What helped me

[tikihut823]

Hi, I am new to this forum but have been emetophobic in varying degrees my entire life. I recently got help from my shrink and some other bits of wisdom that has helped me overcome it and I wanted to share it in hopes that it will be helpful to others. I’m sorry if this information seems obvious or unhelpful, but it allowed me to see things that I could not seem to figure out on my own. Basically, all fear stems from either a fear of emotional or physical death. If we keep asking ourselves, ‘what is the worst that can happen’ over and over, it should eventually lead to a loss of life or of self (emotional). For me, my fear was not as much v*ing, but of others seeing me v*. I thought, if others see me v*, they will see I am doing something disgusting, then start to associate me with that disgusting self, and I will never be able to redeem myself (emotional death). Then I thought, is this really true? If I got s*, and people thought less of me for it, I do not think I would hold their opinion of me so highly. I am only human and cannot expect to be a flawless person my entire life. So this fear does not hold up for me. Now every time I am about to do something based on fear, like be overly germaphobic, I run through those steps in my head and see that it leads me to something irrational. If you fear physical death more, it will be a different path of accepting that v* is something that is trying to preserve our bodies rather than destroy it. Something else that helped me was to think of fear as always about the future. If we see a spider we are afraid it will jump on us, when it jumps we are afraid it will bite, when it bites we are afraid it was poisonous, etc. This means that we can really handle what is happening at the moment, it is just the exaggerated future that scares us. I hope that this might have been meaningful to some of you in the same way it was for me.

[turbokinetic]

Hey we've occasionally had glitches with the forum - your first post went through and you got some replies! We've been having problems with the e-mail notices.

Check: http://www.emetophobia.org/forum/for....asp?TID=21273

Respectfully,
David

[kellybeth]

Wow thanks for that post! I never really thought about it as a fear of what will happen next. Like you said about the spider. I will jump on us and then what? and then what after that?

I used to be so afraid that I would rather DIE then vomit. But the last time I was sick, it sucked but I didn't die nor did I want to die when I was in the moment.

I felt sick and I excepted it and when I did vomit I just let it happen and moved past it.

Being able to live in the moment has allways been a hard thing for me to do. I keep thing what is about to come next. I just can't enjoy myself in the moment. I will think "Wow I'm having a good time now but tommarrow I have this and that to do and what if I have a panic attack or feel sick or......"

The spider thing that you said has made so much sense to me and actually put into words what I haven;t been able too. Thank you for that!!

And by the way welcome!!

[tikihut823]

Looking at some features of Buddhism has also helped me a lot, which focuses on being aware of what's going on at the moment and regarding the future and past as illusions. Like the spider thing is something I learned from Buddhism. If I think about it in a v*ing perspective, for me at least, I think if I touch this food then eat it I I might get a s* v*, if I get the s*v* I might feel n*, when I feel n* I might v*, when I v* I think it might never stop, when it stops I think will it happen again? I know it is very difficult to not think of the future, but effectively it is the future (what we think will happen) that is scary. It is comforting for me to think that even if we think about the future, we are only ever really living in the present, so I can handle anything. The world is not going to change, we have to change how we look at it.

[aaronsd]

first off welcome to the forum... I think you will find this an excelent community and be able to get a lot of support and understanding form the folks here. I know that I have.

I think you've stumbled on something interesting. However, I don't think thats the case for everyone, including myself... while to some extent I do fear v* may cause both death and embarassment that is not my only fear wtih v*... in fact, I'm not even 100 % sure what some parts of my fear actually emcompass.

[tikihut823]

It is hard to understand whats going on in our own minds sometimes. It was very hard for me. I had always thought that my fear was just of v*ing itself, but then I realized it was those bad experiences doing it in front of other people that had me thinking all v*ing was bad. I also just did not want to think about it period, so I had little understanding of what my fear really was. If you keep asking yourself, 'whats the worst that can happen', then whats the worst after that and that, it may help you understand the steps your mind is already making unconsciously whenever you have some thought. Not everyone is scared of it in the same way, but it helps to understand what we are ultimately afraid of. When we figure this out we can ask ourselves, is this really true/rational? It might be harder for people to discover this without outside help. My therapist helped me understand things I might have never known about (in just one session!). I encourage people to seek help for this, and don't be afraid, they won't force you to take ipecac or anything. They will help you understand your personal mindset and help you change it. I thought I would have this problem forever. I was so depressed about it, and then my mind made a little shift and it just went away. I'm so grateful. I feel so bad for others that have been in my place and just could not see a way out. There's hope! Please get help!

[alexikiss]

Thanks for posting that, Tikihut. It certainly will give me something to think about. I've dealt with other panic issues in the past, and rationalizing always helps. It is always easier to consume yourself with the phobia or anxiety than to really question yourself and get to the bottom of what the problem is. There are those YouTube clips of people freaking out on Maury Povich because of pickle, cotton and Styrofoam phobias and it seems so ridiculous to most everyone else. But you have to wonder where these things start and why they exist.