Sorry! Therapy, feature article and more!

Wow, I can’t believe how long it’s been since my last post! I guess I’ll give a quick update because so much has happened in the last few months.

I moved away from my boyfriend across the country to go back to university so you could say that the past few months have been stressful! I’m so swamped with work for school, my job and extracurriculars that I pretty much have no time to relax, and I think that’s why I’ve been so terrible at updating my blog (aka not updating it all!)

In terms of my emetophobia, so much has happened lately I don’t even know where to begin! I’m a journalism student and I’m taking a feature writing class this semester. At the first class we had to come in with pitch ideas for our first feature that we would have to write. Since I had just gotten back from the summer and I had been writing this blog the whole time, I definitely had my emetophobia on my mind. I decided that it would be an interesting idea to wrote about emetophobia because I’m a pretty reputable source to truly understand the information I’m collecting, and also because I think that it’s such an unknown affliction that I think others should know about.

I’ve never been proud of my phobia (obviously) but I also don’t think I’ve been particularly ashamed of it either. What I discovered through blogging is that there are so many people out there who are so scared to reveal their phobia because they think that it’s stupid or silly. This is totally unfair. Emetophobia is pretty widespread (I discovered that it is actually the fifth most common phobia) and yet so many people have never even heard of it.

When I had to explain my idea in front of the whole class I was pretty nervous. I had no idea if my teacher or my classmates would think it would be a good story idea. I was so happy when my teacher really liked the idea and wanted to know more. my classmates started asking me questions about it, genuinely curious. They didn’t think it was stupid, or at least they didn’t show it if they did!

So I have actually written my article already and I am so proud of it. I really want to post it up here but I have actually submitted it to be published in a magazine so I don’t want to post it online until I find out that I’m allowed to do that.

Another really exciting thing that’s happened to me in the past few months is that I started seeing a therapist to try to overcome my phobia. As I mentioned before, I have seen a hypnotherapist in the past and I wanted to try to tackle my phobia head-on this time around. I want to be fully conscious and aware of what is happening and try to conquer my fears, although I know it will take a long time and a lot of money, which is definitely a huge downside.

Therapy is going really well. My therapist, Sara, has been helping me lower my general level of daily anxiety that was apparently really high. She explained to me that when my anxiety is already higher than average on a daily basis because I’m anticipating that someone might throw up at any time, when someone actually does throw up, my anxiety just goes through the roof. If I work on lowering my overall anxiety, then when someone throws up at least my anxiety will be lower to begin with and maybe won’t skyrocket.

I really find it’s helping and she’s helping me get into a positive mindset. I will elaborate more on therapy, specific incidents that have happened recently and more in further posts.

All the best

Marlee

Public Washroom

I actually had an absolutely terrifying encounter the other day. This story could trigger anxiety in other emetophobes if you are sensitive so be warned!

So now that summer is coming to an end, the time came for my parents to drive me back to the city where I go to university to move out of my old apartment and into my new one (which is absolutely stunning by the way!)

My dad’s brother and his family live where I go to school so on Saturday after we arrived and moved some stuff into the new apartment, we went to stay at their house for the night before finishing to move me in the next day. We got to my aunt and uncle’s house and decided to go out for dinner because we were starving from our 5 hour drive. I was really in the mood for Italian and my aunt knew just the place to go.

Although I was starving, I know that when I don’t eat for a while when I’m hungry my stomach kind of shrinks and I eat way less than I expect myself to, so my mom and I decided to share a salad and a main course. We got fettuccine with tomato cream sauce and smoked salmon.

My aunt wasn’t that hungry so she didn’t order a meal because she knew we all wouldn’t finish our meals and she could nibble off everyone’s plates. I was loving my pasta but even my half-portion was pretty big and I couldn’t finish it so I offered her some. She politely declined and said that she had once gotten food poisoning from that exact dish at a different restaurant and she could never eat it since then because she was so incredibly sick.

(just to let you know that bad part is coming later and has nothing to do with this!)

As soon as she mentioned the words “food poisoning” my stomach flipped and dropped. I had totally forgotten about that possibility and the prospect of getting food poisoning made me totally lose my appetite. I immediately started thinking about fish and how maybe I shouldn’t eat it just in case because food poisoning seems to be prominent in fish dishes (I also remembered that a guy at my summer job got food poisoning from fish not too long ago after a fishing trip and had to miss work).

So while all this is going on in my mind my IBS kicked in and I had to go to the washroom – I won’t give any  unnecessary details but my digestive system works pretty quickly. I was sitting on the toilet when two girls walk in; one goes to the washroom and, as usual, I look under the wall between the stalls to check the direction of her shoes. if they’re are facing forward that means she will sit on the toilet, while if they are facing the toilet, well, you know what that could mean. Luckily she sat down and started to pee.

When she flushed and walked to the sink to wash her hands, her friend, who was waiting for her by the sink mentioned something about not feeling too well. I panicked and I was so grateful when they both finally walked out the door. I was in the first stall right next to the sink so that’s how I could hear everything (and also it was a very small bathroom with only 2 or 3 stalls).

About 30 seconds after the girls left and I breathed a sigh of relief, the door to the bathroom flung open and before I could even cover my ears I hear someone throw up in the sink – I could tell it was a little kid. I of course immediately started to have a panic attack; I looked down and was confused to see only one pair of shoes on the floor – white sparkly flip flops that definitely did not belong to a kid. I realized soon enough that it was probably because a mom was holding up her kid over the sink. I shoved my fingers as far into my ears as I could as my heart was practically beating out of my chest. I was looking at the floor, waiting to see a second pair of shoes, or at least to see the flip flops make their way out of the bathroom so I would know that it was safe, but no such thing happened. I unblocked my ears for a second but I definitely shouldn’t have and heard things that increased my anxiety several times over. I waited and waited for a few minutes but I knew I couldn’t stay in there forever.

I eventually unplugged my ears again to hear a little high-pitched voice say cheerfully, “I knew I was going to puke,” and the mother responded, “you ate too fast didn’t you?”

Hearing that eased my mind a little bit because at least I knew that she most likely wasn’t going to throw up again. This was enough for me to try to run out of the bathroom as fast as I could… but I knew I would have to take my fingers out of my ears to do so. I wasn’t ready for that due to my level of anxiety, so with my fingers still in my ears I tried to rip off some toilet paper with both my elbows and quickly shoved small pieces in my ears. Thinking back this sounds absolutely ridiculous and I’m pretty embarrassed to write that I did that but may as well be as truthful as possible. Once I was decent (i.e., pants not around my ankles), I took the toiler paper out of my ears because I definitely didn’t want to be seen in public like that and ran out of the stall. A little girl in a pink shirt sat on the counter  while her mother cleaned up the mess in the sink with paper towels and water. The mother looked at me and smiled. I smiled back and felt like I should say something back but instead just ran out and back to the table where I told my mom what had happened, shaking.

My mom is so amazing when it comes to my phobia; she completely understands and never makes me feel guilty or stupid for reacting the way I do. “I can feel your heart beating through your back Marlee, Oh my god,” my mom said as she rubbed my back, trying to calm me. Yea, I know, that’s what happens. My body gets all shaky and you can see my hand shaking pretty obviously. I had run out of my Excel Polar Ice gum; my gum is my clutch when it comes to my phobia and I needed some to ease my anxiety and my nausea. Oh yea, ironic, the anxiety caused by someone else throwing up makes me nauseous, which makes me more anxious, etcetera, etcetera. It’s a vicious cycle. So basically it takes a LOT of gum and a lot of time for me to feel totally fine after an experience like that.

I just wanted to go to bed. I went back to my aunt and uncle’s house to stay the night with my parents and woke up twice in the night because I kept dreaming of people throwing up. I just can’t escape it.

New York City

I went on a trip to New York City with three of my closest friends last week for 5 days and it was a blast! Obviously staying in hotel room with three other girls can have its ups and downs (mostly ups) but for me it’s the concept gave me anxiety. Only one bathroom for all of us to share and not much space in the room means you can hear everything.

Since I am the youngest of my friends and had just turned 21 the week before, we had all planned on exploring the club-scene in NYC, although lately I don’t seem to care much for drinking and partying. I don’t remember if I had mentioned this in an earlier post but I have IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) and in the past year I have not been able to tolerate alcohol to the point of feeling extremely ill, even after two glasses of wine. This has been seriously unfortunate for me because since a very young illegal age I have loved drinking and partying but it’s just not worth it for me anymore, as much as I am tempted to drink when I’m out with friends.

So you could say that I wasn’t super excited to go out partying because: #1 I would be the only one who was sober, #2 what if one or more of my three girlfriends would drink too much and get sick in our hotel room bathroom, which is uncomfortably close to where I sleep?

I felt like such a party pooper and my underlying anxieties prevented me from just letting loose and having a great time at night – we (by we I mean they) ended up only drinking 2 out of the 4 nights, one of which we went dancing and I had a great time, although sober, and the second time we just hung out at the hotel bar and talked which was great!

I slept with my earplugs those nights and had a great sleep! No one got sick but just the possibility of something happening was enough to trigger my anxiety and it really pissed me off that I couldn’t just enjoy a vacation with my close friends without that stupid dark cloud hanging over my head.

Mowgli got neutered

So… the title to the post is pretty self-explanatory lol. Mowgli actually peed (or sprayed, I couldn’t really tell) on my clothes and pooped on the floor so Josh and I decided it was time to get him neutered. I brought him to the vet to get his medication for his cold and while I was there I asked her whether she thought he was ready to get neutered (after explaining the pooping and peeing situation, which was very out of character for him). The vet tried to explain that we should not jump to conclusions that it was behaviour-related and that he might be sick… but I know my Mowgli and he pooped about a foot away from the litter box right after Josh had left to go out of town for the week – he did it on purpose and he wanted me to see it! Don’t get me wrong I love him to death but he definitely has a strong personality!

Sorry to be graphic but his balls had gotten really big recently and we felt that he was ready to get neutered lol! OK so I’ll actually get to the point now!

Josh brought Mowgli home from the vet after he got neutered and he seemed quiet, slow and sad (yet as cute as ever of course). We had to put a cone around his head so he wouldn’t lick “that area” and I guess you could say he wasn’t a happy camper. Josh told me to monitor his food intake because his stomach would be pretty sensitive from being under anesthetic.

I still had to give him his medicine and being in his lazy state I figure it was perfect timing. I went down to the kitchen and filled his syringe with medicine. I went back upstairs where he was sleeping on the bed and I figured the less aware he is, the better since he hates taking his medicine. I didn’t want to make the same mistake as last time when I shoved the syringe too far down his wind pipe and he gagged so I just fed the medicine into his mouth slowly.

Nonetheless, Mowgli started gagging once again. I felt so terrible: picture Mowgli, missing his balls with a cone around his neck and gagging on the floor. It was so sad and I felt so badly for him – I actually felt more badly for him than I did about myself worried that he would throw up (although I was still anxious and waiting to see what would happen).

He ended up being OK, but he also started gagging later on in the night while trying to eat his food and I thought he would definitely throw up that time, but luckily he didn’t. I obvious didn’t want him sleeping on my head that night (as that is his usual spot of choice) so I set up his pillow at the end of the bed with his towel on it just in case but he just ended up on my pillow anyway.

Let me remind you that Josh was also sick last night… remember from the last post? Well it ended up that he thought he had strep throat because his throat hurt more the next day. He went to the clinic and they gave him a bunch of medication and told him he had a flu – GREAT!

Last night was a night of earplugs.

Earplugs

Just thought I’d add a little tid bit about how I’ve been wearing earplugs the last 2 nights just in case… it has eased my mind a little bit and I had a seamless night’s sleep (as opposed to when I don’t wear earplugs after a throw-up scare where I wake up at Josh’s every move in fear that he’s not feeling well).

Additionally, Josh told me that our roommate locked himself out of the house and called Josh’s cell at 1:30am to open the door and I didn’t hear a thing! Maybe I should wear earplugs every night!

Boyfriend is sick… again

Josh, who has not been sick in about 5 years, is sick again (twice in the same month). I guess getting sick that first time weakened his immune system.

Anyway, so Josh was just gone for a week to see his favourite band, Phish, who just reunited for a tour. He took a roadtrip with three of his buddies to Chicago and then met up with his uncle for another show in New York state. Let’s just say he had very little sleep, more alcohol than usual and not exactly a steady healthy diet during that week.

He got back yesterday at 1am and has said that his throat was feeling weird, like raspy because he was yelling and singing so much at the concerts. Then later on in the day he started really complaining about his throat and that he was thirsty and feeling really full from all the food we had eaten that day. He actually got home from the concerts on my birthday so we went out for a big breakfast and then in the evening we went to a movie (Josh got one of those refillable large bag of popcorn that he mostly ate to himself) and then dinner at an Italian restaurant right after the movie.

He was fine when we got home, just said he felt really full and his throat was bothering him. We eventually went to bed. At around 7:30am Josh woke up to go to the bathroom and I woke up from that. I assumed it was just to relieve some of his fullness from the night before (if you know what I mean), and I was right. I asked him a question and he responded and sounded fine so I thought he was feeling ok and just had to go to the bathroom.

He flushed, washed his hands and then came out and told me I might want to leave the room because he felt like he might have to throw up. I ran out of there like the clumsy fool I am except 100 times worse because I was already shaking and, well, I was literally just sleeping, comfy and rolled up in my bed. I am not normally anywhere near a morning person to begin with, but I popped wide awake as soon as those words came out of his mouth. I ran downstairs to the living room which is at the bottom of the stairs. I blocked my ears, but unplugged them for one second – perfect timing to hear Josh making the most horrible noises from the bathroom upstairs – I totally freaked out. I ran down to the basement which is currently unfinished and in the process of being renovated, with tools and paint cans scattered everywhere. Probably not the best place to go in my state – barefoot and blind. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that I ran out of the bedroom so fast that I didn’t even grab my glasses because they weren’t easily accessible and I had no time. I have absolutely horrible vision to the point that I cannot function in the outside world without my glasses or contact lenses. I always wear my contacts so my glasses were in its case somewhere buried in my giant purse.

I stayed in the construction-zone basement for a few more minutes, still with my fingers in my ears, and then started to go back upstairs. Josh walked downstairs to check on me a second later and he looked ridiculously pale. This is part of my phobia that I really hate – people feel bad for me when they shouldn’t, they’re the ones who are sick!

Josh told me that he didn’t actually throw up and I told him that I had heard him! He said I probably heard him coughing and said that he was just dry heaving a few times and it actually made him feel better. I told him I probably heard the heaving – what do I care if something comes out of his mouth or not! If I’m downstairs, all I know is what I hear and what I heard made me shake uncontrollably and push away his hand when he tried to touch my face while he said he was sorry. “I don’t want to get sick,” I told him. I also told him not to say he was sorry. That just makes me feel ridiculously guilty. How could he be saying sorry to me for something out of his control, especially when HE is the one who’s sick? I didn’t want to be near him even though I wished I could comfort him and cuddle him and make him feel better. But getting the stomach flu is a definite no-no for me. We had kissed a lot last night (obviously, like we do every day) and I shared my water bottle with him all day and all I could think about was how to stay away from him in case he had to throw up again and how to make sure this didn’t happen to me.

I ran into the bedroom like a madwoman and grabbed my phone, my laptop, my laptop plug, earphones and 3 Cold FX pills from the bathroom. The toilet seat was still up when I went in.

I ran towards to the door to leave asap as Josh lay on the bed. “I’m sorry,” he said. I felt so horrible. “Don’t say that,” I told him as I ran out the door. “You can leave the door open so the cat can come in and out,” he said. “No, I’m going to close it,” I told him. “In case you have to throw up again because I can hear it more from downstairs if the door is open.” I then fled downstairs. I plugged in my laptop, and plugged my earphones into my laptop so I could fill my ears with music so that no other sounds could make their way inside. I went to get a glass of water and chugged down all three pills at once. I turned on the TV and listened to music at the same time, and that’s pretty much where I’m at right now. Oh and I eventually ran back upstairs, of course checking that Josh was still in bed and not hunched over the toilet, and grabbed my glasses and a pack of gum. Gum always helps my anxiety and gives me a good taste in my mouth when I get nauseous because of paranoia.

Anyway I’ve been sitting here for almost 2 hours already and it’s still pretty early in the morning. Hopefully josh will have been dehydrated or something – anything but the stomach flu! Anything that I cannot catch and that goes away really soon! I’ll update later.

Mowgli’s medicine

My kitten Mowgli has been sneezing since we got him about 3 months ago. Besides that he acts totally fine and seems healthy but clearly there’s something going on in there because he could sneeze up to 20 times a day (it’s actually quit cute!)

Because of this we have given one medication to try. It was a white powder to put in his food. We’ve been doing this since day one but we didn’t see any difference. Then the vet told us that they often prescribe a child’s medication (yes, I do mean a human child) which josh and I joking call Cherry Monkey flavour because there is a picture of cherries and monkeys on the front of the box, Needless to say Mowgli despised it so we had to sneak it into his soft food.

Anyway, getting to the point! None of this seemed to be working so the vet gave us a third medication to feed him. It’s a small bottle of liquid that smells like cat food accompanied by a very skinny syringe to use to give it to Mowgli. I asked the vet if he had any tips for giving it to Mowgli because last time it was pretty much impossible to get the Cherry Monkey down Mowgli’s throat. He told me that I should put the syringe a bit down Mowgli’s throat when I give himt he medicine and then blow in his nostrils because that will force him to swallow.

The first two times went great! The third time is when I got over-confident and thought the quicker I do it the better it would be for the both of us – get it done as fast as possible. Well, that wasn;t the case. I shoved it down his throat as always (gently of course! I do love Mowgli and don’t want to hurt him ) Except I noticed Mowgli was acting strange afterward, he was breathing weirdly and I put him down to see what he would do. I just walked a few feet away slowly and started to gag… for about a full minute! I was so worried about him but I knew the worst thing that would happen would be that he would throw up… although that seemed pretty bad to me at the time.

I just watched him to make sure he was ok and tried to control myself from putting my fingers in my ears but eventually my anxiety and my phobia took over and I just covered them without actually making the conscious decision to do so. I then told myself, no, it’s ok, you can do this. I waited until he stopped gagging, he eventually stopped and he didn’t throw up but my anxiety levels definitely went up.

He was pretty tired after the incident and just slept for the next few hours and he seemed ok so I wasn’t too worried but still, giving him the medicine since then has been pretty difficult for me (but I have done it and am pretty proud of that!)

Boyfriend is sick

So right after I got sick, Josh obviously got sick as well (which is totally because of me!) which is also something that gives me anxiety. The reason this really bothers me, perhaps even more than when I get sick, is because I have absolutely no control over someone else. If Josh feels like throwing up, he could not tell me if he doesn’t have time to and if I hear him throwing up I WILL have an anxiety attack.

So josh just had a cold like me in the end, but he did have a fever and when i asked him if he felt like he had to throw up he would say not right now. How comforting! So I did what I always do when someone might be sick during the night in close proximity to me – I put in my earplugs. The source of my anxiety is the sound of someone vomiting so although the earplugs don’t block out 100% of the sounds around me it’s definitely somewhat of a security blanket for me.

Josh ended up never throwing up but the potentiality of it gave me anxiety for many nights until he was fully recovered.

I’m Sick

So last weekend I managed to catch some sort of bug but luckily it wasn’t a stomach virus! It’s definitely more of a bad cold, which is still pretty unpleasant to say the least, but I’m thankful nonetheless!

Josh and I went out of town to a nearby city last weekend to visit his aunt and uncle and cousins. Saturday my throat started to hurt and by Saturday night I literally couldn’t sleep because it was so bad. We drove home Sunday and after making a pitstop for some food and an egg sandwhich later I started to feel really nauseous. I was having an internal panic attack but didn’t say anything to Josh because talking about it would make it a real issue and I kept telling myself that it would go away. I kept a big water bottle in my hands, kept popping piece after piece of mint gum and did a lot of deep breathing. It eventually passed but it was pretty terrible.

Sunday night was the same as the night before and after two sleepless nights I felt even more horrible than ever (I love sleep and don’t do well with none… I’m one of those people who can sleep until noon easily). My throat felt like it was being stuck by a hundred needles, my ears hurt and I just felt a general sense of gross-ness. I took Monday off work and went to the clinic where I was prescribed Ibuprofen, Azythromycin (antibiotics) and Codeine to help me sleep.

I obviously asked both the doctor AND the pharmacist if any of these would upset my stomach or if I needed to eat anything when taking them etc… Luckily they said that it was fine to take them together and none would upset my stomach.

I have always had a low tolerance for pretty much everything, i.e. alcohol, so it was no surprise to me that the Codeine kicked in pretty much immediately and I felt a numbness and dizziness running through my body. I don’t really like the way alcohol makes me feel anymore because I hate feeling like I’m not 100% in control of my own body. I got a bit freaked out from the Codeine but as I lay in bed I just kept repeating to myself, “it doesn’t even affect the stomach. The Codeine doesn’t even go through the stomach. You’re fine. You’re tired,” until I passed out and had a very restful night’s sleep.

The next morning Josh woke up with a little sore throat but still went to work… but that’s a story for my next blog post

Amusement Park

Today I went with the kids at the summer camp to the local amusement park.

Need I say more?

I think that amusement parks are probably the scariest place for emetophobes. Potential phobia triggers can occur anywhere at any time. Think lots of sweet and greasy food plus upside-down-spinning fast rides.

Luckily I was sent with the little kids ages 5-7 so they wouldn’t really go on very many rides. I wasn’t really worried because the rides they could go on didn’t seem to have any potential risk.

The first ride we went on was the one with all the swings attached to the top of a large circular roof that raises and spins really fast. One of the five-year-olds was tall enough to go but too short to go without an adult so I had to sit in a double-seat with him. A minute before the ride started he said: “I hope I don’t throw up like I sometimes do.” Panic attack.

I immediately turned to my co-worker and told her about my phobia for the first time hastily and in a panic and asked if she wanted to switch spots with me. She clearly was not thrilled at the idea of a kid throwing up next to her either but she switched with me. He was totally fine but the thought of what could happen whilst I was not only next to him but also strapped in (aka trapped) next to him was a horrifying thought.

Nothing happened and not one kid got sick nor did I see anyone get sick at all today. It was a good day