Who knows about your phobia?

[blupup19]

Hey, I cant respond back to the message you sent me earlier because I dont have enough posts yet (i'm new to the site). I only have 6 and i guess I need 10 so hopefully soon I will be able to. I did respond but I dont believe you received it because it gave me an error message. But to answer your question it is possible to be an EMT with emet. I have been a FF for 8 years and an EMT for 6. It is a very rewarding hobby and if you are interested in it you should deff do it. I dont know what kind of departments you have out where you are but we are all volunteers. We have the option to pick the calls that we want to go on providing we make our points for the year. So normally if a "SICK" call comes over the pager I have the option to go or stay home. not going to lie most of those call i avoid for the sheer fact that the patient could v*. There are definately parts of the job that are hard such as having a patient in Cardiac Arrest because 99% of hte time when you are doing CPR everything they ate that day comes up. Most of those calls I try to drive a little slower so I dont have to be right in the patients face. I will normally be the runner (the person that gets all the additional equipment off the rig and whatever else the EMT's that are working on the patient needs). There are good days and there are bad days, most of the guys that I work with know that i can not deal with v* and they know I will walk out on a patient if they start. I hope this helps a little and if you have any other questions please feel free to answer them. I'm sorry I had to answer on this thread hopefully in a few days I will be able to do private messages.

[blupup19]

The message above is for KrisGirl34. Sorry, I'm new to this and dont know how to respond just to the person.

[I'm Haley]

my parents, sister, old therapists and that's about it. I remember one time my friend martin vomited in front of me and I go up and looked away. I wanted to run but i'd feel bad. Then I told him and he said this: "That's like having a fear of long words!"

[Mama76]

I try to tell everyone about my emet. Seems to me it makes the monster a little smaller when you shine a light on it (if that makes sense). I will tell anyone and announce it on FB. I do try to keep it from my kids as much as possible, I don't want them to think it is something to fear, although one boy already does, and I don't want them to have a complex if they do v. Not everyone understands, and one person has sent me texts about how I "v my life on FB" not sure if she was talking about my phobia or what, but that is what I do, if you don't like it don't be my friend (and she isn't anymore). Anyway, I am doing better and better, having others know (even if they don't understand) makes it easier for me in certain situations (like helping in my boys' school) if I am faced with something I can't handle. If nothing else, being in the habit of telling, makes it easier to tell whenever I get into a situation I can't handle.

[freakheadtotoe]

My son's dad knows how bad it csn be. I did try and tell my mum and sister but they were very unhelpful and didn't understand one bit.

[turbokinetic]

Interesting question! When I was at my worst; I didn't have Internet access and I honestly, truly, did not know there were any others like me. Therefore I considered this was "my problem" so I did the typical male thing. I didn't tell anyone. One good thing about this is, it kept me from over-researching norovirus or other things I didn't really need to know about and developing any obsessive habits early-on.

As the phobia has subsided I've told more and more people. If anyone mentions vomiting, I will usually tell them that "there used to be a time when that was my worst fear in all the world..." and explain to them what I went through. Several of my co-workers know, and a few of my close friends know.

@Blupup19 - It's awesome you're an EMT and a fireman. That's super-cool. I see how you would have to take some precautions but - you let your desire to help others override this phobia. Many kudos to you!!!!

I'm into the marine engine industry. This helped me to push through my emetophobia. I have to deal with the possibility of rough seas and possible seasickness. Also, I have to travel internationally and deal with the possible different hygeine standards in other (possibly less developed) countries. But It is my PASSION and I love it.

Sincerely,
David

[LittleSister]

David/Turbokinetic, can you tell me how you got your phobia to subside? I was a relatively normal person until about a year ago.

[LittleSister]

Jackiek31, I could have written your post word for word.

[jess0930]

I admitted it to all my facebook friends (I only have close people on my facebook who I know will support me) I found out my cousin and a friend have it as well. My husband knows and he is such amazing support. He always asks what can I do to make you feel better or help? He got me sea band bracelets to help with my morning sickness. My mom knows and is so supportive. My entire family knows but the rest of them make fun of me. making puking noises and acting like they are going to gag and tell me to just get over it they also always tell me that they feel sick... when they dont. Some people are supportive and some people arent. My two biggest supporters are my husband and mom. They keep telling me to get therapy and say they will help with whatever they can by watching the baby or whatever. You do have us for support. So dont you feel alone.

[ALaudell]

My husband, my mom, my brother, and my dad know. But my dad denies it. However, my husband and my mom have been VERY supportive with me through this.
Most if my family and my husbands family just think I'm slightly a germ-a-phob. I don't tell them the truth because I feel like they just wouldn't understand. It sux. And I don't tell anyone else, for the same reasons. :/

[hiddenopal]

Most of my family knows, but only my parents fully understand how much it impacts me because they've seen it firsthand. All of my doctors know, but, again, they don't know how bad it is until I have a full-blown panic attack right in front of them (which has happened several times...I'm pretty sure I scarred my primary care doctor for life by temporarily losing my mind during my first visit with her. I knew I had found a good doctor when she just tried to comfort/ help me and never judged me for it, though.). I've told a few friends and professors, but only on a need to know basis. Even then, no one except my psych professor understood. I get a lot of responses like, "I don't like to v* either" and "Oh, spiders creep me out, so I have a phobia, too."

[turbokinetic]

David/Turbokinetic, can you tell me how you got your phobia to subside? I was a relatively normal person until about a year ago.

Hi, sorry I didn't see this earlier!

I had 2, possibly 3 vomiting episodes as a little kid. I don't remember the exact details, but it was horrible. I had been fighting a headache for all day, finally got sick but, vomiting did not give releif, and it was terrifying. That sowed the seeds for my emetophobia. Never been sick since that point, because I have good self control.

It's hard to explain exactly how I got the phobia to subside. It boils down to changed way of seeing things and changed ways of thinking. Couple that with distractions from my new work, and the emet took a back burner.

My emet anxiety has always been centered around myself getting sick, being miserable, and eventually puking. Nothing else bothers me. In fact, I will do nearly anything for someone who is feeling sick to make them feel better. That is the flip-side of my phobia. I sense the misery and it makes me want to give comfort.

My personality has 'highly sensative person trait' and that is a 'double-edge sword' so to speak. It makes my work life easy, by giving me a 'sixth sense' that most people can't understand. But I can't get away from it, and I'm very very aware of feelings inside my body. I used to get anxiety when I could feel things happening in my stomach. I didn't understand how it worked, and my mind was receiving all sorts of information from it that I could not ignore. So, I began to fear that any louder than normal sensation was the beginning of a problem.

I went to a private junior / highschool which has a great dedicated boilogy department. I was fascinated with the biology and health science studies. The more I learned about how I was 'put together' the better I could accept the feelings inside my body. Now that I was beginnin to see what is SUPPOSED to happen, I could assign the feelings inside there to GOOD things happening.

Here is one changed way of seeing things. I used to have anxiety if I was eating food, and my stomach started making noises while I was eating. That could mean - the food was bad and disagrees with me! Oh no! Shock and terror! I'm going to puke and die! It happened often but I couldn't pinpoint why. Then I noticed that is very likely if I eat later than normal, or miss a meal earlier in the day. I realized, it was a simple cause-and-effect thing. If I wait to eat, until all the previous food is gone, this happens. I started to see it differently. Now, I see my body working extra quickly to absorb all the delicious food into my system, because I need it more than usual at that time. It's a good thing happening.

Logic is good. I changed my way of thinking using logic. Here's an example. These are all truths:
-There is no NEED to ever puke, because it is only a response to a problem. It is not a necessary function that happens daily like breathing or peeing.
-The past performance of any system (in this case, the system is me) is a good indicator of future reliability.
Using those 2 true statements, the logical conclusion: The longer I go without puking (due to careful hygeine, good constituion, luck, whatever reason) the less the chances I will be sick on any given day. Calculating the odds, even for someone who gets sick an "average" number of times in a year - the chance of puking on any given day is VERY VERY SMALL.

Another example of logic. I went to a Chinese shipyard. They serve food there which is very cheap and mass-produced. I had a few reservations about eating it. Then I saw how many of the workers ate it every day. I never saw anyone sick from the food. If the food was bad, there WOULD BE sick people all over the shipyard (thousands work there). True statements:
-All the people there eat the food.
-I never saw anyone sick.
The logical conclusion: The food is not an unuaual risk to eat. So I ate it for 6 months and never had any problems.

Shipyard cafeteria pictures:






And finally; given my emetophobic past, I know that I can feel pretty bad and manage to NOT puke. Therefore, even if I were to get sick - I could most likely find a private place to be sick without offending other people or having a big anxiety problem.

Things like that got me on the road to less emetophobia anxiety. I still have some social anxiety, but it's far more managable than the emetophobia was.

There's no overnight fix for this. It seems like there are several common 'flavors' of emetophobia that would need different approaches to getting better. If you can relate to the way I felt, you may be able to get past it by changing your way of thinking and way of seeing things. Having a real therapist to talk to is also a great idea. When I was at my worst, I didn't have internet and didn't know anyone else in the world ever felt the same as me. But, I got past it!

Sincerely,
David

[SUM1]

My mum, dad, sister, most of my friends and a few of my teachers know about it (also I told my GP about it at an appointment). I'm not afraid of telling people who I trust (who I know won't jokingly try to invoke my phobic reactions), and most of the time (but not all of the time) my parents are understanding and caring of my phobia, but I do sense that often they get bored or annoyed at my pestering or crying from my anxiety.

[aurora0917]

My husband, best friend, sister, parents, and a few coworkers know. I told the coworkers after a while because my obsessive handwashing and hypochondriac-like tendencies were more obvious than I thought... so i thought offering an explanation would help those around me understand me better.