CURED OF EMETOPHOBIA

[sage]

“CURED OF EMETOPHOBIA”
© 2003 A. S. Christie
(please do not reproduce without permission)


I have been successfully treated for emetophobia, which I suffered from to an extremely serious degree for 40 years. For twenty of those years, I searched for help and was willing to do anything to be rid of this gripping terror in my life. Finally, I succeeded. Here is my story.

I'm 45 years old. My childhood was quite traumatic. At age two, I swallowed a penny when my mom wasn'thome, and14-year old sister got a nurse neighbour to help. She stuck her fingers down my throat to make me vomit and apparently I screamed and cried. (Finally I was taken to hospital to have it removed from my throat). My brotherthen diedin an accident when I was 3, and my dad died of cancer (literally throwing up to death, it seemed) when I was 9. My mother suffered from mental illness, and was always sick and expected me to look after her. Once she went into the hospital "for a rest" when I was only 10 and left me home alone for 3 days, even though I was sick myself. Most of the rest of my childhood was spent in horror and terror every moment. Obviously I associated vomiting with dying - even if I only saw (or thought I would see) someone else do it.

As time went on I avoided things more and more. In my teens I went to university, and stopped eating almost everything but bananas and digestive cookies (you all know this routine). My fear of others vomiting was so intense that I started avoiding people altogether at one point. I remember sitting on the bed in my room, curled up in fetal position, crying and feeling so terrified that I wanted to die. I thought it would be better to die than to ever be anywhere near someone who vomited, or to ever be sick myself. I thought if I got some sickness that involved vomiting, I would rather kill myself quickly. As soon as that thought entered my head, I knew I needed professional help. I was only 18.

I got a referral to a psychiatrist from my doctor, and the shame of just telling him my disorder (the first person on the face of this earth that I ever told) sent me into a deep depression. I wallowed in grief for weeks. I had some limited success with this psychiatri

[saralyn]

Your story is amaizing and gives me a lot of hope. I would love to send you a personal email if I could. Can you send me your emaill address. mine is saralyn_1183@hotmail.com


Thanks


Sara

[sage]

Sara: feel free to send me a "PM" here at this site. You'll see the PM icon at the bottom of my post here. Blessings ~ SAGE

[jandub]

Thank you so much for your story. It's so great to see that you really wanted more for your life and had the drive to get it. I waver so much on really getting aggressive with this and just working to not only have less anxiety, but to be emetophobia free, I think partially because I am not convinced that it would work for me. But reading your story encourages me. I have a couple questions for you if that's ok. Do you worry about backsliding at all, and if so, do you have sort of "maintenance" now and again. And also, what do you do if its your time to vomit? Or has that time happened since you've been cured. I think I could really get to a place where being around others sick would be ok, but I don't know if I could ever be alright with myself doing it. Even if I'm ready to "give up" and let it go and just get sick, my brain will stop it at the last minute out of pure pitch panic, and I'll go through the uncomfortable motions of right before, and coming to terms with the fact that it'll happen, only to have that fear part of my brain shut it all down. Anyway, I am just really enlightened reading your post and it is so great to know that a normal life is possible!! Janna

[sage]

Hi Janna! I'm happy to respond to your questions.


1) Yes, I "worry" about "backsliding". But I wouldn't use either of those words! I don't actually worry - I'm just aware of it. "Backsliding" is actually a scientifically factual reality in that the brain has built "highways" that take theDANGER! message from the stimulus (vomiting) to the response:panic. In my treatment program, I built new highways where the stimulus does NOT lead to panic, but to a normal state. However, there is always a chance that if the anxiety level in my life goes up too high - the brain will prefer to take the old highway rather than the new one. So I am aware of this, and work on it a bit from time to time (such as watching videos on youtube and such, or spending time in the hospital.) I should note that no matter what, I will never EVER get back to being as bad as I was. It's more like....a brief moment of my heart thumping and then I say "oh ya...I'm not afraid of that anymore!" - and it's over.


2) I have vomited since my treatment, and I've said it before on this forum many times...it was a big fat NOTHING! I cannot believe that I freaked out 24/7/365 about something that lasts about 3 seconds. What a waste of time! What a waste of a great life! Again, to be honest...right before I vomited I was quite anxious...but that was only for about 5 minutes. Again...hardly the same as ruining your whole life every minute of every day.


Take care now...thanks for asking...and good luck on your own path to recovery and healing!

[jandub]

Thank you so much for answering my questions. I read that and really and truly saw that for myself someday.