Hello! So pleased to see that you are finding something in my posts here! It makes me really happy that I can help because goddamn do I know what hell emetophobia is.

CBT has helped me more than I thought it would. I had no concept of what it was like to live without being scared shitless ALL. THE. TIME. so how could I know? I don't have anxiety every day anymore. Not even weekly. When I do get it it feels like the end of the world - but I take that as a good sign because it means I am not used to feeling that way anymore. And I have better tools to cope with it now so those moments pass so quickly.

I've felt really ill a couple times in the past month or so and you know what? No anxiety. Nothing. All I thought was "Okay. I'm cool with that." and I continue doing whatever I'm doing. I still have some of the tics - like checking the colour of my cheeks. But when it comes down to it - I'm not afraid.

I am not afraid anymore.

The words seem so unreal to me still. I can't believe that I am not afraid anymore. I don't spend each night in bed in panic until I fall asleep from exhaustion with my laptop on my stomach. I turn my laptop off and I deliberately go to bed and I RELAX.

CBT will be difficult at times. It will take time. But what I failed to see at the start was that when my therapist said "It'll be 5-6 months until you're better" was that there's a huge gap between my starting point and my better. And every single step in between those two feels like freedom. Every step is a breath of air, every step left me with a feeling of victory and every single day I was a little less afraid. It's not like you have to put in hard work 6 months and wait for the one day suddenly a switch is flipped. Every step is freedom.

Another thing that I hadn't been expecting was how my husband would have a struggle to adjust his expectation and picture of me to one that isn't afraid. "She won't want to do that because she will be afraid" - it doesn't apply anymore and I had to actively prove that to him. Not grand gestures but every day things like not throwing away the milk the day before it expires - instead the sniff and taste test applies even if the milk expired three days ago.

I am so happy that I now have to reconsider my 'emetophobic' label.