Hello! SO a while ago I made an “Emetophobia Thread” but it became inactive and got closed. But now that I’ve lived with emetophobia for a while and for a year have understood that I have it, I’m revamping it through this thread to shed some light on emetophobia! Keep in mind that what I’m saying is purely based on my own experience, not everyone with emetophobia will agree to my definition of it and that’s fine! Everyone has their own definitions of what their own things mean to them! But here I’m attempting to provide a definition that everyone might agree with to spread awareness. Also, keep in mind that I’m not a professional of any sort, this is all based on my own experience and what I’ve kind of seen with others. Again, everyone is different as well.
I want to open up this thread to be able to talk about this openly, especially to be able to provide comfort to people who have emetophobia or who think they might. Because of that, I ask people to not share experiences of being sick because that can be very very triggering to those with emetophobia or anxiety with emetophobia. And to not go in-depth describing sickness in general (or gore relating to that) cuz that’s also very triggering and gross. If you get triggered by talk of sickness or use of the words then I suggest that you not read this thread.
So yk, kind of open space in terms of discussion, but since people with emetophobia might read this, we wanna limit the panic attacks that might ensue lol. So no personal experiences with being sick, please! This includes why/how you got sick!
Ahem
Emetophobia is a fear of vomiting. I’ve seen some definitions of it being an “intense fear of vomiting” but tbh I think that’s a bit silly. Yes, it’s true that many with emetophobia have an intense fear of it. But I think that even if you had a minor fear that doesn’t impact your life, you’re still valid and you do have emetophobia.
What’s the difference between fear and just not liking vomiting, though? I’m bringing this up because some people say to people with emetophobia “Oh, I don’t like vomiting either, I must have emetophobia” or other things of that nature. I’ve never experienced this but it’s a common complaint. But what if the person complaining actually has emetophobia as well?
I like to think of it as this: Nobody likes death. I don’t like death. I don’t want to die. But I’m not afraid of it. I’m occasionally afraid of how I might die and the pain I might experience, but I’ve never been afraid of death itself. Yet there are some people who are afraid of it. You reading this might think about death occasionally and might be terrified of it.
You probably have a fear of death, and I don’t. Let’s think about emetophobia in the same terms.
We all don’t like vomiting. We all don’t want to vomit. Yet some people can probably think of vomiting without being afraid of it. They occasionally think about vomiting when the stomach bug comes around, but it doesn’t really scare them although they don’t want it to happen. Except for me, I’m afraid of it happening to the point of anxiety.
I just wanted to clear that bit up because when I was “questioning” if I had emetophobia I saw a lot of people saying it was an “extreme” fear or something and although it is for me now, I didn’t see it as that then. So I’m making it simple- if you’re afraid of vomiting- you have emetophobia. I mean it’s just like any other fear.
Now, a lot of people with anxiety (at least from the ones I’ve seen- have some sort of an anxiety around it). This is what I have. The difference between this and a fear of vomiting is that it’s horrible lol. I mean anxiety is terrible. But with a fear of vomiting added onto it… it almost goes well with anxiety. For a few reasons. One being that vomiting is not something that you can control. Your body just does it when it needs to be done. It isn’t something you can escape or avoid like any other fear, such as a fear of heights. (Although some fears you can’t escape either, like fear of death). I can just not go up high if I don’t want to experience it, but it’s different with vomiting because it’s so unexpected.
And something that comes with anxiety for many people including myself is nausea (along with other symptoms). So having a panic attack can very much mimic the feeling of when you’re about to throw up. When I get very very anxious I start to get nauseous. Never a lot. Sometimes enough to lose my appetite. Then sometimes it goes away then gets worse because I think that because it went away that I’m about to throw up (I know, irrational, but tbh anxiety isn’t really a rational thing lol). So anxiety and emetophobia go hand in hand almost.
If you have anxiety around vomiting as I do, you’ll tend to think about it often. It really does consume your whole life. You’ll find yourself watching the food you eat, places you go, other times people are sick around you… In extreme cases it causes people to not leave their homes and not eat food. You may not be afraid of it everyday, but you’ll get an extreme fear of it often to the point where you might have panic attacks or in general be very very anxious thinking that either you are going to throw up or someone around you is. (Sometimes it’s the fear of other people throwing up as well). This might not be the same person to person tho.
If you think you have this anxiety, I encourage you to speak to a doctor or a therapist or something. There are treatments for this. One is called EDMR which is what I do. It basically helps with overcoming/processing trauma.
If you get moments where you think that you’re going to be sick or others are often, tbh you might have anxiety because that’s how I found out.
And if you have this anxiety then the things you can do to make it easier is to try to stop thinking of it as emetophobia and more as anxiety (Even tho it’s both). I’m certainly not a doctor but it’s helped me when I thought about when I was anxious and why I was anxious and knowing that I was anxious, not sick.
