not him now but me
Clyde's Bonnie
Thread Starter
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Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Manchester, CT
Posts: 128
not him now but me
Hello everyone. Usually I am posting abouit ABF but not tonight. I can across this Forum and thought what the heck it cant hurt. Ok here goes I am deathly afraid of vomiting. Deathly. I have never ben drunk or drank in my life because im scared to puke. I have become obsessed with lysol spray that i buy it in bulk to prevent my family contracting (norovirus) stomach bug. I have ironically had it once in my life at 17 yrs old (never as a child) i am now 26 yrs old. I have researced that drs are in the process of making a vaccine against norovirus. I have 2 children. Last winter they both puked all over me once and i did not get it. My bf did. My point is if i think about it i will have an anxiety attack and a few minutes to hrs later i will begin to feel ill and repeatedly take my temperature. I need help getting over this fear or perhaps finding a way to never get the stomach flu. I am very clean after using the bathroom and bleach is my best friend. I also started working out daily because i heard it helps support a healthy immune system. See, now i am starting to get upset and teary eyed because im scared that i am getting it tonight. Any suggestions besides serious electric shock therapy?
Administrator
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: CA
Posts: 10,681
Many years ago I had a fear of choking and was afraid to swallow. I injured my neck in an auto accident and it made swallowing difficult and my anxiety turned into a phobia. I saw a therapist about it for a very short time and was able to treat the phobia rather quickly.
Here is some information.
Specific Phobias
Many people experience specific phobias, intense, irrational fears of certain things or situations—dogs, closed-in places, heights, escalators, tunnels, highway driving, water, flying, and injuries involving blood are a few of the more common ones. Phobias aren't just extreme fear; they are irrational fear. You may be able to ski the world's tallest mountains with ease but panic going above the 10th floor of an office building. Adults with phobias realize their fears are irrational, but often facing, or even thinking about facing, the feared object or situation brings on a panic attack or severe anxiety.
Specific phobias strike more than 1 in 10 people. No one knows just what causes them, though they seem to run in families and are a little more prevalent in women. Phobias usually first appear in adolescence or adulthood. They start suddenly and tend to be more persistent than childhood phobias; only about 20 percent of adult phobias vanish on their own. When children have specific phobias—for example, a fear of animals—those fears usually disappear over time, though they may continue into adulthood. No one knows why they hang on in some people and disappear in others.
If the object of the fear is easy to avoid, people with phobias may not feel the need to seek treatment. Sometimes, though, they may make important career or personal decisions to avoid a phobic situation.
When phobias interfere with a person's life, treatment can help. Successful treatment usually involves a kind of cognitive-behavioral therapy called desensitization or exposure therapy, in which patients are gradually exposed to what frightens them until the fear begins to fade. Three-fourths of patients benefit significantly from this type of treatment. Relaxation and breathing exercises also help reduce anxiety symptoms.
There is currently no proven drug treatment for specific phobias, but sometimes certain medications may be prescribed to help reduce anxiety symptoms before someone faces a phobic situation.
Specific Phobias
"I'm terrified of spiders. I don't go hiking or take my daughter to the park any more. It makes me too anxious."
What is specific phobia?
Specific phobia is an excessive or unreasonable fear triggered by the presence or anticipation of a particular object or situation. A person with a specific phobia:
experiences anxiety, which may take the form of a panic attack, when he or she is exposed to the feared object or situation,
is aware that the fear is irrational or excessive,
avoids the feared object or situation or endures it with intense anxiety or distress,
experiences anxiety, anxious anticipation, or avoidance that significantly interferes with his or her life or causes great distress.
Types of specific phobias include:
animal phobias (animals, birds, insects, spiders)
natural environment phobias (heights, the dark, water, storms)
situational phobias (airplanes, elevators, tunnels, trains)
blood, injection, and injury phobias (sight of blood, receiving injections, or any bodily damage).
other phobias (foods, sounds, vomiting, clowns)
Cognitive-behavioral model of specific phobia
The cognitive-behavioral model of specific phobia stresses the role that cognitions (such as, "If a spider bites me I will die") and behaviors (such as escape and avoidance) play in causing and maintaining the phobia. People who have specific phobias typically overestimate the danger of the feared situation and underestimate their ability to handle the situation. Because they usually avoid the situation, they do not have the opportunity to learn, at a visceral level, that their beliefs about it are unrealistic.
Specific phobias may also have a built-in biological or even evolutionary basis. Certain objects or situations tend to be feared more than others because they do in fact present some danger (snakes are more dangerous than flowers, and snake phobias are more common than flower phobias). The evolutionary hypothesis provides an elegant account of the fact that blood, injection, and injury phobias sometimes lead to fainting; it proposes that an evolutionary advantage was conferred to those of our early ancestors who, in response to the sight of blood or a bodily injury, experienced a drop in blood pressure.
Cognitive-behavior therapy for specific phobia
Cognitive-behavior therapy for specific phobia includes several types of interventions:
Monitoring: Learn about the physiological, cognitive, and behavioral components of your phobia.
Cognitive: Identify your beliefs about the phobic object or situation, challenge them, and correct your misperceptions.
Behavioral: You and your therapist will devise a plan to gradually and systematically expose you to your feared object or situation. This can be done in real life or in imagination or both. With repeated practice, you will challenge and change your negative expectations, gain confidence in your ability to cope with the feared situation, no longer associate the situation with anxiety and fear, and decrease your anxiety and physiological arousal in feared situations. If you fear certain sensations (for example, increased heart rate), exposure treatment will involve gradually and systematically bringing on and experiencing those situations in order to overcome your fear of them.
Here is some information.
Specific Phobias
Many people experience specific phobias, intense, irrational fears of certain things or situations—dogs, closed-in places, heights, escalators, tunnels, highway driving, water, flying, and injuries involving blood are a few of the more common ones. Phobias aren't just extreme fear; they are irrational fear. You may be able to ski the world's tallest mountains with ease but panic going above the 10th floor of an office building. Adults with phobias realize their fears are irrational, but often facing, or even thinking about facing, the feared object or situation brings on a panic attack or severe anxiety.
Specific phobias strike more than 1 in 10 people. No one knows just what causes them, though they seem to run in families and are a little more prevalent in women. Phobias usually first appear in adolescence or adulthood. They start suddenly and tend to be more persistent than childhood phobias; only about 20 percent of adult phobias vanish on their own. When children have specific phobias—for example, a fear of animals—those fears usually disappear over time, though they may continue into adulthood. No one knows why they hang on in some people and disappear in others.
If the object of the fear is easy to avoid, people with phobias may not feel the need to seek treatment. Sometimes, though, they may make important career or personal decisions to avoid a phobic situation.
When phobias interfere with a person's life, treatment can help. Successful treatment usually involves a kind of cognitive-behavioral therapy called desensitization or exposure therapy, in which patients are gradually exposed to what frightens them until the fear begins to fade. Three-fourths of patients benefit significantly from this type of treatment. Relaxation and breathing exercises also help reduce anxiety symptoms.
There is currently no proven drug treatment for specific phobias, but sometimes certain medications may be prescribed to help reduce anxiety symptoms before someone faces a phobic situation.
Specific Phobias
"I'm terrified of spiders. I don't go hiking or take my daughter to the park any more. It makes me too anxious."
What is specific phobia?
Specific phobia is an excessive or unreasonable fear triggered by the presence or anticipation of a particular object or situation. A person with a specific phobia:
experiences anxiety, which may take the form of a panic attack, when he or she is exposed to the feared object or situation,
is aware that the fear is irrational or excessive,
avoids the feared object or situation or endures it with intense anxiety or distress,
experiences anxiety, anxious anticipation, or avoidance that significantly interferes with his or her life or causes great distress.
Types of specific phobias include:
animal phobias (animals, birds, insects, spiders)
natural environment phobias (heights, the dark, water, storms)
situational phobias (airplanes, elevators, tunnels, trains)
blood, injection, and injury phobias (sight of blood, receiving injections, or any bodily damage).
other phobias (foods, sounds, vomiting, clowns)
Cognitive-behavioral model of specific phobia
The cognitive-behavioral model of specific phobia stresses the role that cognitions (such as, "If a spider bites me I will die") and behaviors (such as escape and avoidance) play in causing and maintaining the phobia. People who have specific phobias typically overestimate the danger of the feared situation and underestimate their ability to handle the situation. Because they usually avoid the situation, they do not have the opportunity to learn, at a visceral level, that their beliefs about it are unrealistic.
Specific phobias may also have a built-in biological or even evolutionary basis. Certain objects or situations tend to be feared more than others because they do in fact present some danger (snakes are more dangerous than flowers, and snake phobias are more common than flower phobias). The evolutionary hypothesis provides an elegant account of the fact that blood, injection, and injury phobias sometimes lead to fainting; it proposes that an evolutionary advantage was conferred to those of our early ancestors who, in response to the sight of blood or a bodily injury, experienced a drop in blood pressure.
Cognitive-behavior therapy for specific phobia
Cognitive-behavior therapy for specific phobia includes several types of interventions:
Monitoring: Learn about the physiological, cognitive, and behavioral components of your phobia.
Cognitive: Identify your beliefs about the phobic object or situation, challenge them, and correct your misperceptions.
Behavioral: You and your therapist will devise a plan to gradually and systematically expose you to your feared object or situation. This can be done in real life or in imagination or both. With repeated practice, you will challenge and change your negative expectations, gain confidence in your ability to cope with the feared situation, no longer associate the situation with anxiety and fear, and decrease your anxiety and physiological arousal in feared situations. If you fear certain sensations (for example, increased heart rate), exposure treatment will involve gradually and systematically bringing on and experiencing those situations in order to overcome your fear of them.
Clyde's Bonnie
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Manchester, CT
Posts: 128
i got a little panicky when reading the part that says slow exposure to one's fear is a type of treatment. So thit means i have to throw up to get over throwing up!!!!!!!! well then i dont want treatment..... 
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