Emetophobia and trying to Thrive.

So, tonight I am almost drifting back to the older, original reasoning behind my writing journey.
I don’t want to moan about the kids or some physical health issue that I am trying to juggle along side trying to stay sane. I’m back to the nitty gritty, hard to manage shit that is thrown at all of us, all the time but for whatever reason, (one I’m sure I’ll find answers to someday) I just find really hard to manage. Really hard to answer. 
I’ve touched on my Twitter and maybe in past blogs about being Emetophobic and yesterday as the day flowed along and I began to feel more and more poorly the higher my anxiety started rising. By the end of the day I had bit the bullet and invested in downloading the most amazing book I’ve every read.
It is called
‘Cure your emetophobia and THRIVE’
for anyone who knows emetophobia, lives and breaths this completely crippling phobia you will know why I have taken the chance on a book to help me. When you have all these conflicting thoughts and fears and hopes and dreams, at some point you do just think
‘FUCK THIS!!!!!ill try anything’
And that’s what I’ve done.
For those who have no clue what Emetopohibia is, the simplest way to explain it is to say it is a phobia of being sick. But no one likes being sick so why am I any different?
Actually, the most important ant thing to know is that there is nothing SIMPLE about being phobic. Secondly, I am not all that different. I’m not all that different from a massive proportion of people. A vomiting phobia is up there with the most common, yet least talked about phobias and from my experience it is one of the worst you can ever experience.
You’re scared of spiders? Ok so most of the time you have the opportunity to run away or shout your husband, dad, Mother, brother or someone who doesn’t have a fear of spiders.
Emetophobes do not ever have the option to run and hide from or pass their phobia issues on to someone else to fix. It isn’t just a phobia or a fear it is so much more.
From a very young age, maybe around 7/8 years old I went from experiencing being sick in the same way as a lot of you that may read this.
It wasn’t nice, it was rather unpleasant but I wasn’t swayed either way by the experience. I have no idea what changed in me, I’m hoping that at some point I will find out but…………..(there’s my word again) maybe it doesn’t matter if I find out or not. All I know for fact is that something shifted in my head and throwing up wasn’t now just a horrible thing.
It was something the ignites the deepest TERROR inside me.
I would hold my breath, I would fiddle with paper, my fingers, anything to hand. Peform rituals such as biting my hand or flapping my arms around. Anything that I thought might distract my body from it’s overwhelming power of ejecting the contents of my stomach.
I could sit and write for hours about the things I haven’t done, the school plays and cinema trips with the kids that I have missed because this bad boy grows arms and legs like some genetic science experiment gone horribly wrong.
The anxiety that I have, the self loathing at times and the odd ritualistic behaviour that can fluctuate from mildly irriatating things I do as second nature or, when I am feeling particularly anxious, the plain nuts things I can't being myself to do.
From the minor issues such as over cooking the chicken until it’s dry just to make sure there is no possible chance we will get food poisoning, to the fact I cannot go round the supermarket past the first few isles because I then become hyper aware that I am far from the exit of outside.
I am too far from the toilet if I was to be sick, I’d never reach the safety place in time. There are always safety place and safety practices that happen to a lesser or greater degree each day. 
Everywhere I go especially at high anxiety times has to be scanned for the toilet. If there is none I will look for a bin, a fire exit, a place I can go and hide in darkeness.
The extents I have went to over the years to protect myself from this thing I have no control over verges on totally fucking nuts.
In actual fact the more I learn about emetophobia the more I am understanding that it is what I have ALLOWED to consume me. To the point almost every mental health issue I have is connected to this fear. This utter shitting TERROR!
I can’t stress that word enough. Your phobia, it goes from a fear, to panic and then escalates from panic to utter TERROR.
When I told a close friend today that I had downloaded this book and that already I KNOW without a doubt will change my life to some noticeable degree, she really didn’t understand why I sounded relieved that this time round, I feel like I have a new tool to move away from terror and forward to (that shitty word) ‘NORMAL’ life.
She told me she doesn’t believe emetophobia exists. Everyone hates being sick.
Yeah that’s most likely true but not everyone experiences the dozens of other factors that can essentially ruin your life and turn it upside down that an emetophobic experience.
After feeling so happy that this book spoke to me from the first few pages, giving me hope that the CBT attempts won’t be needed again, the suffering doesn’t have to be put up with, I felt so deflated by the comment she made that I almost deleted the book an gave in.
BUT………..and this is the most important BUT I have ever used!!!
I DIDNT!!!!
Yep I was pissed off and a bit self indulgent with feeling misunderstood, pondering why people always belittle the things I explain to them by passing me off as dramatic.
These weren’t words my friend used. These were the beliefs I have about what she thought about me and the phobia I live with.
I went back to the book and read some more pages. I have taken numerous notes along the way, highlighting things in ways that will be easy for me to reference, because this book, written by Rob Kelly, it isn’t a magic wand that will make me better. It isn’t another pill that you are assured will make you feel ok.
It is a tool.
A very powerful and thought provoking tool that is opening my eyes on every page. Bringing to the front of my mind the things I do to myself that reinforce the shit parts of my life. Not just the fear of being sick but the view I have in life and myself.
It’s something I wish I’d found earlier. It’s something I wish I had downloaded as soon as I seen it. I am however so thankful that I kept going back to YouTube and searching for Rob Kelly. The decider came last night when after the terror was rising and I was desperate to find a way to make it stop. I went into the emetophobia Locus Of Control quiz and the score I came away with straight away told me.
‘You’ve got this!!! This man, he knows! He isn’t going to solve your problem for you, he’s going to open your eyes and teach you how to solve them yourself, in one book!!’
Even after the knock of feeling dismissed earlier, I then used new thought processes I have picked up, to move past the negative.
Tonight I have dozed on and off, waking intermittently with the rising nausea that has hit me the last two days, and I know that this will be the last time I feel the things I do, complete the rituals I have done for over 25 years to try and keep control over my body and the way it behaves.
I know I have to now replace them with new rituals, but these are going to be new positive ones. It will be a lot of work but it is the first time I have looked at a task ahead that has always seemed impossible and just knew I would succeed Thai time. 
I WILL make my life better with these new tools and thoughts.
For anyone who is alone, in the darkest places this horrible dark cloud can hide you under, you can reach me just to vent that your misunderstood. To share the things you believe make you odd, weird or mental. I’ve been there, I am there and no one one should feel alone in these feelings.
Before reaching out to anyone however just reach out to yourself. Go and research Rob Kelly.
Read the sample pages of the book and take the steps that will help you, help yourself. I’ll link the website below.

Special love to all those who know the darkness.
