Emetophobia ruined Rhi’s life until she found The Thrive Programme and learnt how to conquer emetophobia

Rhi, aged 27, developed emetophobia in childhood and her early memories were dominated by an immense fear of being sick. As a young child she was taken to child therapists in an effort to help her conquer emetophobia. This didn’t work – in Rhi’s words, she was too young to understand what was going on.

Aged 9, Rhi’s parents divorced and one night when she was due to be with her Dad, her fear of sickness was so bad that she walked the seven miles back to her Mum’s house, all alone.

As a teenager Rhi’s continued to be ruled by her fear, especially when friends started having parties and drinking alcohol, when Rhi would make any excuse not to attend and certainly not to help friends if they were sick. Rhi had a secret phobia and kept her fears and anxieties to herself.

Rhi was really secretive about the extent to which it was ruling her life. Social anxiety was also a huge problem and she had very low self-esteem.

University beckoned, but emetophobia changed Rhis’ plans: the prospect of shared facilities in Halls was inconceivable, and Rhi deferred her place on a course for a whole year, eventually attending only because her husband agreed to live in a flat with her to provide constant reassurance and support.

Anti-anxiety medication (Citalopram) and exposure therapy was Rhi’s next option and for a while Rhi felt optimistic that she could get more control of her phobia. However, this had only marginal benefit: Rhi’s life was interrupted by anxiety and panic attacks, safety-seeking and avoidance behaviours including refusal to go to restaurants.

Stomach bugs terrified Rhi and she would wash her hands until they were red-raw. Hypnotherapy, sedatives, medication, CBT, counseling…. Rhi had tried it all and she thought that her life was always going to be this bad.

Getting pregnant led to Rhi hitting rock-bottom: she isolated herself from friends during her pregnancy and likened the terror she experienced from her phobia to the fear of being chased by someone with a knife. She was self-critical and horrible to herself for the way Emetophobia made her behave.

Then, a friend introduced Rhi to The Thrive Programme. Within the first hour of watching a video on the website, Rhi learnt more about herself than she had in years, which led to Rhi changing her life more than she ever felt possible.

Rhi conquers her Emetophobia. Today Rhi is 100% free of Emetophobia. She feels ‘fantastic’ and lives a full and busy life. No more medication, hand-gel, avoiding social situations or alcohol. The sight of vomit doesn’t even make her flinch, and she can enjoy social situations (including drinking alcohol) with pleasure. This has been a huge turnaround from a very limited, difficult life, proving how predictable it is to be able to conquer emetophobia if you follow all the steps in the Cure Your Emetophobia and Thrive Workbook

In two weeks, Rhi was able to come off her anxiety medication and today she and her family live a full and busy life, all thanks to the Cure Your Emetophobia and Thrive Programme

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 Coaches.

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.

Many sufferers of severe emetophobia have unsuccessfully tried a range of treatments, such as CBT, exposure therapy, CRT. 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.”