After 20 years of suffering in silence, Emma has completely overcome her phobia of being sick and is living in paradise!

After 20 years of suffering, Emma is completely over her phobia of being sick (emetophobia). She had suffered with severe emetophobia in silence for 20 years - missing out on lots of great experiences, such as going to parties with friends, and had to quit jobs she loved because she couldn't cope with everyday life.

As with all emetophobia sufferers, Emma was terrified of encountering vomit or sick, to the point where she avoided social occasions in case someone was ill. This is often the case for people with a phobia of being sick - they are embarrassed about their condition and don't want to share their reasons for not wanting to attend social occasions or eating certain foods. Like Emma, they'd make excuses, and she often lost friends because of this.

Her life was unfulfilled and she didn't drink alcohol for eight years, in case it made her ill.

But then Emma found Cure Your Emetophobia and Thrive and changed her life. Over a few weeks of working through the programme, she regained control of her emotions and began to conquer her fears. It worked when other therapies and treatments had failed.

Whilst completing the programme, Emma took her first holiday in years to Fuerteventura and finished the programme whilst there. Deciding to change her life dramatically thanks to her new positive outlook, Emma decided to STAY there for good and now lives in paradise with no phobias or anxieties holding her back!

After completely overcoming her phobia of being sick, Emma decided to train as a Thrive Programme Coach, so that she could help other people to conquer their fears and anxieties, and learn to thrive.  View Emma's blog to see her amazing journey overcoming her phobia of being sick.

Emma is now a fully qualified Thrive Programme Coach ®, and is helping people all over the world learn to thrive!

"I am an ex-emetephobe. I suffered badly with emetophobiaor nearly 20 years until I went through The Thrive Programme myself. Almost 2 years ago.

This came as a big surprise to me, from daily panic attacks and to scared to leave my mothers house, endless unhelpful coping techniques, not drinking alcohol, not able to hold down a job or a boyfriend (more on my emetophobia in my videos on YouTube) to traveling and living abroad living some of my dreams with my 2 dogs and a cat without a worry. Some things I thought were never ever possible for me, I had totally given up any hope.

After 20 years of suffering, Emma beats Vomit Phobia.

"(Honestly) I didn’t actually believe in The Thrive Programme (probably i should not say this, but I didn’t) I had tried hypnotherapy, counseling, medication, exposure therapy and some other tactics. Nothing helped me at all, not saying that they will not work for anyone, but for me personally I just got worse and worse to the point of giving up. I was wasting time one day on facebook when an ad for the Thrive book came up. (probably because my most searched words were anxiety, emetophobia, how to stop being sick etc) The internet seems to be clever like that linking stuff that you might actually want! Almost i couldn’t be bothered to try, or to waste any more money  trying to cure it. So why would a new program work? After checking the reviews and reading about it for hours and hours (remember i had nothing to do as i was to scared to leave the house at the point, particularly because it was winter and the bug was around) The reviews were good so i decided to give it a go…. why not?? This was the thing, I didn’t even have to expect it to work, all i had to do was participate and give it my best efforts. So I did, I  only gave little effort at the beginning but I did start to improve and everything that was written down seemed as if it was written just for me, which got me interested and hooked, even though still not believing at that point it could help. But after some time it did work and it worked far far far better than I ever imagined…. which is why I am here now, having decided to train to become a thrive consultant so that I can help others with a problem which is so personal to me. I want to share my story and offer faith that it really is possible to overcome mental health problems and live out your dreams.

I now currently live in Fuerteventura and have a part time job as a dancer in stage shows, which is something I always wanted to do but the phobia completely stopped me. For fear of getting sick on stage or being near people with germs, over exercising, you name it I linked everything to do with being sick and it held me back from everything."

What is emetophobia?

Emetophobia, the fear of vomiting, is widespread; it is one of the most common phobias for which people consult The Thrive Programme's licensed consultants. Research into emetophobia has suggested that prevalence of a fear of being sick ranges from 0.1 to 8.8% percent of the population (Hout & Bouman, 2011).

These different figures probably depend upon whether the researchers assessed participants for any sort of ‘fear’ of vomiting or solely focused upon a severe ‘phobia’. These prevalence figures suggest that somewhere between around 63,000 and 5.5 million people in the UK suffer from emetophobia.

Emetophobia is known by many names (emetophobia, specific phobia of vomiting (SPOV), vomit phobia, sickness phobia, fear of vomiting…) and is associated with other fears and disorders, such as phagophobia (a fear of gagging, swallowing or choking), a fear of pregnancy, social anxiety and obsessional disorders. People can fear vomiting themselves and/or others vomiting. Most individuals with emetophobia are female, with research studies revealing that 85-97% of their emetophobic participants are women (Hout & Bouman, 2011; Lipsitz et al., 2001; Veale & Lambrou, 2006).

Emetophobia tends to be a severe symptom and often significantly affects sufferers’ ability to lead normal lives. People with this fear often go to great lengths to avoid encountering anything that could lead to vomiting. They may, for example, be teetotal or heavily limit their alcohol consumption and avoid pubs or clubs where others may drink heavily and then vomit. They may worry a great deal about hygiene, and be fussy about making sure everywhere is clean. They may take excessive time off work or school because they worry about being exposed to germs that will cause them to be sick.

It is also common for emetophobes to be very careful about food preparation, taking excessive care to check use by dates and to ensure that food is cooked properly. Many sufferers avoid dining out or eating food that has been prepared by others. Tocophobia, the fear or phobia of being or becoming pregnant, is another common problem for emetophobia sufferers, mainly to the worries about the morning sickness. As a result, many avoid becoming pregnant or terminate a pregnancy. Those who do have children can become consumed by worry about them being ill. They may feel completely unable to look after their children when they are unwell.

Many sufferers of emetophobia have unsuccessfully tried a range of treatments Veale and Lambrou (2006), for example, found that twenty-nine percent of their sample of vomit phobics had received some form of therapy for their fear, which overall they rated as largely ineffective. Veale and Lambrou (2006, p. 139) have stated that “clinicians generally regard it as challenging to treat because of high drop out or a poor response to treatment.”