#emetophobia help

I'm planning on watching iron lung when it comes out on youtube!

the question: does anyone have timestamps for emetophobia warnings?

Wake Up Dead Man: Knives Out - 2025

SAFE/Caution - A,V•

(A vent. A science lesson. And a workbook that actually helps.)

The Vent (because you deserve to say it out loud)

Let me tell you what emetophobia is not.

It is not being "a little grossed out" by vomit. It is not disliking stomach bugs. It is not the normal human aversion to something unpleasant.

This is what it is:

It is canceling plans for the fifth time because someone at work mentioned their kid had a stomach virus two towns over.

It is scanning every menu for "undercooked" dangers, then losing your appetite anyway.

It is lying awake at 2 AM, negotiating with your own stomach: "That was just gas. That was just anxiety. That was just — oh God, was that a real nausea?"

It is avoiding pregnancy, avoiding alcohol, avoiding amusement parks, avoiding public transportation, avoiding restaurants, avoiding hospitals, avoiding people — because any of them could be the one.

It is carrying mints, ginger candies, antacids, a bottle of water, and a plastic bag just in case — every single day, every single pocket, every single purse.

It is asking your partner, "Do you feel okay?" thirty-seven times in one evening.

It is Googling "stomach bug going around" at 3 AM, even though you know it will make everything worse.

It is the shame. The secret shame of knowing that your fear sounds absurd to everyone else — and yet it runs your entire life.

Emetophobia is not a quirk. It is not a personality flaw. It is not you being dramatic.

It is a specific phobia. It lives in your amygdala. It has hijacked your threat-detection system. And it is treatable — not by "just getting over it," but by science.

The Science (what's actually happening in your brain)

Let me explain why you cannot "think your way out" of this.

Your brain has a threat-detection circuit centered on the amygdala. When it perceives danger, it initiates the fight-or-flight response — heart rate up, breathing changes, muscles tense, attention narrows. This is useful if you're facing a predator. Less useful if you're facing a memory of a stomach bug from 1998.

In emetophobia, the amygdala has learned to treat interoceptive sensations (normal digestive feelings, mild nausea, stomach gurgles) as catastrophic threats. This is a form of fear conditioning — often following a single traumatic vomiting experience, or chronic early-life illness, or even vicarious learning (watching someone else be very sick).

Once conditioned, the brain engages in:

Hypervigilance: constant scanning of bodily sensations

Catastrophic misinterpretation: "stomach gurgle = impending vomit"

Safety behaviors: checking, avoiding, carrying anti-nausea medication

Reassurance-seeking: asking others "do I look sick?"

These behaviors provide short-term relief but long-term reinforcement. Every time you avoid a situation or perform a safety behavior, you send your amygdala a message: "That thing was dangerous. The only reason you survived is because you avoided it."

The result: the fear grows stronger. Your world shrinks. Your brain becomes more sensitive to threat cues. The cycle tightens.

The Way Out (what the research actually says)

The gold-standard treatment for specific phobias — including emetophobia — is exposure and response prevention (ERP) , a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT).

The mechanism is extinction learning:

You voluntarily approach a feared stimulus (starting very small — a word, a drawing, a sound)

You stay in the situation without performing safety behaviors

Your anxiety rises, peaks, and then naturally declines (the human body cannot maintain panic indefinitely)

Your brain learns a new association: this thing is uncomfortable, but not dangerous

With repetition, the amygdala recalibrates. The fear response weakens. The world expands.

This is not "torture." This is graded, systematic, self-paced exposure — often starting with things that feel silly (saying the word "vomit" out loud, looking at a cartoon drawing) and gradually moving toward more difficult stimuli (watching video, eating a previously avoided food, being near someone who is ill).

ERP has a success rate of approximately 60-90% for specific phobias when delivered competently. That is not a guess. That is the literature.

What Does NOT Work (and why it's not your fault)

Avoidance. It feels good in the moment. It makes the fear worse over time.

Reassurance. Asking "will I be okay?" fifty times a day is a compulsion. It never satisfies.

Checking your body. That "scanning" sensation is not monitoring — it's fueling the fire.

Medication alone. Medications can reduce anxiety symptoms, but they do not teach the brain a new learning curve. ERP is the learning.

"Just ignoring it." You cannot ignore a system that is screaming. You have to retrain it.

This Workbook (the one that finally made sense)

Emetophobia Workbook: CBT, ERP and Behavioral Activation Worksheets for Overcoming Fear of Vomiting by Darno Jemina

This is not a dense textbook. It is not a 300-page theory dissertation. It is a workbook — meaning you write in it, you track your exposures, you log your anxiety ratings, you build your fear ladder with your own hands.

What it contains (based on the structure of similar evidence-based workbooks):

Psychoeducation on emetophobia and the anxiety cycle

Self-assessment tools to track your baseline (and measure real progress)

Worksheets for identifying avoidance and safety behaviors

Graded exposure ladders (from "saying the word" to "watching video" to "eating a triggering food")

Interoceptive exposure exercises (sensations that mimic nausea — without actual vomiting)

Cognitive restructuring for catastrophic thoughts ("I will lose control" → "I have never lost control")

Behavioral activation to rebuild activities your phobia stole

Relapse prevention planning

Reproducible logs for daily practice (20+ copies of each worksheet)

Why this workbook works:

Because it asks you to do the smallest possible thing first. Not "stand in an emergency room." Not "watch someone vomit." Just write the word. Just say it out loud. Just look at a drawing for ten seconds.

Small steps. Repeated. Tracked. Without safety behaviors.

That is how the brain un-learns fear.

A Final Word (from one emetophobe to another — or from a therapist who has seen it work)

You are not crazy. You are not weak. You have a brain that learned a lesson too well — that vomit is an existential threat. And your brain, for all its alarm bells, is trying to protect you.

But that alarm is calibrated wrong. It is a fire alarm going off because someone burned toast.

You can recalibrate it. Not by fighting it. Not by berating yourself. But by small, repeated, uncomfortable, doable steps — toward the thing you fear — without running away.

The workbook will not cure you in a weekend. There will be hard days. There will be setbacks. That is not failure; that is the shape of learning.

But if you keep approaching — gently, methodically, with data and self-compassion — the fear will shrink. Not to zero, perhaps. But to a size you can carry. To a size that does not cancel your plans.

You have already survived every single panic attack you have ever had. That is not weakness. That is evidence.

Now use it.

Get the Workbook

Emetophobia Workbook: CBT, ERP and Behavioral Activation Worksheets for Overcoming Fear of Vomiting by Darno Jemina Available on Amazon (ASIN: B0H4CDZWV4)

Use it alone or — ideally — alongside a therapist trained in ERP. But use it. The first step is the hardest. The second is easier. The hundredth is almost boring.

And boring is victory.

If anyone has any ideas beyond media (or even media suggestions to deal with this, because I imagine I can at LEAST make media a tiered thing anyway) it would be GREATLY appreciated. Because there's no ethical like... way to come into contact with physical emetophobia triggers... I feel kinda limited in my options here.

1. its disgusting yes

2. it kinda feels as if you got so hungry that ur body decided to do the reverse of eating

3. it doesnt get out of ur stomach very easily (for me), wich is probably the worst part

4. if i wasnt so affraid of it i would say its disgust-wise similar to tonsillitis (so manageable!)

5. you can feel like you're gonna throw up in the next minute for hours and then not throw up at all

Oh, whoof. Thanks for letting me know! I don't have Prime so I can't contribute to watching it (and affecting the ratings), but that's good information to have if I ever Jolly Roger it or watch on someone else's account!