A recovery story
Vidya: “the best thing I’ve ever done”
She had been frightened of being sick since she was small, and did not even know the fear had a name until two years before she got rid of it.
Before
Vidya was twenty. She went to her GP, who decided she was clinically depressed and prescribed antidepressants. She tried counselling. She tried CBT. None of it touched the phobia, because none of it was aimed at what was actually producing it.
That is a common story rather than bad luck. Veale and Lambrou (2006) found 29% of the vomit phobics in their sample had had some form of therapy for the fear and rated it as largely ineffective.
What changed
On World Mental Health Day a friend who had just finished the programme sent her a link. Vidya bought the manual and worked through it in her own time, with six sessions alongside a licensed coach.
Within months she went to a restaurant with her fiancé, and to the cinema — two things she had not been able to do. When she feels sick now, or there is a chance of encountering vomit, she deals with it calmly instead of spiralling.
In her words
“I can’t recommend Thrive highly enough. I still can’t believe that back in October I was a completely different person. People look at me and say ‘something has really changed about you’, which is true. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”
Bella Ramsey had this too.
And came out the other side.
“It’s not controlling my life anymore.”
The BAFTA-winning actor — The Worst Witch, Game of Thrones, The Last of Us — was housebound at one point as a teenager, and took travel sickness tablets and antacids to get through a working day on set. They had tried self-help books, CBT and hypnotherapy. None of it worked.
Bella went through this programme, and describes no longer thinking about sickness, no longer being frightened of it, and no longer letting it decide what they can and can’t do. They talk about all of it, openly, in their own words.
Listen to the episode →
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