I struggle to eat because it might make me vomit! Why Emetophobia can lead to a restricted diet

Sam starts off by explaining that because she struggled to eat as a child due to the fear of vomiting, she was deemed ‘failure to thrive’. Although she had a group of safety foods she ‘could’ eat, they were not nutritionally dense enough to provide for her body.

Sam describes it as akin to a vicious cycle, where she needed food to survive, however each time she ate she was creating a lot of anxiety around it and perceiving it as a threat to herself. She worried constantly about whether the food was going to make her vomit, and consequently grazed on ‘safe’ foods that kept hunger at bay but were not enough to nourish her.

Michelle has a similar experience with food and shared that even safe foods could become quickly ‘unsafe’ if exposed to certain conditions. One example Michelle gave was when making oven chips (a food on her ‘safe’ list) there were unpleasant smells of fertiliser coming from the surrounding fields, so she had to throw them all away in case they made her sick.

Don’t use food as the barometer

Similarly to other emetophobes, Sam attempted other types of therapies to treat her condition, but it wasn’t until she did The Emetophobia-Free course that she became completely over her fear. Although improving Sam’s relationship with food and her nutritional wellness was an important goal, both Michelle and Sam advocate for not using food as a barometer with regard to the Emetophobia-Free journey, instead using feeling calmer, more relaxed, less anxiety and the processing of these emotions as the barometer of success within the programme.

Accepting that if you are feeling overall less stressed, more relaxed and less anxious, then the food comes later. It’s great to have specific foods as goals, to be eaten, however the overall success of the programme actually relies on a generalised understanding of the thought patterns before, during and after eating. Sam knows she’s ‘over it’ now because she loves food, she goes out for meals, and most importantly she enjoys talking about food and accepts that it was never about the food in the first place — it was about how she was thinking about it.

Now Sam eats the food she craves EVEN THOUGH she knows she’s likely to have digestive repercussions the next day, because she craves it, enjoys it and knows she can cope, whatever the outcome.

This episode featured discussion between Michelle Johnson and Samantha Marker.