Overcoming Agoraphobia and Emetophobia (fear of being sick)
HAVING A CHILD WITH EMETOPHOBIA – A MUM’S STORY
The first time I ‘met’ Rob Kelly was on YouTube. Bald, bold and British, he calmly explained that the fear of throwing up, was caused by a person’s low self- esteem, lack of social confidence and coping skills. He spoke of a complete cure in six to eight weeks and that was the first sign of hope I had had in months.
At a young age, my son had showed signs of being anxious. My husband and I took him to a therapist for several sessions and she gave us phrases and techniques to say and use when he showed signs of anxiety. That seemed to help for a year or so until my son started to go through phases where he did not want to eat anything that was not cooked at home, in a package or where he did not have a visual of the expiration date. During these times, he would eat very little and get quite upset when he saw others eating his favorite foods. He knew he was missing out, but felt as if he had absolutely no power to eat what he wanted.
These episodes would last anywhere from a week to a couple of months, but my son would never speak of his phobia. He would simply say that he was not hungry or quietly sit and stare at his food. Of course as his mother, I did everything in my power to get enough calories in him. I really did not know what was behind the fear of food. What I knew was that he was scared to eat anything he thought could be spoiled, but I did not understand it was simply because of his phobia of throwing up.
Obviously, no one is going to celebrate when he or she throws up, but the fear of throwing up is something much more debilitating than a simple dislike of vomit. This phobia affects two to three percent of Americans and can be a life-long and life-altering battle. Many women who have it do not want to have children for the fear of morning sickness. People with this phobia will not eat at restaurants, will wash their hands incessantly and go out their way to avoid any situation where they could get sick or be near a person who is sick. What does this mean? It means they fear their own bodies. Whereas a person who is scared of dogs, does not go near one just as someone who is phobic of flying, does not go on airplanes. However, someone who is terrified of vomiting cannot get away from their biggest fear – themselves.
It was not until my son started seventh grade that his phobia began to alter his life. My generally happy, social boy who loved school became agoraphobic, clinically underweight and announced to me that he did not want to live. It started right after his thirteenth birthday party where he seemed to have an amazing amount of fun with ten of his friends swimming and playing video games. The next day he said he was feeling ill and thought he had a stomach virus. I let him miss two days of school and that episode was the start of my journey to find The Thrive Programme.
Right after my son went back to school from his supposed stomach virus, he began to call me during lunch to beg me or his father to come to his school and either let him sit in our car and eat lunch or let him come home. He would cry to us, beg us, plead that he could not stay in school. In the beginning we would comply thinking that this was just temporary and that whatever was bothering him would subside. But when it didn’t we started wondering “is he being bullied at school, or is something happening that we do not know about?”. After several sessions with his counselor and the assurance that all was well, we were referred to a child psychologist. During that time, even though my son would not discuss his phobia, I began researching his symptoms and found that his fear actually had a name – emetophobia. However, I still didn’t understand that this common phobia can take over a person’s life.
At this point, my son was missing a lot of school and barely eating enough to nourish himself, so when we had our first appointment with the therapist, I was in a complete state of hysteria (which by the way is why I needed The Thrive Programme too, but more on that later). The therapist immediately rushed us to a pediatrician in order to get a sedative and anti-depressant for my son. The doctor of course could not write the prescription fast enough since we were sent to her by her friend the child psychologist. And when I explained that my son had a fear of throwing up, all she did is look at me with a blank stare and then offered to write him a prescription for anti-nausea pills as well.
Looking back now, I realize that my son was a typical emetophobic who did not even want to utter the word throw-up, so that is why it was not crystal clear to me that all of his anxious behavior was based on what he thought was his fear of throwing up. I say “what he thought” was his fear because even though the emetophobic thinks that throwing up is literally the end of the world and that they would rather die than throw up, this is actually not the case. Emetophobia, as well as all phobias, is the fear of not being in control, as well as learned feelings of helplessness.
On my fiftieth birthday, my son was in such a state, that I called my mom and explained that I needed to cancel our mother/daughter trip to Iceland. I felt that I could not be away for ten days because my son did not want to eat without me close by. That night I lay on the bathroom floor crying in fetal position wanting to die myself. Google search after Google search, only led me to believe that this phobia is life-long, does not offer a cure and the person with the phobia is doomed to live a life on medication, will not be able to hold down a job and will most likely end up agoraphobic.
I could not cope with this knowledge. What in the world happened? My son was going to have everything I didn’t have – a doting mother who was there for him 24/7 and would protect him from any harm. I was going to have a happy, well adjusted son who would never wonder if his parents loved him and never felt alone. I was going to be the mother of the year. But now the world had betrayed me and life was over as I knew it.
So now both my son and myself were living in a house where everyone felt out of control. We were acting as if everything was happening to us and we could not escape feelings of hopelessness and fear. Even thought I tried to assure him that he would be okay, I didn’t really believe it and when he wouldn’t eat, I would flip out and tell him he was going to end up in the hospital with feeding tubes. He would look at me with resolve that that in fact was what was going to happen. Neither one of us had any coping skills and as his mother I was in fact harboring just as many dark thoughts as he was.
About two months into seeing endless psychologists, psychiatrists, art therapists, acupuncturists, hypnotherapists and giving my son anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications, I was once again searching the Internet for “cure for emetophobia”. This is when I found The Thrive Programme. They actually had a book called “Cure Your Emetophobia”. But considering all the other treatments my son had tried (including one therapist making him tell his worst throw-up story backwards – according to her this was supposed to help weaken the memory), I did not get too excited. However, I did start to watch YouTube videos of Rob Kelly talking about emetophobia, the psychology behind it and most importantly that this programme was a simple and fast cure. There were also countless testimonials of teens and adults alike who had the phobia and were now cured. There was even a testimonial from Mary who had the phobia for 75 years. She didn’t have children and refused chemotherapy because of it and at the age of 80, she was cured in 4 weeks with The Thrive Programme.
Now granted, I would have given my right arm for my son to get better, but I really saw that everything The Thrive Programme offered was real and made sense. But since I was still a powerless thinker, I had my doubts. Nevertheless, I took the chance and emailed Rob to please refer me to a Coach to help my son through the programme. At that time there were not any Thrive Programme Coaches in the United States, so Rob emailed me back the next day and referred me to one in Scotland. However he warned me that if I did not do the programme myself, the results would not be as effective. By that time I had the adult Thrive Programme book so I read the book while my son went through the programme online with his Coach, who was herself a cured emetophobe. She was young, soft spoken and my son really took to her.
They met once a week for about an hour online and, at my son’s request, I did not stay in the room during his sessions. At the end of the sessions, I would ask the Coach what homework he had and I would make sure he did it. I won’t lie sometimes it was a struggle because he was thirteen and preferred to be on his iPhone than do his Thrive Programme exercises, but I made it crystal clear that doing this was non-negotiable. He desperately wanted to get better, so he did put in effort.
After about three weeks, there was improvement. My son seemed to want to be social again and started his basketball season with excitement.
He wanted me to buy him protein bars so he could put some weight back on and was once again eating normally at home. He still did not want to go out to a restaurant and would only take a couple of bites of food at lunchtime during school.
By the end of his six weekly sessions, my son was doing much better. The calls from school had stopped and he seemed to want to leave the house in the morning. Laughter and smiles were back. I breathed a sigh of relief and was able to see a better future for all of us. However, what I did notice is that when my son did have a blip, I would not handle it well. I would immediately go to a dark place and think that he really wasn’t getting better and even though I thought I was putting a smile on my face, I was exuding worry and doubt and my son saw it. It was at that time that I knew I needed to do the Thrive Programme with a Coach, so I could truly live the programme and be an example for my son.
My son’s Coach was on maternity leave so I found another one from The Thrive Programme website. I was thrilled to have her since she had a nice way of balancing the programme with wit and humor. She taught me how to helpfully handle my son’s blips without going down a dark road. I too learned how to thrive. All my anxiety that I would hide or make excuses for and that hindered me from living the life that wanted, as well as, helping my son get better, went away. It disappeared. I saw the world differently and therefore my son did too. We were on a path to a new life that we each owned and had control over. We could cope and we knew we could handle life when it wasn’t ‘full of rainbows and unicorns’. We were powerful and we were thriving.
Today my son is a new person. He is now 15 and is very independent. He loves playing basketball both for fun and competitively, he spends the night away, eats at restaurants, loves school and is very, very social. He has a very good head on his shoulders and chooses to face challenges. He doesn’t always take the easy road because he is confident he can handle life when things don’t go his way. I won’t say that he doesn’t have a blip here or there when life gets tough, but it is short-lived and he gets right back on the thrive horse and goes about his life. And for any emetophobics reading this – yes, he has thrown up since he has done the Programme. It was during the day of his playoff basketball game when he came down with a stomach virus. He stayed in school and just manned it up feeling nauseous all day hoping he would feel better that night. During the warm-ups, he went outside of the stadium, threw up, came back in and carried on. His friends asked him where he went since the players are not supposed to leave the team during warm-ups. He simply announced that he threw up and that was it. He actually thought it was ironic that it happened at school since that is where he thought he was most afraid to vomit. The next day he stayed home with a slight fever and then the following day went to school. That was that and he hasn’t spent any time thinking about since.
My life has also changed. I am anxiety free, traveling when I can and enjoying airplane rides, which prior needed sedatives to get through. I am also getting back into shape by taking up jogging again and losing 12 pounds (so far). The thrive journey is like training for a marathon. In the beginning it is hard work and sometimes you think there isn’t any way you can make it the 26.4 miles. Then one day while you are running, you realize that it is easy to run, that the miles behind seem like a short walk. You understand that the marathon will still take a lot of training, but now you know that you are in control of each step, and no matter hard the run is, you can do it!!!!
Written by Cheryl Goss
If you’d like to hear more about The Thrive Programme, please contact me for a free 30-minute consultation.
Pauline den Hoedt ATPC
Thrive Programme Coach
Tel: 07766 664704
https://www.thriveprogramme.org/pauline-denhoedt/
