What happened when you were around 9?

[jasminemarie]

These are all so interesting to read, and some very very moving and upsetting

For me, around the age of 9/10 I kind of worked out somehow that my parents were splitting up, which at first they denied but then later admitted, asking me to keep it from my 3 brothers for a number of months before they told them a few days after Christmas. The breakup of my parents was the decline in the relationship between me and my dad.

Also, I started having black outs and fainting quite a lot, and the first time it happened was at school. My eyes went fuzzy "like a tv screen" as I had explained to the nurse and the same thing also happened the last time I v* aged 11. The eye thing. Anyway, I had lots of tests to see what was wrong but they couldn't find anything major. They said I was pretty underweight though and I had to eat 2 biscuits 30 minutes before I went to bed.

This is sparking lots of memories for me.. I remember when I was 5, I was invited for my first sleepover at my friends house. We had been out for dinner for her birthday and I had got home and into some of her spare pjs before changing my mind and crying to be taken home. For years, I could never stay at people's houses - probably till about 11/12.

Around the age of 9 ish again, this is when i recall my first ritualistic behaviour concerning anxiety and emetophobia. I had to sleep with the "sick bowl" by my bed every night, it couldn't be under the bed, it had to be right at the side of my bed. I also couldnt sleep with my pyjama top on, I have no idea why. Although now, no matter what time of year, I have to wear sleeveless pj tops, like tank tops. Weird huh, how our brain works as other people have said?!

And the last time I v* was aged 11, the day after a school trip to a zoo I think. I remember blaming it on an ice lolly I had eaten on the school trip, no idea why I thought that.

Great idea for a post btw sage

[AngelPhobia]

Well, I think when I was around nine I saw a girl get sick in class and that was when I noticed that I was afraid but I also had a bad experience where I was sexually abused around that same time too. It's weird that it seems that a lot of people experienced something bad around that age.

[AngelPhobia]

I also want to state that I am new to this group as of today and am hoping to find help dealing with this phobia and possibly finding a treatment that will help concur my fear.

[Blushes]

Wow, it's amazing what the random number 9 means to me. I superstitiously named that my "unlucky number" because when I was 9 years old, that's when I first developed emet. (In 9th grade, that was when my phobia peaked at its worst and people thought I was anorexic, but that's another story of its own.) When I was 9 years old, it was a horrible, horrible year. I was in 4th grade, and my brother (15 years older than me - wide age gap I know) was going to move away to Texas that summer. He was always like the awesome cool role model that I looked up to, and we got along really well. When I heard the news, I was outside on the porch with him, and I sat on his lap and cried while balls of cotton were flying off the trees. It looked like it was snowing that day because of all the cotton, but it was a really hot day. He said he would come back to see me and my mom, but he took off and lived his life all over the world, and I felt forgotten for years before I saw him again. He didn't leave until later on in the fall, but when he did, I felt like I lost a best friend.

Later on that fall, my grandpa died. It was the first funeral I've been to since I could remember. My brother was the pall-bearer for my grandfather's coffin. The day after the funeral was when my brother packed his things and left. My mom and I moved from our large 3-bedroom condo to a 1-bedroom suite, and my pet cat Izzy had babies so we had to give them all away. I faced one loss right after the other. I remember distinctly that fall around Thanksgiving (October because I'm Canadian), when I was eating pumpkin pie, I was feeling very miserable and I didn't want to go to school the next Monday morning. I decided to push my dessert away and felt very nauseous to the pit of my stomach because of the anxiety. I had nightmares, dizzy spells, and feelings of vulnerability. I cried all the time. My mom was never there because she was always working. Every day I was picked up from school by some new "stranger," as I called them, but it was a new babysitter or shuttle service that my mom always paid for. I felt incredibly alone and it was then that I developed emet.

[Rose22]

The last time I vomited I was 7 and had a horrible stomach bug and once or twice before that I was scared before *V but afterwards was fine. The phobia started around 10 and I actually refused to go to school for a month because of it. The only thing notable about that time was I had a teacher who was really strange/inappropriate (not actually sexually abusing anyone) but would tell us intimate details of her love life and would tell us we were stupid sometimes (not me in particular) and we even had a "Jerry Springer" day but told us we couldn't tell anyone. One girl told though but nobody backed her up and she was just moved to a different class. Even if this sounds shocking I don't really think it has anything directly to do with my emet.

[Momof6]

I was a little younger than 9. When I was 7, my friend threw up all over the floor of our classroom. I let the teacher know and the next thing she (the teacher) gave me a sponge and told me to clean it up. It was so traumatic for me. No one should ever make a child do that! Whenever my kids are sick, I shoo the other ones out of the room and clean it up. I am shaking like crazy, though.

[Momof6]

[QUOTE=AngelPhobia;346060]I also want to state that I am new to this group as of today and am hoping to find help dealing with this phobia and possibly finding a treatment that will help concur my fear.[/QUOTE

Same with me.

[sunnyskies]

Wow, this is pretty amazing. Such an unlucky age, I guess. =/

When I was 9, my older sister who was my best friend at the time got married, which I remember being really heartbroken about because I felt like I would hardly ever see her after that. And was mad at her husband for stealing her away from my family, hahah.

I was in a private school that had to close down due to financial problems. I rarely ever enjoyed being there, and initially I was glad so I could either go somewhere else or be homeschooled, but quickly it hit me and I missed my friends and teachers there. I grew apart entirely from all of them after that. The people I became friends with after were not beneficial and ended up causing more longterm stress and agony for me.

I think overall, it was just a lonely time where a lot of people I loved left and things changed. The normal/typical situation of life. My attitude and perspectives on life became very cynical and I have struggled with pessimism ever since. Also it must have been then that opened up my mind to fear/worry about everything. I was eleven the last time I was seriously sick with a stomach virus, and that's about when my emet first began. I truly did get over it for many years... until 2011.

[Truegryphon]

I'd say I was 8-9. Every day I'd eat cereal then v* before school, or on the bus. I eventually got the nick-name "b* boy" from all the other kids... My mom attributes my phobia to her and my dad fighting, and my dad going off for a week, but I know that I would have known that it really was about work, and they were not breaking up (divorce wouldn't have bothered me actually, and sadly). Granted, this also was the age that my sister moved out and the brunt of the abuse from my parents transferred onto me...

I didn't start having phobia problems until I was 11, though. It was minor, but would stop me from eating out. Of course, I would take those days over what I have going on now; that's for sure.

[KTB]

I changed schools when I was 9/10, had a horrible year where everyone was mean to me and also v*d one day (I haven't been properly sick since). My anxiety got worse after that year, but I had my v* phobia before then.

My very first memory (at age 2) is of being sick. It's a really vague memory and I don't remember being scared. But I know my whole family was sick too, and I figure it must have been significant because I still remember it and I've been scared of v* ever since!

[ronnietav]

I was afraid of v......g from the age of 5, when I threw up on my Mum and on the carpet in front of visitors. But it didn't worry me
too badly until the last time I v......ed when I was 9 years old. That was the year my Mum went to hospital with breast cancer. I haven't v......ed since, although I've come close. I'm now 62.

[krobin21]

When I was around 9/10 I remember being sick in the sink in my classroom, and a few of the other students saw and I was SO EMBARASSED.

Around 11/12 [I know it's a little far from 9], my niece came to spend the night with me a few times and got carsick. Once when I was in the front seat, my mom was driving. The second time, however, it happened when I was sitting right next to her. I was pressed against the car door trying to roll the window down [but my parents locked them so we wouldn't mess up the A/C flow] and panicking. I was then yelled at pretty harshly by both my parents because I didn't help my niece, but back then I didn't know I had emetophobia.

My emetophobia started around 9/10 because it's as far back as I can remember being really emotional about being sick. I was fine until the times happened with my niece, since then it hasn't gone away.

[hadenough]

I was sexually, physcially and emotionally abused by my step dad from the age of 5 to 12, he was an alcholic and would often vomit he never cared where he was . My mother suffered bad migraines and quiet often we would be driving somewhere as he didnt have a licence and she would pull over vomit and then keep driving.
I remember when i was 9 or 10 i got sick and i got in trouble, and a couple of months later i felt sick and had what i know now is a panic and my mother dragged me to the toilet forced my head over the bowl and when i fought to get away in tears i got belted and told i was a stupid little girl and the more i fought it and cried the more i got smacked.
So i learnt that if i got sick or ever felt sick i had to apologise for it and i would always without fail right up till in i was in my 20's i would get told how stupid i was by her and made to feel like a worthless person.

[bepretty]

I'm almost certain I had my bad emet experience around 9. I was in 4th grade...so yeah. Probably 9 or 10. My friend and I were taken by her big sister to the state fair. We went on one of those rides that's like sitting in a swing attached to a carousel? Anyway, when we got off, she got really sick in the grass, and I remember seeing it and being scared. I thought it was motion sickness, but it continued at her house. I had to see and hear it. Her big sister and I holed up in a room and watched TV, but I wanted to leave. I had my mom pick me up, but it took awhile. I felt VERY out of control. That feeling of anxiety has stuck with me.

[BexHatesBarf]

When I was 8, a kid in my 4/5th combo class v*d. He was sitting right across the aisle from me and it was almost touching my feet. I started crying hysterically and after 20min of trying not to get it on my feet and wailing, the teacher moved me to the back of the room to calm down. I couldn't calm down. The janitor came an hour later. That whole time I was terrified. Then, when I turned 9, my parents announced our move to Czech Republic. We moved, I couldn't speak a word of czech and was forced to go to a terrible school.
Terrible as in:
Kids beating eachother up
Knives at school
Bullying me for being american
Sex in the bathrooms at age 14
Setting stuff on fire
Barricading classroom doors with desks
Innapropriate teachers
Drugs/Alchohol
2nd graders sending eachother to the hospital
etc

It really had an effect on me mentally and physically.
I started hurting myself when I was 9/10 (turned into a fully fledged emo at 12/13...bad time in my life. much better now. a little embarassed.)
I went through a depression from guilt (over masturbation, no less. I had no idea what it was, it just felt good to touch myself there i guess. then somehow i got it into my mind that that area of my body was a terrible, dirty thing and shouldn't have anything to do with anything. I talked with a counselor, she said sex was a gift. I had no idea what it had to do with sex at that age though. I thought even kissing someone was a sign of sluttiness and weakness)
I isolated myself from my classmates, utilizing immersive books (harry potter, hunger games, ray bradbury) and creating a universe in my head, where I was absolutely perfect.
Bullying did a number on me. My male classmates used to circle me and call me awful things in czech. (slutty cow, c*nt, stupid b*tch etc) They also said "no wonder you have no friends" which made me cry.
Low hygiene standards at my school allowed kids to v* in the hallways, nothing I could do about it. They never washed their hands either. It was awful. No wonder I isolated myself!
And last but not least, Marketa. Marketa was my new czech neighbor, a girl my exact age. She was perfect at everything. A famous violin prodigy, a gifted artist, a genius, AND incredibly incredibly thin. She was bossy and I was gullible. A very stressed child who would stop at nothing to succeed. But all I saw back then was a princess. She was everything I wasn't. She made me feel so insecure that I ate small meals and would ask my parents to let me have liposuction. I was 9. Suffice to say, we are NOT friends anymore.
I have had similar experiences later on with other girls (Lucka Karin Yarra) But this one was my first.

Whew! A lot happened when I was 9. Pretty rough year, especially adjusting to the culture.
Felt good to get that off my chest.
Thanks for listening!

[skinny.jeans]

I've just joined.

I don't know whether I am actually emetophobic by definition, but the thought of being sick makes me panic and tremble and I do anything within my ability to avoid it.

I too believe it has stemmed from early childhood experiences and one example when, surprise surprise, I was about 9 years old. I'd had a headache all day in school and towards the end of the day it got so bad that it was probably a migraine. I ended up being sick after a few mouthfuls of dinner and let's just say it was very messy and I felt a lot of pain when it happened.

That and the fact that I grew up with one of my parents suffering Lupus which made her sick a lot, the sound and thought of it just made me very scared and I think that's where the fear may have came from.

The only time I have been sick between now and the bad experience when I was 9 is due to alcohol, and my phobia doesn't really kick in when I am drunk so that's why.

[livepink]

what an interesting thread! my phobia started at the age of 5 when I was sick waiting for the bus but didn't get intense until I was 9. What a terrible year that seemed to be for many of us. I remember that year I was in 4th grade and on my birthday a girl in my class wasn't feeling well and my teacher said I got the present of walking her to the nurse since it was my birthday. (what a gift ) Anyways, she v* on the way there and I was so terrified I ran away and left her there. Later that year, we lost our home to a fire, my parents got divorced and I lost my great-grandmother. All those events together seemed to make my anxiety sky-rocket and I never wanted to leave the comfort of home. Later that year (I may have been 10 by then) during a sleepover at my house I suddenly came down with the sv* and was sick all night. That was the most traumatizing and the years after that were terrible. It's unbelievable that all these things seemed to happen to everyone around the same ages!

[alisha27]

I started skipping school about 8 or 9 years of age. A girl became sick behind me in a music class and I had to walk her across school campus to the nurses office. I already hated that music class because the teacher was so mean and threatened us with a paddle. I was so scared to come back to school and see kids vomit so I started skipping, I would pretend to walk to school and then hide out in the woods until I knew my parents were gone to work. I would leave our back door to the house unlock and sneak in. I got away with it for about 2 weeks until the school called my parents. Child protective service then got involved because I nor my parents or teachers knew what I was going through.

[alisha27]

what an interesting thread! my phobia started at the age of 5 when I was sick waiting for the bus but didn't get intense until I was 9. What a terrible year that seemed to be for many of us. I remember that year I was in 4th grade and on my birthday a girl in my class wasn't feeling well and my teacher said I got the present of walking her to the nurse since it was my birthday. (what a gift ) Anyways, she v* on the way there and I was so terrified I ran away and left her there. Later that year, we lost our home to a fire, my parents got divorced and I lost my great-grandmother. All those events together seemed to make my anxiety sky-rocket and I never wanted to leave the comfort of home. Later that year (I may have been 10 by then) during a sleepover at my house I suddenly came down with the sv* and was sick all night. That was the most traumatizing and the years after that were terrible. It's unbelievable that all these things seemed to happen to everyone around the same ages!

omg I just read your story and we both had to walk someone to the nurses office...that is really a terrifying experience for an emetophobic child.

[punkieveggie]

When I was around 8 years old I caught some sort of really bad illness playing at my friends house. I never figured out what it was but after playing in a creek (which we later realized probably had sewage runoff in it!!) with my friend we both got very ill. I had a high fever for over a week and got super dehydrated, and when I tried to eat or drink ANYTHING I would throw it up instantly. One night towards the end of the illness I had a bad migraine in the middle of the night and my mom had to take me to the hospital, I threw up on the way to the car in the flowerbed and by the time we got to the ER I felt better and they basically said I was fine and sent me back home. The next day I was so sick that my mom took me back to the hospital and they realized that I was severely dehydrated and hooked me up to an IV. After that I went home and felt fine. The funny thing is, I never really connected that incident with the beginning of my phobia, I didn't even REALIZE I had a phobia until years later!

Another incident that happened around that time frame, happened when I was about nine or ten. Thinking back this is probably when the first signs of emetophobia showed up in me. I remember that it started when one of my neighbors and friends got a stomach bug of some sort and that first day I felt sick I just thought that I had caught it too. I stayed home that day, but the stomach pain and nausea just kept dragging on and on and no one could figure out what was wrong with me. No one could figure out what was wrong, they gave me tons of misdiagnosis's and it seemed like every week there was a new medication that they were certain would make me better. There’s a lot of trauma associated with this time for me and its actually really hard for me to even explain this time of my life. I eventually stopped eating, I had to have a colonoscopy and take phospho soda as a prep, I had to see loads of doctors. I remember the constant nausea and staying up all night waiting for half an hour to pass so I could have another pepto bismol and going through bags of peppermints hoping that they'd help make me feel better (somewhere along the line someone had told me peppermint helped fight nausea). There was a lot of running to the bathroom and crying to my mother saying that I was going to throw up (I never did) and begging her to fix it and make me better. Theres actually holes in my memories from this time period in my life because I got so sick and the lack of food really messed with my head. I became very emotionally unstable at this point in my life and really messed up my relationship with my parents so badly that it took years to fix. I wish I could tell you what they finally diagnosed me with and what made me better but it seems like it all just slipped into remission for a few years.
I had about three different relapses of this illness, which became further exacerbated by my emetophobia. I remember my worst relapse of the illness when I was 13 years old and I told my friend I didn't want to eat because it made me feel like I was going to throw up. She told me, and I'll never forget this, "So what? I'd eat even if it made me throw up." That was the first time I really recognized how my phobia made me different from other people. I think I had recognized the phobia before then but it hadn’t really sunk it.

So really I don't know where my phobia started, my mom thinks that I was traumatized by my illness in second grade and it made vomiting seem so much worse to me than it really was. And maybe that was what planted the seed. But to me now, thinking back to the incident when I was 9 or 10 is much more traumatic to me so maybe the constant nausea and everything else that came with that is what really caused a bad experience with vomiting to blow up into a full blown phobia for me. It's really hard to say.

[katherines6]

My emetophobia got bad when I was nine because I got really sick and IT happened and I have been terrified ever since.

[Kazzia]

I became emetophobic two weeks before my 9th birthday in 1994. It was the last time I v*. How strange!

Life before then was blissful. I had a great childhood and my parents owned a big house overlooking the ocean with a huge garden and field out the back. I spent my days drawing, writing, horse riding and playing with my friends on the beach or in the woods. I did not experience anything bad at all.

Some people develop emet probably through external stresses too. But the thing for me, the most traumatic time of my childhood was actually v*ing. I had hardly done it before I was 9 years old, so when I did, it was a huge shock and unexpected. Perhaps those years before you hit puberty are more formative than first thought?

Things are far more rubbish at the age of 26, but this isn't an age when people really develop phobias. Had I not been emet yet v*ed now, I'd just get on with things in the way I deal with other bad things in life, of which there have been many of late. And now it just seems silly that I can be emetophobic, but the emet part of my brain has not changed since I was 9. Every time I get a panic attack, it is my 9 year-old brain talking.

[harold]

I was sick with a stomach virus many times around 9 years old. I didn't think much of it then, just that it was a pain in the ass. When I was about 13 I was sick once again, but by then a fear had developed and I managed to make it the whole ride without vomiting. Since then it's been on and off. Always there - just constantly varying in severity.

[dixy]

I love reading everyone’s stories.

I have spent the past few years looking back trying to figure out why I have this fear. But like many I cannot remember not having it! I particularly remember a camping holiday when I was about 8 years old and my sister was throwing up constantly and my mum serving up lunch just 3 meters away from my sister and getting cross with me because I wouldn’t eat it and made a comment that I couldn’t catch what she had and why have I always been that way- which makes me think that I had always had a tendency to be this way.

One incident sticks in my mind when I was about 9 years old. I had the day off school as I didn’t feel well. My mum made me stay in my bed all day. I wanted to go downstairs as I wanted to be with her and told her I was feeling better. I said that..I vomited all over the floor, she shouted at me to get to the toilet as it was going all over the new carpet! She did get cross when any of my siblings (I am one of 4) were ill. But they don’t suffer emet at all. They almost embrace vomiting as a way to feel better!

As a mum of 2 I always go over the top to act relaxed with my children when they are ill. I put one of their favourite dvds on in the lounge cover the floor in old towels and try to associate being ill with nice stuff rather than be shouted at or made to be quiet and alone. I would hate them to feel how I feel.

[scaredsick]

My mom had a hysterectomy when I was 9 because she had huge tumors in her uterus and ovaries. I remember crying in bed and being so scared she was going to die.

[hairyfairy]

I can remember that nine was the only v free year in my childhood.

[T's Mommy]

Around the time I was 9 (I believe it was 4th grade) I had 2 back to back stomach viruses...one with just d** and the other involving v** (I v**d 5 times during the second illness) then for months after that I had severe stomach problems. Looking back at it now I think it was straight up anxiety from being sick so close together. I would be up all night panicking about stomach aches and thinking I was getting sick again.

[Kat91]

I moved to another country...but I was already an emetophobe, have been since I can remember. Although it has been getting progessively worse (some aspects better) - I'm 20 now.

[Horsegirl11]

Wow!!! This is super interesting!!!!

When I was 9 almost 10 it stared for me too!! My little brother wasn't feeling good in the car ride home from school and then he got sick in a ziplock bag(a big one). Later that day we had to go out again and he said he was feeling better but 5 minutes into the ride he started feeling sick again. There wasn't a bag this time and he got sick all over me and the car. We had to drive back to our house with it everywhere too. I've had Emet ever since.

[andee]

wow, Sage. What do you think of all these stories? And is there some connection to this age or stage in our lives? I'm nervous because my son is now nine, will be 10 in March...these are the ages when it all started for me.