Changing the public view on Phobias

Before you read on, I apologise if the grammar in this story is bad, but I needed to get this message out there and because of its contents I couldn’t meticulously comb through it for every error. If you continue to read, then thank you for taking the time to read what I feel I need to say.

We have all, at one point or another, said we have a phobia of something. Be it clowns, heights, or spiders, there is something we all dislike interacting with, but I notice this notion of phobia is often misunderstood. At 18 I developed emetophobia which is the irrational fear of vomiting. You may sit there and think “Oh I hate vomiting maybe I have emetophobia.” Well, no one enjoys vomiting, do they? Maybe all humans have a phobia of vomiting? While humans are hard wired to dislike vomiting because it usually means something is wrong, this doesn’t make it a phobia.

We define phobia as “an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something.” It is very natural to fear things like heights or spiders. Those things are dangerous and our mind fears them, so we avoid or defend ourselves against them. These are still not phobias. A phobia is when the fear of something goes beyond the natural fear and becomes more of an obsession with avoiding something. Think of something you fear, now imagine that was all you could think about. For example, my fear. It started with alcohol. Every time I drank it, there would soon follow a nasty panic attack. This led me to stop drinking alcohol all together. Not drinking alcohol isn’t a bad thing, but it was the start of a very slippery slope into my phobia. My fear of it grew so much. I felt like I was anxious 24/7 and every night I cried myself to sleep on my mother’s bedroom floor. It seemed to get better, but sadly it came back.

A few years later I sat down to eat a chicken chow mein this was one of favourite meal I would happily eat it day after day. One day after eating the chow mein, I notice an odd feeling in my stomach that I couldn’t explain. My head went around and around trying to figure out what the feeling was, but it always came back to something that would make me sick. Maybe food poisoning or maybe I hate too much. I quickly went into full panic. This wasn’t like the fear you feel sitting waiting for an operation it was pure terror. The extreme fear I felt resulted in me vomiting. My life felt like it was over. I turned to my partner and begged him to kill me. My worst fear had happened and it could happen again. When my partner refused to kill me, I asked my flat mate to kill me. I realised the terrible thing I asked them to do and my head spun again and I threw up again. This ended in me going to hospital and begging for help.

I was back to crying myself to sleep. I couldn’t bear to sleep alone so my boyfriend would sit up with me I couldn’t even hug him because I felt too hot when I did and I worried that would make me sick. He would sit with me for hours and hours as I did everything I could to calm down. One day we went to boots, a pharmacy, and it was a hot day. I got so warm my mind latched onto the heat and feeling dehydrated so I panicked and it resulted in me throwing up in front of a busy street of people.

Death became an escape. In my head, I would have rather died than thrown up again, but then I realised that many of the suicide methods I considered could have resulted in me vomiting, and so I felt bound to life. I was completely hopeless.

This is a phobia, and I am sorry to have shared it with you. I am much better now. A few years ago merely saying the word vomit would send me into a panic. Even now I feel uncomfortable, a strange butterfly feeling stirs in my stomach and my throats opens wide but I feel like the public’s view of phobia needs to be adjusted it is a serious condition just any mental illness. I do not want to make you feel bad if you have ever said you had a phobia, and it wasn’t one. We have all done it and it does not make you a bad person. We just need to shift the view and recognise it as a serious mental illness. Many times when I said I had a phobia I was met with the same answer, perhaps not in these words, but this was the general notion.

“I don’t like vomiting either. Just try not to worry” We wouldn’t say to a schizophrenic “I thought I heard a voice once, just ignore it.” We must see phobias as the horrid mental illness they are, so those suffering with one don’t feel inadequate or like they are letting people down. There is nothing harder than suffering an issue that no one else recognises. I am also not saying that you do not have a phobia. No phobia is the same and your phobia may not be the same as mine if you feel scared of something a lot then please let your doctor know. You can get over a phobia, but you have to ask for help first.

If this post does anything, then I hope it helps some people change their view on phobias. We all struggle and we all have fears, but just recognising a phobia and knowing what isn’t a phobia could really help someone with one.