Quote Originally Posted by guardgirl95 View Post
Hi. I'm new here, but I'm 16 and I've had emetophobia ever since I was around 7 or 8. Recently, I've been dealing with anxiety attacks. It feels like a bad cycle, because my attacks make me feel nauseous, which causes me to panic even more. Its gotten so bad that my eating habits have changed and I'm losing too much weight (I'm already small as is). My parents tell me that its all in my head, and that I need to face my fears and v* if I feel the need to, but I can't bring myself to do it. I feel like I'm losing control of myself. What should I do?
This is usually spoken out of ignorance by others who have no idea how real this fear is. I've gotten sick in the past and no, I did not get over my fear by "facing" it. And other emets have done the same and are still afraid of it. That's NOT the way to get rid of the fear. Sorry, I just hate when people say things like that. They obviously have no idea what they're talking about.

As for what you can do: therapy and medication does help to lessen the fear. And the techniques that EmmaO posted do help. My therapist told me about some of those techniques (specifically the breathing one) and it does help with panic/anxiety attacks.