A question for recovered emetophobes

[Elle7rose]

Hello,

I have cripplingly severe Emetophobia and it's having a hugely detrimental effect on my life.

I was just wondering if anyone else had recovered from it and if so what helped?

I have gone through years of CBT, counselling etc.

I have had emetophobia since I was 5. Having children has lessened it and made it more manageable, to an extent, but I don’t think I will ever not be emetophobic. I feel for you

No sorry. Had it since I was 7 and it’s never improved

It certainly got better after CBT and 2 very refluxy babies. (I've never had an issue with baby puke)

I still have a small amount of lingering Fear that everyone is going to get sick but I just keep up with the mantra "It will pass and what's the worst that can happen." My internal response is always "Everyone will puke, we'll all survive and that will the end of it"

Hypnotherapy

Thanks everyone.

That's good to know that yours has improved user1471449295 and MrsMonkeybear.

Sweetdreamer- are you recovered after hypnotherapy?

My Mother was bulimic when I was a child and it triggered extreme emetephobia in me, which lasted until I was pregnant with my first baby. I was so sick that it almost became normal for me to be sick and took the phobia away from that side of things. Being a Mummy to a sicky newborn and then as my son got older and fought sickness bugs I was too concerned with my son to feel fear. I truly dislike vomiting and struggle to be around anyone other than my babies being sick. But the phobia is gone.

I would seek help for your phobia- my son was successfully helped to overcome two phobias using graded integration- I’m not sure if graded integration is the answer to your emetiphobia but a psychologist would be best placed to advise

Nothing has helped. Pregnancy was a nightmare as I had sickness throughout so ended up leaving work a lot in case I was sick. Massively paranoid about someone else’s baby being sick on me. Am actually ok with my baby’s sick but they aren’t weening yet so am not looking forward to that.

Having a stressful night as I’ve been feeling sick the past two nights and am not sure whether to bite the bullet and make myself sick or roll with it

That must have been traumatic in the past Caledoniahasmyheartforever; but that's great that you are no longer phobic of vomiting. I have had quite a lot of CBT including graded exposure/ERP, which doesn't seem to have worked and I see a Psychologist for EMDR but again that doesn't seem to be helping!

That's horrible Puds11- I'm ok with baby reflux/regurgitation type sick, mostly because there's no chance of it being norovirus and doesn't usually involve retching or other elements of vomiting but I spend a lot of my time terrified of hearing about stomach viruses/seeing people throw up etc.

Were you ok in the end last night or did you throw up?

I was but am pretty much recovered.
I was diagnosed aged 14 and two rounds of CBT. They used to give me domperidone to reduce the sensation of nausea that I had constantly until they couldn’t any more. I then got severe morning sickness upto 31 weeks when pregnant and my worst fear for labour was actually being sick in labour rather than the pain.

My dd is now 4 and although I still have some fear of being sick (still avoid alcohol, or any food that would make me nauseous) I don’t have the same fear as I used to. I occasionally get problems and usually just use peppermint sweets to help ease it now

Part of this is due to the once a year noro virus that comes with living with a school aged child (watching your child be sick and feeling scared to go near her to comfort her really set it in me I needed to battle passed the feelings) and partly due to health issues myself (I had to have a gastroscope which is basically my worst fear but I got through it

I've been phobic since the age of 4 - had some CBT at age 17 and then various therapies in my 20s, but now I'm 47 and I'll never be 100% free of it. I get through life on medication, but I never had children.

It's a horrible condition WhoisitnowRalph- you take SSRIs (don't answer if too personal) or anxiety meds or just anti-emetics?

That's great that you are mostly recovered Sammy867. Did you have any therapy or was it just the dealing with it happening (e.g. your DD being sick) that helped?

** sorry that was 'Do you take SSRIs?'

I actually take an old tricyclic anti depressant, called Lofepramine (Gamanil) - I first took it when it was fashionable in about 1994, after a catastrophe (BF vomiting repeatedly at home, I had a bit of a meltdown), and it worked wonders. Relieved the anxiety and stopped me stressing over every little thing, so I could get back to work.

I went back on it in about 2001, when the fears were taking over again and I was frightened to go to work. They tried me on lots of things that I don't even remember the name of, and I suffered with so many side effects that I begged the GP to let me take Lofepramine again. They insisted that newer drugs were more effective but I persisted, and I've been on it ever since. 18 years!

If I have a wobble we sometimes up the dose a little - this time of year is horrible, I loathe Christmas because when people aren't talking about food and parties, they're regaling everyone who will listen with tales of copious projectile vomiting where the whole house has had "norovirus". Hohoho, do fuck off.

The only long lasting side effect of the drug is migraines.

I used to be afraid of puking myself and others puking. I am less bothered by myself puking now and am okish with friends puking etc ( have no kids). But I’m scared of piles of vomit in the street or if someone coughs violently/ is drunk- I’m scared they will puke. One of my greatest fear is I will witness a stranger vomit violently/uncontrollably .It has got better as I’ve gotten older. I think exposure helps.

I hope you find an answer. Best of luck !

I did Rob Kelly's Thrive program with a consultant over Skype 2 years ago and it improved my phobia to the point where I could consider getting pregnant. Then like many others here, having baby really improved the phobia because you don't have the time and energy to engage in negative thoughts.

I would consider myself "recovered" but not "cured". I imagine it's similar to recovery from alcohol addiction or an eating disorder. Unhelpful thoughts will always pop up in your head and the hardest part is resisting the daily temptation to act on them. This gets easier with time, but is never completely gone. I can live with this though, as I don't think anyone has a perfectly clean slate of mental health. Everyone battles their demons, whether it's a tendency towards depression, anxiety etc.

I currently only get panic attacks 2-3 times a year (compared to 2-3 times a day 10 years ago), do not take medication and have stopped almost all of my safety behaviours like carrying water, gum or stomach medicine when I'm out. I still have some issues with food safety, particularly throwing out food that's been opened for a while or which I feel doesn't look fresh anymore. Though on the whole I'm loads better than before and feel like I have as close to a normal life as I can hope for.

Oddly enough, direct contact with my DD (11months) gagging or vomiting bothers me far less than having to cook a broccoli which looks a bit wilted (she has a hair trigger gag reflex and often vomits without warning when trying to eat a baby biscuit or any lumpy food). This just proves how irrational emetophobia is. There's nothing inherently scary or threatening about being sick but we've just built up a strange justification of the fear in our mind!

Mine is worse when I'm stressed and have other shit going on. It's more of a control thing with me, being sick or watching someone be sick is the worst thing I can imagine.

I didn't really deal with my DC being sick when they were small. They knew I was scared of it and got to the toilet the majority of the time.

I don't think about it so much anymore, I live in a village and not near a bus stop where drunk people vomit, my DC aren't primary school age where bugs are frequent. I'm happier in life and so it's not on my mind. That's not to say I don't freak out if someone I know has been sick, but it doesn't rule my life anymore.

I'm not recovered but I'm not as bad as I once was.

I can cope with people being sick if they are pregnant / drunk. I now go out for meals which I couldn't have done at one time. I'm not really sure what improved things for me. I do stick to food I feel safe with though and would never eat eg shellfish or chicken unless I'd cooked it myself.

I do still have a terrible fear of norovirus and one Xmas I didn't leave the house for 2 weeks because the media kept banging on about an outbreak! Hate this time of year for that reason.

I was absolutely petrified of vomiting, to the extent that I would sanitise my hands up to 25 times a day.

Two HG pregnancies changed things. I had to accept the chaos. That I would probably vomit (a LOT) and that I had very little control over it. It was obviously not an ideal way to cure myself of emetophobia.

I recently had noro and, while unpleasant, I was quite accepting of all the vomiting. That has got to be because of the HG.

Sadly not a recovered emetophobe but I really struggle with this and with all the norovirus news recently I’m basically in constant panic mode. Felt very sick earlier and had anti-emetics but now I’m scared of them wearing off in the night and waking up sick is one of my worst fears!

DS came home from school a couple of days ago saying half his class is off with noro - he was so casual about it, only commented that he hopes he won’t get it because he wants to go to Karate on Monday! That kind of casual is an actual life goal for me!! Instead I sit here fretting whether I have norovirus and if not how long it will be before one of the kids brings it home.

It’s a miserable way to live and I’d dearly love to find some way to ease this fear, especially this time of year it takes over my life and I’m constantly anxious.

Having children.

I’m not going to say it has cured me completely and my children very rarely vomit but when they do I find I can cope with it ok. Because I have to I guess.