r/emetophobiarecovery

hi! i have been searching about this all week non stop. Ever since i found out people with emetophobia also commonly have ocd I’ve thought I might have it but I don’t have any way to prove it.

in late 2021-2022 i never left my house because i thought it would make me sick. in 2021 i would never eat to the point it led me to faint. I slept in my parents room for 4 years because i needed to be near my mum incase i felt nauseous and in 2020 id go days without brushing my teeth sometimes because I thought this would make me sick. I also search up if a movie im going to watch has someone being sick in it + I rip chicken/meat open to make sure it’s cooked

it has taken over every aspect of my life, for example im homeschooled and 6 years later i cant go further than 60 minutes from my house unless its for a concert for one of my favourite artists (ive been to about 9 but i always cry the night before and think about selling the ticket because i think if i go ill be sick)

I really think it could be ocd but i dont know because i dont wash my hands 24/7, i dont carry gum in my bag incase, i dont count I feel like i dont do any of the normal things people with ocd & emetophobia to to try prevent it

i would really appreciate it anyone has experienced this too or what it could be :)

Maybe? We don't know

I think I'm starting to handle all the uncertainty better, I started watching podcast of momming with emetophobia and it seriously started to shift my focus.

But anyway

4 days ago I, probably? brought some stomach bug. I have ibs and I've eaten 3 foods that could theoretically cause me a lot of diarrhea so it wasn't that stressful. I also felt quite bad the day before (cold often) but because I have GAD I can, like, feel bad because of everything and can manifest symptoms if I focus on them too much. Felt weak the next day and now I'm in clear

BUT

Now my boyfriend has diarrhea. Kinda worse than me (I take a lot of supplements for intestines though). The current theory is that either he got food poisoning from something or that I brought some bug.

BUT WE MADE OUT YESTERDAY AND THE UNCERTAINTY OF ALL OF IT I HATE IT.

will I be sick? Is this noro? Is this some random ass (haha) stomach bug? We have a flight this Friday we have to be healthy as fuck ( I know I know it's like a whole week, we will probably be fine) I hope that it won't turn into vomiting.

BUT

I'm not spiraling, I'm not stressing the fuck out weirdly?

Like, I don't like this situation VERY much (mainly because of kissing a lot the day before ahaha). I'm trying to focus on reality and not on predicting the future. I am kinda paralyzed rn so after writing this post I need to start doing anything because rumination will turn into stressing the f out.

Either way, I'm counting the not spiraling as a win. I need to stop helicoptering him and asking how he feels every 30 minutes just to make myself feel good, so that is the next step.

DAE have frequent nightmares of people throwing up or just in normal dreams??

A few days ago I started a new birth control that will hopefully help my endometriosis and painful ovulation issues, but have to get through an adjustment period first. First few days went pretty well, but yesterday was tough. Lots of diarrhea, sometimes liquid, nausea, stomach burning, feeling super hungry but then feeling sick every time I ate, etc. Stomach felt so tight and just bad. Last night it was coming time to take my next dose of birth control and I knew I needed to eat a little something. I took a bite of a pb and j and the smell/taste hit really weird and I felt a surge of nausea. I walked around for a bit and went into the pantry and looked at a bottle of zofran. Realllllly looked at it. Instead of grabbing it, I grabbed an emesis bag and walked around for a bit, focusing on my breathing and sipping water. Eventually things settled a bit and I was able to eat some plain rice with some milk and took my next dose. While I haven't thrown up in a long time and still am not even sure what it will feel like or how to actually know its gonna happen, grabbing an emesis bag and trying to work through the situation myself instead of taking zofran is something I'm proud of.

My little family and I have been struck with the mother of weeks. Started off with me having tonsillitis and requiring IV steroids and antibiotics. Then my kiddo got HFM baaaad. Then my husband came down noro. And finally our dog got bitten and required antibiotics. 🥴

I’d been cleaning like crazy and solo parenting our toddler while my husband isolated Friday through Tuesday but somehow it just wasn’t enough. Exactly a week after he started with it, I caught it. I’ve been dealing with it all day from the second I got up this morning and just tried not to think to much about the possibility of throwing up. I woke up from a cat nap at around 5pm with a mouth full of saliva and about ten seconds to make it to the bathroom. Called my husband up to sit with me and my body just took over.

It’s not happened to me since I was 12/13… and I can’t believe how not a big deal it was. I want to commit this feeling to memory. I’m so freaking proud of myself!! And, sure, I’d love this to be the end of it now so I can get back to being a mama, but I know I’ll be fine if it happens again!

2 days ago my friend threw up then after that at night we went to the gym together cause she said she felt better, yesterday nothing happened to her she was fine we went out together and we drunk from the same cup, today morning she said she threw up , we were supposed to go out with my other friend but she stayed home since shes sick and now me and my other friend are out.. im trying not to panic since im gonna be out the whole day im scared

This is post panic and unfortunately post coping mechanisms.

I decided tonight I wanted to go get a few drinks from the gas station. Contemplated going for a bit and contemplated on which one to go to. Finally decided and made my way there.

I grab my drinks, get to the counter, the cashier asks for my id, rings me up, gives me my change, and then immediately bends to the side and starts vomiting.

I froze. Chills immediately went through my body as soon as many thoughts ran through my mind all trying to figure out if thats what was actually happening or not. It definitely was! He gets back up, apologizes to the guy in line behind me since he was next, then bends over again to continue vomiting. The guy behind me chuckles a little and asks if hes okay. I get the fuck out of there. Sorry kid.

I get to my car and am already trying not to touch anything. I grab my clorox wipes and wipe off my hands and my keys and am texting my friends for support. I sit for about 2 minutes before driving home. When I get home I break down, like hysterical crying. I get inside and immediately wash my hands and go up to my room and change my clothes. Tossed them inside out to the side and went back downstairs. I left everything in my car and asked my dad to get it out of my car for me as my mom is hugging me. I go into the kitchen and dig for lysol wipes to clean my phone and my vape. I also sprayed them with rubbing alcohol all while crying and just telling my mom it wont work anyway because there isnt bleach in them to kill whatever.

I tell her I wasted $20 on drinks and she gives me $20 :( (love her more than anything) and says my sibling will drink them. Because unfortunately I don’t think I will be able to drink them. I don’t even know if I can hit my vape right now which succkkkkkssss.

Realistically I think this guy was probably fucked up on something and it it most likely nothing viral because he was acting a bit weird. Its still hard to rationalize this though and not worry as I have never been this close to an exposure as in I’ve never interacted with the person providing the vomiting exposure lol.

Once again, another mental countdown I don’t want to have. :/

TW: Possibly triggering terms!

Rn im still at the place it happened 😔

So basically i was at church just chilling on the bench, untill a mother got in with her kid coughing like mad. I was like oh shi but then it was fine. While the mom and her kid were walking on the hallway (in the middle of the benches in the church) the kid just got puked on the floor 😭😭 you could hear everyone whispering shocked and disgusted terms. I didn't freak out. I stayed in my seat, thinking kids are kids.

They cleaned it up, but the smell gotta be the worst part 🫩 its still lingering in the air rn i wished they opened a window.

So rn im still in my seat. Freaking a bit inside. Texted my friend and my brother, but im still getting anxious. What am i going to do when i get home? I have the big urge to just go feral and disinfect everything, but that would just reninforce my fear. Im thinking about how people had to deal with worse smells, so that some putrid smell isn't the worse. I don't want to feed my fear at all, because there is no reason to be scared, but idk what to do??

I also want to say that sometimes exposure is not gonna be fun, but that it could be part of recovery and no matter what, as long as youre not dying, youre safe.

I got emetophobia from eating raw oysters (norovirus) in 2025 March. My life and mental health went downhill from there. I became afraid to eat, drink water, constantly washing my hands, sanitizing everything, scared to go anywhere, always wondering if someone had a bug. I became a walking skeleton, lost all my weight. Constantly nauseous, panic attacks, IBS, constantly googling for validation.

Today I ate a cake that I got from food charity (expired discarded grocery store food). I noticed the cake was 5 days old. I was halfway through when I noticed the label said "use by" instead of "best before". But it tasted so good, I finished it. I'm gonna finish the rest later. Am I scared I'll get sick? Not really, because it doesn't taste off and that's good enough for me.

I get lots of free expired food from the charity and I always eat the fruit, cakes, dairy etc. I'm still iffy about eating the eggs and meat but that can also be common sense. I'm able to eat raw sushi again, raw dairy and cured meat products. I will not be eating raw oysters in a while though lol.

I'm not afraid of vomiting anymore and I rarely get nausea. I still don't want to get norovirus ever again, but it's not something I constantly think about anymore. Those who've had it know the relentless vomiting is not fun. I'm also 8 months pregnant, went through the pregnancy nausea and have previously vomited in labor, which was not a big deal at all.

I don't come to this sub anymore at all, I came back here today to give you guys hope that it's possible to recover. I did some therapy but I think in the end time and getting desensitized to risk foods and risk behaviours helped the most, aka exposure therapy. 2025 was horrible for me. I spent the whole year worrying I was going to throw up after the initial norovirus and I never did. At one point I asked myself, is all this suffering worth it, suffering every day for a year worrying about a potential suffering that won't even last a day? I decided to develop an attitude of "f* it" after that thought and started exposing myself.

I hope you are all having a peaceful day, most of the nausea and GI distress we feel is caused by our anxiety, I literally developed IBS from emetophobia which resolved as the emetophobia resolved. Take care<3

I've been actively trying to recover from my emetophobia for years (in therapy, medication, exposure therapy etc) but i was wondering if anyone has any advice to stop having flashbacks to hearing and seeing the throwing up? I am a lot better than i used to be but i witnessed someone throwing up recently and all i just see and hear it any time i stop or lay down. I've come a long way with being able to handle myself when i feel sick but i still get so overwhelmed when it's someone else. I thought by witnessing it that it would be a form of exposure but it's honestly set me back a fair bit.
TIA