People who call themselves emetaphobes - are they for real?

[haychee]

I hadnt even heard of this until a thread i started which mentioned the word puke produced an effect on some that they coudnt even come on to mn until that thread had died. They couldnt even bare to read a word?!

Another thread running now, is talking about how some are affected by this phobia. Some of them i can see it is a real big problem and for them i do have sympathy. But some, who like me, do not like to see others being sick but are classing themselves as emetaphobic - this im finding difficult to comprehend. I dont like it at all - i avoid being too close to someone (eg kissing dh or dc if they have been ill in the last few days) for fear of exposing myself to a possible bug. But im not emetaphobic - please tell me im not.

Ive never even heard of a spider being called a loofah!

I worked with someone who used to use a phrase that I can't repeat because it's too horrible to me, but involves the words cup and wet.

URRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! Yuk!

I can understand that no one likes sick, but it doesnt just stop there.

1. You panic if someone mentions the word

2. You constantly look around to see if anyone looks pale

3. You look at food very closely even if its in date and panic / throw food away if for any reason you think its not right.

4. You panic if you let yourself/children go in a public swimming pool

5. You panic going on long car journeys just incase of travel sickness

6. You panic if you here any of friends children have been ill and your DC are friends with them

7. You panic when you hear that a DC has been sick in your DC class

8. You dread birthday parties because DC tend to eat loads of junk

9. You dont like going to the Drs because you dont know what your sitting next too

Need I go on.........

Does this give you any help to understand wether your are emetophobic or not, and wether you are being unreasonable to the sufferers or not!

Probably everyone who is afraid of sick knows its completely irrational.

Yes, I see what you are trying to say Haychee, but to be honest I searched past threads before responding, and I think the thread you were referring to had one of the posters known as one of the most well known emetephopes on MN on it, and what you were saying seemed to referring to her posts.

Im wondering if these true extreme phobias (because some i dont think are truly phobic) are produced on a nature or nurture basis

Well I'm spheksophobic & apiphobic and following the loofah theme I have asked that these items be referred to as soap-on-a-rope

naturo & pink bubbles
Did your mother and or carer when you were little react like you do?

No she didnt react like I do. But then I can hardly ever remember being ill!

here is an easy reference guide on the nature versus nurture debate

Relatively easy

Haychee, my sister had a very real phobia of spiders. Neither of my parents are frightened of spiders. My father would happily let them run around his hand to show my sister there was nothing scary about them. It was definitely nature, not nutrture. It was because she'd been stung by a wasp as a toddler, when she was too little to tell my mother what the matter was (so it was a long time before the source of the pain was dealt with) and when she called all insects 'pidies' (spiders).

I have a near-phobia of something and again, it's the result of an event, nothing to do with my parents.

Its not something Im proud of, I honestly wish (having 3 DDs) I could cope with this differently. One of my DDs has picked up on this fear while the other 2 are rather blaize about it(just like their Father).The one that has picked up on the fear seemed to panic from a young age so I wonder whether its a built in fear rather than one from me.(and thats not me trying to get out of it)

Thanks - had to read it 4 times. I have brain ache now.

A friend of dd2s was at the farm with us the other day and she was trying to get her dd to feed a goat. But her dd was frightened and wanted her mummy to show her how to do it first. Well mummy held out her hand full of feed for the goat and shreiked when it cam closer and ended up jumping put of her skin and throwing all the feed over the floor and her dd! I couldnt help but laugh. Here, watch mummy freak out and it will scar you for life!

Actually it was me who asked about the loofah thing and it is at least partly a joke

I DON'T like spiders, I don't like them at all, but I'm not phobic about them

I do dislike them however to the extent that during spider season (ie about now), when there are LOADS of threads going on such as "HUGE FUCKING SPIDER RAN ON MY HEAD" it makes me very twitchy to look at active convos. So I suggested jokily that people refer to them as loofahs, instead. Which a lot of people do. It's very sweet and quite funny.

Emetophobia or any true phobia is a different thing, entirely. I did explain to you before haychee that some posters on here have such severe phobias that to even be reminded of the subject (as they are every time they read the word puke or similar in a thread title) makes them terrified and panicky. If they know they're going to see a thread title with words like that on MN, they will be avoiding it for a while.

Yes I know we can't avoid upsetting everyone in life, but it's very simple to avoid upsetting emetophobes on here in our thread titles, and doesn't cause us any hardship to do so. You seem to be suggesting that they are just being a bit pathetic, though - 'wet lettuce' I think you said in your last thread.

i'm not scared of any insects. dd1 is petrified of them (except beetles) and was in tears the other night as there was a 'loofah' in her room. dd3 is also like that as well. dd2 not as much.

Haychee - if you've read any of the threads on here then this is a pretty insensitive thread title.

And to then refer to people as being weak is really illustrating your insensitivity further.

Read and think rather than comment as you have done.

Its interesting isnt it? Was it someting that happened and you have blocked out from your memory? Was it something that happened when you were too young to remember? Or is it actually in the genetic makeup?

Oh - and I have just read your profile and discovered you're a nurse.

So you really, really should understand what this phobia is all about.

And if you don't, then you should demonstrate not only sympathy but a bit more empathy.

I hope you never have to nurse me.

haychee is a nurse? oh god what if i faint whilst she is putting an IV in.

It is very real I don't want it it dominates my life. I am frightened of other things and know the difference

I'm phobic about wasps/bees. I seriously don't like spiders. The difference is that if dd had a spider in her hair I would cringe, and probably use an implement to get it out to avoid touching it, but I would be able to deal with it rationally.
When a wasp was buzzing around ds yesterday I could not go near it, even to pull him away. I had to stand feet away and tell him to stay calm and still and it wouldn't get him, all the while trying to not hyperventilate, feeling my heart racing and fighting the urge to run away very fast and shut myself inside. I hyperventilate when I see a picture of a wasp or bee in a paper, and when an ex boyfriend took me to se Candyman I ran out of the cinema and did hyperventilate. Years ago I spent the night sleeping outside the door of my bedsit because there was a wasp inside when I'd got back and nobody to help me deal with it. Does that make me irrational and a bad parent - yeah, I guess so. But I am wasp/bee phobic and I just can't control it.

I said and used the term wet lettuce as something my gran used to say. She was the type who would skin rabbits and have man hands (brittle, rough and masculine). I was trying to show how times have changed, how these days people are using these types of abels to exscuse themselves from things they would rather not do.

I do have huge sympathy for those who are truly extremely affected by such disorders, but its those that adopt titles when they are not fully entitled to.

I apologise now for anything that i might say that could scare anybody. But i am a little naive tbh. I did not even know there was such a phobia.

'I do have huge sympathy for those who are truly extremely affected by such disorders, but its those that adopt titles when they are not fully entitled to.'

hmmm yeah ok

Phobias are totally irrational but the phobic person can't help it. There's an extent to which phobias can be really disabling because a person feels they have to restrcit all contact tiwh other people in case the phobic trigger occurs somewhere. Some people have phobias about

(OK any phobics look away now)

Buttons
balloons
water
sausages
polystyrene
traffic
sick
crowds
lifts
escal aters...

Drugs and therapy can help. If you have a phobia about something that is not often encountered you can manage better than if it's a thing that you might easily see and hear, but a phobia is a nasty little mental health problem that won't go away just because other people laugh at it.

And you say you are a nurse haychee?

prufrock - you and me both but I went and looked up the posh words