I'm not sure if this is usual or not, but I haven't seen much here about people who, in addition to being terrified of their own puke, also are horrified when people around them throw up. This happens to me often and when it does I usually end up crying and covering my eyes and ears or going numb from shock.
The first time it happened was three years ago when I was on my way to school and my sister threw up in the backseat. My throat closed up and I panicked and began to cry when I tried to get out of the car. I couldn't think straigt and was pretty much comletely unable to operate the lock or the door handle in my panic.
The same thing continues to happen to me frequently at school. I run cross country and am pretty serious about it, so throwing up after a hard workout is normal and it isn't getting easier to handle. When I hear other people throwing up before or after a race I have to step away fom the line for a couple minutes to regain control of myself and relax and whipe my eyes, etc. This isn't something I can seem to help and it really disrupts my running and sometimes my race or practice results.
It's also pretty embarrassing when it happens in front of my friends. Last year we watched "Supersize Me" in biology in which a man subjects himself to meaningless torture in the form of eating McDonald's three times a day for a retarded amount of time. Of course, for a while he does a lot of puking. We watched this movie as a class and when he threw up I instantly burst into tears and had to walk to the front of the class to get a tissue. I couldn't breathe well enough to tell my teacher what was wrong, so she panicked and that was just a lot more attention I didn't want.
This stupid phobia is ruining my life and it's making me angry because I know it's senseless to fear it like I do.