My Battle With Emotophobia

     I recently wrote about Emotophobia giving a small glimpse into my battle with this phobia. Now I will tell more about how it effects me personally.

     For as long as I remember I have been unusually afraid of throwing up. I don't just like it, I fear it. I feel the same fear of throwing up as I feel of clowns. I literally shake all over if I think I might vomit. When I was a child I would cry.

     Luckily I have not thrown up a lot in my adult years but that does not mean I have not been nauseated. Trust me I have. But, I will walk all night, I will eat soda crackers and well, if my stomach is the least bit icky feeling, I won't eat. I do eat a lot of jello if I am feeling nauseated and soda crackers work great too.

     I always worried about getting pregnant and the morning sickness part of it. When I was pregnant I was sicker than a dog but never threw up. I would fight it then too, shaking all over and sometimes even breaking out in a cold sweat. 

     After my kids were born I worried about them throwing up. Now spit-up is not the same and that never bothered me as much. But as my oldest son got older I worried. He never really got sick but when my second son came along I was introduced to child vomiting. He was one of those kids who would gag and lose his meal. He finally stopped that. I would have to turn away when he got sick and then I could clean it up.

     Both of my kids got stomach bugs a few times. It was a scary time for me. Thy did learn early that they woudl have to get sick in their bucket and then call for me, I would come and take care of things. If they missed the bucket and I had to clean up a mess I would literally throw all the bedding in the washer without getting anything off of it.  I would then worry for several days about getting the stomach bug myself. I would eat very bland food if I ate at all until I felt the danger had passed.

     My poor kids, when they would get sick, even if it was not a stomach bug, I would ask them constantly how they felt. I would worry that they might get sick to their stomachs and want to make sure it was not a stomach bug. I would not let them eat anything that might be upsetting to their stomach until I felt the fear of them vomiting was gone. Yes, I worried for days and nights that I might get sick too.

     I will not take any medicine that says it might cause nausea and when I had my knee surgery I would not take Morphine because it made my aunt throw up. 

    I cannot stand to see someone randomly barf on a TV show and will close my eyes if the character even acts sick. I also plug my ears when I am in the restroom and someone is getting sick. I just can't handle it. It is not like I just don't like it. I find it so hard to explain but it is a fear so deep inside me that I just want to run away or cry. 

     I even get a bit sick to my stomach when someone tells me they have been ill in a phone conversation. Yes even the social network posts people put up about being ill put me in a panic. Like I can catch it through cyber space. Irrational, yes, real panic, certainly. 

     For many years I wondered if I was the only one in the world who had this fear of vomiting, then I found out other people fear it too. My phobia is still there but at least now I know that I am not alone in it. 

To find out more about this phobia: Emotophobia