More CBT. Exposure.

[Greta1074]

I have a period of two weeks that I won't see my therapist. At the moment we are mostly working on exposure. This started gradually into photos and sounds. Now it's videos. Every time I think about how debilitated I was and how I can now look at photos and even listen to recordings, I'm astounded. I can genuinely say I'm proud of this much I've done. I'm still not a fan. I still get anxious. I still dislike it. But now I can set aside 10 mins to do my exposure. I tried avoiding looking at photos. I even tried to use my memory to just recall what I would normally look at. It was always much worse in my head than what was on the site. I have learnt that avoidance makes it worse. If I look at what I'm afraid of I can see its not as bad as I remembered. Exposure will guarantee my cure. Desensitising is proven to work. I can be free of this phobia. I can start living again. I must continue to look, breath through the anxiety, retrain my mind to re catagorise something that struck a massive amount of fear through my body for decades.

Anyone trying to get free I hope you stay on the journey. Don't give up when you're on the edge of fear and adrenaline work through it There is so much in life we missed through avoidance. I finally can be excited that my boys are home. I can sleep through the night. I can relax when I used to be so angry all the time.

[KayeJackson]

Woohoo! You're coming along so great. It was a few years ago I could tolerate noises and videos but now I'm struggling with real life. Any advice?

[Greta1074]

I hope I can give you some help on this. The daily exposure is the thing that helps. I really hate doing it. Going on the site is just awful but always better than I think it will be. The only thing that works is CBT with a decent therapist to go through this process. There is genuine clinical evidence to show it works. If you are having trouble finding someone, the resource on this site really helped me to begin with. The audio stuff was great. The site I'm using is Emetophobia Resource and the woman who set it up was phobic for 30 years. It took her a year to get sorted but it could take a lot lot less than that. Find the site ad have a read. I can't tell you how much I've changed. I can't say I'd be 100% calm if I were confronted with it in real life but my anxiety towards the possibility it could happen is way down. Keep me posted on how you're getting on. I'm happy to help.

[MrsFox]

Hi Greta, so pleased to hear you're doing so well with CBT

I myself am several weeks into CBT and appear to have hit a wall with my exposure. I'm now completely at peace with it happening in films and TV shows, can watch and not flinch. Can read about it, and even see pictures. But, when it has now come to videos of people being sick for real, I seem to have come up against a horrible brick wall - I just can't do it without feeling an overwhelming sense of nausea myself. I'm still having trouble telling the difference between nausea because I'm anxious and nausea because it's a natural reaction to something unpleasant.

Any advice at all? :/

[Greta1074]

Hi Mrs Fox,


i feel for you and fully understand your anxiety. Personally I go through relapses of fear with just a mention of a tummy ache! I'm just starting to come to videos in my therapy. Please understand that I'm not trying to replace my first piece of advise to get a CBT person to help you through this. My experience has been to note what I expect my anxiety to be when I see the video on a scale of 1-10. Then I look through my fingers at the video while breathing deeply. Usually after a second or so I notice myself calming down a lot. In almost every case the actual level of fear is much lower. For example I thought I'd be at 100 (on a scale of 1-10) seeing a video of someone being sick. I couldn't even imagine the psychotic person who would have filmed such a thing. The thing is that the act only takes 15 seconds. Less time then we can hold our breath. There was nothing dangerous or harmful happening. I try to remember this. I recall how quickly my anxiety came down when I saw the film. The other strange thing is that it normally looks much scarier in films. I had no idea of what to expect other than films, my imagination and what I heard before running away. It's all out of proportion. Be curious. I couldn't work out what I was afraid of. So the negative reinforcement made it worse. I would avoid it and fear better as a result. So I would repeat this behaviour every single time I got scared of just the thought of being around it.
Yoy sound like you've cracked a big piece of the phobia. This is just a little step further. You can do it. It's been done before. Be curious about what life has in store for you beyond the fear, eh. X.


Have you checked out the resource on this site. It did help me. Really, truly. I don't think there are any short cuts to side step exposure. It's just our phobia is of something that happens to fast for our anxiety to come down in the moment. Videos and photos, etc give us enough time to bring it down and retrain our brains.


What do you think? Was that helpful?


Im here to help, ask anything.


:-)

[Elie]

I remember watching videos with my therapist. She got more disturbed than I did! (she's a recovered emet)

[MrsFox]

Thank you for your reply - makes a lot of sense - I hadn't even thought of doing my deep breathing exercises, which is the simplest thing - d'oh! I think I was working on the assumption that I HAVE to let myself get over-anxious. Will try again!

[Greta1074]

It doesn't help if the therapist is stressing! My therapist had her lunch next to her and could while she watched the videos. That blew my mind.

[Tonster]

Awesome Greta, so inspiring! Very good step by step advise when I get courage I will do it - look at the resources I mean! Good advise that it is pretty much a small douse daily too. Havent been able to find a therapist where I live yet, but will start resources and see how I go

[Greta1074]

Today I drive past a sicky. The breathing helped. The mantra helped "it isn't dangerous or harmful in any way. There is no need to be afraid". After a little while the lump in my chest desolved and I didn't have the shakes. The woman on the Emetophobia Resource site can do CBT treatment via Skype. It may not be time for you to face this yet but it won't get easier to deal with on its own. I'm here to help if you need. Sending you courage.

[MrsFox]

Hi Greta - just posted a thread of my own with progress record... I wouldn't have pushed past my block without your straightforward advice, so thank you again x

[Greta1074]

That has made my day!! I'm so happy you pushed through. I'll check out your post. Xxxxxx