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Original poster

VOMIT PHOBIC PEOPLE DID YOU SEE THE PANIC ROM LAST NIGHT

75 replies

excuseme · 09/05/2007 10:27

They had an emetophobe on showed some very graphic scenes of vomiting but it has really given me the push to get help

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Haribosmum · 09/05/2007 11:09

Oh god now! I'm glad I didn't see it!! I know I eed to be brave but I just can't. I've tried hypnotherapy but it didn't work.

Haribosmum · 09/05/2007 11:10

I mean oh God no!!! See, just thinking about it has me all flustered! LOL

Original poster
excuseme · 09/05/2007 11:15

Sorry didn't mean to upset you and I did watch it with my finger on the remote control and flicked over a few times

OP posts:
Haribosmum · 09/05/2007 11:20

No problems. I would have had to watch it with fingers on the remote, in ears and hiding behind the sofa!! (Me hiding, not my fingers LOL) I wish I could beat this stupid irrational phobia and I've heard 'flooding' therapy works (which I assume is what they were trying on the programme) but I just wouldn't be brave enough to start it in the first place. It's good to know it's not just me though!! DH thinks I'm crazy but he's used to me now.

Original poster
excuseme · 09/05/2007 13:20

I would love to get over this phobia

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Haribosmum · 09/05/2007 15:29

Yeah I know how you mean. No-one understands how you feel unless they suffer from the phobia as well. I'm ok around my kids but anyone else and I start having a panic attack and then just RUN AWAY!!!!! Hate using public transport or being in a situation where someone could be sick I think it's got worse as I got older because I understand more about what could make people vomit and so get anxious quicker.

HenriettaHippo · 09/05/2007 15:36

What was the treatment excuseme?

Don't think I could watch that. Haribosmum, you could be me. I refuse to go on the tube late at night... would rather not go out...

DS was sick on the floor in the kitchen this weekend, I ran round like a headless chicken doing all I could to avoid having to actually do anything that involved contact with it, letting DH deal with it. Busied myself getting DS a new pair of socks to replace the sicky ones... Bleurgh.

Original poster
excuseme · 09/05/2007 15:45

Exposure to pictures and then the real thing. Also she had to pretend to be sick and some hypnotherapy

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Haribosmum · 09/05/2007 15:49

Now I could look at the pictures and I can clean it up but I just can't deal with being with people who are either being sick or say they feel sick. I wish I could feel how everyone else feels!

Original poster
excuseme · 09/05/2007 15:50

I am like you can clean up see pics watch programmes but the actual act freaks me out

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HenriettaHippo · 09/05/2007 16:29

that's where I'm different - can't deal with someone saying they feel sick, with them being sick, or clearing it up (that's the worst bit). Have to shut my eyes when someone's sick on tv. Don't mind being sick myself though. Maybe because usually you do feel better afterwards.

flightattendant · 09/05/2007 17:45

Did it work for the person on the programme? I'm the opposite of you Haribosmum - I can clear up after DS no problem, although other people it freaks me a bit - but I don't avoid situations iyswim.
My own issue is letting myself throw up. Cannot do it.
Last time I actually threw up (as opposed to dry retching after DS was born)was when I was 14. 14! I'm 33! But actually after I had done it, I wasn't even scared, for a few months. It wasn't too bad.
Now I'm terrified again. I think it represents something else, some fear, some memory...just gets focussed on that one thing, which IRL isn't necessarily a bad thing. Or not that bad...

flightattendant · 09/05/2007 17:46

Sorry meant Henrietta!

Califrau · 09/05/2007 17:49

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ArtichokeTagine · 09/05/2007 17:59

I am with Califrau. Can't see it. Can't hear about it. No way could I clear it. But worst of all is the chance I might get sick. For a while I was addicted to anti emetics and would take one every time I feared I was getting sick (about once a day!). They failed me in the end though.

I am sick sometimes though. My body doesn't stop me like your's seems to. I am sick every few years and straight afterwards it never seems as bad as I feared. I only remember that for a few days though.

losty · 09/05/2007 18:19

Oh no I couldnt have watched that programme. In fact I dont know why I clicked on this thread, as I am now in panic

flightattendant · 09/05/2007 18:52

Wouldn't it be so nice not to be afraid of it? I would love to just be able to do it without being so blooming upset and scared. 'Normal' people make me jealous! But I guess maybe they are scared of other things?
Trouble with this one is that it isn't like a dog or a snake or confined spaces.
It's actually something that we have no control over (except the sort of psychosomatic control that stops us - but doesn't take away the nausea) and IS unpleasant, unlike dogs, and CANNOT be avoided every time! Not fair! I could work through it if I was scared of pencils or something...that doesn't have any basis in reality!

flightattendant · 09/05/2007 18:54

Blimey Califrau! I remember that day, I was 3! But I wasn't sick. Or was I? Actually, do you know, I think I was! Not scared of it in those days, only after I was about 7.
Do you know when yours kicked off and why?

(Don't panic losty, we'll look after you )

DumbledoresGirl · 09/05/2007 19:04

I was very disappointed with this programme - not their fault, mine entirely.

I have watched most of the series avidly but also with a sort of creeping fear as I tried to take something from seeing other phobics being cured of their phobias. Last night would have been a really useful programme for me to watch if I could have, but I am afraid within 2 seconds of the first graphic shot of vomit landing on the floor and the vomiter's awful noises, I had switched over and then, to be doubly sure (!) run shaking from the room! Dh got home a few minutes later and found me a quivering crying wreck. I got him to watch the programme for me which I think might have helped him to see my phobia in a more general light.

Original poster
excuseme · 09/05/2007 19:12

Oh dumbledores girl. The woman on the programme said it had changed her life she was afraid to get pregnant etc and used to disinfected apples before eating wouldn't go on holiday so was really bad

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DumbledoresGirl · 09/05/2007 19:25

Yes I saw the bit where she was given an apple to eat without disinfecting it (dh called me in for that bit). TBH, that is meaningless to me as I am not phobic in that way. I drop things on the floor and eat them, eat out of date food, have been pregnant 4 times (with no sickness) and do not avoid public transport. In short, I don't have too much of a problem with avoiding being sick myself (although the ultimate fear for me is being sick myself).

I would love to have known more about her phobia and where it came from and other stuff like that, but how on earth do the programme makers expect someone with our phobia to watch that programme? I bet a lot of normal people couldn't watch it either.

Original poster
excuseme · 09/05/2007 19:27

the woman felt the phobia came from being in hospital when she was 2 and seeing the child in the next bed to her vomit purple stuff. I feel me phobia comes from my younger sisters travel sickness

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flightattendant · 09/05/2007 19:34

Gosh. Mine started when I was sick before playing a violin solo in a huge church at age 7. My mum was away on a course and had never left us before, so dad was cooking...I was just terrified without her there.
I think that's what started it.

losty · 09/05/2007 19:35

I cant believe ?I am reading this bloody thread. I am getting msyelf in a state.

I know where mine came from. I was very young. I agree tho that a lot of those with the phobia woudlnt ahve watched it.

well done dg for getting dh to watch and see what it meaans for you.

no one in rl knows about me

DumbledoresGirl · 09/05/2007 19:38

Well I have no idea when my phobia started. I thought I had always had it, but I can remember two early vomiting incidents that were not associated with fear, so obviously I got it after that.

I do suspect though that my ultimate fear is that I am going to choke on my own vomit - sorry fellow phobics. Losty, get right away from here! I can remember being scared of not being able to breathe at the point of vomiting and a friend telling me about someone who had died choking on their own vomit. certainly, my reaction towards vomit is the same as you would feel if something was threatening your life, so I think that fits.