CBT for emetophobia my experiences...

[mjh74]

Hi all,

I've been undergoing CBT therapy for emetophobia for about 2 months now on a weekly basis. I've had to work through looking at pictures of vomit to listening to sounds of people vomitting and have had no real problems so far. I got to the stage this week where I have had to watch a video of people vomitting and it has had a really bad affect on me. The second my therapist started the tape I went into a huge panic attack and it made me feel right back at square one. I asked her if I could borrow the tape and brought it home to try and watch. I watched about 2 minutes of it today and ended up shaking like a leaf and I have the feeling as if I've just witnessed a fatal accident, the feeling of horror is "that" bad. The horrible thing now is that I can't get this bit of video out of my mind of this woman making herself vomit into a washing up bowl and I keep running it over and over again in my with sound, it's horrible.
Surely this can't be healthy? I feel as if this is doing me way more harm than good. I wouldn't have classed my phobia as being majorly dibilitating but the more I watch this stuff the more it seems to be drumming it into me that I do hate it and am petrified of it, not making it feel better for facing my demons! My dad has also been an emetophobe for 40 years now and he's lived with it ok, I just thought facing this once and for all would be a good thing but all I see happening is that it's reminding me and strengthening how much I actually fear seeing it being done.

The thing that dug my phobia back up was a huge amount of stress last year at work and a panic attack made me feel like my throat was closing and sent me into a heaving bout, obviously I was petrified at the fact that I hadn't got control over my throat let alone the fact that I could have vomitted. So my current fear is linked with emetophobia but it isn't the being sick that I'm fearing. It's the fact that I can get my throat into a state of distress that could cause heaving and THEN lead onto vomitting so it's sort of now a double baralled phobia. The phobia is more "what if I gag, start heaving and have no control over it" followed by "and what if this makes me sick", rather than "what if I'm sick".

If I hadn't have had this throat bout I probably wouldn't have even been thinking about my emetophobia right now as I hadn't been for some years.

I'm not too sure what to do but at the minute I am completely distracted by the sound and vision of people vomitting in my mind because it's all I seem to be concentrating on at the minute... horrible...

Any suggestions of what I could or should do?

I look forward to hearing your suggestions,

Mark

[loz04]

Hi Mark,
I posted a thread up on my experiences on CBT (or exposure therapy) and i didnt have to go those extremes and im sure if i had then it wud have had the exact same effect on me! I'm coming out the other side of my phobia now, but im sure if i'd had 2 watch a video of sum1 being sick, it wud have definately made me feel worse! i think that now i'm on the other side i can c that u dont have 2 worry all day every day about in case ur sick, but that doesnt mean that u have 2 like it. nobody in their right mind wud b able 2 sit looking at sum1 being sick for real without it making them start to feel grossed out. I wud definately not have allowed myself to watch sum1 being sick on tv, it wud have made me want to give up on the whole therapy altogether, and i certainly wud have had it replaying in my mind all day every day as well!
I dont really kno wot 2 suggest as im not a therapist, but i definately think making u watch a vid of it was extreme. the furthest i had to go wiv my exposure was making fake sick out of moshed up food and pouring it down the toilet as my phobia is worring about actually getting ill and being sick, rather than ur phobia of ur throat making u sick...maybe thats why we've had such different experiences of exposure.
I hope u are able to get it out of your head soon, as it must b driving u mad, it definately wud have dun me! In fact it prob wud many people!
Whoops...soz bout the essay!!
Take care.
Laura.

[mjh74]

Hi Laura,

Thanks for your reply! My phobia also covers the fear of me being sick as well but I just can't bear to be in the same room as someone that's ill in case they are and I see it/hear it. I too had to make up the mushed up food and pour it down the toilet with the therapist. This video is absolutely horrifying though, it's like reality TV extreme. The first bit really disturbed me because it was obviously a setup to make this little girl of about 10 years old sick! Her mum had sat a bowl of chocolates beside her on the settee, this was a big mixing bowl and the little girl ate her entire way through them, she then shouts her mother saying she's going to be sick and to bring in a bowl, the camera then zooms in closely to her face whilst she is heaving until she's sick into the bowl, just typing this now is making my heart pound and I just thought that was so disturbing. The horrible thing was, it kept doing a quick retake of the vomit coming out of her mouth before showing you her holding the bowl full at the end. I am in posession of the video tape as we speak. Horrible :(.

Mark x

[loz04]

aww, thats awful!
u poor thing! i feel so sorry that u had 2 c it! i spose in a way tho, one of the reasons why i decided i had to kick this phobia is that in a few years i'd like to have kids, and one day wen they're sick i'll have 2 b there 4 them and not run away, so i guess seeing it is something everyone has to do at sum stage...but watchin it on video is just horrible, esp. wen u dont really need to! if it's so disturbing i'd definately leave it for a while, as its obviously not working. talk to your therapist and tell them how much worse its making u. if you've seen it more than once the second time shud have been easier (as obviously thats the whole point) but if its worse its not doing u any good.
really hope u can forget about it soon! try distracting ur mind by doing something u need to concentrate on (like playing solitair on the computer)...stupid as it sounds, in times of major panicking, that game has helped me out no end!
laura.

[mjh74]

Thanks Laura, I've asked a few friends if they could sit through it who haven't got a phobia of vomit and they very promptly said no. I don't feel as bad now and thanks for your suggestion, I will do something to distract myself in a bit, I just needed to chat about it on here with someone as my mind has felt like such a dark place over the past 2 days :(

Mark x

[mjh74]

Hi Nigel,

You've hit the nail on the head. It's the anticipation of knowing what is going to happen in graphic detail. That is exactly what sends me into a panic...

And yes... I can tell you exactly how it started....

I went to school one morning and my mum had got some cod liver oil capsules in and thought it would be good if me and my sister started to take them. I was 7 years old at the time, took my cod liver oil capsule and went to school that morning. After about an hour of being there I started to feel really queezy and started to panic. I was taken to the medical room and given a bucket while they called my mum. She fetched me and took me home and I was fine, I remember eating a bowl of chicken soup and all was fine. I asked my mum if I could stay off school the next day to make sure and she let me. That day I didn't take the cod liver oil capsule and was ok but the next day I went back to school..... I took the capsule and again I felt horribly sick. I didn't twig what it was and naturally assumed that going out to school would make me feel sick and on it went from there.

At the age of 11 or 12 I started senior school and bearing in mind I already hated sick, I was put in a morning class with someone that ALWAYS used to be sick. I still remember all the times he did it and how it used to hit the desk and go all over the floor. I had to endure this torture for the entire year and was waiting for him to be sick every day. That had to be the worst school year of my life.

I then suffered from emetophobia for the next 3 or 4 years and started to get over it and it wasn't until my bad time at work that I mentioned last year that it all came flooding back again :(.

Mark

[tammyg]

Hi Mark,

I am having similar experiences at the moment but am doing it myself rather than with a therapist. I have a video as well and must admit the first time I watched it was quite traumatic to say the least. Like you, it's not so much what's happening but more the thoughts that go with it.

Did you just watch it straight away? I first watched mine (well, the very first time I didn't even watch it, I put it on in the living room and went out to the bedroom! even knowing it was on was enough for the first time) it was on silent and I was watching from the doorway, frequently turning away when it actually happened.

Then when I was ok with that I turned the sound up a little but couldn't watch at the same time. So I just dealt with the sound for a good two weeks (5 mins everyday... I must be mad!!)

Now I am at the stage (because I am so familiar with what is going to happen and none of it is a surprise) where I can watch it with sound. Admittedly I am still inclined to turn my head away occassionally but I am working on this. Also the volume is still quite low but I have further to go with that yet.

Did your therapist just say to watch it straight off? I thought the idea was to expose you to it gradually so that you feel some fear but then get used to it and eventually ok with it and move to the next step.

Hope you have managed to get the images out of your head. I know how awful it is.

Tammy x

[mjh74]

Hi Tammy,

I'm not sure who makes these videos, I wonder how many there are? Mine starts with a green screen saying "EXPOSURE TO VOMIT" in big white letters that fill the screen. Sadly I still have the same images wizzing around my head but I hope in a few days they die down. The therapist played the tape to me whilst we were right in front of a 21" TV screen on quite a loud volume. I said I couldn't watch anymore after the first and she wanted to start the video again when I'd calmed down. I asked her if I could take it home to watch instead and she asked me to watch an hour of it every day for the week! It's still making my heart race just thinking about what I've seen as I'm typing this.It's such a daft phobia isn't it, just another bodily function! I mean we reject waste food from behind most days and we don't fear that, why do we fear if it doesn't make it that far because it's bad and comes back out the top?!

I think you're really brave Tammy, well done for watching yours as you have been!! I was thinking of playing it through my computer and watching it with low sound in a postage stamp sized window and moving slowly up.

Mark x

[tammyg]

Your post made me laugh for a minute... I always thought I was quite weird but what person in their right mind would make themselves sick on camera?!! The video I have is only 5 minutes long which is just enough really. I have also worked with a different video in the past so that's at least three in circulation!

Hmm... I think your therapist was a bit out of order doing that, I would have reacted in exactly the same way. I know there is a method when you do it all at once (can't remember the name) but it is proven that this doesn't work for all people and that gradual exposure is the way to go, from what I have read anyway.

*It's such a daft phobia isn't it, just another bodily function!* Yup, sure is! And also because no-one actually likes to be sick but no-one fears it quite like we do either.

Putting it on the computer sounds like a good idea, slowly slowly has really worked for me. But an hour a day?! OMG lol.

Good luck and keep us informed of how you are getting on. I have read some of your other posts and it sounds like you are doing really well, don't let this move you backwards, keep plodding on!

Tammy x

[mjh74]

Gawd Tammy, what I've been through this year honestly.... I'm feeling SO SO much better than I was, I thought I'd never be able to cope with life again!
I too am totally gob smacked at these people sticking fingers down their throats and hoofing up a good load into a bowl. I mean this woman actually looks at the camera is if to say "oh come out I know you want to" as she's coughing and wretching chunks here and there! LOL

I must say, even though the thoughts are still running around my mind and giving me the notion that I want to wretch, I am also chuckling to myself thinking "at this point I really don't care, this has gone on long enough and I barf, I barf...". Still doesn't stop that horrified "in your face" feeling of watching someone else do it though!

I got my mum to watch a bit of it with me and she couldn't watch it anymore, she said she'd be sick if she did. So I must admit, I do feel a little hard done by right now seeing as I'd been doing so well up until now!

Mark x