I'm new here, I'm so glad to find this forum
Until today, I never heard of the word emetophobia. I ran across it by chance reading a post on a travel forum about a guy scared to go to India and eat anything because of his emetophobia. Then I googled the word and found out that what I've suffered from my whole life is shared by many others and there are a community of people working to deal with this fear.
I'm 34 and male. I can remember this fear going back to 4th grade. That's when I first noticed it. I had thrown up maybe 5-10 times while a kid prior. And oddly, I don't remember it even being anything that scared me at the time. The first time I threw up that I could recall, I believe I was in 2nd grade. I had a stomach bug and wasn't feeling well. I told the teacher and she called my dad to come pick me up. When we got home, I remember having a weird sensation I didn't understand, then I freaked out and started running not knowing what was happening to me. Then bleeeegh on the ground. I then looked up at my dad and he was just shaking his head like, "oh brother..." I then got inside our apartment and 5 mins later did it again and that was it. At the time, it wasn't a traumatic experience, but thinking back about it now and replaying the event in my head can be really disturbing. This particular school had constant viral epidemics and I'd gotten the stomach virus about 3 times within a couple months. As with the first case, none of them freaked me out or anything. I just felt sick, went to the toilet and relieved myself through my mouth and that was the end of it. The last time I recall throwing up, it was at this same school in 3rd grade. I was outside playing, but was not feeling good. I went to the bathroom to get sick. I was standing over the toilet and a friend came in. I told him I was just throwing up, but I feel fine now. I'm ready to go back outside and play. It just didn't scare me.
But somewhere between that last incident and 4th grade, I developed a paralyzing fear of vomiting. I remember in 4th grade I was playing handball and then this girl was sitting on the bench got up and puked. I was so freaked I just bolted away to the opposite side of the schoolyard, even though the girl wasn't even standing anywhere next to me. From that time, I had a lot of phantom stomach illnesses and my parents would have to come pick me up from school. I'd feel sick in the stomach often and it would go away as soon as I got home.
I still suffer from a very sensitive stomach and often get nauseous for no apparent reason. No doctor has been able to successfully diagnose what's wrong with me. Though one hinted that I may have gastroperesis(delayed stomach emptying). It's been something I've learned to live with. Since my last time throwing up in 3rd grade until now at age 34, I've come VERY close to throwing up on many occasions. But I think my fear of it and my willpower not too has kept it from happening. The worse incident was maybe a year ago where I ate something and within 30 minutes felt extremely nauseous. Vomiting was imminent, but I laid still as a log, took pepto, and took deep breaths and tried to think positive. The nausea was agnonizing but I managed to keep it down. Since my stomach wasn't able to purge whatever made me sick, it then forced it out the other direction. I had diarrhea within that hour that was unlike anything I've ever had. It was projectile diarrhea and it was coming out looking like pee, and after that even almost clear. It took several hours before my stomach stopped hurting, but I considered it an accomplishment that I stopped myself from throwing up as sick as I felt.
All through my life, whenever I hear of people at school or the office coming down with a "stomach flu" in a epidemic, I'd feel a shot of adreneline and my heart would start pounding. I was afraid to even be close to people. If someone in my house was sick and throwing up, I'd have to cover my ears so I didn't hear it because even the sound of it struck terror in my heart. If I walked down the street and saw puke on the sidewalk, my heart would start pounding and I'd have to cross to the other side of the street to continue, and even after the puke was washed away, I could not bring myself to step on that same area on the sidewalk, just knowing it was there. If someone in my family was throwing up in the toilet, I couldn't sit on it for a long time. I'd hover over it and then get away. One time I even waited till night and took a crap outside behind the trees because I didn't want to sit on the toilet knowing someone had recently thrown up in it. I would pray to god as a kid and promise to be good so long as he didn't let me throw up. This brought some sort of psychological comfort. Going from teen to adult, I was afraid to start drinking alcohol. I was scared I'd throw up since most people starting out overdo it and end up drunk and throwing up. So I would just lightly sip alcohol until I finally got used to it. To this date I have never gotten sick from alcohol except for a dry heave from a bad hangover.
In my adult years, I'd say my fear has somewhat diminished but by no means is gone. I can now hear about a stomach virus going around not totally panic or get consumed by it. I just take precautions like extra hand washing and avoiding people who say they don't feel well. If I see puke on the ground, my heart doesn't start pounding like it did. Seeing or hearing people puke is still very disturbing, but it's not the morbid, intense fear it once was. One way though that emetophobia does impact me is in travel. I love to travel, yet I'm scared to eat anything because I'm afraid it'll make me puke. Nonetheless, it hasn't stopped me from traveling to poor countries. I took a 2 month trip to S. America last year. While I didn't have some stomach disturbances and almost puked once in a mall in Brazil, I didn't actually throw up. I also came very close to puking after eating at a subway in Buenos Aires, but some pepto tablets, water and rest took care of me. It does effect my general eating habits. I don't like the idea of eating too far away from a place where I can lay down and rest in case I get sick to the stomach. I sometimes turn away food at parties or people's homes if I'm unsure how long its been sitting there, and then I feel rude for refusing someone's hospitality. This happened to me in Thailand. People were offering me food but I kept refusing which is rude in their culture and felt horrible. Once, I decided to accept, but I would chew it, and then when no one was looking, I'd spit it back into my hand and put it in a napkin hidden from everyone's site. All this because I was scared I'd get food poisoning and have to throw up.
I think at the heart of a lot of this is fear of losing control, combined with shame that would come with throwing up in public, combined with the fear of unpleasant sensation and grotesque look of vomit itself and the horrible sound of people vomiting.
Well that's my story in a nutshell. I feel I'm moving in the right direction and I've come a long way, but I'm far from cured.
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Originally Posted by mooki
