Quote Originally Posted by ewilkins View Post
Wow, 50 years. Very impressive! Welcome to the site. It's great to know that there are others out there who feel the same way. And Doug....78 years??? Holy crap. Gives me the inspiration I need to know that maybe I can live the rest of my life without ever v again.
I'd much rather be able to vomit without issue than never vomit again.

I guess I'm a success story, though I don't really like thinking about myself that way.

I'm 23 now, and I first realised I was emet (maybe that there was a name for it) when I was about 13 or 14, and realised that I was okay with vomiting myself, but if someone vomited NEAR me I was really upset. Quick note, this didn't make it any easier to beat, because a lot of people on here think that only being afraid of others vomiting is easier to conquer, but that's just not true, they're equally as difficult. It started out that I would only get anxious when someone was actually vomiting near me, and then it progressed to me being afraid at the possibility of someone vomiting near me… THEN it progressed to freaking out the second someone just didn't look right, it got so bad I couldn't really leave home without a huge panic attack, I was in a really bad way, to be honest.

Things in my personal life weren't great, family wasn't doing so well, my studies were suffering something shocking. I got to 20 years old and I was absolutely a wreck. I was self harming, I just wanted to die, to be honest.

It took me about three years, but I finally worked my way out of the hole that I was in. I did lots of therapy. Counselling, hypnotherapy, psychologists, all kinds of things. And it was HARD, it was really hard, but it's been SO worth the hard work. I don't have daily panic attacks anymore, I don't worry 100% of the time whether someone is going to vomit near me, and if they DID vomit near me, really, so what? It'd be unpleasant for a bit but then I'd be fine.

I've even gotten a job where having to deal with vomit is pretty much guaranteed at some point.

I'm so proud of myself, and I'm so glad I did the hard work to get through it. And if I can do it, ANYONE can do it