Posted by Dinah on March 5, 2013, at 20:36:29
In reply to Re: Dipping my toes in CBT again, posted by baseball55 on March 5, 2013, at 18:38:51
It's amazing how much it can affect a life. It might be hard for others to understand, but it affects nearly everything.
Looking inside this book might give some idea. But even then....
"Living With Emetophobia....My Story"
I have to have an escape route everywhere I go. I don't go near where people might be drinking. I constantly am scanning people nearby. I was once within hearing range of someone who got sick from too much sun, so now I avoid places with too much sun, even if no alchohol is involved. I go on airplanes, even though it terrifies me. But car rides with people I don't know? Boat trips (even short ones)? Forget it.
There are places in shopping center parking lots, and even my house and my parents house, that I just avoid. Anyplace that is associated with vomit in my mind is contaminated. Your husband may have thrown up upstairs. But that would have meant that that bathroom was someplace I might not go for months or years. And it might take months before I didn't view my husband with a certain amount of consciousness of association.
At times, I've been close to agoraphobic over this phobia. At least with my husband, I can tell him what I'm afraid of and that helps immensely. My mother never would believe how much I feared this. So if I was afraid to go to church, or a picnic, or a car ride, or a vacation, or whatever, she would be angry with me and tell me it wasn't because of what I told her it was because of. People weren't going to be sick wherever it is we were going, so I was obviously lying. I wasn't lying. But I learned to lie to her and come up with other reasons or no reasons at all. I also lied to the psychiatrist she sent me to because I assumed he also would not believe me.
Of course the real irony is that I was far more likely to be exposed to it in the sanctity of my room. My brother frequently threw up, and my bedroom shared a wall with the bathroom. I remember sitting in my closet with my fingers stuffed in my ears. After I got a certain age, I realized the benefit of having both the TV and stereo on at full blast and placing them between myself and that wall. I'm sure my parents thought I was a typical teenager blasting the music loudly.
I'm terrified of being trapped. And I'm a bit terrified of the treatment. I keep thinking that if I have this treatment, I'll have to stay around people who are vomiting instead of running, and the fact that it would ideally no longer bother me doesn't in any way affect that fear.
poster:Dinah
thread:1039325
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20120922/msgs/1039661.html