**Just a quick warning. I went into some detail about the act of vomiting in the post below (not in the sense of a personal anecdote, just in the sense of dissecting the act).**
It's still really cold and snowy/icy where I live, and I haven't been leaving the house much, so things have been calm. I did see the movie Frozen (it was amazing) and had my usual movie theater experience of feeling "sick" and anxious for about half the film. I was enjoying the movie so much that I kept ignoring my strong impulses to leave because I didn't want to miss a single second. What's funny is that I was incredibly distracted by my worrying and didn't even realize it at the time. I got the gist of what was happening, but when I re-watched the movie later at home, there were so many lines of dialogue and song lyrics I hadn't fully heard the first time - little details that made me love the movie even more.
Other than that incident, I've been doing really well. I'm pretty sure that's the only time in the past month my phobia has been an issue.
I've been thinking about how weird this fear is. Here's what I think is the strangest thing about it: it seems (to me at least) that vomiting would be less terrifying to me if you were to take away any of the individual components that make up the act.
I don't think I'm alone in this. I've seen other people online say things like "if there was no nausea, I could handle it" or "if it didn't taste bad, I wouldn't care that much." We could all be wrong, since there is no way to test these theories, but it's fascinating to me thinking about all the ways the act of vomiting could be slightly different and how any one of those alternatives seems better than what we have in reality.
What if it came out of a different part of our body than our mouths? That seems like it'd be fine. How bad could that be, if it came out of the foot or the elbow? In fact, that scenario would rid us of other components too - the taste and the feeling or fear of choking.
What if it all happened exactly the same except that there was no unpleasant feeling of nausea right before? That doesn't sound so bad either. None of that awful sensation of the sick feeling building up, getting worse and worse.
What if it was completely controllable? If you knew without a doubt you could decide when and where it happened? This is the one I would vote for. I think most of all I hate the idea of the suddenness or surprise of it, and how little control I have over it.
Somewhat related - what if you couldn't have complete control over it, but you did get a clear unambiguous warning sign at least a few hours in advance? Something like the tips of your fingers turning blue, where then you would know there was no going back. A little scary, but at least then you could start planning your next steps. None of that back and forth "will I, won't I, is this in my head?" crap.
What if it always tasted really delicious, like chocolate? I'm unsure of how I feel about this one. I'm not convinced it would lessen my fear that much, but I've seen other people say they think this would work for them.
What if it was all the same, but there was absolutely no social embarrassment that came along with it? I am always afraid of it happening, even when I am alone at home, but I am much more afraid of the idea of doing it in front of other people. If there was no social stigma, no reaction of disgust, or if people reacted to it as calmly as they react when someone sneezes, I think I would be much less bothered in general. Along the same lines, what if it wasn't indicative of something bad happening inside your body? Obviously this is why the social disgust exists, because people know you could have some illness and instinctively want to protect themselves. If it was just something that happened occasionally (like a cat's hairballs?) and wasn't a warning sign that you were sick, extremely drunk, or had some kind of food poisoning, I don't think it could be as big a deal to anyone, either the person experiencing it or the onlookers.
In a way, I find it comforting to take it apart like this and see that it's something that is made up of many horrible things, and it's the combination of all of those parts that makes it so overwhelming and scary. I don't know why. I feel like there is some bit of hope or wisdom to be found in this thought process, but I'm not sure what it is yet.
