WEBVTT - How Vomit Phobia Works 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.600 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:13.840 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:17.720 There's Charles b Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there. This 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:22.560 is Stuff you Should Know, very special surprisingly sad edition. 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:26.799 Oh yeah, I think so. Yeah, of course it's sad. 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:32.600 It's really gross. It is gross. I'm gonna have a 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:34.559 hard time getting through this one, so we should give 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:38.560 everybody fair warning. We are talking about a metaphobia, which 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:43.800 is a specific phobia, a fear of throwing up. And 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:48.720 we'll get way more into um all of that and 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:53.440 what it means, but we're talking about vomiting. It's basically 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:57.080 tied for first as the subject of this episode. So 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:00.040 we're gonna be talking about vomiting a lot. And I 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:05.119 found from researching this reading and I imagine hearing about 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:09.800 vomiting for a good thirty minute forty minute stretch, it 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:14.080 can make one queasy. So just fair warning. I don't 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:17.400 think it's actually going to make you queasy, but it's 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:22.720 possible if it starts to happen, just plow through it. 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:24.960 To just say, Josh and Chuck would want me to 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:27.399 plow through it, and your queaziness will magically go away. 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:30.720 Oh yeah, all right. Uh So, like you said, it 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:34.039 is a specific phobia and it is actually listed in 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:37.959 the d s M. Now, I'm not sure how long 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:42.960 it's been in there, but it is, well a meta phobia, isn't. Well, 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:45.720 I thought the specific phobia vomiting. Now, I guess I 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:49.240 think specific phobias are. I don't. I don't know if 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:53.360 it's if it's a specifically listed chuck. So when this 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:56.560 says it is a specific phobia a current according to 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:59.440 the d s M, what does that mean? I think 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:02.120 it means that it falls under the umbrella of a 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:05.440 specific phobia. Okay, you see what I mean. Not really, 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:11.520 but that's okay. Um. This means, well, you're afraid you 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:16.320 might vomit. You're afraid someone else might vomit around you. Um, 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:18.560 you're afraid what people will think of you if you 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:22.560 do vomit. Yeah. It's just uh, and it's not this 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:25.320 article where'd you get this stuff? Anyway? Was just sort 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:28.639 of cobbled. It was cobbled together from some pretty good sources, 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:34.320 including Psychology Today, the American Association of Anxiety Disorders UM, 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:40.120 the National Institutes of Health Library, the BBC Vice and 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:43.680 I want to give a shout out to the listener 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:47.040 who wrote in to share her a metaphobia story. I 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:49.880 had never heard of it before, and she had a 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:53.840 very harrowing experience and overcame it just through sheer grit 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:57.280 and willpower, um, and came through the other side of 0:02:57.280 --> 0:03:00.160 this very serious phobia. Yeah, which you know, we'll to 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:03.640 the how to do that later. But um, these articles 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:07.320 and make great pains to point out that it is. Uh. 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:11.799 I think all people think it's gross and are very 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:15.160 much repulsed and turned off by the sound or the 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:18.760 smell or the look or anything that deals with somebody 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:22.320 getting sick like this. Um. But this is different than that. 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:27.760 This is a debilitating fear that can overtake your life. Yeah, 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:31.360 that would specifically be a metaphobia. There's actually it seems 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:34.960 like a spectrum where you can also suffer from what's 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:40.440 called fear of vomiting, which is much less um overwhelming, 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:44.600 but still you're preoccupied with the idea of vomiting. With 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:48.760 the metaphobia, your life does not resemble what your life 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:52.480 would be if you if you weren't afraid. Yeah, it's 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:55.240 a it's a real impairment to your life in a 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:58.360 lot of different ways, which will go over It seems 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:02.000 like there's not a lot of study about it. I 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:04.400 mean I ran across a few studies, but even in 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:07.760 the studies I found, they specifically say not a lot 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:10.000 of studies about us. So a lot of the guests 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:13.600 is about the prevalence are guesses. But um, one thing 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:17.000 I saw was that UM in the general population eight 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:20.760 point eight percent. I think that's actually fear of vomiting. 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:23.760 I think a metaphobia is more like less than one 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:27.760 percent of the population has actual a metaphobia, but that 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:31.240 it tends to be UM about four to one ratio 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:34.120 of women to men. Women suffer from it. They have 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:36.839 a tendency to suffer from it more. Yeah, and I 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:40.080 certainly do not have it. But um, like I said, 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:43.400 like almost everyone in the world probably it is a 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:46.920 trigger for most folks. Yeah, nobody wants to throw up. 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.960 But if you have a metaphobia, just seeing the title 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:54.760 of this come through your podcast feed could have set 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:58.799 off an anxiety attack. And like I feel very guilty 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:01.520 about that. There nothing we could do because even if 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:04.360 we warned everybody in the episode before this that this 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:07.120 was coming that would set off a panic attack. Just 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:10.680 the mere mention of the word vomit can can set 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:15.240 the the anxiety disorder into UM full gear. Yeah. This 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:18.760 one article you sent. One of the clinicians they interviewed UM, 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:22.479 who treats anxiety disorder, said it is, in her practice, 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:26.560 the most common fear among children that they see. Yeah. Uh, 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:29.520 And that's typically how it starts. So it's a chronic disease, 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:32.240 meaning that if you don't treat this, it's going to 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:34.560 persist basically every day of your life, and it tends 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:39.320 to get worse over time. UM. And it usually starts 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:45.039 with a traumatic experience of vomiting, most frequently of all 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:49.720 in childhood, So it's it's more common I think, among kids, 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:52.360 but it can survive into adulthood and it can start 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:56.240 in adults. But what seems to happen is you have 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:59.520 a traumatic experience from vomiting, and just like with any 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:03.760 other true attic experience, whether it's surviving UM, a violent 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:08.680 crime or being in war, UM, vomiting can have that 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:12.520 same effect on the brain apparently, and you developed something 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:17.719 pretty closely akin to PTSD at the thought of vomiting, 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:20.640 and it overwhelmed the life as a result. I had 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:25.159 a traumatic experience with this when I was a kid. Um. 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:27.440 I might have told the story before for another reason, 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:31.080 but um, I was on the bus going to elementary 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:35.599 school and there was a scary kid. Remember an elementary school. 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.120 They were just the scary kids. I remember my scary 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:41.520 kids first and last name. Yeah, right, And they're scary 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:45.600 for various reasons, whether they were bullies or I mean, 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:49.120 you could probably diagnose something that was wrong as an adult, 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:51.800 but as a kid, they were just scary kids. And 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:56.280 I'm not talking about like I mean, I'm talking about 0:06:56.279 --> 0:07:00.320 like sociopathic behavior, not something that you know, like some 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:05.120 They weren't, yeah, exactly. They had like real issues that 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:08.080 were affecting other people around exactly. So this one kid, 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:11.000 I remember his name was Tony something, but he on 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:15.200 the way to school one day would or many days, 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:18.680 he would make himself throw up outside of the uh 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:21.560 with his face out of the window, and it would, 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:23.520 you know, the school bus was going down the road 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:25.760 and it would fly down and land on the windows 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:28.520 all the way down and other windows, and he would 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:32.440 make himself vomit, and it just it's scared the crap 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:37.680 out of me. Man, and it wasn't like I was 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:41.840 scared scared, scared scared of this dude. Yeah, well that's 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:46.080 really bizarre, yeah behavior, especially if he was doing it 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:48.880 to like intimidate, to freak other people out. Yeah, and 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:53.120 I think I might remember a story because it's you 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:55.480 know how sometimes a certain event can tie something else 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:57.800 in your brain. You know. My dad was my elementary 0:07:57.800 --> 0:07:59.760 school principal. I don't know why I was riding the 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:01.320 bus because he usually just went to work with him. 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:05.720 He wanted to normalize things maybe, but um, I ran 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:08.480 to my dad's office right when I got to school crying. 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:12.840 He wasn't in there, and the secretary, Dot Jones let 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:15.080 me in the office, and Dot let me stay in 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:18.120 his office because I was sad. And he had one 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:24.040 of those big um cabinet stereos record so the stereo 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:28.280 was already on. But the song that was on, weirdly 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:33.680 was the BGS How Deep Is Your Love? And to 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:36.120 this day I hear that song and it makes me 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:39.439 want to cry. Yeah, it's just a trigger from that 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:41.440 day with that guy, you know what, and that weird 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.320 that's a sad story because that's a good song. I know, 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:46.760 it makes me want to weep. It makes me want 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:49.280 to thinking about Tony making himself throw up, And I 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:52.400 always wonder what happened that guy. He's in Jim Rose's 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:56.160 side show right now. Maybe is that still around. I 0:08:56.200 --> 0:09:00.640 don't know, Puky Tony, but yeah that was him, Yukiitonian, 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:04.680 hippie robber and like a little jug band together. But anyway, 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:07.880 that's a long way of saying that that was not enough. 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:10.480 Even the traumatize me to the point where I have 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:13.480 a metaphobia. No, but I mean it could have been. 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:16.760 It just it seems to be like and it's not 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:21.840 even necessarily like a type of person or um. It's 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:25.800 it's the brain can just the synapsies can fuse in 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:28.440 a certain way, and all of a sudden you have 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:32.080 this phobia. And the problem is this is it starts 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:34.640 from a traumatic experience. So let's say that that had 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:37.520 had this impact on your chuck, right, what would have 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:39.160 come next if you were on the road to a 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:43.559 metaphobia would have been to um, start to fear throwing up, 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:46.120 seeing somebody throw up, probably is how it would have started. 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:49.559 And then that would have spread to throwing up yourself, 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:53.000 and then you would have become hyper vigilant. You would 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:56.920 you would want to protect yourself from seeing somebody throw 0:09:57.000 --> 0:09:59.920 up or from throwing up. Well, how do you do that? 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:04.240 To prevent yourself from throwing up? You're gonna monitor every 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:07.400 single weird feeling you have to say it would mind 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:09.320 about to throw up, I need to like tamp this down, 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:11.720 or I can't eat that food it might make me 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:13.640 throw up. Or I can't read in the car, it 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:15.920 might make me car sick and I'll throw up, Or 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:18.760 that person looks kind of sick. I'm going to avoid them, 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:20.840 and then let's just take it a little further and 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:24.280 avoid everybody altogether, because anybody could really throw up at 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:27.680 any given time. And you start to become preoccupied with this, 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:30.960 and you adjust your life and alter it, and then 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:38.439 you're constantly worried about throwing up. And once that happens, 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:41.480 it's the phobia is complete. Your life has changed, you're 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:44.840 constantly worried about it. And then the cherry on top 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:46.880 of the whole thing is that when you finally are 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:51.120 confronted with the word vomit actually seeing somebody something like that, 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:57.480 you enter a panic attack, an actual panic attack, and um, 0:10:57.520 --> 0:10:59.760 the only way to overcome that is to get away, 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:03.280 to run, to get out of there, to um, I'm 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:05.840 not sure all the ways you can handle a panic attack, 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:09.800 but then it calms down and your anxiety returns to 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:13.880 normal levels, which is to say hi for the average person. Yeah. 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:16.000 So in my case an elementary school, how that could 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:20.240 have gone was, um, I had another ride to school. 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:22.680 But if I hadn't, I might have stopped taking the 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:26.800 school bus and started skipping class and not going to 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:28.679 school at all because I was afraid to get on 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:32.640 the school bus because of puky tony and gone weeks 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:34.800 in a row. And then my parents get a call saying, 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:37.880 Chuck hasn't been in school for weeks, what's going on? 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:40.160 And that's exactly what's going on. Like it can get 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:44.560 that severe, and it all boils down to the at 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:48.280 least in most cases, the anticipation of this more so 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:53.000 than the actual act in every case, because the the 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:55.960 people that are struck with this, by all accounts, are 0:11:56.120 --> 0:12:01.360 less vomitous than the general population, so much so because 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:03.720 they've tried to avoid it, so much so that this 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:05.880 one article said that most of these people can even 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:08.400 name like the three or four times in their life 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:10.920 they have ever puked and what they ate that day, 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:12.800 and what they had on television and what they wore, 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:16.240 because it stands out that singularly to them. And then 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:20.880 so that's horribly ironic that the people who are the 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:23.840 most worried about throwing up are the people who are actually, 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:28.160 statistically speaking, at least likely to throw up. Right. Um, 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:30.240 But there's an even greater irony to the whole thing, 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:32.600 and we'll talk about that after this break. How about 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:56.280 that it's a chuck where you're on the irony train 0:12:56.760 --> 0:13:00.360 and I want to keep going. Okay, Yes, the the 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:05.400 irony of paying attention and being hyper vigilant about vomiting, 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:10.680 especially when you are, um, worried that you're going to vomit, 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:13.319 because again, there there's a number of things that you're 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:15.600 you're worried about. You're going to be worried that you 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:18.040 won't be able to find a bathroom in time to 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:20.880 go throw up. You're worried about throwing up in front 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:25.320 of other people, um, and embarrassing yourself for being teased 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:30.040 for throwing up. Um. You're worried about just the experience 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:33.720 of throwing up, this horrible experience. But once you start 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:39.160 to get a metaphobia, you you lose perspective completely, Like 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:43.720 it becomes like I've seen multiple they call them a metaphobes, 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:46.400 people with a metaphobia. I have seen multiple people say 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:50.680 you would prefer to die than to throw up. That's 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:53.240 how much they fear throwing up, and the rest of 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:55.319 us it's like, God, that would suck to throw up, 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:57.160 but I know I'll be fine on the other end 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:00.440 of it, not to a person with a metaphobia. So 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:02.520 the irony of all this is the more you start 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:06.560 to focus on this and you start to uh think 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:11.000 about every gurgle in your stomach or every weird twist 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:16.439 or turn um, it actually produces more anxiety. And here's 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:20.200 the ironic part. Anxiety can actually make you queasy when 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:23.480 you're thinking about throwing up, that's right, So it makes 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:26.440 the whole thing worse and it becomes this vicious cycle. Yeah, 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:30.040 and they recommend trying to tell yourself, like, I might 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:32.920 feel queasy, but I'm not going to throw up. My 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:36.240 anxiety might be making me feel nauseous, but I am 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:38.760 not going to throw up. Yeah, Because there's a confusion 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:42.640 of queasiness equals nausea equals throwing up and that's just 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:46.600 not the case. Like, you can make yourself sick with anxiety, 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:49.880 but you can't make yourself throw up from being anxious, 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:53.080 so the whole thing is just wasted. Worry. Yeah, some 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:55.960 of the other things you might do because of the spear. 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:01.760 You might not shake hands with anyone ever again you Well, 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:04.400 I think a lot of people avoid looking at television 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:08.040 puke scenes. Yeah, you cannot watch. You really can't watch 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:11.080 those at all. You can't watch Stand by Me or 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:14.160 The Meaning of Life. Those are so funny looking though, 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:18.600 but still probably not. Uh. You might throw away food 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:23.640 in your fridge that uh is not even past this 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:27.000 expiration date. You might have a trigger there. Um. You 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:30.400 might overcook your food on purpose, and then before you 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:32.880 eat it, you will lift the bread a bunch of 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:37.480 times called checking behavior. Sure. Um, you might not eat 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.040 on vacation as readily because you only trust your trusted 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:44.680 food sources. You might go into a place and like 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:47.960 you know, when some people go into a music venue, 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:49.800 like they check for the exits, like you're checking for 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:52.880 the bathrooms. You you may not even make it to 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:55.280 the music venue. You A lot of them. A lot 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:57.720 of people with the metaphobia end up being agoraphobic and 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:00.960 just don't leave their house really developing it's it's often 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:06.960 confused for agaphobia by by UM counselors. Yeah, shrinks, I've 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:09.720 got another one, all right. Apparently a lot of people 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:13.080 who have a metaphobia walk around with a plastic bag 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:15.280 on them at all times, something to throw up into, 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:18.200 an emergency throw up bag. They walk around with this 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:20.240 because they're so afraid of throwing up that they never 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:22.400 need to use because they probably don't ever throw up, 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:26.160 I know. And some of them will actually carry a 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:29.720 change of clothes around with them as well, for the 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:31.880 same reason. If they throw up on themselves, they can 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:36.600 change their clothes. Yeah, And of course, air travel, drinking 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:41.600 alcohol um, any of those things are, or car travel 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:44.960 even like any kind of travel is probably avoided. Definitely 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:48.400 don't booze it up or Yeah, they probably don't drink 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:52.280 at all, and subsist on things like pasta and bananas 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:58.120 and very very safe um digestively speaking foods, although banana 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:01.800 could gag you. Yeah, you know, God, that would be 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:05.840 a nightmare if you had a metaphobia. I wonder if 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:08.879 they mash them up and eat it like like mashed 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:11.960 up with a fork. Maybe maybe you could see it. Yeah, 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:14.399 and I could see cutting your food up into you know, 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:17.560 the tiniest pieces, because you feel if you're choking. And 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:19.040 that's one of the fears too. I don't think we 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:22.119 mentioned like they're not just afraid of the vomiting, but 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:26.600 they sometimes can fear choking on vomit and dying and 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:29.879 affixiating and or going to the hospital or starting to 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:33.320 vomit and the vomiting never ending. That's another fear of 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:35.760 a metaphobia. One other thing that I saw people do, 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:40.960 um is prevent getting pregnant because of a fear of 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:44.840 mourning sickness. Um. So yeah, so your life is is 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:50.399 altered and curtailed because you're afraid of vomiting. Everywhere you 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:53.119 look there's some potential trigger out there. So it just 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:56.480 be easier to stay home and eat your pasta and 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:01.520 not watch movies basically, and it just lie there and 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:04.399 monitor your stomach for signs that you're about to throw up. 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:06.000 That's what they do. That's what you do when you 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:10.320 have a metaphobia. That's your life. It's no way to live. So, 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:14.280 like this is not all just academic and stuff. We're 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:16.679 grasping at shows and pulling together from different cases like 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:20.359 this is. There's actually a case study we found, UM 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:24.160 that was of an eight year old girl who had 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:28.280 a terrible experience throwing up and really kind of encapsulates 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:32.280 the experience of a metaphobia. She had full blown to metaphobia. 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:36.560 She had appendicitis and had been throwing up before the 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:38.959 doctors figured out she had a pendicitis and had her 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:44.360 appendix removed. And that experience throwing up was um while 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:47.040 it triggered a metaphobia in her. She when she came 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:50.440 to and Um was recovering from her surgery, about ten 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:53.840 days later, she started getting really worried she was going 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:55.879 to start throwing up like that again. Yeah. It was 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:59.600 a really sad case and uh pretty much covered everything 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:02.040 we've said and and even then some to the point 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:06.360 where her father traveled for business and she didn't want 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:10.240 him to travel anymore. Her father to travel anymore for 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:14.280 fear that he would uh get some sickness and then 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:16.960 bring it back to the house. Uh, I mean that's 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:19.520 pretty extensive, you know. Yeah, Like she didn't want to 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:22.560 eat herself. She she didn't want to eat any outside food. 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:24.160 She had her safe food, but she also didn't want 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:27.320 her parents to eat any outside food either because she 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:30.479 didn't want them throwing up. She stopped um playing with 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:32.480 other kids because she was worried about throwing up in 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:34.960 front of him and being teased. That was her big thing. 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:40.399 Um And as as one of the clinicians who we 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:44.760 came across in this research said, it's not the vomiting 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:48.560 that's really the problem, Like that's the focus, that's the obsession, 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:51.959 But the real problem is the worry, the constant worry. 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:55.119 It's the worry that's altering your life, and it altered 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:58.200 this little girl's life, you know, very sad. So let's 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:00.800 let's take another break and then we'll come back and 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:03.880 put a silver lining on this thing and talk about treatment. 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:27.800 All right, So we've talked a lot on the show 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:32.840 over the years about CBT cognitive behavioral therapy or exposure 0:20:33.080 --> 0:20:37.359 and response prevention e r P, basically exposure therapy, and 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:42.080 this is definitely probably the way to go when it 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:46.520 comes to a metaphobia. So depending on who you go see, 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:52.120 you might undergo various kinds of treatments, ranging from starting 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:56.800 out by literally saying the words vomit out loud or 0:20:57.119 --> 0:21:02.000 throw up or puke or just all the words um, 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:06.000 because that's literally the first step sometimes into getting over 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:08.080 this is just being able to speak the word yeah. 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:09.879 And you may have to start out by writing it 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:12.560 down first before you can say it out loud for real. 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:16.960 And so once you move past that, um. The the 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:21.080 therapies range from um, they're kind of all over the board, 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:25.200 from looking at fake vomit that your therapist has made 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:27.320 in a toilet. Yeah, now you're starting to move into 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:30.040 exposure therapy, right, Yeah, I mean this is all of 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:34.520 this stuff, uh E r P and CBT, but um, 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:36.200 you know, they'll make up some fake vomit, put it 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:38.760 in the toilet, make you go look at it. They themselves, 0:21:38.800 --> 0:21:42.080 the therapists might make the noises in front of you, 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:45.520 just out of nowhere. Well I imagine they probably prep 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:48.760 them or maybe not. Uh may may go in the 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:50.800 bathroom and jump up and say I gotta go get sick. 0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:54.359 And all of this is just exposing this patient over 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:56.760 and over to the point where they can handle hearing 0:21:56.800 --> 0:22:00.720 the sound, seeing the thing, saying the word. Hearing the 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:03.760 smell is another one too. One of the recommendations for 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:07.439 exposure therapy is you make your own throw up, like 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:10.959 in the toilet, a little bit of um, cold soup 0:22:11.359 --> 0:22:13.800 something like that, maybe mixed in some oatmeal with it, 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:16.239 and then pour a little vinegar in there to like 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:20.040 make it pungent, and sit around and think about that 0:22:20.080 --> 0:22:23.720 being vomit. Maybe try to make the sound of throwing 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:27.959 up yourself, um, try to make yourself gag and and 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:30.760 all this is to show you, when you have a 0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:34.440 metaphobia that this is, first of all, it's manageable. That's 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:36.280 the first part. Is what you're trying to do is 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:40.240 get to this point without having a panic attack. But 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:44.080 then also um that if you gag, it doesn't mean 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:46.080 you're automatically going to throw up. And if you do 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:48.159 throw up, it doesn't mean you're never going to stop 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:51.480 throwing up, or that everyone's going to ridicule you for 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:54.760 throwing up. And and that's you know, the point of 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:58.040 any cognitive behavioral therapy is just kind of change your 0:22:58.080 --> 0:23:01.120 perspective and give you a more realistic view of the 0:23:01.160 --> 0:23:04.320 thing you're worried about. Um. There's also a website called 0:23:04.440 --> 0:23:06.800 rate my Vomit. Have you heard of it? Yeah? I 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:08.760 wouldn't get to mention that, But go ahead, you have 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:11.199 heard of it before, No, no, no, I read about it, 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:13.640 but I just it just sounds like, I mean, that's 0:23:13.680 --> 0:23:16.520 like classic internet stuff, right, Somebody's like, oh, let's put 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:18.400 pictures of throw up on there, and you guys tell 0:23:18.440 --> 0:23:21.120 me how gross it is. Well, it's actually used by 0:23:21.160 --> 0:23:25.080 people with a metaphobia too, as exposure therapy at home 0:23:26.000 --> 0:23:28.119 to just go look at this stuff and see it. 0:23:28.119 --> 0:23:30.920 There's also videos of people throwing up. There's a lot 0:23:30.960 --> 0:23:36.959 of stuff the internet like unintentionally is this great place 0:23:37.080 --> 0:23:40.479 for people with a metaphobia to go get over their fears? 0:23:40.600 --> 0:23:42.400 And I'm sure, like if you have a fear of snakes, 0:23:42.400 --> 0:23:45.119 it's good for that too, But so is like a 0:23:45.160 --> 0:23:47.160 time life book. You're not gonna find a time life 0:23:47.160 --> 0:23:51.240 book that's nothing but pictures of vomit. You're gonna find 0:23:51.240 --> 0:23:54.399