Hello everybody, welcome back to the podcast.
Today I wanted to do something a little different, something a little more light hearted, sort
of just for fun, sort of maybe even a distraction episode.
So if you're having like a hard time right now or you need something to listen to while
you're doing anything, I guess this could be for you.
So I wanted to talk about some questions that people without a metaphobia would have for
someone that does.
So this can be questions, this is going to be questions I've either heard before from
other people or some questions that I assumed they would ask that I would ask a person with
a metaphobia if I didn't have it.
So yeah, just a light hearted one today just for a bit of fun, that's all.
So question number one, why are you so scared of throwing up?
Everybody hates it, but it's not that bad.
So for a lot of us, it's not so much about the act itself, it's more about the control
factor.
A lot of us have issues with control, whether that stems from, you know what, it could stem
from anything, it's too much to go into.
But it's a lot about control and for me especially, I know that and I know for a lot of other
people I can't comment for everybody, but most of the time it is a control thing.
It's also, there is a level of disgust, which is pretty obvious, like no one likes it obviously,
common thing we always hear.
But yeah, it's pretty disturbing, there's also the fear of it not stopping, I've heard
people talk about.
For me personally, it's actually the nausea that gets me the most.
I'm not afraid of the act itself, I'd be fine with just the act itself, but the nausea leading
up to that is the part that I fear the most.
And I assume a lot of other people probably feel that way as well, because nausea sucks,
no one likes being nauseous.
Like you get, you feel so gross that you can't move or take a step or drink water and you
go pale and it's just horrible man, it's a horrible feeling.
But it does stem a lot deeper than just being disgusting or just a control thing, like there
is a lot of roots in it.
So yeah.
Alright, question number two.
Did you always have a metaphobia or did something trigger it?
So for a lot of us from what I've seen, it's something that we are sort of almost born
with.
I like to think of that for myself.
I was always pretty predisposed to an anxious lifestyle when I was young.
And I did develop a lot of anxiety when I was about nine years old.
At the time didn't know what it was, blah, blah, blah, long story short.
But I always had the symptoms and the signs of a metaphobia.
And looking back on my life from an adults and educated perspective on this phobia, I
can see that I did have it.
It didn't sort of show itself for a long time.
It did in very small hints.
I was always pretty afraid of it, but I never knew why.
And I was pretty young, so it was just like, whatever.
And I didn't have any tools at my disposal to sort of stop it.
So it was just something that happened.
And I remember hiding it a lot from family members.
So no one ever knew that I was sick if I was, because I thought I needed to hide it.
I don't know why.
I think it might be like a health anxiety thing.
Like my sister was pretty sick when I was young and she would always have to go to the
hospital a lot.
Every time she got sick, especially, it was a pretty panicky thing.
And the whole family would sort of go on a bit of a tornado.
It would be like a real bad situation if she was sick in that way.
So I think I might have got it from there, but I don't really know.
I think, yeah, for a lot of us, we are sort of almost born with it.
And it's something that develops really early on, but may not come through the surface until
later on in life.
All right.
Question number three.
Does your fear make you avoid certain places or foods?
And absolutely, yes.
I know for instance, for example, if a restaurant would open, I would wait a couple of months
before I go try there.
Like a lot of people would be excited to go opening night, a couple of weeks after it's
open, but I'll be waiting because I want to see those reviews.
I have this curiosity and this OCD thing where I need to check those reviews before I go
there.
I feel like a lot of people do that as well.
We also tend to avoid clubs, bars, anything that can sort of cause any type of anxiety
or give us the opportunity to be sick, which unfortunately is a lot of places outside our
comfort zone.
But a lot of us are pretty good with it.
We will tend to be able to stick through things like this and we will get more comfortable
with them over time, but it just depends on the exposure and where we are with our phobia.
But yeah, we do definitely avoid certain foods and certain places, especially fast food as
well.
That's another thing a lot of us avoid.
It definitely gives us a lot of bloating and reflux and it's just not a great time.
I still eat it and I regret it every time I do it, but probably going to continue doing
that.
So yeah.
All right, next question.
How do you handle being around drunk people or kids since they throw up a lot?
So for me, I don't have that much experience with drunk people or children, which is kind
of good.
I know when I was in school, at least, it was pretty scary a lot of the time because
a lot of kids around me were sick and I didn't know what I was really afraid of at the time,
but I knew I was afraid of something and it would always give me a massive panic attack
sort of thing.
I'd always freak out.
But thankfully that ended, obviously when school ended.
But drunk people, usually I'm pretty good around drunk people because I know what the reason
is why they're sick.
I know they're probably going to be sick.
I usually refuse to take them anywhere just because I'm like, unless I'm using your car,
I'm not having you throwing up in my backseat.
So I had that happen recently with a friend, not recently, maybe a year ago now, but I
had it happen with a friend.
I picked them up and we have a sense for this type of thing.
I looked at them about 10 minutes before anything happened.
I knew before they knew that they were a bit too far gone.
It was a really scary experience.
I got to pull over really fast.
It was horrible.
I still drove them home.
Obviously I wanted to get my friend home safe.
I wasn't going to leave them there.
I definitely wanted to.
But a lot of us, we tend to be pretty caring.
We will try to do our best to look after those around us who are maybe a bit too drunk, but
it definitely makes it hard with a phobia like this.
It's good to have an understanding that we are trying our best.
Next one, have you ever actually been sick or is it just a fear of it happening?
So that's a rough one.
That's a tough one to answer.
It's about 50-50 I'd say.
A lot of us have had experience throwing up in the past.
A lot of us have come close to it, very close to it.
We also probably haven't done it in five plus years most of the time.
At least for me it's been a couple of years now.
I've had pretty much the whole cycle of it happening without it actually happening.
I've had the intense nausea, I've had the gagging, I've had the sweats, I've had everything
besides the actual act of it for a couple of years now.
It's been pretty traumatic when that sort of stuff happens.
I know for myself, once I've sat with that nausea and those feelings for a while, I sort
of just want it to be over and I kind of get over my anxiety and it'll end and then I'll
just be waiting.
But it's so frustrating when it doesn't happen because you finally summon all the strength
you have to deal with this thing and it doesn't actually happen.
It's a little disappointing.
But at the end of the day, most of us, pretty much all of us have been sick in our life
at least one point and we all have definitely come very close to it during our journey with
our phobia.
It's a pretty terrifying thing.
It can really feel like a massive setback but just know that it does happen sometimes
and it doesn't define your progress.
So yeah.
Alright, now what does a panic attack feel like within this phobia?
A normal panic attack I guess.
For me at least.
I've never really had a panic attack that hasn't had something to do with emetophobia
so I don't know but I'm going to assume that it feels very similar.
For me, it starts as sort of a... the breathing.
My breathing will get shallower.
I won't be able to take as many deep breaths, my heart will start racing.
I'll start feeling either really hot or really cold.
It sort of fluctuates which one it is.
I start to not be able to think clearly.
My vision will sort of be a bit tunnel-y.
Just a touch.
Nothing too bad with the vision but it definitely gets a little iffy.
My legs start to feel like jelly but also I could run a thousand miles without fucking
any breaks.
And the intense heat waves of nausea.
It's like heat going through your chest to your stomach or vice versa for me.
It's a really bad symptom of the panic attacks and it happens multiple times.
You sort of have the waves of it.
I'm pretty sure everyone would know the waves of the panic and the nausea that you would
get.
It's an awful, awful fucking feeling.
But like with any sort of panic attack, with the right sort of coping strategies and a
lot of practice, you can minimise the effects and the symptoms of that.
It takes a lot of effort though and sometimes you just lose a bit of control and sometimes
it just happens.
It's just what it is.
They generally don't last too long.
While panic attacks themselves last about ten minutes, the symptoms can last a few hours.
So just remember that if you are having a panic attack, the symptoms are going to be
probably sticking around a little longer.
Nothing to worry about and you may feel a little bit weird afterwards but it's okay
though.
It happens.
It's normal to feel that way.
For me especially sometimes it takes me a whole day to sort of get back to normal but
you sort of get used to it as sad as that is.
Alright moving on to the next one is does therapy or exposure therapy actually help?
Yes to both.
Exposure therapy has proven to be one of the most effective things for a phobia like this.
Doing it through a therapist, counselor or whatever is the best way to do it.
You can do exposure therapy on your own.
You do have to have sort of the willpower, the dedication to do it.
It's going to be uncomfortable.
It's going to be, it's going to probably set off some panic attacks.
It's not going to be a fun time and it's going to take months.
But each exposure you get closer to the goal of not being so afraid.
Is it going to solve all your problems?
Probably not but it will put you in a place where you are a lot more comfortable with
something that no one really can be comfortable with.
It's sort of difficult in that way specifically for dysphobia because no one likes to be sick.
So the therapy especially it's good to get a lot of things off your chest just in general
but it helps me a lot with the phobia.
I always use the drop in services and I speak to my therapist once a fortnight, once every
month depends on how booked.
But I find it helps a lot.
I haven't had any bad experiences yet.
I actually feel really good after I get all that sort of stuff off my chest.
It's just good to sort of unload and it gives me some sort of healthier coping strategies
and some insight into things that I may not have had before.
So yeah.
Alright, next is how can I support someone with a metaphobia?
So if you know someone with a metaphobia or a close family member, partner, friend, the
best way you can support them is don't say something first of all like oh you know I
don't like being sick either.
No one likes it.
Don't assume it's just about not liking.
For us it's very deep.
It's on a very much deeper level than just not liking it because no one likes it truth
be told.
Also, being patient with us is something that really helps.
We do need a lot of patience especially when we're on a proper healing journey.
We will have setbacks.
We will have days where we want to give up like any other healing process from something
like this.
We'll have really hard days.
We'll have really good days.
Some days we might be able to do things with you.
Some days we might not be able to.
It's hard for us to go far away from home.
It's hard for us to leave home sometimes just in general.
So you might not understand that, why it would be difficult but just trusting that we are
trying our hardest and these things are very real to us is probably the best way you can
support us.
And also probably maybe not trying to put us in positions where we may be exposed to
things like that if we really aren't ready for it.
If you know that we're going to a party and someone, for instance, probably a bad example
but if we're going to a party or something and there's someone there that you know is
just going to get sick by the end of the night and we are going to see that.
Maybe either let us know, give us a heads up or I don't know, don't bring us I guess
but it's definitely just best to ask us questions.
Let us express ourselves.
Just be supportive.
I know it can be difficult to support someone that has this phobia.
On the other end it's very hard to understand these things.
It's very hard to sort of just go along with the flow, the really inconsistent sort of
ways we are in friendships and relationships.
But yeah, just patience is the biggest one for sure.
For me definitely patience is.
Last one is, does this phobia affect your daily life in ways people wouldn't expect?
Yes, it does.
So for example, a lot of us have or have had issues with doing things like, basic things
like I know I get a little claustrophobic when I'm sort of in a metaphobic mood like
I'm a little bit anxious, something like, hey it's just not sitting right, I just feel
a little bit sick but not too bad.
Like going to the toilet and being stuck in that little box room or like having a shower
or just even going outside, just anywhere that's not your exact comfortable position
is hard when you're in a certain way.
Standing in lines places like supermarkets or like at a, I don't know, getting your
license renewed or whatever the fuck, I don't know but like standing in lines is hard.
It makes going to bars and clubs hard, it makes having like a social life hard in general,
makes just a basic thing that everybody does is go into lunch with your friends or family.
That's really hard for us.
It's really hard for us to do that because we don't know who's cooking that, we don't
know what it is, we never know fully if it's, we didn't get to like be back there and watch
them so like we don't know.
There's a lot of unknown with it.
Riding in cars with people, not being the driver, public transport, I could go on forever.
It makes a lot of weird things difficult or things that people might see as weird to do
but a lot of us get by.
We have our coping skills, we have our strategies to keep calm, we have our ways we do keep
calm, we have a lot of things helping us and we usually have a lot of really good support.
I think the Metaphobic community is probably one of the most supportive communities I've
ever seen because we all know what it's like to be in a panic and think that you're, you
know, it's over, it's game over and usually if you need the help and you ask for it, you
will receive it.
So I'm very thankful to be a part of like sort of a really supportive community rather
than a not so supportive one.
But yeah, I hope this was a decent distraction for you, I hope you maybe learned something,
I hope if you don't have a Metaphobia and you somehow found this, it gave you a little
better understanding.
I may do a part two for this so if you have any questions that you think would fit this
sort of thing, leave them in the comments, hit me up on my socials, I don't know, do
whatever you want.
Leave a rating or a review if you feel like you enjoyed this or don't, if you didn't,
do whatever you want.
But until then, I hope you're having a good day or a good night, I hope your Metaphobia
journey is going well and I will see you in the next episode.
See ya!