u/Ok-Concert-2246

Please be careful about The Thrive Programme

it made my emetophobia so much worse, genuinely i was doing alr before i began reading it, its a lot of victim-blaming, how its your fault (which isnt automatically true, its the brains response to trauma), and constantly reading about it makes it worse I think.

Seen a few people speak about this on TikTok, just sharing.

In a debate with a 5"7 friend who claims that height is all "genetical" (possibly referencing genetical limit..), he began going gym 13-14, I didn't go gym at all, only now I go gym because its worth the drawbacks, and I am 5"11 anyways now.

I have told him, him stressing his body from like 13 obviously impacted this, but he refuses to believe and says its all genetical.

Any evidence to suggest otherwise?

The Ugly Duckling child book is literally just looksmaxxing lmao theres no moral of the story or message.

I have a nephew on the way and I will make it my goal to read The Ugly Duckling to him at least once in depth.

In case anyone hasnt read it. The story goes: Mother Duck has 5 eggs, one egg is different its like grey. All the eggs hatch but this one egg as its different and when it does hatch its this ugly grey duckling, meanwhile the other ducklings are beautiful yellow.

The ugly duckling is bullied for ages and ultimately kicked out of their duck group, and he sits alone by the pond near the swans. He wishes to be a swan.

Then he looks down at the reflection of the pond and realises he is a swan, then goes and swims with the swans happily ever after.

Its literally just blackpill fuel.

Is fapping / masturbating that bad? I mean as long as it's not prolonged sessions, or to pornography it cant be bad.

I am trying to quit, and I am thinking of cutting pornography completely, but still fapping here and there when my body asks to, but quickly, and not to any fantasy in my mind or anything just feeling the sensations if that makes sense. To like nothing.

Otherwise it will just release semen during wet dreams no?

I know Goatis and a few others claim jogging or long distancenrunning is extremely bad for your development due to the amount of unneccessary cortisol it creates.

And I believe it, I know someone who does running my age and he is 5'4, extremely underdeveloped and looks prepubescent.

But why does running cause this if it does.

I don't write on forums or anything like this often, I forgot these types of things exist. The fact some people reading this will spent time out of their valuable day to reply is insane to me, im so greatful for it.

Anyways to the point.

I know this is a vent, but I kinda want to keep it short, I dont expect anyone to read a whole novel about my experiences with mild-emetophobia like symptoms and constant nausea, especially as theres no upside to this.

I have struggled with nausea, and a mild form of emetophobia (fear of vomiting / seeing vomit) for 7 months now and I don't see how this can ever resolve. I won't go into massive detail as to how it all began, but I've only come to terms within the last month that this isn't actually a physical illness like gastritis, or anything else, it's psycholigcal, and anxiety. It could be functional dyspepsia but I dont want to self-diagnose.

I went to the doctors 6 months ago and they said it was nausea, its nothing and to do a H Pylori test (cause of gastritis), just incase. I did it and camr back negative. My symptoms ceased but returned 1 month later, worse this time. The nausea was so random and onset, i was having mental breakdowns over it, panick attacks. So I went to the dovtor again and they said it could be gastritis, I did omeprazole for 2 weeks, then it returned so again for a month.

I figured out it was mainly a mental game when it returned in december, as I realised that it seemed to return when mentioned, so I was speaking to my brother about it all on christmas day, then 26th dec it came back, and again april 2nd i was speaking about it to my friend and it returned after a month break the next day in form of almost vomiting in town due to this sudden acid rerlix attack that felt like vomiting.

I've done countless tests, nothing has ever flagged / came back. Blood tests, ultrasound abdomen, h pylori test, dosages of omeprazole. It wasnt until April when Ive came to grips with the fact I am genuinely afraid of vomiting now. I still havent vomited since august despite this all, but whenever I feel nauseous my heart races, I feel like I have food poisoning, I stress whether I will vomit.

I don't know what the next protocol with the doctors is but my life feels like hell. Genuinely, this is the worst thing to ever happen to me and I am 17.

It might not sound that bad because Im not going into detail of every single time ive felt nauseous, as this message would probably exceed the character limit, and I already feel like this is a lot to read so I apologise.

Has anyone had anything similar like emetophobia type anxiety? Like I see no light at the end of the tunnel, this genuienly feels so constant and permanent. I can escape this nightmare for a month then it seems to come back.

I have all these big goals, going to the gym, starting to make money online, and I cant achieve a single one with this going on. I can barely workout / go to the gym, I had to force down food this lunch despite feeling nauseous to the point of tears

And if this helps, I am male. As a man, its harder to find help and reach out, despite all these campaigns for mens mental health. My family don't understand despite me explaining countless times, Im too afraid to tell my friends in fear of judgement. I have no one to support me, I am all by myself battling this all.

Heres how, 2 weeks ago I was spiraling all the time, in bed nauseous worried if I turn over I will throw up etc. I didn't use any books or programs, I did this all by myself and I just want to say it here.

I know how bad it is, I only had it for like 9 months luckily and it was that bad. I'm not completely free of course, but I get on with my day like usual, random reminders make me think of it, eg its approaching summer and I threw up last summer, what happens If I throw up again.. etc etc.

But I dismiss it, as I survived 8 summers before that one thing, and it was just a bad case of food poisoning.

Okay heres how I did it:

In my experience, emetophobia is a neural pathway. Your brain overtime has learnt vomiting is bad we must avoid at all costs. It's built this overtime.

So you need to weaken it, starve it and eventually your brain will forget that pathway. If you've ever gone like a month without emetophpbia and then its came back due to speaking about it or reminding yourself of it, thats why, youve resparked that pathway

It's gonna sound very cliche

But you need to stop seeking reassurance, whether its zofran, whatever it may be, googling symptoms, chatgpt symptoms whatever. However, when you are nauseous don't take your mind off it and distract yourself. I did this 3 monthd ago, it doesn't fix the root issue its putting a bandage over a broken arm.

When you are nauseous, you simply sit with it, breath in through your nose, out through your mouth, and tell yourdelf "it's okay, this is all anxiety-nausea, it can not harm me"

I know again it sounds cliche and you won't be able to assert your powers like a monk suddenly and just become enlightened. The point is to slowly stop, so when you feel nauseous you might shake, heartbeat etc, but as long as you dont physically begin running for medication, a bowl etc. You just need to try and stay as calm as possible in that moment, and overtime it'll become easier and easier and easier.

In my case now (2 weeks), when I am nauseous, my heart drops a bit, thoughts begin to spiral (you cant control that part, you just dont react to them, dont argue with them like "no i wont throw up!" and dont agree obviously, just dont react to them dont feed them, starve them.) but I simply just say "thats weird, im probably just hungry". The thoughts feel less heavy overtime if that makes sense, yes they are there but its like background noise now. And in like 10 minutes the nausea is usually gone, or sometimes it's because I am genuinely hungry, and if thats the case give it 10m and you will feel to avtually begin hungry not nauseous.

Yesterday, in the car my sister was saying she was gonna be sick (she never was), and i thought, "ohhh fuck, please not right now", and then i stopped thinking about it from there kinda. Its hard to explain its like a normal thought, it appears in your mind for 3 seconds then disappears.

Again, this is all my experience but it seems to work.

And a big part of it, continue normal life. Don't let these thoughts change your trajectory, if you are constnatly by yourself in silence of course they will appear more. For me, it was going back to gym, dieting again, eating these foods which once I said was sure to make me sick or I had bad relations with in the past.

You need to just weaken that pathway. I am writing this out of my will I am not trying to sell anything.

Unfortunately I probably wont respond much, as i am only 2 weeks free I don't want to remind myself of anything like this, I feel this was neccessary for everyone elses benefit, but the pathway is still there for me.

You guys can recover and live free, its possible if you really don't want to live the way you are now, it is just difficult