“Nobody likes vomiting though,” is the most common reaction when explaining Emetophobia. I only recently discovered its official name, so I appreciate that not everyone will understand its meaning. Emetophobia is when someone is intensely overtaken by anxiety from the thought of being sick and people around them falling unwell. Everyone struggling with it has different triggers and some even have an underlying experience that initiated their fear. That’s where it began for wee three-year-old me, however, I did not relate anything that I had seen growing up to the distress I felt about illness until my late teens.
Dad was diagnosed with Gastritis when I was very young. For him, this means that eating acidic or spicy foods and going for a long time on an empty stomach makes him vomit. One of my earliest memories was walking out of the house when I was a toddler to see Dad doubled over in pain and being sick. I can remember screaming as loudly as I could for help, running back inside to get Mum so she could, “Call an ambulance for Daddy”. This was the first time I felt completely taken over by panic, but I was way too small to process anything or label it as a developing phobia. To little me I just wanted him to be okay, and the shock of the situation made it seem as though the illness was permanent. Dad falling unwell had come about very suddenly – how come something so awful could be so unpredictable? Just an hour earlier I had been running up the road with him in my red dungarees, holding his hand.
My mind has always been able to vividly memorise every time I fell ill since seeing Dad in agony. Vomiting is a lot more to me than gross and inconvenient, or something that will pass. It is my stomach lurching every time I hear the word ‘sick’, needing to know if people mean being physically sick, or just having a cold.
My classmates must have thought I was strange, obsessing over minor details when someone hadn’t come in or had just got back from having a bug. I had to know how many times they had been sick and when the last time was. In my mind it would have been easier to shut myself away, counting the days to make sure nobody was contagious. If a virus was making its way through the year group, I would check the paleness of my skin every morning before leaving the house and ask both Mum and Dad if I looked like I was going to throw up. The only time I did in primary school, I remember holding both sides of the sink in the bathroom until my knuckles were white. I chatted to myself out loud, telling myself that I was going to be alright. Before this, I had always had someone there to plug my ears and cover my eyes.
Only a couple of weeks ago at work, a colleague came up and asked to be sent home because he had just thrown up in the staff toilets. My heart started pounding instantly and my whole body broke out into a sweat. Writing it makes it sound so silly, but I spent the rest of my shift fixated on disinfecting everything, my mind racing back to when we met in the morning to remember how far apart we were, and if we used the same pen to sign in. I didn’t even go to the toilet at work that day.
The precautions I take mean that I’m never really sick, and I can’t quite remember how it takes me over. What stays in my mind is not eating before bed, being strict with use-by dates, never trying new food and being wary of new places to eat. Since getting ill from a chippy van, I’m nervous about buying from food trucks. I like to think I have some sort of radar, and I only eat from them when I feel like I get good vibes. My Emetophobia is also being freaked out by the white bags tied onto every bus seat, jumping at my cat having a furball, and having to look away at certain scenes in films. I can never explain it without sounding ridiculous, but in that short moment spent vomiting, I would do anything to have it taken away, so anything I can do to prevent it or prevent seeing it, I will.
Feeling on edge is draining, especially in new settings where my mind focuses on exits and toilets based on the tiniest chance that I’ll need to be sick. It makes you feel trapped, and knowing where the bathroom is in a building equally makes me uneasy as one of my main triggers is the sight of toilet bowls, basins, sinks and even baths. A good example of a new setting is of course university. Moving away from home is daunting to anyone: new people, an entirely different routine and a life independent from everything you have grown up around. Going into my first year, none of these normal anxieties came close to my main worry – what I would do if I threw up at uni. I wasted so much meat when I was too frightened that I had undercooked it or left something open too long. You would probably look at my bank account and think the amount I had spent on drink was sad when truthfully, I have just never been brave enough to be completely drunk in case it makes me ill.
While I am trying to expose myself to more situations that I find uncomfortable, it’s still hard to think rationally when you have convinced yourself you aren’t well, and you start getting symptoms your brain has made up. Most of the time, what I think is happening isn’t at all, however, it’s a challenge and a half to get through to me in that moment. Something that is rarely mentioned is how Emetophobia can have an impact on the people around you. There is always that worry that someone close to you could get unwell and you won’t know what to do, or in my case just go into a state of panic and not hear reason. My stomach still goes funny when I hear someone go to the toilet in the middle of the night, or to be honest when anyone goes to the toilet at any time. My heart still sinks when a bug does the rounds, and I still obsess over food poisoning. I hate how unpredictable illness is.
Uni has forced me to become comfortable with a lot, but it’s not an easy phobia to cure when a huge amount of the panic comes from my subconscious. Talking, however, really does help. As Emetophobia is being recognised more widely, it has allowed many the chance to share how it has impacted their lives, and it gives those struggling something to connect with. If you feel like any of this is relatable, you are not alone. This form of anxiety is fluid, it could hardly affect someone but take over another and you’d be surprised at the number of people who share the same fears.
You can read more on Brig’s mental health advice here.
Featured image: Pexels.com
Film and Media student at the University of Stirling!
