Throwing Up Phobia Confession - Help With Vomit & Anxiety

My throwing up phobia has been debilitating. The fear of vomit gives me anxiety and here’s what I’ve done to help myself. This is my own personal story and might not work for anyone else who struggles with this, but I hope you’ll read this post and be encouraged that it can get better.

I do not shy away from being honest and talking about my personal life (see my divorce post) but this post is the most open I’ve ever been about myself. There are a lot of details in this post that might be gross or triggering but I’m doing it in the spirit of helping you if you share this same fear.

Vomit and anxiety at a young age

Vomit has given me anxiety for as long as I can remember. I have vivid memories of each time a kid in my school got sick when I was around. Many members of my family have a fear of throwing up so I’m not sure if it was a nature or nuture thing, but my fear has been inside me for a long time. My fear developed into a phobia when I was in 7th grade and I had the stomach flu that lasted 7 days. I had to have an ultrasound done to make sure my appendix didn’t explode because I could not stop throwing up. There was a moment when I feared that I would never be able to stop and I would have to live my life that way forever and it was very traumatic.

What is the phobia of vomit called?

Emetophobia is the fear of vomit. But what makes the fear into a phobia? I read that a phobia is when your anxiety is debilitating to your life. I also read that it’s a phobia when you make life choices based on your phobia, which is true for me. When I was in high school I thought about becoming a children’s librarian but stopped myself when I thought about how little kids get the stomach flu often.

If you ask any of my former coworkers, they all know I have this phobia because I make it clear that if anyone throws up around me I will immediately leave the building. It got to the point that I would be willing to walk out of a job and potentially be fired because I’m so scared of someone throwing up around me. I also could not watch throw up on TV.

What made my throwing up phobia worse

The second traumatic experience was when I had to plan a party for a friend that involved a lot of drinking. I was so scared of that night for months because I did not want to see people throw up. I was in charge of bringing my drunk friend home and, even though I had plastic bags in my car in case of an emergency, my friend threw up all over my car and inside my purse. It was truly one of the worst weekends of my life, I had to drive 45 minutes home covered in puke and spend the rest of the weekend trying to clean out my car. I experienced mild PTSD for the one and only time in my life. For the next few weeks whenever I closed my eyes, I saw the event play over and over again. I ended up selling my car because whenever I got in I remembered that moment.

When I’m the one who is sick I sob uncontrollably. The anxiety of feeling like I might throw up makes me suffer for hours and, more often than not, I don’t even get sick.

A quote that I love is, “Worrying means you suffer twice” and I’ve suffered thousands of times over my vomit fear.

What made me get help

I met someone new last year and this past summer, we were watching a TV show together and an actor was about to be sick on screen. I immediately plugged my ears, closed my eyes, and started humming to myself so I wouldn’t hear anything. I’ve done this for the last 15+ years of my life so it’s very normalized for me. A few days later I had one of my regularly scheduled therapy sessions.

After my therapy session, the person that watched how I deal with seeing throw up on TV said, “Maybe you should talk about your vomit phobia in therapy.” I immediately got defensive because I felt like he thought I was a freak. But after I thought about it for a minute, he was right. I’ve been going to therapy on and off for ten years, why have I never brought up my fear of vomit? Because I didn’t think there was anything that could be done about it, it’s just who I am. But I don’t want it to be a part of me so I promised him that I would bring it up in therapy next time.

Therapy helped my throwing up phobia

I told my therapist and she was so kind and didn’t think I was a freak. She told me that people don’t enjoy watching throw up on TV either and that she cringes when she sees it. The goal isn’t to get me to love throw up but to dislike it a normal amount, which sounded reasonable.

She told me to journal about the root of my fear. She asked me to write about early death and how it makes me feel (Which was loads of fun… haha!) to see if I’m afraid of catching the stomach flu and dying because of it. Then journal about what parts of throwing up I’m scared of, like the sound or smell (Super gross but it was important for me to figure out). We narrowed down that the anxiety leading up to getting sick, or watching someone else get sick, makes it so much worse. That the fear builds up and makes it debilitating. I wrote down on my phone that if the worst-case scenario happens and I get the stomach flu, it will pass as it has passed before. It is not the end of the world.

Once I narrowed down the root of my fear she told me to do slight exposure therapy which really scared me. But I hate my phobia so much and now that there’s a possibility it could get better I want to try whatever she says. I told her I would attempt to not plug my ears and hum when I see it on TV.

Putting therapy into practice

I successfully watched a TV show vomit scene and it really wasn’t that bad. It looks super fake and I realized that my anxiety and fear made it so much worse than it actually was. That was very encouraging and I was really proud of myself. I’ve since watched around 20 scenes on TV shows/movies since my therapy appointments and they have all been no problem.

The moment I knew my phobia was getting better

I used to work one day a week as a receptionist at a chiropractic office and just recently quit. Last month, two days before my shift, I found out that a kid got sick on a rug in our office. The rug had been rolled up and put in the break room until it could be picked up by the cleaners. During my shift, the rug was picked up and I learned what had happened (Though my coworkers were hesitant to tell me because they know about my phobia). The realization hit that I had been in the breakroom multiple times that day and could have breathed in germs that would give me the stomach flu.

Normally, I would have gone into a spiral of anxiety and had a pit in my stomach all night long waiting to catch the stomach flu. I would have taken Xanax which is the anti-anxiety medication that I use for moments like this. But this time, I calmly told myself that I most likely wouldn’t get sick, and even if I did, it would not be a big deal and it would pass. My hard work paid off because fear and anxiety did not come for me at all and I wasn’t worried that night. I did not take Xanax. That might not seem like a huge achievement but I’m telling you, it was a big breakthrough for me.

While medicine absolutely has its place and helps so many people that I love, in my case, I felt like Xanax was a band-aid for my problem and therapy helped pull the root of the problem right out. I’m so excited to say I don’t have to take Xanax anymore and have not filled my prescription since starting my therapy journey.

Be open to receiving help

I’m very grateful for the person in my life who encouraged me to speak to my therapist about my phobia, I wish I had done it years ago. He saw me suffering over a TV show and knew that it wasn’t okay. He cared enough to bring it up and encourage me to get help, even though it was a really hard conversation for both of us. The whole experience was truly transformative and I feel like a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

I’m not saying my phobia is gone or cured, I haven’t gotten sick myself or watched someone in front of me get sick and that will be harder to deal with. But I’m proud of myself for the strides I’ve made already.

If you have a phobia or fear I hope you find this encouraging that you are not alone and there are options for help. I found my amazing therapist through Psychology Today which is an awesome website where you can filter what type of issues you need help with. You can also filter by your insurance provider and if they offer virtual therapy (My therapy was in person and later moved to virtual, both were very helpful). If you can’t afford therapy, see if you can find a free self-help book through the library Libby app or try journaling about it on your own.

Do you have a phobia or relate to this at all? Before you have anything negative to say about my post, please read this post about internet negativity and how it hurts people.