Living With Emetophobia

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t talk. The thought alone of throwing up would cause me such intense levels of anxiety that the fear crippled me with debilitating panic attacks. My fear of throwing up started in elementary school. I was in the first grade. Emetophobia robbed me of so much. Here’s my story.

The day that Raymond threw up in our school cafeteria was the day that I learned how embarrassing and disruptive it was to throw up in public, or so that’s how I perceived it based on the way everyone reacted. That “lesson” I learned paired with the anxiety I already struggled with were the perfect recipe for disaster. I knew that from that day forward I couldn’t ever throw up in public and humiliate myself like that. I’m sure there were other contributing factors, but that is a specific event that I remember vividly.

In the years that followed my crippling fear of throwing up intensified. I suffered from severe daily panic attacks and refused to eat in fear that the food would just get thrown up. At the time, I didn’t know that I was lactose intolerant and gluten sensitive. So every time I was told to drink milk, eat yogurt, finish my pasta, the pain in my stomach would only further fuel my emetophobia. I turned to water as my coping mechanism. I needed a water bottle with me at all times. If I didn’t have a water bottle near me I would experience pain in my chest, tightness in my throat, and my mind would spin out of control. This “fight or flight” feeling triggered the panic attacks.

These panic attacks kept me bound and in a cage through elementary school, middle school, high school, and college. I didn’t participate in certain social activities such as perform in my elementary school talent show because of my fear. I kept myself in a bubble and avoided food at all costs. I even remember one specific moment, that truthfully, as I’m recalling the moment in my mind right now, is currently triggering me. My family and I were at ChuckECheese. My parents, who had no idea what the heck was wrong with me, tried to help me by taking away my water bottle, not knowing that taking it away from me was the worst thing that they could have done. So, as we parked the car and headed for the door, my parents told me I couldn’t bring my water bottle with me. I was so triggered that I starting wiping the rain water off the car (as it had rained earlier that day) and tried to drink the rain water.

Yes, it was THAT bad.

I really feel so sorry for my younger self. She was scared, confused, angry, anxious, and depressed. And nobody knew. She didn’t want to open up to anyone. She didn’t know what was “wrong with her”. She didn’t know what to do or how to “get fixed”.

By the time I got to college I learned how to manage my anxiety attacks a little bit better. They still came on full force, but they happened less and with more time in between each episode. But, after college when I started working at my new job, they picked right back up again and came on stronger than ever. This was when even my conservative Catholic parents admitted to themselves that I needed help from medications. I was prescribed Xanax. At one point, my doctor needed to increase the dose to 2 mg. I wasn’t able to function without them.

It’s OK to seek for professional help. It’s OK to seek the counsel of a therapist. It’s OK to get medication. You are worth it. Your mental health matters.

I’m happy to share that it’s been at least 2 years since I’ve taken a Xanax. I’ve experienced mini panic attack episodes during this time, but there have been things that have helped me manage and overcome my emetophobia:

1) Exposure Therapy

I threw up twice and it wasn’t as “bad” as I feared it to be. Once was an “accident”. I was having drinks with a colleague and after one too many drinks I felt ill and went to the bathroom. I took an Advil to help with the nausea and in trying to swallow the pill, the water went down the wrong way and made me cough. Well, the coughing turned into borderline gagging and I ended up throwing up. The second time was not an “accident”. I had too many drinks and threw up. It was awful and I felt like garbage (especially the next day) but I remember thinking, even as I was throwing up, that it wasn’t that bad. I’m totally not saying that you should experience throwing up to feel better or give yourself some relief of the fear of throwing up, but it did help me to an extent. For more information on exposure therapy, visit https://www.anxietycoach.com/exposuretherapy.html

2) Mindset Shifts

The fear didn’t go away over night. It took years of mindset shifting. It took me time to unlearn the fear that I had picked up. I practiced mantras daily. I spent time reading self-help books and little by little as I removed the fear that I had in other areas of my life, the fear of throwing up also became less and less. I found there to be a direct correlation between the way in which I viewed myself and the level of stress I was experiencing in life. The more uncertainty I had about who I was, what I was meant to do in this world, and what was going to happen next, the more anxious I was. I grew up with a very “fear based mentality”. So it makes sense that I was constantly living in a state of “fight or flight”. I subconsciously knew that in order to get better I needed to shift my perception of myself which would in turn shift my perception of fear.

3) Meditation

In a similar vein, meditation helped me tremendously. When I moved to Brooklyn I essentially stuck my middle finger to anyone or anything that made me feel trapped, controlled, or fearful of something. I meditated by giving myself time with ME. My “version” of meditation looks something like this: sitting cross legged on my floor with a lit candle and the sounds of nature or piano (or my favorite mantra songs by Jai-Jagdeesh). I close my eyes and repeat things to myself like “I breathe in love. I exhale fear. I accept myself for who I am. I breathe in the Universe. I trust my intuition.” To help block out the light I would often times put on a face mask. It helped me go deeper into my meditation. I would then say things like “I breathe in the Universe. I exhale the fear of the unknown. I am one with the Universe. The Universe is one with me. I am in tune with my Spirit. I am one with my Spirit. My Spirit is one with me. I am safe.”

Be patient with yourself. Give yourself time to heal. Everything is going to be OK. You will overcome your emetophobia. You will overcome.

If you have any questions about emetophobia or if you’d like me to elaborate more on something please send me a message on Twitter @CoachLisy or send me an email ElisabethVibesConsultation@gmail.com

Sending you good vibes from New York!