Hey everybody.
Today I'm going to talk with you about Emetophobia,
So stay tuned.
So like I said,
Today I want to talk with you about Emetophobia,
What is it?
And if we have it, what do we even do about it?
So Emetophobia, for those of you who are not aware,
Is the fear of becoming sick, i.e. vomiting.
People become so fearful of vomiting that they may not even eat outside their home.
And the fear of vomiting isn't just,
It was interesting,
Because I don't know that much about Emetophobia.
It falls in the DSM under 'specific phobia',
And then in the 'other' category.
So it's not something that I learnt a lot in school.
It's not something that I have dealt with in my practice.
And so I asked those of you who told me to do this video,
I asked you for some resources.
So thanks for getting those to me.
It was really great to learn about it.
And the way that Emetophobia works,
It's not just that we fear vomiting,
It's what will happen because of that.
Like the embarrassment, the shame,
Or whatever we think is going to happen because of us becoming sick.
And so people who struggle with this,
May not leave the house.
It can get so bad that people don't leave the house,
Because they don't want to become sick somewhere
Where they can't get to the toilet in time.
And it's really that severe for them.
And a lot of people will put off getting pregnant for fear of morning sickness.
It's that intense of a fear for them,
That they will not have children.
They won't eat out.
If they feel any kind of gassiness or any GI anything,
They won't leave the house.
And so it can be really really difficult and really impair their level of functioning.
It is hypothesised that people develop this type of phobia,
Due to a traumatic event involving someone getting sick.
I know you're thinking,
'How in the world would that happen?'
But imagine, as a child potentially,
Some of the people talked in the forums,
And there was a lot of information,
About people maybe being forced to eat a lot of candy,
Because their mom caught them in the cupboard.
And they got spanked and abused and they threw up because they ate all this candy.
Or they became really sick and nauseous after being sexually abused,
And they threw up all over the place.
That happens a lot with children.
And that can be why someone would develop this type of phobia.
And so because of that,
Now going into the treatment options,
A lot of the treatment is very similar to that of people with PTSD.
I'm going to check my notes to make sure I don't forget anything.
But one that they recommend a lot is EMDR.
And for many of you who maybe don't know what EMDR is,
It is a reprocessing type of therapy,
Where it helps our brain heal from the trauma that it had in the past.
And so they use either buzzers in our hands where it goes from left to right,
Or we follow a light, we follow a finger.
And it helps our brain kind of heal from the past trauma.
The other that they offer and recommend is CBT.
And obviously this has the best track record,
Because it's something that's been studied the most.
And it's been around the longest.
And I will put a link to my CBT video here if you want to watch it,
If you want to know more about CBT.
But it causes us to challenge our own fears.
And changing the falsely held beliefs that we have about vomiting and becoming sick.
That maybe something bad might happen to us.
Or something is going to happen.
Or if we have any gassiness and anything going on in our GI tract,
It's bad and we can't leave the house.
CBT helps you challenge those beliefs.
Step outside the box.
Try slowly desensitising yourself so that you are able to better participate in life.
And not feel so trapped.
And so I hope this helps you better understand what Emetophobia is.
Why it might be there for you.
What you can do to help overcome it.
Because just like everything that I talk about,
The sooner we get help,
The sooner we reach out,
The better.
There are a lot of treatment options available.
A lot of people out there to help.
So please reach out and start talking about it.
And if you yourself have information and experience with this,
Let us know below.
And if you liked this, give it a thumbs up.
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Because I put out videos all of the time and you don't want to miss them.
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I'm everywhere.
Where everyone will find me.
I'll see you next time.
So like I said, today I'm going to talk about Emetophobia.
And I actually don't even know if that's exactly how you're supposed to pronounce it.
But that's how it is in my head.
How it looks on paper. So.