When the Fear Is Real
My diagnosis helped me pinpoint my phobia — and overcome it
When I was a kid, I remember channel surfing and stumbling upon a news special about phobias. The man on my screen was sticking his hands in a garbage can, sweating and hysterically crying as if he were dipping his fingers in a barrel of battery acid. A reporter explained that the man had a phobia of germs, and with the help of a therapist, he was facing his fear and exposing himself to the thing that scared him most.
Click. I’d rather watch cartoons.
But as I watched TV that night, and for several years after, I would remember that man. I would remember the sick, embarrassed feeling I felt watching him be so raw and vulnerable and exposed. I wondered how a fear of something as common as garbage could send someone spiraling, allowing this adult to devolve into a broken, malfunctioning person.
When I was diagnosed with a emetophobia at age 24, this man was the first person I thought of.
Emetophobia is the irrational fear of vomit, and before the moment my doctor uttered my diagnosis, I was completely unaware that I had a phobia at all.
I have always had a fear of vomit — seeing a puddle of puke on the sidewalk or an impromptu vomit scene in a movie could send me into panic attack…
