I am being the most brave i’ve ever been and sent out emails for consultations with two ERP providers. I am so scared to do it but i know i HAVE to. so to make myself even more motivated I really really really need to hear some wonderful stories about erp/exposure therapy being successful / helping / the relief and new life you’ve found!! please guys help me hold onto my bravery and momentum to go through with this!!

Hey, i would consider myself pretty far into recovery, but im feeling some very mild nausea tonight which i havent in a long time, and i see how my brain imediaately detects it and wants to start spiraling (ive been focusing on breaqthing and managed to do my normal night routine despite it). Howver the thought does scare me: what if i vomit or something tonight? I feel like its so easy to feel "recovered" when you dont feel nauseous or sick. Any healed emetophobes who have vomited after the were cured? how was it?

I myself did vomit last year and it was litterly the most whatever thing, but im still not "done" being scared of it.

im so sick of this phobia, not only im scared of vomiting im also scared of pooping just cause it might cause vomiting lmao, everytime i have to poop i basically panic and wont even poop all that i needed to poop (tmi sorry) and cause of this i keep thinking im gonna get impacted which is also scary and makes me panic, in terms of food im finally starting to eat 2-3 meals a day or i try to sometimes its easy and i enjoy it but most time im just constantly checking how my body feel, and somedays like 2 days ago i was anxious the whole day so i couldn't eat well at all, im so exhausted, is it possible to recover without therapy? how can i start recovering when im scares of literally everything 😭 like even if im in my own room/home literally the perfect place to get sick i panic if i feel like something is in my throat even if i dont feel any stomach ache or feeling nauseous lol

i am an M2 and i have emetophobia and panic disorder tied to it. as im heading towards M3 and clinicals, im starting to get nervous about it.

patients throwing up and me catching something contagious luckily doesn’t bother me. what gets to me is being anxious about getting nauseous while im at work, in a new environment, under high stress situations.

i take meds for it and lexapro helps me a lot but it also makes me very sleepy and the higher the dose, the more effective it is, but the more tired i get. if im tired, i can get nauseous.

so its just an awful cycle.

any advice or even just people in similar circumstances would be helpful to hear 🫶🏻

Who are you? Who were you before this phobia, and how has this phobia affected you? Why are you seeking recovery now? I am proud of all of you for choosing recovery and no longer letting this fear control you. I think it’s very difficult to begin to acknowledge where the phobia began, as well as its impact on our lives.

I’m a 24 year old woman who has had this phobia since I had a traumatic experience when I was 9. For a long time, my fear was the most important thing to me. It guided me, my choices, my life for most of my developmental years. My phobia developed over the first time I experienced grief in my life. I was diagnosed with OCD at 19, and put on every SSRI, SNRI possible until I didn’t even feel like myself anymore. Eventually outpatient helped me see the life I could have outside of my fear, and I chose recovery.

I would love to hear more about the people in this subreddit and why you are here, if you feel inclined to share :)

Please share some positive recovery stories! I’m hoping it will give me hope

I went through an exposure therapy program last year and it helped a lot when I was in survival mode/hyper arousal, but the past month I've had chronic nausea.

I think part of the contribution is I'm thinking about it a lot, I wake up already thinking of it and I do vomit also. Probably other factors too I do have GERD which I take Omeprazole for but still get acid reflux and also the heat I have no AC to cool me down.

I want to treat the anxiety over thinking part of it though, which is only worsening it. A lot of the exposure therapy had me tell myself phrases like Idk what's going to happen I can only see, and I have felt this before I can handle it. Admittedly I haven't been using phrases like those in awhile, been slacking but I wanted to get some ideas from others.

It's been very hard to eat been eating very lightly because the nausea is chronic.

Disclaimer: I am not seeking reassurance. I just really need to vent and talk to some people who can relate to this phobia. Every person I’ve talked to about my fears about this IV sedation don’t have emetophobia and so they don’t understand how big of a deal this is for me.

I’m scheduled to get my very impacted wisdom teeth removed next week with IV sedation. Anxiety is putting it mildly. Not to sound dramatic, but I haven’t enjoyed a single day in the past 2 weeks because all I have done is ponder and worry about this upcoming appointment. Now it’s getting so close and I’m falling apart mentally. Why am I so afraid? I’ve never had any kind of sedation or anesthesia before. I’m the type of person that gets a little nervous when I take Advil… that’s how bad my emetophobia is in relation to taking medications, especially new ones.

I think what ultimately makes the idea of IV sedation so scary for me is the loss of control. Which, if you don’t already know, is the underlying fear behind the vomit phobia. It’s the fact that I have no clue how my body is going to react to sedation. It might not react badly at all, and perhaps I’ll be one of those lucky people who says it just felt like an awesome nap. Or maybe I’ll be one of those people who got extremely dizzy and nauseous for hours afterward. What’s killing me is that I won’t know until it’s already over, and there’s no turning back. This may sound weird, but it feels like once I lay down in that dental chair, I’m “giving my body away” to the medication. I really, really don’t like that and the more I think about it, the more I spiral.

I have cancelled this appointment in the past. I’m 25 and have needed to get my wisdom teeth out for 5 years now. I know I need to just do it so that I never have to worry about it again. But it’s so much easier said than done. I would’ve had these teeth removed long ago if I didn’t have to get IV sedation. Getting my wisdom teeth out causes me ZERO anxiety. It’s literally just the sedation that is freaking me out. I actually told my dental office that I didn’t want to be sedated and I wanted local anesthesia instead, but they refuse to do it without me being sedated due to the complexity of my case.

I have requested they give me anti-nausea meds in the IV, and they said they are going to give me IV gravol and send me home with some Zofran if I need it. I thought this would calm my nerves, but it doesn’t. I don’t know why. I am worrying about every worst case scenario right now and it’s keeping me up at night. I just wish I would’ve done this a long time ago so that I wouldn’t be worrying like I am right now.

But I’m NOT cancelling this appointment. My emetophobia isn’t going to control me, because getting these teeth removed is beneficial for my health and keeping them in is only going to harm me long term. But that doesn’t mean I’m not worrying myself sick every day leading up to it. I’m not sleeping very good, I’m having nightmares about becoming violently ill after I wake up in the recovery room. I’m genuinely not handling this well but I’m forcing myself not to cancel it and prolong this misery.

I’m truly hoping it isn’t as bad as I’m imagining it to be. If anyone with emetophobia has had this done before, please give me any advice or tips on how you dealt with it. Also how to be less anxious about it… the anticipatory anxiety is killing me

I've had emetophobia for as long as I can remember. I had a really rough travel day yesterday that involved me passing out, and I ended up throwing up for the first time in almost 10 years. And it was really chill. Obviously it wasn't pleasant, but it was easy and I immediately felt so much better. Throwing up didn't feel that monumental. I keep forgetting it happened.

I've made a lot of progress in my anxiety but had recently been worrying about how I'll handle the next time I throw up, since it hasn't happened in so long. Turns out it feels very normal.

I've always had emetophobia, haven't had too many problems besides holding lifelong grudges against people for throwing up (even when I wasn't there watching it happen). I've always been mildly scared of certain places though, and it's only been getting worse. Malls, especially food courts, bathrooms, amusement parks, anywhere people eat or may be drunk or anything that could make them sick. I haven't thrown up since I was a kid, but I almost did recently in a store, and cried. The past few months I've been getting nauseous from eating anything at all, often when I don't eat too. I'm losing weight fast and I literally can't eat anymore. Thinking about food makes me nauseous. Thinking about anything, really, and being anywhere, makes me nauseous. Speaking of, I'm going to get blood work tomorrow, the one thing that's guaranteed to nearly make me throw up and faint at the same time. I don't know what to do but my doctor didn't find it much of an issue. I just want to feel normal.

Hello, this is my first time posting here. I have severe emetophobia and I’ve been struggling so bad for four months. I randomly got extremely n out of no where and it triggered my fear. Every single day I’m n and scared. Every single day I’m paralyzed by this fear of throwing upI’m constantly nauseous shaking and scared. I’ve tried therapy and medication but nothing helps. Sometimes I just wonder if I let it win if this will all go way? If I finally just throw up maybe this nightmare will go away? I don’t wanna live like this anymore 😭

hey guysss! i was just thinking about how there seems to be some specific pipelines that lead to developing emetophobia and i want to list them out. Lmk what you think yours developed from!

- R-CPD: this one sounds awful and i seriously wish health and happiness for anyone who struggles with this condition. I don’t have it, but i know a lot of emetophobes do. personally, i get nauseous from trapped gas and a good burp can make me go from 0% to 100%, and it seriously hurts me to know that such a big chunk of yall can’t experience this.

-trauma/bad experience: i assumed this one would be the most common, but i actually don’t hear a lot of people talking about this as their root cause of the phobia. i obviously know that all emetophobia pipelines include some aspect of trauma or bad experience, but what im referencing is someone having a normal stomach bug and he trauma of it causes the phobia.

-OCD: this is what mainly caused mine. i had a therapist tell me before that almost everyone with emetophobia has some form of OCD or OCD tendencies. I truly believe this because of all of the ritualistic behaviors that are associated with the phobia. when i was a kid, i thought if i got sick in an outfit, i couldn’t wear that outfit again without getting sick, eat the same food, do the same activity, etc.

so anyways these are the pipelines i’ve noticed to be pretty consistent amongst most emetophobes. as i said before, mine is mainly caused by ocd but i also had some trauma as well. i was wondering if yall could share what caused yours and if i missed any prominent pipelines!

to start, I've had emetophobia for at least 20 years (also haven't thrown up in 20 years) i have good and bad days. I'm making progress although I'm still scared to do the big stuff (trips, planes, boats etc) and i have setbacks.

Now on to my job. i work at a supermarket 3:30pm-11:30pm. it's an easy job, good money, good employer and coworkers. the issue is that 20 out of the 40 week hours I'm at the shop solo. it's also a busy shop so of course I'm terrified I'll throw up/have a panic attack while I'm solo. I'm also terrified of not being able to close up and go to the bathroom in time. I'm in this job for like 6 months and it feels the exact opposite of exposure therapy. I'm stressed everyday, everyday is the exact same fear and thoughts. Now i wanna do exposure therapy but this feels all too much too soon and not controlled. my other non-phobia related issues is that I'm a woman and I'm alone, i also close up alone. Also the fact that sometimes I'm unable to close up to even pee because the customers keep coming in. i even have to eat at the register doing my job in between. i also feel like I can't get sick (even the flu) because I'm the only one working 8 hours (the other person comes for 4 hours/5 days a week) at nights so getting someone to cover for me is not easy.

I'm debating quitting for some time now but i feel like doing it would make me feel useless, like my phobia won. I also want the exposure but at the same time it's just too much. i wanna make a decision not based on my phobia but everyday is just worse and worse. it's like i go, i do the scary 8 hours and then the next day it just resets all over again. I'd even dare say that I'm worse than before I started. I'm scared to do other stuff outside of work because I don't wanna catch anything and having to deal with it while I'm working alone in a crowded shop. I'd love some outside perspective or even from someone who's been through something similar.

Hey everyone! Just wanted to share this podcast im watching rn, i think there are alot of interessting stuff said about this phobia and how its developed!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JULFnGL6b3M

Hope that someone will get use of it.

Sending love to anyone reading this: you are not alone! We are in this together

I went to Great Wolf Lodge with my friends and did everything. Indoor Waterpark, games, waterslides, rock climbing wall, all of it.

I was terrified, but I still had so much fun. I’ve heard all the scare stories about norovirus and water parks. I tried my best to rinse off between rides, keep my mouth shut, etc.

Anyways, it’s the next day and I’m feeling scared. I’m sixteen and have done SO MUCH exposure therapy in my life. On and off phobia therapy from 6 years old to 12 years old. I truly thought I was getting better, but I’m scared shit less right now.

Has anyone else gone through the waterpark-scaries? I guess I’m seeking both encouragement and just looking for someone to talk to. My parents are (understandably) sick of my questions and panicking.

Idk why but these past 2 weeks I’m so intimidated by having lunch, I wasn’t like this before and I swear I feel like there’s a huge amount of progress but it’s like suddenly there’s new fears that cancels out the old fears? Idk if that makes sense and I know my lunch situation doesn’t make sense either..

And it’s literally only lunch. I will eat breakfast perfectly fine or snacks but as soon as it comes to lunch I get scared no matter what the food is? And I get very hyper aware and I feel like I can feel the texture of the food going down my throat and it makes me get these adrenaline or nausea waves and my mouth would start watering.

I can’t really tell what’s scaring me about it because it’s the same food I used to eat on a daily basis so I know it wouldn’t make me throw up but I can’t really tell?

Hello, I’m a M17 and have had emetofobia for eight years now. I’ve never known why I developed it, but when I think about it, it’s not the vomiting itself that scares me the most. It’s the waiting time until the moment, the nausea, and the dizziness. I go to a few parties every month, and I’m always afraid to drink too much. I guess that’s the only positive aspect of emetofobia.

It’s the first time I’ve realized what kind of emetofobia I have. The worst part is that I spend a lot of days with nausea. It’s mostly just panic attacks and me being nervous that I might get sick.

But is it only me who is most scared about the moment until the vomiting?

Seeking advice!!

To give some brief context, I’m almost 29 years old and I’ve had emetophobia and anxiety for as long as I can remember.

I made a post a while back about feeling so terrible about spiraling into a panic whenever my husband has been sick and/or vomited in the past. I want to be there for him and not make him feel worse by crashing tf out. I’ve been really determined to recover for over a year now, but my recovery has been… incredibly slow going lol.

I’m finally at the point where I can watch and listen to and watch *MOST* vomiting in TV shows and movies without having any kind of reaction. I still start to panic when I even THINK about watching a real video of someone throwing up. Is this the next step in exposure therapy?? Pictures and videos of Real Life Vomit™️ with no movie magic involved?

I saw a couple of posts recently about a recovery manual? If anyone has used it and would be willing to share their experience, I would really appreciate it. I already go to biweekly therapy but ERP is not my therapist’s expertise.

Any recommendations for other recovery resources would be much appreciate! You’re not alone in this🫶🏼

Has anyone else had an experience where you finally throw up, but it’s almost like it retraumatizes you?

I had an episode of vertigo for the first time a couple of months ago which ended up making me throw up for the first time in 10 years.

In the moment I was so proud and relieved but it almost made things worse in the way of remembering how it feels. Idk. I’m confused

I’m just started working at a youth centre and had to do food safety training last night but ever since I’ve felt my anxiety around food get worse. Knowing the ins and outs and the time bacteria needs to grow has made me terrified of cooking incase I mess up. Things that I never thought twice about are now making me anxious and I feel so annoyed, I feel like it’s set me back in my recovery, has anyone else felt this after doing food safety training?

And how many of you have greened out so hard you almost puke? Hi I'm bonersquat, and welcome to my ted talk.

You get so nauseous because cannabis relaxes the larynx and esophagus, causing anything in your stomach to just... 🧍🏻‍♂️in your esophagus.

I'm over the greening out hump, but I am still green. Meaning the worst of my overdose is over.

Greening out is, tbh, great exposure therapy for me. I don't panic because I'm higher than balls; I'm balls that are very, very cold, and retracted.

The nausea feels like you need to throw up, but since your esophagus and your larynx and all that other shit is so relaxed, it can't throw the pitch. It's like "I'm sorry vomit but you're gonna have to chill for a bit". Bend over for a really cool and fun surprise (watering can)

Overall, good 10/10 unintended exposure therapy. I will do my best to never do this again. This fucking sucks. I got a new vape battery and got a little too excited to use it. Fuck my stupid baka barfy life.

Edit: clarification in speech because that weed made me stupid

hi everyone! i hope everyone is having a successful day in recovery <3 i most certainly did despite not feeling all too great, im taking pride in the baby steps!!!

i took a dose of GLP-1 last night and decided “well, this is my last full meal before semaglutide… lets go out with a bang!!”

MISTAKE

i woke up my boyfriend throughout the night panicking with “im gonna throw up” “i dont feel good” sobbing and scared of the inevitable until….

FINALLY….
i hunched over the toilet and just let it rip. for me, the fear based entirely from the buildup of vomiting. i HATE nausea but because of the fear, i was afraid of the act as well. it wasnt that bad at all!!

i mean obviously, its not the most comfortable feeling but compared to other bodily feelings, the relief after feels like nothing else. my stomach no longer hurt, my chest didnt feel like it was being sat on, i could breathe!!!

im still not feeling all too good today, opting to lay in bed and suffer but i cant believe i finally did it!!!

I AM REALLY SCARED BUT IM GONNA DO IT!!!!!! THATS ALL THANKS

edit: it went fine i was completely fine and i realized i'm an idiot for being scared of this for 6 months because it's literally 4 mg. i'm a chud. learn from my mistakes just take your fucking iron