. emetophobia .

Here I am, admitting this for the first time publicly. (As much as you can call this public… but it is a big step anyway).

Warning to anyone with a weak stomach or emetophobia: I talk about puke a lot in this entry.

I am an emetophobe. What is that, you ask? Well, an emetophobe is a person who has an irrational fear of vomiting. I’ve had this fear as long as I can remember. When I was a kid and used to pray on my knees at my beside, one of the things I would consistently pray for was, "And please God, make me not throw up."

It’s something that affects me every single day. It is rare indeed that a day goes by that I don’t think about it at least once. I am always ready, on my toes to move away, if someone near me looks as if they’re about to be sick. I check out cars that are pulled over on the highway to see if, in fact, my worst fear is happening to someone else. I remember every episode of seeing someone vomit back to when I was a child. I remember my mom puking out the window at a stoplight and the mess on the outside of the car when we got home. (I won’t even talk about the smell I still remember.) I check out stains on the sidewalk and watch them wash away over time. Even though I don’t want to see it, I can’t look away.

Now, there are people for whom this fear is incapacitating. This is the fourth most common reported fear. Some people have been misdiagnosed as anorexic when really they’re emetophobic; they fear vomiting so much that they don’t eat. Some people have trouble even saying, reading, or writing the word ‘vomit’. Some people rarely leave their house, or never eat in restaurants it’s so bad.

For me it’s not like that. For me, it’s something I think about often and sometimes develop anxiety about. (Anxiety, of course, has the capability to make one’s stomach turn somersaults, which in an emetophobe, increases the anxiety… well you can see the cycle). I’m careful to cook food thoroughly, I wash my hands often. (Although that too is part of being a nurse). I drink a lot of ginger tea and use a heating pad on my belly when the phobia strikes a little harder. I do not drink and seldom use drugs… the couple I have tried, I researched throughly to be sure first of all that I could try them safely and second of all they weren’t going to make me puke.

Now an interesting thing about emetophobes is that as a rule, they seldom actually vomit. Whether this is a consequence of trying to prevent it their whole lives, or if the fact that they are seldom sick contributes to the emetophobia is unknown. The last time I vomited was in 1993. I have come very close maybe 3 or 4 times since then. I remember being sick when I was a child, as far back as being small enough to be sitting in my mom’s lap in the front passenger seat and vomiting all over her feet. I had eaten a peanut butter and butter sandwich… my favorite when I was young. I didn’t eat another peanut butter and butter combination of anything until this past year.

About six or so months ago, I decided to google "fear of vomiting". And when I did so, I discovered that it had a name! And that there are millions of people out there with the same fear. But nobody ever talks about it. We’re scared of being seen as wierd. Because to people who aren’t emetophobes, this seems totally out there. For most people, (The Love of My Life included,) vomiting is no big deal, do it and move on. For them, nausea is way worse than vomiting. For us, vomiting appears to be worse than nausea.

For me, I think the worst part of my phobia has to do with the vomit itself. I feel like I could deal just fine as long as nothing came up. For instance, when My Love has been sick, most recently on his birthday a couple weeks ago(thanks to tequila), it’s those first 2-3 pukes I have the worst problem with. Get me away! Plug my ears! Don’t wanna see it, hear it, know it exists. My heart started pounding and my respiratory rate increased. Even after he had passed out, I was up for another two hours from all the adrenaline that had been released.  The next day I was fine, even though he wasn’t. All the gagging and retching sounds from the bathroom didn’t bother me. Because there wasn’t the nasty splashy-plopping vomit-in-the-toilet noise. I hate that, if I haven’t made that clear already. 😉

I’m jealous of My Love in a way, that he can just "do it" and move on. He forgets about it fairly quickly. I will probably never be so casual about it. I had a friend in college who would puke at the drop of a hat, no problem, now let’s finish the party! I wish. I’m getting lots better, though. Even just discovering that it was something that was recognized as an actual fear, that lots of others have it, has been a huge help in decreasing my anxiety about it. I have always been a very conscious and intentional person, so it’s been much easier lately for me to recognize the irrationality of it and use meditation and breathing to decrease the anxiety. I don’t think about it in detail like I used to… visualizing all the times before, experiences with others, etc., re-running it in my mind over and over and over… well I’ve gotten much better with that thank goodness. I recognize the uselessness of it and let it go.

Perhaps if I maintain these practices — constantly remembering what I know, that there is nothing to fear but the fear, that it won’t hurt me, that it rarely happens and even when it does, it’ll be over quickly — perhaps eventually my fear will dissipate even more. I have no other phobias, no other anxieties. I’m generally a calm and rational person, so hopefully with enough meditation that will spill over into my silly phobia.

~kate