How do you know when your cured?

[Mumof2]

How do you know your over emet? I was doing well coping and then something comes along and throws me off course. Do you no longer have emet when you don't think about sickness at all? Or is everyone a work in progress??

I ate a really delicious meal and felt full up afterwards and convinced myself of you know what.. And of course I wasn't sick at all. That stupid night has put me back a bit. Perhaps I wasn't over emet at all?

Do people in recovery have set backs? Do we have to live with the fact that we will struggle from time to time?

[Elski]

I think it would be unrealistic to walk the road of recovery and not expect set-backs. Instead of thinking of it as a negative, think of it as a positive as it shows how far you've already come! Recovery is always two steps forward, one step back. Focus on how well you've done so far and just get back on that horse

[Mumof2]

That's a good point. It's just so easy to get disheartened..

[becca44]

To consider myself completely cured it would involve caring for a sick person with a stomach virus, doing what other people do when looking after a sick person, rubbing their back, holding back hair, cleaning up etc. Until i can do that without any anxiety or panic im not cured. I cant see that ever happening, i will never be cured, i accept that and try to live as normal as possible.

[Mumof2]

To consider myself completely cured it would involve caring for a sick person with a stomach virus, doing what other people do when looking after a sick person, rubbing their back, holding back hair, cleaning up etc. Until i can do that without any anxiety or panic im not cured. I cant see that ever happening, i will never be cured, i accept that and try to live as normal as possible.

Oh no I'm a long way off that then. There is a bug going round a hospital 25 miles from me and I couldn't even watch it on the news or I would convince myself I have it.

[sage]

My goal in therapy was to be able to hold one of those sick basins for someone in the hospital and watch them throw up into it, then help them out however I could. I eventually got to that point and described myself as "successfully treated." I still hadn't thrown up myself....that came some time later like 10 years. Then I knew I was "cured" cuz I wasn't the last bit anxious.

Are there setbacks? Of course! Despite that all my clients are emetophobic (I only counsel 2 days/week) and I talk to people on here quite a bit, I still do not ever think of sickness outside of that. BUT...if the stress in my life goes up I will. Like when I had a surgery that lasted 14 hours. I woke up and the first thing I remember was being scared I'd be sick (I wasn't sick, not once). After a couple of days in hospital I "remembered" that I wasn't scared of it anymore and then I was alright. But it took years after the 2 years of therapy to feel 100% anxiety-free. It's a life-long journey, but never think that it can't happen because if I can do it you can too. I'm nobody special, no super-phobic...just an ordinary person who was completely debilitated at one point with this phobia. Terrified to eat or leave the house at one point. My point is that there are no limits to the human spirit!