Introduction -- this is where I'm at.

[SnowballsChance]

Hi everyone. My name is Kathryn. I'm 28 years old and I live in Massachusetts. I've known about this forum for a very long time but I've just now gotten the courage to join and begin talking about this thing I have struggled with for as long as I can remember.

My emetophobia is almost strictly limited to the fear of seeing/hearing other people v*. While I do not enjoy it when it's ME v*ing, on the whole it does not bother me nearly as much as being present when others v* or are threatening to v*.

I cannot isolate a specific event or memory which lead to my emetophobia. I have some very vivid early memories of experiencing emetophobic responses, and I also know that I had some relatives who teased me relentlessly about my phobia when I was a small child.

I am an only child and grew up in a kind of unstable home. My mom stuggles greatly with depression and had a number of suicide attempts when I was a kid. My dad, although always appearing strong on the outside, struggled with depression as well, albeit not as severe as my mother.

Between the ages of 4 and 7 I was in thearapy for trichotillomania -- hair pulling -- which actually seems to run in my family. I would pull out my eyelashes until my lids were completely bald. I was bounced around from one thrapist to the next, all of them telling my parents that I was a hopeless case, and that trichotillomania is very difficult to treat. Indeed, I continued to have bald eyelids until sometime around puberty, when finally a very embarrassing incident ("Eeeeeeww!!! Kathryn has no EYELASHES!!" screamed in front of a full classroom) caused me to WILL myself not to pull out my eyelashes any longer. Years of therapy, being deemed incurable, I just... stopped.

I would love to do that to my emetophobia, but so far my success had been... not.

I feel as though my emetophobia has made a lot of decisions for me in my life so far. As a kid I was petrified of going on field trips because I worried a classmate might get carsick. In college I was scared to death of my freshman-year roommate, whose hard partying and heavy drinking meant a constant threat of v*ing on the weekends. And of course my emetophobia really limited my social life in college for the same reason. Emetophobia has affected my choice in career as well; I am fascinated by the medical arts and would have loved to become a doctor. I like my chosen career enough, but I have a feeling that something in the medical field would have been more satisfying for me.

I'm getting married in October, and my fiance and I have been talking a lot lately about beginning a family in the next few years. I really want to become a mother someday, but I'm petrified that I will be unable to cope when my children inevitably v* and I will be responsible for taking care of them. I don't want to let motherhood be just another thing that emetophobia prevents me form achieving.

Anyway, here I am. Looking forward to getting to know you and maybe getting some new insight. And maybe -- just maybe -- getting the courage to seek new therapy.

[sage]

Hi Kathryn and welcome to the site! I hope you find lots of help and support here in talking with other emetophobes. Stopping compulsions like hair-pulling takes an incredible amount of courage and strength of character. Good going!

btw I was also more afraid of seeing/hearing someone else vomit. And by "more afraid" I mean I would freak out completely at even the thought of it.