#i literally think i need some anti-phobia therapy honestly

[syrenki]

does anybody know how to manage arachnophobia? i'm physically shaking, covered in snot and tears, tired, but unable to go to sleep because i don't know where the spider in my room went

[sobasicallyimafreak]

Uhhhhh hey folks who still follow me and are on here after all these years.

So idk if literally any of you even remember who I am which is perfect honestly but just in case you do, you may remember that I went through a pretty pick-me, internalized misogyny, cringe as hell "anti-SJW" phase back like 8-10 years ago I believe?

Well, first I want to apologize to everyone I hurt while I was going through all of that. There is no excuse. Yes, I was very ill informed at the time, but that doesn't excuse the way I talked about other people.

This is also not an excuse, but rather some pretty big developments in my life over that past 8-10 years. This is something that I am working on gradually being more open about in my daily life.

I've never made it a secret that I'm queer. The specific label has changed, as it does for most people. Right now and for the past several years, I have used the labels of lesbian and gay more than any others

But there have been some more major developments in the past decide or so. Two years ago almost to the day, my therapist asked me if I had ever been evaluated for ADHD. A self screener and 20 minutes later, and I had a referral to a psychiatrist who could actually diagnose me and get me on meds. That was never enough though. I've been doing a bunch more hard work both in and outside of therapy, and I have come to a conclusion.

I am autistic. My parents thought so growing up, a handful of my teachers thought so growing up; hell, looking back, my peers definitely thought so growing up. But no one ever brought me in to get tested. So instead, I grew up thinking that everyone else had it just as hard as I do, but I clearly had some kind of personal or moral failing that meant that I couldn't keep up like they all could.

At a very young age, I internalized that I needed to truly accept and absorb what the majority believed so that I would stick out less. I internalized this so hard that I didn't even consciously think it anymore. I was confused and hurt and upset every time that I could no longer take acting in a way that's counter to what is natural for me and snapped and had to take time out to recover. Although it is no excuse, I realize now that I simply absorbed the harmful phobias and isms that society drills into us and clung to that so as not to be singled out further.

I am actively a more open and accepting person now, and I wish that I had had better support and encouragement throughout my life so that I did not get sucked in by that harmful rhetoric

Thank you to those of you who actually read this!! Please feel free to use any pronouns you would like to refer to me; I have never thought to explore how different ones feel

[skylersummer]

My Emetophobia: A Year On (PART 1 - Getting CBT and Exposure Therapy)

It’s been just over a year since I wrote my last piece about my emetophobia and  I thought it might be helpful for me (and hopefully some others) to revisit the topic, as there has been a fair amount of change in my life.

I know it’s also a little late to say this but I was absolutely overwhelmed by the response from my original post, I am so incredibly glad that I was able to educate and reassure with my writing. 

I never in a million years would have even expected to tell someone about my phobia let alone post an article about it on the internet, however it was one of the best things I have ever done. It really reminded me of the importance of sharing anxieties and worries - so so many people got in contact to say that their experiences mirrored mine exactly and I only wish that I had been able to speak up sooner.

So what’s changed? Well, after finally getting back on track with my medications, I decided to refer myself to my local South London mental health service. 

[ This comes after paying exactly £100 to a private therapist for two sessions which I never managed to attend. No one really tells you how expensive anxiety can be. I decided to go through the NHS (god bless) because then at least I wouldn’t be literally going broke for appointments I couldn’t bring myself to make. I was in a bad way. ]

I received a relatively quick response from SLAM (South London and Maudsley) and found that I had been put on a 1 year online programme called SilverCloud. Each week I was to be set activities and challenges and had to review my feelings which were then read by a mental health advisor who I was in contact with.

I think that had this been my first involvement with the NHS and their mental health team, it might have been really helpful. However, my programme was aimed at general anxiety and really didn’t target any of the specific symptoms/issues I experience daily with emetophobia. I discharged myself from the course after two weeks and explained to my advisor why I didn’t find it particularly helpful and she put in a request (? can’t remember exactly) with the London Maudsley Hospital to get reviewed for a course of CBT there.

It may have only been a month before I was called into the Maudsley to be assessed by a psychiatrist. 

This took around 3 hours, and I basically had to explain the extent of all of my past therapies, medications, symptoms etc. so they knew exactly where I stood.

It turns out I was in a Not Good At All place (not entirely Emetophobia’s fault, but certainly didn’t help).

I received a call maybe a week later from the psychiatrist/psychologist (?) who assessed me and he told me they wanted to put me on a 12 week course of CBT with some Exposure Therapy. He asked if I would be happy to see a student psychologist, as this would mean hopefully getting seen sooner. I said yes of course. He said the waiting list could be up to 9 months. I didn’t even know where I would be living in 9 months. I said thanks. 

I think I cried quite a bit at this point. (Don’t take important calls in the Co-Op)

I was already researching into the costs of private therapists instead, as I really didn’t feel like I could physically wait that long. Then a weird miracle happened. 

I got a call from the Maudsley Hospital to let me know that a space was available for me, like, immediately. 

I began my course of weekly 1 hour sessions with my lovely psychologist. 

Luckily, one of the leading psychologists in the country who specialises in SPOV (specific fear of vomit) works at the Maudsley (and was one of my psychologist’s seniors) and The Maudsley Hospital is the UK’s specialist clinic for emetophobics. Also it was 10 minutes away from my flat. 

I am not going to go through every session as I am aware this is getting quite long but I do want to explain the course I was on a little.

During my first session we discussed (obviously) my phobia of vomit and we made a chart explaining all the things I was scared of specifically, what measures I put in place to control these situations to make myself less afraid and then we wrote a list of goals for myself. These goals ranged from long term (Travel the World!) that wouldn't be achievable in 12 weeks but also smaller ones like Travel Without A Water Bottle. 

Over the next few weeks I was set challenges to complete outside of the sessions, to stop myself creating this barrier in every day situations. So I eventually stopped carrying rescue remedy spray, water, anti-nausea tablets, heat patches, even headphones, all things that I didn’t think I could leave the house without in case I was or felt sick. 

My psychologist told me that having these safety nets as well as my constant texts to friends and family whenever I felt anxious, seeking reassurance, were exacerbating the fear and giving it too much control over my life. She also said that dwelling on a feeling of sickness, can often make it feel worse, than say just ignoring it or distracting yourself. She asked what would happen if I realised I didn’t have my anti-nausea tablets or water with me, and I realised that I needed to learn to live ‘normally’ (aka not like an emetophobic) and not rely on these coping mechanisms, to avoid further panic if I discovered I didn’t have these things with me AT ALL TIMES.

It’s actually such a relief (and I am grateful to not have the extra expense) to not constantly have to check whether I have my rescue remedy spray, say, with me all the fricking time! Anti-nausea tablets are also a thing of the past now, honestly SEE YA.

We also went through some CBT and looked into past experiences/memories that may have triggered my emetophobia which was pretty intense and although we didn’t come to a proper conclusion it was really helpful.

But now ... we gotta talk about exposure therapy. 

I am not going to lie and say it was fun. or easy. or not scary. And I did cry. Like a few times.

BUT I wasn't sick. This was the big thing. It was quite literally my worst nightmare to be in a non-safe environment (not my home: a horrible room with no window on top floor of NHS building), with a stranger, talking about vomit. I was quite sure that this was going to make be sick. In the room. With her. AKA ... my biggest fear. BUT IT DIDN’T HAPPEN.

We started off slow. They are never gonna rush you into anything you really don’t want to do. It’s not gonna be like BAM watch this video of someone being sick. They are not < quite > that evil.  (Did actually call my therapist evil in one of these sessions, sorry Sarah*)

I am actually trying to find the website we used but I currently cannot. Do send me a message if you are keen to have a go at home, and I can try and send it over.

The first bit of exposure was the worst weirdly. Up until then it had sort of just been chatting about the phobia but I had built up all this weird anticipation anxiety around it which made it so much worse. (In retrospect it wasn’t bad at all)

We literally read through a list of different words for sick. Any ones that particularly scared me I had to repeat 50 times, to desensitise myself to them. 

This was fine. 

Then we moved on to sentences about sick/being sick. There was one sentence that I am not exactly sure why but REALLY triggered me (it was honestly about a cat but felt very graphic at the time) and I cried and asked to stop and to go home. Sarah calmed me down a little but she said “I don’t want to let you leave now because I think that if I let you go now you won’t come back for any more sessions.” She was really right. I had already started planning my journey home and also how I was never ever going to return to the psychologist ever again. 

But I stayed. I stayed because I knew she was right. I stayed because I knew how lucky I was to be there, being treated. And I stayed because I knew I had to try.

This feels like a good place to stop right now and it’s getting mega long, but I will follow up with part two and the rest of the exposure therapy in the next couple of days. Please share if you found this at all helpful.

* Name changed just for privacy