Podcast : I Shaved My Head and Survived on 500 Calories Because of Emetophobia: But it Didn't Win!

Once discovering that she wasn’t alone, Melina began her journey to becoming emetophobia-free, and has never been happier!

Melina’s diagnosis struggles

After her Arfid diagnosis, Melina hoped for a better future. However, in reality, it all just became worse. As a result of several medical interventions, Melina began struggling with body dysmorphia. From here, OCD, obsession and an incredible amount of unhelpful thinking began taking over Melina’s life. Melina would avoid eating out, socialising, and consuming more than a tiny amount of food per day. Melina touches upon a number of catastrophic events from this period of her life. In her own words, ‘emetophobia made me do some crazy things!’ At one stage she even shaved her own head due to her fear.

Discovering the programme

Melina initially found the programme in 2022, and completed it independently. Despite understanding what was happening, she maintained her unhelpful thinking, and ultimately her emetophobia. Melina recognised some partial improvements, but knew that she needed some support to fully overcome it! As a result of being brave and trying again, Melina pushed through, found Coach Lauren, and overcame her emetophobia completely!

Overcoming emetophobia

Melina, now emetophobia-free, maintains her habits of completing the actions from the programme, which are enabling her to Thrive even further into the future! She has transformed her thinking completely, recognises her unhelpful beliefs, and is in full control of her eating. Melina now lives present in the moment, enjoys life, feels powerful and most importantly, is kind to herself!

Rather than being her own critic, Melina is now her biggest cheerleader. She overcame her emetophobia, and decided to take back control of her life..the rest as they say is history!

This week's podcast featured discussion with Michelle Johnson, Lauren Singer and ex-emetophobe Melina.