Suicidal over phobia

Speak with your dr. Seek a referral to a psychiatrist and or psychologist. Dies your therapist provide CBT/EMDR/DBT? Try ab different modality. Ask about different medication or a higher dose of the one you are on.

it’s worth investigating whether changes like these may help more

I don't think that you are afraid of the thing in itself, I think that you have a legitimate fear of things being out of control, it being the first step in a series of events that causes people around you to be ill or a generalised feeling of something bad is going to happen.

Your body and mind, (same thing) has narrowed it down to emetophobia. I don't have an easy answer for you, OP, but you post so often and I do think about you a lot.

Think about what you wrote in the entry linked above:

Your children will be back at school.
Your husband is out drinking on a stag do.

The thing might just be a focus.

Anyway, stay here. I like you. Sorry if this is clumsily worded. Hang on, our kid.

May I ask what therapies you have already tried? Someone may be able to offer an alternative, there are so many out there, one you might not have considered might just be the right fit for you.

May I also ask why you think having a heights or spider phobia would be better? Surely those things are even more common than witnessing someone being sick?

I have severe trypanophobia (fear of needles). So much so that I fainted when my sister had her ears pierced. In another room... I had to be physically restrained to have childhood immunisations so never got the BCG test and jab as I got too big to hold down. I had fillings without injections I was that scared! I was never going to have children as I knew I would need blood tests etc. The only thing that helped me was pretty much immersion therapy. I ended up getting a job abroad, it required many vaccinations (including the BCG) and blood tests. I then met and married my husband and we decided to try for a baby, then I got hypothyroidism and needed many, many tests before they got my levels sorted. I had to take my baby for her vaccinations and hold her whilst they were done. It was so many needles in such a short space of time. I am still utterly terrified and still occasionally pass out when I have a blood test but I have no choice, I have to have my levels checked otherwise I could die and leave my darling daughter without her mum! I flat out one day decided, when I got that job, that I was not going to let my fear rule or ruin my life. It's been very hard and I've sobbed and fainted my way through many a blood test but I am (mostly) in control now.

Please, find something that works, you have a responsibility to your children to find a way to overcome your fear. Saying you would rather commit suicide is not an option, you know that. All the very best.

@Caterlight well I can TOTALLY understand how desperate you feel. I know you say nothing helps but is the medication helping in some way? I know you’ve had therapy of some kind but there are a number of factors that can influence the success of therapy (the wrong type of therapy, specific experience and skills of a therapist, what else is going on in life, inadequate amount of sessions, poor therapeutic relationship etc).

So if therapy didn’t work it isn’t an indication that it can’t help and that you are unhelpable.

Have you come across Professor David Veale who is an authority on the treatment of Emetophobia and has done a lot of work on the variations; fear of being sick, fear of others being sick (or both), high or low levels of “disgust”, contributing beliefs, trauma, co-morbid psychological problems etc. It’s an incredibly common phobia; that’s not to minimise it but what that means is that there have been some very successful evidence-based treatments developed and many people have been helped (by properly qualified people). I feel for you and I hope you can get help, it is out there. Where are you based roughly (if you’re in the UK)?

https://emetaction.org/about-us#:~:text=David%20Veale,-Trustee&text=David%20is%20a%20Consultant%20Psychiatrist,Action%20and%20the%20BDD%20Foundation.

I was going to say this - I used to have this phobia so badly that it affected how I ate. I ended up just getting over it after having a child somehow and dealing with him being sick. I’ve been sick a couple of times myself since and although I obviously don’t like it (who does?!) it doesn’t bother me anywhere near as much as it did.

Do you feel anxious in general OP? Mine was at its worst when I had a nervous breakdown

Maybe a good thing to do might be forcing yourself to deal with it the next time your child is ill. As mothers we can do things for our kids we could never ever manage for ourselves alone. Try and tap into that and work past the phobia that way?

Sorry you're dealing with this OP and that previous therapy didn't work. My daughter had crippling emetophobia (part of her OCD) when she was younger so I know how terrible it can be - she went through Exposure Therapy to treat this, which was tough but successful for her and it's made a huge huge difference to her life.

Was that the kind of therapy you had previously? It took her a couple of goes to find a therapist she liked.

Can you please just clarify...you are not having suicidal thoughts right now and are not thinking about completing suicide?

This is what your post implied.

What is probably more accurate is that you are getting wound up about some upcoming activities and want to chat/get support/perspective.

DH - is he usually drunk/sick? Can he stay with a friend?

Kids - it happens but if school age what coping strategies have you used previously?

See your GP or try and get some EMDR/CBT therapy. You need help if this is impacting your life in this way.

You can always turn it around and look at it from a different angle: when you vomit it’s actually beneficial to your body because it is getting rid of something it doesn’t need, or is harmful to it. Your body is smart and knows what it’s doing, and after vomiting you’ll feel a relief.

You have my sympathy, distress and anxiety is such a horrible uncomfortable feeling that you cannot escape from in the moment. Please seek more help, you can overcome this I promise.

Hi OP, no matter if people don't understand it, it is real to you. Can you call some CBT therapists and have a chat with them about whether they think it would be of benefit. Or else GP again.

OP I have emetophobia but it is much milder than it used to be. This is mainly because I had terrible morning sickness with my second DC and vomiting without warning, though distressing at the time, sort of helped with the phobia.

I still get a bit panicky if I feel sick or if my DC are ill but I has got better over the years.

Please get more help as this is awful to read. I think this elevated from a phobia to something far more serious.

Poor you. I know this phobia is actually fairly common. I have heard some people saying they got over it by watching videos of people being sick. I know that probably sounds horrible to you. But it might help over time?

Does it stop you eating properly? If so you should speak to your GP and maybe get some vitamins and supplements.

I suppose you need more therapy until you find a therapy that works for you. You can’t carry on like this thinking you would rather die than see someone throw up.

How have you dealt with being sick in the past? Or dealing with your sick children? Genuinely curious.

It's a phobia, OP isn't choosing this and shes tried to get help. Bit of empathy maybe?

But what is it that you're actually scared of? If you can answer that then you can try and unpick the phobia. I do think it's linked to what happened when you were 4/5. I know you can't help it and I am not being flippant, but understanding it is the key to overcoming it.

May I ask, how have you managed your phobia around pregnancy and having children? I'm sure that you've had to deal with a lot of vomit one way and another - how has that played out and is there anything you can draw on from those experiences that you can use to rationalise when you feel the panic rising?

My brilliant friend who has had lots of therapy says it's important not to dismiss your feelings, but to qualify them. She says "your feeling are real, and important, but they are not facts." It's normal for human beings to be repulsed by vomit - it is a sign of illness, which can mean danger, it's evolutionary. But your instincts and/or your trauma is activating your nervous system inappropriately. You need to find a way to regulate it back down to an appropriate level.

Phobia or not you WILL have vomited in your life at some point, and dealt with the vomit of others, and come to no harm. How did you manage to cope, and is there any way you can use similar approaches to cope with the fear and horror of vomit (which I imagine is actually far worse and debilitating than the actual experience of it is)?

Why would you rather die than be sick in front of someone or someone being sick in front of you. What do you think would happen to you in those scenarios?

I remember as a child I was the only child to miss a school trip to France because I was so scared that someone would be seasick in front of me. Would I could say something helpful to you.