so I printed out information from this site and she spent a fair bit of time reading that and researching it before we started. I was also lucky when I saw my doctor who originally referred me because she admitted to me that she had never heard of it either and that she was really surprised by it but she was also really interested (I remember that distinctly) and I was pleasantly surprised by the length of time she spent with me at my initial consultation asking me various questions which she said she needed to do in order to refer me to the right person.


I also had to fill in a really long questionnaire before I saw the counsellor which answered questions like how did the emet make me feel, what did I want to change about myself, what did I want to achieve from the treatment, how does the phobia affect my life, etc. I think that really helped because it ensured I had realistic expectations of the treatment. I also think it helped her understand what I was going through, sometimes you can’t really express it confidently in words.


The point of CBT is that you change your behavioural responses to situations so instead of going into a panic when you get nauseous, you have to train yourself to respond in a different way. That's why it won't work unless you are 100% commited because all the work has to be done by you. I had lots of 'homework' to do including one week where I had to record every single time I panicked about V* - what triggered the panic, what my immediate response to the trigger was and to start to think about different ways to react to the situation. It's a real eye opener because a lot of your behaviour is something you do without thinking but this teaches you to slow down and analyse every single reac

[katiepool129]

Hey

Thats a great success story. Thank you for sharing it with us all and providing a possitive post for a change

Katie

[Galadriel]

The point of CBT is that you change your behavioural responses to situations so instead of going into a panic when you get nauseous, you have to train yourself to respond in a different way. That's why it won't work unless you are 100% commited because all the work has to be done by you. I had lots of 'homework' to do including one week where I had to record every single time I panicked about V* - what triggered the panic, what my immediate response to the trigger was and to start to think about different ways to react to the situation. It's a real eye opener because a lot of your behaviour is something you do without thinking but this teaches you to slow down and analyse every single reaction.</span>

</span>

Hi Helen,
I think its great that you have been able to get your life back from emet. I am really glad that the therapy helped you and that your able to handle v*ing much better.

I was wondering about the CBT, so its really just trying to replace the panic response with another response? Do you do a lot of "self talk" like "Its ok if I get sick, I wont die," ect? I am just curious as I dont know a whole lot about CBT. Do you like say try and divert your attention from the panic feeling to oh say like working on a cross word puzzle to take your mind away from the fear feeling? Im just trying to get an idea of what CBT is and how you learned.