Quote Originally Posted by orton99 View Post
Okay, first something to make people gasp and then a serious point...

I haven't been sick since 10 days after my 10th birthday, on 30th June...wait for it, this is good...1983. No, that's not a typo!

However, just before anyone says anything like, "Wow, that's brilliant, you must be so lucky", a word of caution. I've been seeing a therapist for a few weeks now (and will additionally start CBT soon) to try and overcome this horrible phobia and am now realising that I've probably had it wrong for all these years, in seeing this "perfect record" as something to be really pleased about.

I've had remarkably few near misses since then but the nearest was last August, when I caught a stomach bug and was very nearly sick two or three times. I pretty much swallowed/choked it back down each time, but the experience really shook me. Me? Be sick? Me?! The point is not having been sick for so long has meant that I simply cannot deal with the idea at all, can't process it and can't grasp it. Hence the fear and panic at the thought that I might be as it now stands in my mind as the ultimate horror, the Thing That Cannot Be. Had I thrown up a few times since then I might not now have this problem, or at least not so strongly, as I'd know - phobic heresy though this is - that maybe it's not quite so bad after all. But there's the rub. I don't know that, so am terrified of it.

I'm certainly not criticising any other posters on this thread who have all (I'm sure quite easily) been able to supply the date they were last sick, as it simply seems to go with the territory with this phobia and as you can see I can "do dates" as well as anyone (the time before that was 25th July 1982 in case you're wondering), but my wider point here is to sound a note of caution, that maybe getting so hung up on when it last happened, however understandable, isn't actually helpful at all and is in fact one of the thinking patterns that keeps the phobia in place.

So yes, I haven't been sick for a very, very long time and until recently I'd felt pretty pleased about that. Now though, I think that the night of 30th June 1983 has in truth become an albatross round my neck and, far from being something to be proud of, has actually been casting a long, malignant shadow for nearly 28 years. My therapist just the other day rhetorically asked why I felt that that date was so significant. After all she said, it's just a memory.

Truth is, she's right.

I feel the same way although i havent thrown up since 1999 when i was 9 (21 now) stomach bugs and nausea all the time never once, and its like oh crap what do i do if it happens? i feel like while its happening im gonna be like OMG IM ACTUALLY DOING IT HOLY CRAP. lol and be in a state of shock because its been so long too. ohhhhhh man. when that day comes who knows whats going to happen.