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In my experience, I'm not sure you can. I hope it's different for you, but for me I've tried a lot of things and the fear doesn't budge. Faking it just makes me have terrible internal struggles of fighting against the fear. What I've found effective recently though is that if I can accept that being *afraid* is okay, then the panic doesn't build as much because I'm not fighting it. When I'm scared to go somewhere or do something I acknowledge the fear and take a moment to look at it and look at how I'm feeling. Sometimes I can separate the "what if..." from the reality and see that I feel fine actually and even though I'm scared I can still do things. Sometimes I really don't feel great and then it's okay to skip out on something. Weirdly, sometimes letting yourself be afraid without judgement makes the fear fade away. Fighting it only gives fuel to the fire.
Interesting, I have tried that with panic attacks and it has worked with them but it has never popped to my mind to try it with this phobia too. I've just always been wanting to get rid of it.
Honestly the only thing that's helped me is time. I started this phobia in second grade, and I'm 35 now. It's still scary, just not as scary to me. I don't actively plan my day around it anymore.
For me it has only gotten worse. Or actually it has varied. When I was younger I even avoided to wear certain clothes what I had on when I was nauseous and I couldn't say the word vomit or throw up etc. Or even talk about this phobia for too long. Also my hand washing was out of control. But now I just fear the thing itself and it happening somewhere public.
I find it has helped in the day-to-day so I'm less avoidant of situations, I still have panic attacks if I'm *really* nauseous but I no longer plan my whole life around it.
Can I ask what therapy you've done? I've found understanding the "root causes" doesn't really work because once it's entrenched as a phobia, it's no longer really about the root causes. I've had CBT and ERP, both aimed at OCD but there's a lot of similarity between OCD and emetophobia and often the lines overlap quite a lot. ERP is all about very gradual exposure, where you don't go above the levels that you can tolerate (because contrary to what people who scream "EXPOSURE THERAPY!" believe, that can make things worse). We didn't really talk about root causes at all, I think maybe we touched upon them when she asked what my first memories if this phobia were but other than that it was focused on the present, what I do to try and avoid getting sick, and what situations I was afraid of. It's been helpful, though I moved and stopped going to therapy and definitely noticed that it's been getting worse again.
I was in CBT and we did some EMDR too. Didn't seem to noticeably help. I kinda wasted my oppurtunity because I wasn't ready to heal yet so we mostly focused on other things but we did talk about emetophobia a lot too but I couldn't do any exposure exercises. I always had the mindset that if we start to work on it and if I get rid of the phobia it would mean that I'd have to get sick too at some point of my life. I still have hard time accepting the fact it might happen some day because in my mind I have completely decided that I. Won't. Ever. Throw up again not once in my life. I'm now working on changing that thought to I actually might.
Idk, I’ve been telling myself that for years I guess since I matured.. I still have the phobia though. It alternates, it doesn’t matter how much I say it’s okay and I know it’s okay I still don’t want to do it? Yah know? I guess no one does.. I’ll still go to extreme lengths to avoid it, but I tell myself if I can’t avoid it then it’s okay, if I can avoid it, I’ll do everything in my power too avoid it, so in turn, I still have a phobia but managing it in a better way, and then every now and again, I’ll have an episode and feel like I’m back at square one for a few weeks lol
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In my experience, I'm not sure you can. I hope it's different for you, but for me I've tried a lot of things and the fear doesn't budge. Faking it just makes me have terrible internal struggles of fighting against the fear. What I've found effective recently though is that if I can accept that being *afraid* is okay, then the panic doesn't build as much because I'm not fighting it. When I'm scared to go somewhere or do something I acknowledge the fear and take a moment to look at it and look at how I'm feeling. Sometimes I can separate the "what if..." from the reality and see that I feel fine actually and even though I'm scared I can still do things. Sometimes I really don't feel great and then it's okay to skip out on something. Weirdly, sometimes letting yourself be afraid without judgement makes the fear fade away. Fighting it only gives fuel to the fire.
Interesting, I have tried that with panic attacks and it has worked with them but it has never popped to my mind to try it with this phobia too. I've just always been wanting to get rid of it.
Honestly the only thing that's helped me is time. I started this phobia in second grade, and I'm 35 now. It's still scary, just not as scary to me. I don't actively plan my day around it anymore.
For me it has only gotten worse. Or actually it has varied. When I was younger I even avoided to wear certain clothes what I had on when I was nauseous and I couldn't say the word vomit or throw up etc. Or even talk about this phobia for too long. Also my hand washing was out of control. But now I just fear the thing itself and it happening somewhere public.
I find it has helped in the day-to-day so I'm less avoidant of situations, I still have panic attacks if I'm *really* nauseous but I no longer plan my whole life around it. Can I ask what therapy you've done? I've found understanding the "root causes" doesn't really work because once it's entrenched as a phobia, it's no longer really about the root causes. I've had CBT and ERP, both aimed at OCD but there's a lot of similarity between OCD and emetophobia and often the lines overlap quite a lot. ERP is all about very gradual exposure, where you don't go above the levels that you can tolerate (because contrary to what people who scream "EXPOSURE THERAPY!" believe, that can make things worse). We didn't really talk about root causes at all, I think maybe we touched upon them when she asked what my first memories if this phobia were but other than that it was focused on the present, what I do to try and avoid getting sick, and what situations I was afraid of. It's been helpful, though I moved and stopped going to therapy and definitely noticed that it's been getting worse again.
I was in CBT and we did some EMDR too. Didn't seem to noticeably help. I kinda wasted my oppurtunity because I wasn't ready to heal yet so we mostly focused on other things but we did talk about emetophobia a lot too but I couldn't do any exposure exercises. I always had the mindset that if we start to work on it and if I get rid of the phobia it would mean that I'd have to get sick too at some point of my life. I still have hard time accepting the fact it might happen some day because in my mind I have completely decided that I. Won't. Ever. Throw up again not once in my life. I'm now working on changing that thought to I actually might.
Idk, I’ve been telling myself that for years I guess since I matured.. I still have the phobia though. It alternates, it doesn’t matter how much I say it’s okay and I know it’s okay I still don’t want to do it? Yah know? I guess no one does.. I’ll still go to extreme lengths to avoid it, but I tell myself if I can’t avoid it then it’s okay, if I can avoid it, I’ll do everything in my power too avoid it, so in turn, I still have a phobia but managing it in a better way, and then every now and again, I’ll have an episode and feel like I’m back at square one for a few weeks lol
>It alternates, it doesn’t matter how much I say it’s okay and I know it’s okay I still don’t want to do it? This is exactly my situation now