Defined as a fear of vomiting or feeling sick, emetophobia is a debilitating fear that causes sufferers to limit their lives in order to prevent anxiety and panic attacks. University: defined as an educational setting… interlaced with highly contagious freshers flu, hangovers, and dirty flatmates. At least those were my initial ideas and fears about university as someone with emetophobia. Thus, the prospect of leaving my (clean) safe space at home and moving to university caused mass anxiety and the desire to avoid grew stronger. But that would’ve been the wrong decision and here’s why.
After my first night at university (which was spent crying and eating coco pops) I walked into the kitchen and heard my new flatmates trying to piece together the blurry events from the night before. Amidst laughter and debates of who-kissed-who, a simple story sent my mind into overdrive and I felt myself being swallowed into a mental oblivion.
“I was so sick last night.”
My mind began to escape reality. What do you mean? Where? Was it because you were drunk or ill? You touched the kitchen door handle. I shared my drink with you yesterday. Many emetophobes claim they would rather die than be sick and, for me, this event was no exception. Questions of my impending fate began suffocating me. I no longer had control of myself or my environment; it was merely a waiting game.
Spoiler: I wasn’t sick. And if someone had told me this, I still wouldn’t have believed them. I say this through gritted teeth but I believe this event was actually a good thing because it kickstarted the beginning of facing my fear.
The best part about emetophobia is that there is a cure, the worst part is that the cure is largely rooted in exposure therapy. Therefore a life of freedom from the constraints of this phobia simultaneously felt so close yet so far. Further hindered by people’s input that “well, no one likes being sick.” I felt isolated and crazy and truly could not see an escape from the obsessive thoughts. And this was just the first night.
But what does university look like for an emetophobe? In my experience it was an acceptance that, at some point, I will be confronted by my biggest fear and finding ways to be ok with that. I also learnt that you cannot prepare for ‘the event’, nor do you truly know how you will feel in that moment. With a mixture of therapy, rescue remedy, yoga Nidra, ice patches and peppermint oil, an alternate route that didn’t involve panic attacks was unveiled. I began to realise that my emetophobia was rooted in fear of losing control and, therefore, being sick was rooted in the belief that I had ‘betrayed myself’. But both of these are lies. And slowly I began to trust this new route that eventually brought me out of the aforementioned ‘mental oblivion’.
By no means was my progress linear but this was further proof that the low points are always followed by highs. When you come face-to-face with your biggest fear there is a teetering moment between invincibility and inferno. While in both instances survival is guaranteed, the mental rewiring happened when I reminded myself that I didn’t need to react straight away. Similarly, another approach that helped me was acknowledging that my actions came before my feelings: telling myself that “I’m ok” did not immediately quell the anxiety, instead it reminded me that ‘ok-ness’ was an option too. And, aside from chopping veg in my obsessively sterile utensils drawer and keeping saucepans in my bedroom, my feelings did eventually catch up with me. I had finally found a good enough way to cope.
While university did not ‘cure’ me of this phobia, the person I was before starting would be shocked by the obstacles (big and small) that I have managed to overcome. I now realise that accepting my university offer was the first step to invincibility.
Another article you may enjoy: https://thebadgeronline.com/2025/04/society-spotlight-forest-garden-society/
