Living with Emetophobia

Emetophobia is a word that most won’t recognise. Like a lot of phobias, the term isn’t really within the bounds of popular usage. There are too many phobias for any of us to possibly remember every single one. Quite simply, there’s a phobia for everything, and only a few any of us will recognise the names of — claustrophobia, or arachnophobia, for instance.

Emetophobia is the phobia of vomit, to put it simply. For some emetophobes, that revolves around committing the act. For others, it’s seeing or hearing the act, whether in real life or on television. For many, and for me, it’s all of the above.

Let’s be real — nobody would expect the general public to recognise emetophobia, as obscure as it is, more than any other. And it’s not just the masses that leave emetophobia unacknowledged. Quite often, it can even go unrecognised in emetophobes themselves — not because it isn’t severe or debilitating enough — but because, outside of certain circles, nothing is known about emetophobia. I hadn’t even heard of the word until I was 18, and I’ve been living with the condition my entire life.

Not realising you have emetophobia is an easy and slippery slope that I know many have slid down, including myself. Part of it comes down to that old sentiment that, as a species, we simply don’t like being ill, that it’s natural to dread it. After all, nobody in their right mind likes dealing with vomit in any capacity. To quote a man who found me cowering at a university flat party after someone had done the deed in front of me, ‘nobody likes sick.’ Obvious, right? It surely doesn’t warrant its own phobia if so.

But it’s not obvious. There’s this attitude that just because something isn’t particularly nice to deal with means that a phobia of that thing is somehow cancelled out. And sure, I can concede that nobody likes dealing with vomit, just as nobody likes dealing with spiders, even though many will deal with either of these things despite the inconvenience. But therein lies the difference between phobics and non-phobics. Those who tut and deal with the problem anyway, whatever it is, may not enjoy it, but that’s all it is — an inconvenience, quickly forgotten.

For the emetophobe, it’s not just an inconvenience, and it’s certainly not quickly forgotten. The NHS website describes some symptoms of phobia, among others, as, ‘increased heart rate…shortness of breath…trembling or shaking’, all of which I’ve happened to experience in relation to my emetophobia. In fact, just thinking about the source of any phobia can bring on these symptoms, often leading to panic attacks. And perhaps the most profound aspect of any phobia? If severe enough, you may make changes in your life in order to avoid coming into contact with triggers.

I’ve made a number of changes to my life over the years because of my emetophobia — things that I wouldn’t necessarily have changed without it. I avoid most meats as much as possible. I check every bite of meat before I eat it if someone’s cooked for me, even if that particular someone has cooked for me before, and I’ll only trust family members to cook meat for me. I refuse to buy meat dishes from any restaurants I don’t trust, and even those I do trust make me wary. I stop at two drinks. I don’t go out drinking without people I trust. I can’t look at pictures of vomit or bear to hear it. I can’t even sit down to watch a movie or TV show without checking if there are any vomit scenes beforehand.

It may sound hard to believe, but this is the reality for many people, and there are those who have it even worse than I do. Anxiety UK estimates that 1.7–3.1% of males and 6–7% of females experience emetophobia to some degree. Those numbers may not sound huge but the impact of such a phobia, even on a small population of people, cannot be understated.

I accepted, many years ago, that my emetophobia is permanent. When I was much younger, through to my teens, I didn’t have a name for what it was, but I understood that something wasn’t right in my reaction to vomit. I never thought too long and hard about it because I never had to, but it was there. It wasn’t until 2013 that I was finally forced to confront it. That year, there was a particularly bad outbreak of norovirus, otherwise known as the stomach flu. It was all over the news and on the radio. Becoming ill was suddenly a huge and entirely plausible possibility. It was a turning point. I became obsessed.

I washed my hands at every opportunity. I made sure others did too. My appetite gave way to my anxiety and I ate less. Getting too close to people was a no-no, and public toilets were, and in fact, still are, completely out of the question. I’d lie in bed worrying about waking up ill, about going to work, about what would happen to me if I did end up catching it.

The funny thing is that nothing would happen if I caught it. The world wouldn’t end, I wouldn’t die and the exposure would probably do me some good — these were the three, key things that people would frequently point out to me, and I knew they were right. That rational, logical part of me absolutely knew that I’d be fine if I ended up ill. But it didn’t matter, because phobias are completely irrational. You could give the finest argument in the world for why I shouldn’t be concerned, but I wouldn’t be able to hear you over my anxiety.

That is perhaps what best distinguishes fears from phobias — the irrationality behind it all. Of course, there’s a lot more to it, but to go back to the NHS website, it describes phobias as, ‘more pronounced than fears’, characterised by, ‘an exaggerated or unrealistic sense of danger about a situation or object.’ As an example, when you have a fear of someone breaking into your home, that’s entirely rational. Installing locks and extra security measures are rational and recommended responses to that fear. But if you find yourself lying awake in bed every night, worrying, despite all of your extra locks and CCTV cameras — that’s when you might consider it a phobia.

Now, fear, whether it’s on a phobic level or not, is always going to be valid. I’m not writing this article to downplay non-phobic fear — if someone is afraid of clowns but could stand in the same room as one, it’s still a valid fear. And phobias are far too complex to just say that anyone with a phobia of clowns would go running from the room. They might not. Like the people that suffer with them, phobias are deeply intricate things, and there are dozens of deeply personal coping mechanisms that are figured out through years of struggle. Do I go running from the room every time an unexpected vomit scene crops up in a movie? No. Am I still an emetophobe? One hundred percent.

The problem is, trying to put people into boxes does as much harm as good. I want people to acknowledge my phobia, sure, but I have to be careful of the image I put forth. I’m not a constant wreck, shaking in the corner of my room, refusing to eat and washing my hands all day. I was at one point, but I’ve got a better grip on my condition nowadays. If a vomit scene does crop up in a movie, sometimes it might appear that I’ve handled it quite well. Sometimes I have. If you work with me, you might be surprised to learn that I have something as extreme as a phobia. And of course, one emetophobe will not necessarily react to triggers the same as the next — in fact, they’re likely to differ wildly on how they handle such things.

Some emetophobes will run from the room if an unexpected vomit scene occurs in a movie. Some may not elicit a reaction at all, at least to your eye. Some may even be able to deal with vomit to some capacity. If I had to, depending on the situation, I might be able to. I do work in a bar, after all. But coping mechanisms go hand in hand with phobias — if someone doesn’t seem to flinch at what you might assume is a trigger, it doesn’t mean they’re not phobic. It means that after years and years of living with that phobia, of knowing it inside and out, they’ve figured out how best to deal with it. Sometimes that means running from the room. Sometimes it means a quiet moment to be calm. Sometimes, it means doing both.

So, why am I writing this article? Part of it simply comes down to wanting to share my story. There’s nothing more refreshing than opening up, particularly about something that, nine times out of ten, I keep to myself. Many of those closest to me don’t know the extent of my phobia — some might not even know I have one, and that’s okay. A lot of the time I choose not to talk about it, both for my own sake, and because, most of the time, I doubt people will truly understand.

The other part of it is exactly that. I want people to understand this condition. To know that so many suffer from it when it’s barely even acknowledged in wider circles isn’t just alarming, it’s damaging. Many emetophobes are completely unaware of the disorders they have because of society’s ignorance surrounding phobias, and because of this harmful idea that phobias are rare, obvious conditions. They’re often neither of those things. They’re more common than we might like to think, and less obvious than we might like to believe.

In a world where mental health is becoming more and more talked about, it’s vital that our conversations include all kinds of mental health. There are none more or less important than any other — only those with more or less of the spotlight. With this article, I’m hoping more of that spotlight can shine on one of the most forgotten mental illnesses.