what makes some people avoid vting for 20 or 30 years, & then suddenly give in & v

[hairyfairy]

I read every now & again about people who avoid vting for many years, & then they just do it out of the blue. I would have thought that if they could stay clean for all those years, they could do it permanently. Stories like these are very depressing &worrying for me, as they make me think that maybe I`ll never be free of the threat of vting.

[paulinek]

Well no one is free from the threat of vomiting which is precisely why it's so distressing having emetophobia because if we could 100% guarantee we were never going to vomit again we would have nothing to worry about, would we?

People do indeed go years and sometimes decades without being sick, which is amazing and who knows why they may suddenly get sick - maybe they got noro? maybe they had food poisoning? the thing is it doesn't really matter why and knowing why some random stranger has suddently got sick after 20 years doesn't have any bearing whatsoever on when or if you yourself ever get sick again.

I do honestly know where you are coming from - it frightens the hell out of me to acknowledge that I may be sick, i do try and live in a bit of denial about it, but on the other hand i was sick myself a couple of years ago with a tummy bug and whilst it was not nice, I did get through it and I can honestly say on a scale of 1-100 of terror about being sick, with 1 being not scared and 100 being i'd rather shoot myself in the head than vomit I was about a 999! So if I can get through it, anybody can.

I don't think it's helpful to be thinking about what may or may not happen tbh - "what-iffing" isn't good. I have spent my entire memorable life worrying on a daily or hourly basis about being sick, and i'm now 37 and have had exactly 1 stomach virus in my adult life that lasted on and off for about 6 hours and prior to that I remember being sick only a handful of times so thats over 35 years of worry for what probably accounts to a grand total of less than an one hour of actual vomiting time - now I try my hardest not to think about it unless confronted with it in some way.

being on here isn't always helpful either depending on your frame of mind as it can seem as if you are absolutely surrounded by sickness because it does tend to be the main topic of conversation, plus, due to there being members worldwide there is normally at least one person who has recently been ill whereas in your real life you may go months or years without coming across someone who has got sick.

[hairyfairy]

I have heard that people v less as they get older, I only hope that this is true, as it would help reassure me.

[paulinek]

I have heard that people v less as they get older, I only hope that this is true, as it would help reassure me.

There is probably some truth in that actually, i don't know why it would be - going out less drinking, less contact with kids, better hygiene, looking after yourself better in terms of diet?? Not sure, but I like the sound of that anyway