Stand up to your Emetophobia:
Step 1
Step 1 in standing up to your Emetophobia:
Tackling avoidance of cues about vomiting
Avoiding anything that reminds you of vomiting? Great in the short term. Terrible in the long term.
Those with Emetophobia often do not like anything that reminds them of vomiting. This can include:
-Words related to vomiting.
-Conversations.
-Images.
-Sounds.
-Smells.
-Tastes.
-And many other things.
And this makes sense. If you feel vomiting is awful, why would you want to be reminded of it?
The problem is, this often leads to the avoidance of any of these cues.
Why is avoiding reminders unhelpful?
It is only natural to want to avoid anything that reminds you of your fear as it causes you to feel anxious. The problem with this is that it simply makes your Emetophobia worse in the long term.
This is because it increases your fear as avoidance only creates more fear of the thing being avoided. For any Harry Potter fans out there, to quote Harmonie: “Fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself”.
For those who don't get the reference, in the books, wizards were too scared to even say the name of an evil wizard, and would react with fear if they ever heard it.
Avoidance has other downsides too:
-Its only a short term solution: Avoidance quickly reduces your anxiety in the short term, but the next time you are faced with the same reminder you feel equally (if not more) anxious. So you try to avoid again, and again, and again.
-It stops you realising you can cope: Everyone has a great capacity to overcome anxiety when they truly decide to face their fears. By avoiding, you never get to prove to yourself that you can get through experiencing these reminders.
-Lead up anxiety: Often you can start to feel anxious before theses reminders if you think they are about to occur. Such as, when watching a film which has a scene which may lead to a potential vomiting scene. Regardless of whether it does or does not occur, you feel anxious during the lead up to it.
Watch this video for more information:
The two biggest reasons why you avoid these cues:
When people avoid cues about vomiting, it is due to two main reasons:
1) You think it will lead you to gag, feel nauseous or vomit.
2) You think that you will become panicked, out of control or unable to cope.
If you believe these two things, it makes sense why any cues related to vomiting feel scary. However, the fact that these cues do not effect others in this way demonstrates that these beliefs may not be accurate.
The first step in recovering from Emetophobia is to examine these two beliefs:
Imagine what your life would be like if any reminder of vomiting did not cause you anxiety or worry. It would be nice right? Well…lets make that happen by the end of the day.
We can achieve this by using something called a “behavioural experiment”.
A behavioural experiment is the act of testing out how true our viewpoints and beliefs are, by actively experimenting with how we act. In this case, we can prove or disprove these two beliefs by facing cues about vomiting in a structured manner and watching the results.
Won’t it be scary?
A little. But you can do it. Remember, that everyone, including you has a great capacity to overcome anxiety when they truly decide to face their fears. By continuing to avoid these cues you never get to prove to yourself that you can get through it or disprove these two beliefs.
But don’t just take it from me.
The next video shows a real ex-patient of mine who had Emetophobia. She has kindly agreed to share her experience of facing these types of cues to help others also have the motivation to help stand up to their Emetophobia.