Horrific v scene - GRAPHIC

[clairethebear]

Hi Guys


I just had to come here and let out the horrific v sceneI have just experienced cause I can't get the image out of my head and I don't feel like eating food cause I might v after having seen what I saw. I just can't forget what I have seen today. This always happens and it will be days if not weeks before I get this out of my head. As if I don't have enough on my mind. I posted last week about a work colleague being diagnosed with breast cancer.


Anyway, this is the story. My partner and I were driving to a car boot sale this morning and I was driving. I always scour the pavements as usual but this time I could see a car ahead parked up in a layby with the passenger door wide open onto the pavement. As we got closer I could see this huge mess. Basically someone had obviously stopped the car and v'd out of the passenger door. I did not note who was in the car or the number of people all I saw was this huge pool of v spread right across the width of the pavement. Probably the biggest pool of v I have ever seen. It looked like on of those milk drinking contests gone wrong. I feel really horrible after seeing this. My partner did not see a thing cause he does not emet and I guess that is what us emets do, we never miss a trick, we are like a radar to it. Anyway there was no way that I could drive back the same way. My partner just told me to shut my eyes when driving past! I said are you mad?! Anyway, I took a completely different route back home cause there was no way I could have passed it again cause I would have seen it clearer without the car being there. Sorry if this is really too gross but I just had to tell someone.


The thing is I started hypnotherapy last week and although the first session was only relaxation not the actual hypnotherapy - I assume I will be getting into that this week, I am already despondent that this is not going to work for me. I also want to be a paramedic but my dream just seems so far away. Am I just kidding myself guys??? Please help. Feeling really really low right now. Arguing a lot with my partner lately. I am just not myself really.

[Jenneh]

claire, u said urself, u are just not urself... EVERYTHING seems negative in ur life atm to you....


it would be safer if u dont depress urself by thinking " can i really achieve my ambition"... because u CAN and if u have enough determination u WILL.... but right now, if its just depressing you, its best just to take each day as it comes... think too far into the future and it wil scare anyone.


tht was a horrbile horrible thing for u to view and no wonder it made you panic.. i dont think i can even IMAGINE what it must have been like to see .... but maybe u cud bring it up with ur therapist.. and he/she can help you get that image out of ur mind... so that next time, u can do it urself as soon as possible...


im ranting, lol, but i just wanna help you, cause recently life seems to have been pretty cruel to you... i really hope it all gets better soon


Jen xxxxxxxxxxxxx

[clairethebear]

Jenneh


You are great. You always know how to cheer someone up. I read a lot of your posts that you reply to others needs and you really have a heart of gold. Thanks for listening. I just feel pretty f***ed up right now. I know things will get better but I cannot force it until they do. I would give anything not to be feeling so crap right now but that's life I guess. I am sure that you have your fair share of crap times too. Maybe you are just better at dealing with stuff than me. I just asked myself this morning why I had to see what I saw. What was the point? What was it going to achieve other than total unhappiness? For a second I did feel like there was no point in being alive cause all this stuff is just too much to deal with. I just want it to go away. Anyway, enough of my woes I need to apologise to my partner for biting his head off earlier. I have been doing that so much lately. I just seem to have a very very short fuse and I always end up regretting things that I have said after it is too late.


Claire xxxxxxxxxxxxx

[freeasabird]

Hi Claire,


What an experience you went through! Hun, I do not blame you one bit for feeling depressed and terrified right now. If I had seen a pile of v* like that, I surely would've burst into tears. Although you can't get the image out of your head now, just take things one day at a time, talk to your therapist about it, eventually the details of the incident will stop haunting you .


There are days, too, when I feel there isn't any point in being alive, but those feelings WILL pass, Claire! I know when you're feeling low it seems hopeless, but trust me, things will get better!


Take care

[Jenneh]

aww claire, your the one with the heart of gold too... but thankyou for ur kind words, they mean a lot...


i have been thru a lot of stresses lke everyone has, i guess, and i do get effected by them, hence why iv spent hours sumtimes at night clutching pills or a blade and just wanna end it all... but i wont, cause ihave a stubborn nature.. and i cud NEVER EVER EVER leave u all to go thru this life alone with the horrible emet monster on ur backs.. that wud just be the most selfishest thing id ever done in my life... so instead ur stuck with me, lol.


i guess, there was no POINT in seeing what u saw this morning, if u were just a 'normal' non-emet person.. but ur not, ur an emetophobe so yknow, u cud find a point of seeing what u did see...


u cud use it as an exercise... an exercise to get that strong frame of mind out tht can say " this person was sick on the side of the road, bt i feel sorry for this person cause i bet he was feeling horrible, im lucky it wasnt me, but it just shows, that its not the end of the world if u do v* in public" ... hope u see where im coming from...


u sound very tired and so maybe the last thing u wanna do is sit down and work out ur thought processes... but, i'l lrecommend to you a thing called a " dysfunctional thoughts table" its for times wen u have had a bad experience, and it can help you ' get over' this bad experience and help u learn to change the way you view other experiences... gosh im tired, im not making ne sense, lol.


anyway, if u wanna see a copy of this table, feel free to ask me, and i wil somehow post if up here... it was given to me by my social worker, and REALLY helped me...


and, so that u dont feel alone, i have been biting peoples heads off for about... 2 years :-p


tke care , thinking of you.


Jen xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[sage]

Clairethebear,


When I was younger and emetophobic this would have bothered me too. But as I got treatment, one of the important things to do was to try to stop the catastrophic thoughts around vomit. This exercise was tremendously helpful. For instance, instead of writing, saying (and thinking) that this was horribly gross and "a horrific" scene, try to convince yourself that it just wasn't that big of a deal. So a guy drank a gallon of milk and it didn't stay in there - now it's out and on the road. If you emptied it onto the road straight out of the jug, it wouldn't be "horrific" it would just be milk on the road. Even a giant jar of vegetable soup all spilt on the road is just soup - that's all. Believe it or not, it's not thatgross. Once I got working in the hospital I started to see just how nothing vomit is to that staff. It's just another human phenomenon of being sick. Requires a bit of clean-up and doesn't sound or smell very nice, but REALLY - it's just vomit: it's not arms and legs cut off or nuclear war or an alien abduction. Just vomit.


Once my therapist encouraged me to keep thinking this way and keep up the self-talk with things like "I'm not in any danger"; "It's not me that's sick - I'm perfectly fine"' "I'm alright - I'm perfectly safe"...and such like that...then I started to see it in perspective and stop catastrophizing. That made the phobia easier to treat, cuz it became less and less of a "big monster demon" all the time.

[Galadriel]

Hey Sage,


I agree, I know its LOTS easier said than done, but when push comes to shove, really it is just like someone spilt a gallon of milk. When my niece was sick once, she had just drank her bottle, and then a few minutes later it came up (not just spit up, v*) and surprisingly i didnt freak, it just looked like someone had spilled a cup of milk. Some granted looks worse, but it really is just well, what you ate, I know its gross, but it does help to try and rationalize it like that.

[jaksparowsemet]

OMG! that would b so horrific for me. but look, u saw it and u got through it right? u didnt die nothing bad happen to u. it really has nothing to do with you it doesnt affect u in anyway that this guy got sick. i know im being realing hypocritical here but jsut remember its just vomit its not gonna hurt u. i hope ur hypnotherapy works. try to think in a positive light and that u will reach ur goal of being a paramedic. i know u can..... efveryone on this site can just hang in there and believe in urself i know everyone here believes in u. try goin that same route, nothing bad will happen, its all right.

[Melikasa]

Wow that was some major visual therapy. I know myself that it is hard not to think of it over and over. I will even look for it for some reason so I can totally avoid it. I have tried to tell myself that it won't effect me in any way, shape or form. "IT" can't make me sick, "IT" can't hurt me, "IT has nothing to do with me at all.
YOU WILL drive that way again and not let it affect where and how you live your life and where you go. Big hugs to you

[ripper bait]

Sorry to hear that (o_O). Well, in such situations I always keep on telling me that it could have come worse... smelling it for example. [img]smileys/smilies_11.gif[/img]

[siafi]

[img]smileys/smilies_06.gif[/img]Oh gosh, that sounds terrible! I hate it when things like that keep running through your brain. [img]smileys/smilies_11.gif[/img]


Sage: I understand what you mean about not being in any danger when v* is around, but I don't fear death or injury when someone v*s...I think I just plain hate v*! Aaah, its really confusing because I KNOW I'm not going to get hurt or anything. I probably just fear the actual fear that comes when v* is near. [img]smileys/smilies_05.gif[/img]

[rainbow_bubbles]

Hi Claire we have the same job wish - a paramedic! I would love to be one but yet its the big old v* phobia stopping me. But im going to make it im trying to get some placements in a hospital just serving tea etc for some exposure. Im sorry the car trip wasnt very nice, I just try to think of something else completely like how nice the place you visited was.

[sage]

Siafi,


No one consciously fears injury or death. But the brain is "telling you" that you're in horrible danger...and you're not. The delicate systems within the brain that alert us to imminent-death-danger somehow get triggered when you see vomit, or feel sick yourself, or even feel normal gastric sensations that don't even lead to vomiting. That's the "screwed up wiring" of phobias. (Your rational, logical brain systems in the cerebral cortex are of course "telling you" the opposite...that the phobia is silly...but the anxiety-inducing systems are more ancient - from an evolutionary perspective - and therefore more powerful. Or perhaps I should stress they AREN'T more powerful, but we continue to give them power, as sensations travel to these systems more quickly than to the cerebral cortex. What makes phobias worse is if your cerebral cortex [rationality, logic] are agreeing by you saying "Oh my God!!!! This is the worst thing that can happen!!! etc etc. If you can at least work on stopping this from happening, and CONTINUALLY tell yourself that you're not in danger, this is the essence of cognitive therapy. Behavioral therapy has you gradually exposed to the stimuli that trigger the fear, so that you come to realize it is not indicative of imminent danger at all. [I know, easier said than done - but possible!])


The good news is that the wires CAN get re-routed and re-trained. Learned resonses within the brain CAN be unlearned. It takes a bit of work, time and commitment, but it is definitely possible.

[siafi]

Hmm, that's pretty interesting and I think I understand what you mean, Sage. But I can't think of any really traumatic event that happened when my emet started...I guess my great-grandmother died then, but I wasn't very attached to her and it wasn't really a big deal. So I'm still trying to figure out what connects the "death or injury" fear to v*!


Anyways, when I was coming out of the mall the other day, I walked to my car and RIGHT NEXT TO ME was this family with all their doors open and they all had tissues and were wiping something up on a child safety seat. I didn't take a close look to see exactly what it was even though I felt a weird urge to, but I got out of therereally fast just in case...[img]smileys/smilies_11.gif[/img]

[sage]

You didn't need a traumatic event. That's a mistake that many emets and unfortunately many therapists believe. Then they spend a lot of time looking for this traumatic event when none was present. When your grandmother died it would have shifted the emotional process in your family system and caused stress in the system (especially to one of your parents). This stress gets picked up by other family members and not uncommonly, one child. It can be manifested in a number of ways - phobia is just one unlucky way and sometimes it's little more than a coincidence.


As far as the "fear of death/injury" idea the point is that you are NOT in danger of death or injury, but there is a part of the brain (called the amygdala) that gets stimulated that is so "old" (from an evolutionary perspective) that it sort of mimicks the feeling of fear of death. Again, this is subconscious. Your "logical" brain knows you are not in danger of dying (although for some emetophobes, even their logic tells them they may die - but the point is that for many, they are logically telling themselves they won't die but their amygdala is still "telling them" they will).


Let me see if I can explain it more clearly:


The brain has a "system" that some neuroscientists call the "ATTACHMENT" system. It exists forbabies and animal babies to cry out in distress when away from their mothers. This system is also labeled the "PANIC" system by some neuroscientists, so you can see that panic and attachment are intricately linked. The reason babies and baby animals "panic" when mother is away or they are lost and away from mother is because they will die if left alone too long. So from an evolutionary/scientific standpoint, this brain system ensures that the species will continue. There is strong evidence that mothers (and to some extent, fathers) have symbiotic systems in their brains known as a "NURTURE" system. Out of this system comes our feelings of love, care and compassion. When the baby "cries" (known as "distress vocalizations" in humans and other mammals) then mother's "NURTURE" system gets triggered and her anxiety goes up so she starts "looking for" the baby (or in the case of humans, picking baby up or feeding her or otherwise attending to her needs). So it's a scientific reality that humans are sort of "linked together" in their anxiety. These "links" extend further (in milder forms) through the extended family - to siblings, both parents, and grandparents. There is even evidence that the links go back 3 or 4 generations, and stress in the family system can be "felt" 4 generations later.


So it doesn't take a huge "trauma" to screw things up in baby's brain (or a little kid's brain). In your case, it could be linked to grandma's death. Even the fact that most kids don't understand vomiting and therefore "cry out" or are "distressed" or otherwise trigger the "ATTACHMENT/PANIC" system when they feel sick or vomit could be enough to screw up your mind given a set of circumstances that are anxious. So maybe you were just the normal amount of "panicked" when you vomited or felt sick, but mother's system was over-stimulated [maybe cuz of grandma's death, or maybe for another reason]. So HER anxiety went WAY UP instead of a normal amount, and then yours escalated and round and round she goes. The same could be true for father, or even another sibling. "Stress" or "anxiety" from outside events/people also takes its toll in messing around with these delicate brain systems. Again, it is possible that some of it is genetic as well or formed in utero.


The reason I asked the survey about childhood loss is that childhood loss almost always is at the root of phobia. It is incredibly traumatic for a child to experience loss (even of a grandparents). How you remember you felt at the time is irrelevant, cuz the information

[mparker5]

Jenneh- I would like to see the table you mentioned- it sounds interesting. [img]smileys/smilies_01.gif[/img]