Its just not fair!!!

[afraid213]

I got a book from the library that was called anxiety and phobia work book. Its just not fair!! It says that to get over a phobia you have to gradually face it!! How the heck are you suppose to gradually v*?!!!? I wish i had a phobia of spiders, or air planes or something that i could gradually face!!!

[gumdropper1]

213,

A lot of us here don't confront our phobia. Some of us have just learned to live with it. Some do it well, others not so well. If you read the messages here, you find that some people post freak-out messages quite a lot and others rarely or never.

A therapist specializing in phobias would tell you that you have to make yourself vomit to overcome emetophobia. A lot of people have done it. Some have succeeded, and some have said that induced vomiting didn't cure their phobia. More people have overcome their emetophobia through natural vomiting. At the same time, those therapists might be partially right, because those of us who haven't tried vomiting certainly haven't overcome our emetophobia.

I say that the thing to do is to make a list of all the things you don't do because you're afraid of doing the tummy toss. Then arrange the list in order of least likely to cause vomiting to most likely to cause vomiting. Then start doing the things you now avoid doing at the low end of the list. That way you can have your phobia but it won't keep you from doing very much.

I also suggest you read my web site for ideas about this and case studies of people who induced vomiting to cure their phobia. The link is in my signature.

Doug

[boriqua81]

Yes I have read that book and totally agree with you!!!!