got in a fight with a good friend about my emet

[afraid213]

he seems to think that if i just "face" my fear i will get over it.. my therapist strongly advises against making myself v*.... what really upset me was him saying "youre not going to v*" it upsets me when people say that because they dont know if you are or not...ugh... fml

[bixzy]

It's hard for people to understand the amount of fear we have. :/ None of my friends know besides my high school best friend because she's the same way.
I can't tell you the amount of people I've lost due to this just by avoiding them and situations that make me nervous.
It's hard. I feel for you and I hope everything gets better.

[idontfeelreal]

I am lucky to have an understanding boyfriend, best guy friend (who is slightly OCD so he can relate) and my parents who are somewhat understanding, but never push me or bring it up regardless. Other than that none of my friends know, for this reason. I am not one to outwardly panic or have a meltdown in vomit situations anyways, so its just something I never felt like my friends needed to know. If its something I can keep to myself and deal with on my own, I will. While it isn't right for your friend not to be supportive in that sense, we also need to understand how someone who doesn't deal with a phobia can misunderstand it. They don't know what we go through, its a tough thing to grasp. Hopefully it is something you can work out with him!! Maybe try talking to him?

[afraid213]

i did try to talk to him...he said "im turning off my phone" its rediculous that he got mad ove me telling him certain things wouldnt work...ugh..

[jkl81]

So he said you should make yourself vomit to face the situation and got angry when you told him no way...and it won't help anyway? No offense to your friend but if he wants to let his ignorance hang out you can't really stop him. Most therapists seem to agree with yours that inducing vomiting is risky and ethically questionable at best, and highly traumatizing at worst. Think about how members have reacted here when they have gotten sick naturally. Usually they say it's not as bad as they feared but soon go right back to emetophobia, but sometimes they get really traumatized and set back quite a bit. As regards being supportive, it really is hard to support someone who is panicing, you really can't usually honestly tell someone 100% for sure they won't vomit and that is what they'd like to hear, but may not believe. I don't think everyone is cut out to just talk things through and distract you, be supportive, or whatever. The really great thing I've found about IES is that there seem to be a high amount of people here who are very compassionate and good at being other emet's sounding board and unofficial therapist even if they suck at reassuring themselves. So yeah, I've found lots of people here who say I've helped them and say they'd help me in an anxiety situation and that seems to be true of a lot of people.

[marycontrary]

My last boyfriend (who is now someone else's problem lol) and I had basically the same conversation. He told me that I needed to get over it and he would help me make myself sick. I told him that it wouldn't help because every time I get sick, it only makes my fear worse. He didn't want to hear that so he kept on and on about it and I told him again that with this specific type of phobia, facing it only compounds the fear. He responded by saying "what are you? a psychiatrist now?" (this was after he tricked me into eating deer meat) he then said "I promise, if you do this, you will feel better" and I was like NO F*CKING WAY! and he got mad and acted like I was being a total bitch.

In my opinion, I think people like this who get angry about someone not taking their advice/suggestions and then not acting on it is a specific type of personality. I call it the "savior personality". They want to fix everyones problems and actually think that they can but when they can't, they get angry. My ex tried to fix all my problems and couldn't stand it when I wouldn't do what he told me. I know what is best for me, no one else. Some people don't understand the difference between the simple need to vent and have someone just listen rather than spew out a bunch of unwanted advice that we didn't ask for.