Hello Mummylonglegs and Mumtochloe. Hope you are both OK. I'm fine here, but then I would be as dh is home all the time and I know I won't have to face "it" alone if "it" happens. Does that make me despairing of myself? You bet! Big time! And, what's worse, I don't see a cure anywhere and I know I will have to live like this forever. .
The one thing talking about this on Mumsnet has done for me though, is made me feel a bit more entitled to feel the way I do. I have realised that so many people suffer from emetophobia that it really is an illness and somehow that gives me permission to have it. Re going to your boss, Mummylonglegs, I used to be a primary school teacher and had to go on coach journeys with children, some of whom might suffer from travel sickness. Actually, it only happened a couple of times and I just freaked out and other staff (all friends of mine) dealt with it, but mostly, it wasn't a problem. Then, on my last trip with a school I had worked at for five years, I just freaked out before the trip and could not face getting on the coach. I went to ask my headteacher if I could drive behind the coach in my own car and I suppose I must have come out to her about my emetophobia. In the end, she allowed me to stay in school teaching someone else's class while that teacher went on the trip in my place. I suppose I was being a bit punished there but I just didn't care as I was so scared of getting on the coach. (And no-one was sick either - I asked later!)
After that I got married and taught somewhere else for two years. There were no trips until just before I left to have my first baby. Again, I couldn't face the coach trip but I couldn't cop out as I was the year leader by now, so I persuaded my dh to take a day off work and come with me as an extra adult. He knew why and that if a child was sick he would have to deal with it, but again no-one was. Now, that is how wimpy I became, so I can see no reason why you shouldn't be entitled to tell your boss about your problem and expect some special treatment in return. If you were disabled, you would be entitled to access, so why not if you have a phobia? If everyone started to see phobias as real mental illnesses or conditions instead of just some hysterical people letting themselves go, then we might find it easier to cope. Don't you think the hardest thing about telling your boss is the thought that you will be considered wierd or will not be taken seriously? That is how I feel anyway.
BTW re dh: yes he can just be sacked as he was in his probationary six month period still (had only worked there for four months). No, we did not get any redundancy pay so in about two weeks time, money is suddenlt going to be non-existant! Dh is (was) an engineering manager BTW. He is going for a job interview tomorrow though: it is a firm who wanted to employ him last summer but didn't make their offer in time before dh took the job he has just been sacked from. Apparently, they are still looking for someone, so maybe it is fate that dh gets this job.