No prizes for winning - just the right to continue with normal life.
Emetophobia (fear of vomiting, and vomit) is actually one of the ten most common phobias, but most sufferers never really speak out about having it. After all, it's a pretty silly thing to have an extreme fear of, right? Having no idea that having a 'phobia' means something quite different to a simple 'fear of' something, most people will promptly offer up a response along the lines of "yeah, I hate it too, it's the worst" or "you just need to do it a few times and you'll realise it's not so bad". Neither of which is any help whatsoever to a person with emetophobia.
I can't remember exactly when I realised that I had it, but my mum reports that my reaction to being sick was over the top even when I was a tiny little kid. I would freak out if I was sick, if anyone was sick, if anyone felt sick, if anyone said the word 'sick' in conversation, or even if someone had left a bucket in an unexpected place. Not kidding. By the time I started high school, my anxiety about vomiting was so ridiculous that it became pretty much a full time job trying to both manage it, and hide it. Try explaining why you suddenly stood up and bolted out of class because somebody in the back row belched...
I'll never forget the first time I actually persevered in making someone understand exactly how afraid I was of vomit. I was 18. It felt like a massive weight totally lifted off my mind, I felt free. I still deal with the phobia, but not having to pretend makes the biggest difference. Now it's the running joke, oh Meg doesn't do puke, she freaks out, hey Meg watch this! *fake vomit* And I like it that way. Because when it's a joke, then it's not a big horrible secret, and I don't feel too weird, even if I am. It makes me weird, because it touches pretty much every corner of my life.
I once had this vision of myself, the way I could be. I mean, I always have visions of what life would be like without my phobia, but this time, it was the opposite. In my vision, I was at home, scared to leave my room, unable to see or talk to people in case I caught something spewy off them. Someone who didn't have a job and ate only prepackaged preservative packed foods - bland and tasteless. Someone who didn't have a partner, because that would mean kissing (kissing = mouth = germs), and someone who definitely didn't have kids, because kids means cleaning up vomit and comforting when sick and the constant threat of waking in the night to the sound of a tiny person retching. The vision scared me, and it made me realise that if I didn't force myself out of my comfort zone, make myself do things that were hard and scary and would probably lead to some sort of vomit exposure, that I was heading for a very sad place.
So now, every day, in a million little things, I have to face it and decided not to run like a girl and hide under the covers. The choice to drink the milk on its use by date, instead of tossing it for fear of food poisoning. The choice to kiss my kids and let them run their tiny fingers over my face, and risk picking up some horrible virus they could be harboring. The choice to sit in a chair that is near the exit (and hence placing myself in the path of any running-outside-about-to-vomit folks). Little things that 'normal' people don't even have to decide on.
It's tiring, and sometimes I do choose the covers and the running and the crying about how hard it is, but mostly, I'm putting up a darn good fight. Sometimes I even feel like I'm winning. Like last night, when I spent the evening cuddling up to my sick boy instead of calling Dave to come rescue me. I felt like a normal mama. And that is why, I'm proud to say, I didn't post on my blog last night. Go, me. :) M xx
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