Thank you for sharing! I have to admit, I was kind of weary about reading this but it honestly didn't bother me because you spoke very plainly about your history. I would have been so mad at my boyfriend if he had given me a mixed tape with a recording of me from a really bad night on it! It's interesting that you describe it as a preoccupation with your vomit history because I would describe mine as almost like a haunting of my history. Haha. Not so much any more now that I'm an adult, but as a kid and teenager, I FREQUENTLY had nightmares of myself or other vomiting and when I would be bored sitting in school I would get random thoughts of people in my class vomiting and it always scared me.
One time in highschool, my friend laughingly told me that during one of her classes earlier in the day she thought she was going to be sick so she left to go to the bathroom but didn't make it and vomited a multicolor pile in the hall and felt soooo bad that she cleaned it up. Then she continued on to speculate what it could have possibly been considering it's vivid multicolor. She didn't know. But I was MORTIFIED for the rest of the day to be around her and even though she said she was fine, I made excuses not to go to her house for a week after that for fear she would be sick around me.
If we don't include times while drunk that I've vomited, I've only vomited once in the past 8 years and it was due to food poisioning from one of my most favorite canned beef stews. I hate to admit it, but when I finally lost control at about 3 am. I felt SOOO much better and only vomited once more and it was only a tiny bit after the 1st one. Then I felt fine. So I was mad at myself for wasting all that time of sleep when I could have just vomited and gotten it over with but. Yeah. Emet
.
My emet focuses more on the fear of seeing OTHER people around me vomit. I have barely any agoraphobic tendancies and am only cautious around bathrooms and raw meat, but other than that nothing bothers me in that respect. I am not diagnosed with anything save for mild acid reflux which is easily helped with an OTC (Currently, Prilosec). But I'm not actually diagnosed with emetophobia, but after reading this site it could really be nothing else.
Sometimes I feel like I'm made up of peices of a lot of different mental illnesses. Hahaha. Emetophobia, obviously. Some OCD tendancies as well as Dermatillomania (I pick blemishes and scabs as well as bite my finger nails and the skin around my fingernails.) Dermatillomania has made me self concious of my body due to the scars on my shoulders, chest and legs specifically. And even though I have Emetophobia, I can't help but bite my nails when I'm stressed (especially). Even though I know that under my nails are dirty.
ANYWAY. Haha. It's nice to see you here and I can't wait to see what else you have to say.