Meet Mr. Emet

Growing up I was for the most part a pretty normal kid (no comments are necessary).  I did always know there was something different, and I noticed it more in my late teens and early twenties. At the time I didn’t know it had a name, but I’ve always struggled with Emetophobia. By definition, “Emetophobia is an intense, irrational fear or anxiety pertaining to vomiting. And this specific phobia can also include subcategories of what causes the anxiety, including a fear of vomiting in public, a fear of seeing vomit, a fear of watching the action of vomiting or fear of being nauseated.” The key word in that definition is irrational. It may be tough for some to understand this phobia because nobody “likes” vomit, seeing it or doing it. But for the many struggling from Emetophobia, it’s way more than just “not liking” it. It is an uncontrollable reaction. And if someone were to ask me why I’m afraid of vomit, I would have to say I have no idea. I truly know that talking or hearing about someone being sick, seeing it, or getting sick myself, will not kill me. But in the subconscious part of my brain it triggers a terrible fear which causes anxiety.

Now I am a pretty laid back person. I don’t stress about much, and it takes a lot to get me worked up or upset about something, but you throw in something regarding nausea or vomiting, I’m the girl hiding in a separate room shaking so crazy you wouldn’t recognize me. Most of the time, I can keep a good handle on my anxiety related to this topic, but not all the time. I have spent countless hours up all night pacing the hall and bathroom “thinking” I was going to get sick, but in reality, it was a little bubble in my tummy, or an extra gurgle in my throat, which causes the anxiety attack, which causes me to get nauseous and feel really sick. This phobia is the only thing that causes me anxiety, but it was enough to force me to take daily anti-anxiety/depression pills, including pills to take during an anxiety attack.

To try and compare something to this, have you ever watched a very terrifying movie and after it was done you may have laughed it off, but when it gets dark out you hear a strange noise and you freaked out? Shaking uncontrollably and all you want to do is go hide under your bed. Don’t lie; at one point in your life you have experienced fear like that. This is the type of fear I experience, but the difference between that fear and the fear of vomiting is that you can run and hide from most fears, but vomit is a bodily function. 

When I started working at the job I currently have, which was a little over three years ago, the very first day on the job I of course had to ask where the bathrooms were at. Well low and behold our little office didn't have their own bathrooms. They were outside our office down the hall where three other businesses also share the bathrooms. The biggest problem, they were public! So not only are these bathrooms used by the employees of the businesses on this floor, but all their customers/clients can use them as well. Now you might be saying to yourself, "what's the big deal, you have to use a public bathroom," well I will tell you, It is a big deal. Having a public bathroom increases the changes of someone using the bathroom while they are sick with some type of stomach virus, or the very worst possible situation, being in the bathroom and someone comes in and gets sick while you are in there. Now over the years I have become much more comfortable using the bathroom, but it still freaks me at times. And I won't lie, if someone in my office wasn't "feeling well", I've gone down two flights of stairs to use the basement bathroom just to avoid using the bathroom they've been using, just in case.  Now is that irrational or what?

Something I wrote last month when my daughter was sick so you get an idea what goes through my head, even a week or two after an "incident":

Last Saturday, Monkey was sick with a stomach bug, then the following Wednesday the hubby got it. I was nauseous for two days in between those so I hope that was all it was. It is now Monday, a week and two days since Monkey was sick, five days after the hubby. I am still getting nervous. I keep telling myself that I probably had whatever they had but just never got “sick;” mainly so I don’t get “it” officially.  Here I am, Monday afternoon. I had a little tweak in my tummy earlier now I can’t eat lunch. I’m drinking an Elka Seltzer, popping the Pepto tablets and taking the anti-nausea pills. This is driving me nuts! How can gas bubbles cause such ruckus?

In my late teens/early twenties I would struggle with the idea of staying overnight at someone else's house. And one of the most common scenarios would be girls weekend, bachelorette party, or the big twenty-first birthday. I would never stay overnight at a hotel with a bunch of my girlfriends if there was drinking involved (which, after the age of 16, there was always booze involved.) I would hear stories from these girl that someone drank too much and puked in the sink, or someone was up puking all night and passed out on the floor. Most people think this would be funny to see, but for me, just hearing the stories horrified me. It took me many years to trust that my main core group of girlfriends will stay somewhat responsible enough to avoid getting that intoxicated. But there are always those few situations, where someone drinks a bit more than I would call "safe" (Hooker, you know who you are) and I would have anxiety galore before finally falling asleep for the night.

Now I have wrote about a few of the instances where this phobia comes into play, but I don't expect other people to change how they talk and live their life. I should have no say as to how much someone drinks in a night (except my husband, Sorry babe). And I am not going to go around telling friends and co-workers to stop mentioning illnesses all together, it's not all about me. Would I love to hop on Facebook one day and not read about someones kid or husband throwing up all night, or hearing my daycare tell me kids were sick that day, of course I would love it all to stop, but that's not the reality. I want to learn to face this fear and grow to control how my body and brain react to those thoughts.
 

I have kept this fear a secret up till just recently, when I learned it had a name, and that I was no where near the only person affected by this fear. I will discuss in a later post how I learned about this phobia, and the whole community of people out there that has it as well. Looking at blogs and Facebook groups of people struggling with the same thing has made me be able to start talking about it out loud. I still feel like a fool when trying to explain it to someone, but I guess if it's helping me by talking about it, those people can just suck it up. 

                                                                                   

I guess the main reason why I finally got the guts to post about this was because I am confident there are other Emets out there struggling the same as I am. Maybe you never knew the name of this before, or maybe you just need to know there are others going through the same thing you are.


But the other reason is that I want you to remind yourself that what you say can affect people. And when someone says they are afraid of something, even if it's as silly as a spider, or vomit, that maybe, just maybe it truly is a subconscious fear.


Through this blog I want to continue posting experiences with my struggle with Emetophobia. Hopefully one day I can post on here that I have finally fought and won over this fear and I can call myself "cured."

I want to thank the people that have helped me through this so far, especially my mother. She is probably the only person I have ever been completely honest about this fear with, and for that, thank you.

And to the many that have just learned from this blog that I had this fear, I hope that you don't look at me any different, or think I'm more crazy than before. I am open about talking about it, I am no longer ashamed to admit I am afraid of something

Until next time, everyone stay healthy, keep the puking discussion to a minimum, and Happy Holiday's!