My CBT Exposure Journey So Far (trigger warning)
First of all, I want to thank Greta - without some very much needed advice, I wouldn't be writing this post, feeling as positive as I am - so thank you G - xx
TRIGGERS - use of the v-word, descriptions of things I have viewed as exposure.
Ok, so I'm a fair few sessions into my CBT exposure now and I thought I'd share my experiences in the hope it might help someone else. It might be rambling, so forgive me, but I'll try and keep most of the salient details intact!
Age: 28
Background: Emetophobia started at some point in my teenage years, I have no idea what triggered it or when. My Mother used to be emetophobic and still has certain anxieties, but our general fears were very different.
I am sure I vomited as a child, at least according to my Mum I did. But I only have two living memories of throwing up. One was at the age of 13, when I had a stomach bug that was doing the rounds at school. All I really remember is feeling very unwell, but I have no particular connected anxiety when I think about it. The second memory is when I'd just turned 27, and I threw up a TINY amount the morning after my birthday, having breached my alcohol 'threshold' accidentally. Even though it was a one-off, and honestly a very small amount, I was panicking massively in the run up to it, and the weeks after were filled with flashbacks.
Ever since I can remember, feeling nauseated has brought on a panic attack. I'm talking a full-on wailing, screaming and hyperventilating episode. No GP took me seriously until a new Dr at my practice was describing a new birth control method to me, and she said 'vomit' a few times when talking about meds that would be contraindicated. I snapped and began sobbing, begging her to stop saying that word. I was referred to CBT immediately.
Initially I had 16 sessions to work on my Generalised Anxiety Disorder, and this January we moved straight into phobia treatment.
The first couple of weeks were nowhere near as difficult as I had imagined they would be. The first week involved having a five-minute conversation per day with my husband, where he described an incident involving vomit, whether real or imaginary (yes, I have a superbly understanding partner!) I then moved onto pictures of vomit on the ground in black and white, escalating to colour later the same week. Following this, I tackled vomiting in films and TV shows - this has always been a BIG issue for me. I cannot watch a new film or TV show without having a third party hold the remote control, finger hovered over the mute button. Until last week that is. I worked my way through a series of well-known scenes in film, ranging from comedic to realistic. I think the groundbreaker came while watching a 'behind the scenes' style documentary on how they film the atypical drunken frat boy throwing up across a room - I found it REALLY fascinating how they create the 'illusion'!
Then, watching videos of people being sick for real, no sound. I'm in my second week of this, after the first was a terrible disaster. The instant I saw someone throw up for real in a clip, I'd feel overwhelmed by nausea myself, unable to convince myself to sit down and work through it. I then read Greta's post in this forum about exposure and got some simple, but game changing advice. Breathe. Slowly but surely, I've been able to go from glimpsing the video in my peripheral vision to sitting and watching the video from start to finish with no anxiety symptoms. Next week, it'll be adding sound into the equation, which at this moment is terrifying, but I feel confident.
I wanted to touch upon the whole root issue - since I have no traumatic incident that I can relate my phobia to, nor do I have notable control issues. However, a recurring theme continually creeps up. While doing 'imagery' during a session, I had to imagine a scene I would find horrifyingly anxiety-causing in which I was throwing up. I chose unexpectedly throwing up while at the supermarket. When asked what my strongest feeling was, I replied quickly with 'shame... embarrassment'. I was stunned. I don't embarrass easily at all. Somewhere along the line, I've learned to associate being sick with a sense of shame and degradation - something that other people look upon with disgust and horror. I'm still trying to work out why my biggest panic attacks come in the middle of the night, though I suspect it has a lot to do with reading up on viruses and learning that typically people become symptomatic during the night. It's a work in progress, I still can't say for sure what is at the heart of my phobia, but I'm having a sneaking feeling it will come back to my many years of being aggressively bullied in school - the shame I felt during this imagery session was identical to the shame I felt when I got beaten up at school, with people pointing and laughing at me.
When I first began reading people's stories on here, I became increasingly aware that I seemed to have no real 'root' cause that I could reliably call upon to explain my phobia, since my Mother's phobia never interfered with her parenting. I still cannot quite figure out why videos of people being sick into toilets freaks me out more than any other video, perhaps because that's the most likely scenario that would happen to me. Either way, if there are other people out there that feel a sense of hopelessness when they try and figure out WHY they are phobic - I want to reassure you that it doesn't mean you can't get better. Hell, I still can't tell you what the crux of my phobia is - but I can tell you that last week I sat through THAT scene in the film Bridesmaids with my husband - and we both laughed at how ridiculous it was.
Happy to provide updates if people are interesting, I'm also keeping a record of my exposure material if anyone would like advice or is having trouble finding the 'right' resources - as I said, I seem to have fairly different triggers to other phobics I've known. I simply cannot handle the thought, let alone seeing the footage, of a pregnant woman having morning sickness. Yet I have just completed a session of watching people throw up (messily) on rollercoasters.
It's a strange, complicated and debilitating phobia, but I'm proof that even if you don't know WHAT caused your phobia, WHY you have it or don't know what your biggest 'issue' with the whole area of 'vomiting' is; you CAN get better. I've a long way to go, but it's working for me
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