Hi everyone,
I know there are lots of other posts about emetophobia but I wanted to post mine seperately.
I suffer with very bad anxiety. Sometimes the cause of an anxiety attack is very obvious. Most of the time it comes out of the blue and I don't know why it is happening. Anyway, when it happens it becomes a catch 22 as the anxiety gives me imagined (or sometimes real) nausea which in turn makes the anxiety worse and so the spiral continues. It is pretty awful.
Regarding my phobia; the last time I was actually sick was my first year of university near Christmas time and I think it was a bug or something I had eaten. I know that that night I did not panic. I just got on with it. I haven't been ill since but every time I feel like that since, I get EXTREMELY scared. Often my mum and dad have resorted to forcing me to take a tranquiliser because otherwise I just get worse and worse.
In the last six months I have started counselling. My anxiety has trigger depression before and for the reason that I felt it was returning, I bit the bullet and referred myself for therapy. It is going really well although we haven't approached the vomitting phobia. That said, it seems to be less of a problem recently. I think about it less but still at least once a day and usually shortly before bed time. If my partner does not feel well I can get quite panicky but I don't tend to show it because I worry he thinks I am being stupid. I am pretty sure he doesn't but I wouldn't want him to so I don't say anything. I am quite sure he knows what I am going through as we have spoken about it quite a lot. I worry particularly that he might be unwell because of something we have eaten, and that it will make me ill too.
I work with children and I am lucky in that all of my work colleagues know I am phobic about vomit and don't mind me not tidying it up. I usually busy myself tidying somewhere else when this happens.
However, I still have quite bad anxiety attacks. As I mentioned, I am having counselling and whilst I know it is helping, sometimes I get really anxious.
What are peoples coping mechanisms? How do you calm down from a panic attack? I use Rescue Remedy which works well but I would like to not use it sometimes...