ratemyvomit.com

[2jo2]

As part of my therapy with my former doctor, I came up with a great plan... I'd have my husband print out the exposure therapy photos, put them in an envelope, and then at my appointments my doctor and I would work together on the pictures, instead of me doing it alone. My husband went on the site and looked and said he got nauseated looking at them, and couln't print them out. I had never seen any of the pictures at that time, and I think I went into my emet a little deeper because I thought if he couldn't do it, how could I?!


Essentially the point is to not have panic with the pictures. I'm actually afraid of the pictures. You can still have the reaction of "oh yuck" because probably most people feel that way. I always thought the point was to have no reaction at all, by my therapist says it's just to not have the scared feeling.

[hanarky]

u can look at it as long as u don't have a lot of food in your stomach

[samara's on tv]

I've never been to ratemyvomit.com but I have been to ratemypoo.com and that page is pretty gross in it's self but it's also funny to me that someone would make a page like that.


~Monica

[junglemonkey]

I went on that site when I saw it on here.


Instantly closed the site. It was horrible. I can still see it [img]smileys/smilies_10.gif[/img]


It's like rate my poo etc, who the hell would want to see it?! I'll never understand.

[sunshine16]

32 pics and a little shaky. Going to watch the MTV music awards now.

[alyssa]

Wow, good job 32 is great! I have only been on there once and got through ten. I'm not really scared of them but I just thing they are too disgusting to look at. I don't think I'll ever get over that part. Do you have to go to that site everyday for exposure therapy to work?

[fabulouspaula]

Hey Alyssa sorry I didn't respond sooner, I finished high school this week (!) so I've been super busy.


Anyway the movies definately helped me get over the fear of other people throw up, completely. I would definately start wit h Apollo 13 if you haven't already, just because it wasn't that bad, and plus the guy was in space so he obviously wasn't throwing up from the flu or something scary like that. I would say just work up the list, all of the ones that are really bad are also reallyfake so I betyou wouldn't find them as terrible. I think it's a good idea to just pay attention to how people react after they throw up to see that it's not as terrible as we all think, because when I go out with my friends they party pretty hard and almost ever weekend a few of them throw up, and after they've done it they continue having fun.


For the rest of my exposure therapy I watched the Meaning Of Life, which as I was saying is really gross, and that helped a lot. Now my only problem is that although I've exposed myself to the point where I have no problem at all being with sick people and seeing others throw up, I still am afraid of myself getting sick which I don't know how to fix.


A lot of stuff helped me out a lot and I've been doing therapy for awhile, so if you wanted to talk, my e-mail address is [email protected].


Good luck with everything and sorry for rambling!


Bythe way, the top 10 on ratemyvomit.com are absolutely disguisting (one of them in particular). I don't think it's necessary to look at the top ten, because they're sort of unrealistic throwing up situations and I think they'd make the phobia worse rather than better.

[bexcelica]

that site is GROSS!!!!! i cant believe i went to it ahah wow, who thinks of these things?

[2jo2]

I have another gross movie to watch... Team America. It's that South Park-ish movie with puppets, and there's a scene where one of the puppets throws up from being drunk and it's totally gratuitous and over-exaggerated, but it's gross all in the same. Especially when the camera goes above him and you see the whole v pile. We watched this last night and I actually sat through the scene without any panic. Granted it's a puppet..... but I used to get upset when Stan would throw up on South Park from getting nervous from seeing his girlfriend.

[junglemonkey]

2jo2, I saw that scene on MTV and it's absolutely digusting. It goes on for about three minutes (I didn't watch it) so I am told! It's AWFUL. Even one of my friends wasgrossed out by it!

[alyssa]

Hey thanks for responding Fabulouspaula, that helped. [img]smileys/smilies_01.gif[/img]

[alyssa]

Hey Fabulouspaula I have another question, sorry. But when you said that seeing the movies helped you get completely over the fear of seeing other people get sick, does that mean you never had to actually experience it in personas part of the therapy?

[fabulouspaula]

Well, that's kind of tricky because this year I actually have been faced with other people throwing up many many times in the past few months, and I think that was a huge contributor along with the movies and pictures and such.


In the past 4 months or so, I have actually seen at least 5 people throw up right in front of me. This is because 4 out of the 5 times people were drinking, and one of them was someone with food poisoning. Actually, last night one of my best friends threw up right in front of me and I was alright with it, altough grossed out as anyone would probably be. I know it seems hard to beleive, but honestly I was once at the point where I was having panic attacks basically all day, every day. I honestly have no fear at all when it comes to seeing other people throw up- as long as it means I wont throw up, I'm okay.


Anyway to answer your question, I think that being around so many people throwing up played a huge part in me getting used to it, but at the same time I never would have been okay with seeing it happen if I hadn't desensitized by watching movie clips and everything. It's definately possible to get cured or at least less afraid of "it" by just watching movies without actually having to experience it. With desensitizing you can always work at your own pace and eventually you'll be able to handle anything! Try not to think of the future and how scary it would be to see someone be sick, just focus on the levels you are working on and eventually the entire phobia will be dimmed.


I think it's so awesome that you're doing all of this because obviously it isn't easy or fun, but by just being uncomfortable for a little while every day while you work on it, you can beat the fear!

[japa]

My apologies if this point has already been posted. I don't have time to read all of the responses, but


Alyssa,


I don't think that the goal is not to be disgusted by the pictures, but not to be afraid. I think that those are two different responses. Non-phobics are going to be disgusted by pictures of vomit. They are disgusting. But the non-phobics will not start to shake, and feel afraid, and feel that there is something amiss and wrong with the world.

[BenBHartnett]

I went there. Wow. Wow. Just wow. My heart was pounding sooooo hard.

[hippychick]

I'm not at all afraid of looking at pictures. Years of moderating this site stopped that lol In the past when people would attack the site and post those pictures you had to go through each post one by one to remove it. I couldn't help but be "exposed"

Now we have a nifty lil "delete all posts by this poster" feature so MUCH quicker and easier removal.