Hi all,
I used to post on here years ago - or at least I think it was here. It could have been another emetophobia message board. Up until about eight years ago I had crippling, horrific, utterly disabling emetophobia, anxiety and agoraphobia. I'd been terrified of feeling sick since I was a very young child, but it developed into a proper phobia during my early teens. By the time I was 16 the related agoraphobia had got me completely in its grip - between 16-21 I would only leave the house on very rare occasions. I was housebound for months and months at a time over the years - not even setting foot outside the door.
This was entirely down to my fear of vomiting. The panic attacks were daily - I didn't know what it felt like to be without them. I'd get night panics every single night. I'd panic before I got into bed because I knew I was going to wake up feeling sick. And I wasn't wrong - every night, that's exactly what happened. I'd wake up in the early hours with stomach ache, and would be in the midst of a panic attack before I even opened my eyes. It was all just the result of the anxiety - the stomach ache, the nausea - and I knew that. But knowing it didn't help at all. It was utter despair.
I didn't have any form of life throughout those years. I couldn't finish my schooling (things got bad just before my GCSEs), didn't go to college, didn't go to university. I was copletely and utterly convinced that the only thing I had ahead of me was a life of loneliness, fear, isolation and depression. I couldn't ever live a normal life - there was simply no chance. I was a broken human being in every sense of the word.
Fast-forward eight years though, and things haven't worked out how I was convinced they were going to. I got better. I got (and eventually got-rid-of..) a boyfriend, then I got a social group, friendships, an education, a career, a flat - in short, I got freedom.
I wish I could go back in time and tell the complete wreck of a girl I was aged 18 about how life was actually going to pan out. That one day I'd look forward to spending six weeks every summer living in a field and sharing two quite honestly horrific barn toilets with 40 other people. And that I'd move to London, get a job I loved, get sent out and about around the country for work, and really just have lots and lots of fun. That I'd go on planes, get drunk with some regularity (yes, even drunk enough to throw up on rare occasions), and experiment with the odd wonderful substance which might (might!) make me feel sick.
But of course I can't go back in time, so I shall post on here instead. It was CBT that did it for me - although not in the conventional sense. I'd been offered it by psychologists very frequently over the years, but I always resisted. The spur was meeting someone I really fancied. I didn't want him to know the state of my anxiety.. But I really liked him. And I knew that if I didn't just occasionally spend some time outside of the house with him, he wouldn't be interested. I wanted to be normal around him!
I still remember our first date - he cooked dinner for me at his house. It was the first time I'd left the house in months. And I still remember what an absolutely terrifying prospect it was - the whole time, battling down intrusive thoughts and panic. It was a huge effort. But it was a start.. At first I tried to convince myself I'd just found some miraculous inner strength from somewhere, but I hadn't - it was bog-standard conventional CBT.
In short, it continued, and I got better. It wasn't easy, but that's the point - and each sniff of freedom, fun and real-life I experienced was all the motivation I needed. I'm not particularly strong, and I'm not particularly motivated. No more than any of you. If I can emerge from the horrific depths I was in eight years ago, anyone can...