How emetophobia (the fear of vomiting) has shaped my life
I have had the shadow of emetophobia lurking over me since age five, but I refuse to let it control my life. Here's my story.
I have emetophobia - the fear of vomiting.
This fact I keep very much to myself. Only close friends and family know and I would never dare tell anyone else. I guess I feel ashamed and embarrassed to say I have a severe fear of something that impacts my life. But I feel it’s important to raise awareness as it is a mental health condition that is widely misunderstood.
I mean, had you ever heard of emetophobia? I didn’t know about that word until I was about 13 when I did some Googling. However, I was impacted by the condition from age five. So how does emetophobia present itself?
Emetophobia & Me
I am frightened of vomiting or being sick as I say. I get anxious if I feel nauseous. And when I’m in the midst of feeling like I’m going to be sick, I feel like I would rather die than vomit. Not because I don’t want to live, but because that would be the only way to stop the inevitable. This is why I truly believe that emetophobia is the most impactful phobia. In a way, you’re literally frightened of your own body. You’re frightened of bodily sensations. And how are you supposed to escape those feelings when it’s you, your body and a natural response. You can’t not vomit if you need to, you’d literally poison yourself. Hence why rat poison is so effective as they can’t.
So this is how emetophobia can affect a person because you can’t stop yourself from vomiting but you can try to limit that experience and that’s how those behaviours can impact all areas of living. Sometimes if I’ve had a pretty bad experience of feeling nauseous, then I’ll start restricting my food - eating less and less. This is because I believe, in my emetophobic brain, that if there’s nothing in my stomach I won’t be sick or the amount that comes up (sorry!) won’t be that much. I’ll eat bland food to try and make it taste somewhat better if I was to be sick. I’ll become thin, anxious and weak and it’ll start a desperate attempt from family members, mental health workers and teachers to snap me out of it.
The first time I limited my food, I was five years old. FIVE. And I’ll just repeat right now, it’s not because I wanted to be thin. This is not anorexia, like some doctors would make you believe, I was frightened of being sick. In Year 1 I had a special sticker chart, I was allowed to go to lunch early and bring a friend. I don’t know how long that bout of not eating lasted but it crops up every so often. The next one was in Year 6 when a girl was sick on the bus. That time I was nearly admitted to hospital. Year 9 was another (I also became vegetarian), Sixth Form and during the last year of university and all throughout Covid.
During spells of not eating, I’ll wash my hands much more to prevent germs that could make me sick. I’ll avoid eating out because I don’t trust other people’s cleanliness. I’ll avoid public transport because, although I don’t get travel sick and in fact, I’ve never been sick on public transport, travel sickness exists and so there’s a chance that I could become travel sick (a phobic brain is not rational). And also the girl being sick on the bus scarred me. In recent years I’ll also avoid public transport like trains, tubes and planes because I’m anxious about having a panic attack, causing a scene and embarrassing myself in front of everyone. So this was one of the reasons why my time in London had begun to become difficult.
And for those who are frightened of spiders, you’ll get this. When you’re scared of spiders you seek them out AND YOU FIND THEM. Your eyes will automatically dart to the corner of the room and lo and behold there will be an eight-legged critter scrunched there. Emetophobia is much the same. You’re worried about being sick, so you think about being sick and then you feel sick so you become anxious about being sick but then you feel more sick because you’re anxious and this just spirals. And your brain is so, so powerful that it can literally give you all the symptoms as if you really were ill. I can become faint and pale and my lips can turn blue. And so I’m not just frightened of having some sickness bug, I’m also frightened of my anxiety making me feel sick.
AAAAAAAAAAH!
All this swirls around in my head on a daily basis.
Recovery
I’m guessing I will have this for the rest of my life - I’ll probably continue to have ups and downs. But I hope that each time I will get stronger and stronger. When I have spiralled down into a dark place, it can sometimes take a bit of time for me to realise that these behaviours aren’t helping me. I can be extremely reluctant to let them go. But I’ll usually have a realisation that I don’t want to live like this, living half a life. So I’ll get mental health support. I’ve had counselling and CBT all my life - therapy is incredibly normal for me. But seeking help hasn’t always been easy - NHS waiting lists are a massive problem and the issue of counsellors leaving before I’d finished a course of sessions just delayed recovery. But I eventually found one therapist who was able to help me get back on track. The recovery process involved slowly expanding how much I ate and the types of food I was eating, working to wash my hands fewer times, eating out at restaurants, and practising getting on the train for the sake of getting on the train and going nowhere in particular. But the biggest thing is taking it day by day and ensuring that each meal I continue to eat and not slip into old habits. It’s not something that is going to go away and it’s something I have to consciously think about every time I put food to my mouth. But it’s also realising that food isn’t the enemy. Food will actually help me not to feel sick. I have to remain determined to continue to live life and not let fear rule. It means for me that I have to go through a few more obstacles, a few more challenges even to do simple things that a lot of people wouldn’t think twice about. But I like to think that the difficult times are proof of my strength, determination and resilience.
Signs in children
I thought it might be useful to list some of the signs in children as when I look back to when I was at school I think the teachers only saw a child that whinged all the time. I genuinely don’t believe they knew what was wrong with me or what to do. It can be difficult for children to articulate their feelings and so it can be misdiagnosed as other conditions.
Restricting food intake/ eating certain foods and avoiding others
Anxiety around going to school
Public transport anxiety
Washing hands excessively
Avoiding fairgrounds or going on rollercoasters
The Takeaway
The process of writing this post has been so beneficial. I started at the top of the page feeling incredibly embarrassed about writing this. I was contemplating deleting bits thinking, You can’t say that. But why should I feel shame - this is a mental health condition like any other. Five-year-old Tamika didn’t ask for this. So I would say, don’t feel ashamed of your challenges. Feel proud of where you are, that you continue to push despite everything going on. That’s definitely hero behaviour.
What other mental health conditions do you think are misunderstood? And how do you conquer your fears? Let me know in the comments.
Until next time,
Tamika.
You're so brave. I used to have a boyfriend with the same condition and saw first-hand how challenging it is to live with. Thank you for writing about this.