Phobia and Taste Aversion

Lecture 18 teaches us that a phobia is a persistent and irrational fear towards an object or situation that disrupts behavior. We learn that some people have social phobias and many random things. Many of you may know that triskaidekaphobia is the fear of the number 13, but do you know what emetophobia is? It is the fear of vomiting. Now you’re probably thinking no one likes vomiting, but it is much more than a dislike towards it.

I suffer from emetophobia and it is very debilitating. It started in 3rd grade. I woke up on the morning of the last day of the PSSAs, a standardized test for PA elementary and middle school students for the non PA people. I felt horrible, but the test is super mandatory so I went to school. Breakfast was served to keep our minds sharp for the test. I had Cinnamon Toast Crunch. As I finished the math section of the test, I suddenly felt worse. I couldn’t breathe and I kept burping. Then it happened. I threw up on my desk.

Since then, I am horrified of the idea of vomiting. This includes coughing too hard, getting the stomach bug, food poisoning, motion sickness and anything else. I sometimes will stay with a relative if someone in my house is remotely ill or mentions being sick in any way. I won’t hang out with friends for a week after they have been sick. I compulsively check expiration dates on anything with dairy to avoid food poisoning. I make my mom check my chicken twice to make sure it is fully cooked whether its at home or out to eat. At one point, I stopped eating all meat because I was so worried about salmonella. I still won’t eat salad since the lettuce incident with E. coli.

For years I had a taste aversion to Cinnamon Toast Crunch because it was the last thing I ate before I threw up. I know it was not food poisoning from the milk or the cereal but the thought still crosses my mind.

This phobia has very much affected my normal behavior and caused me to be a bit weird around, well, everyone. It caused me to be diagnosed with anxiety, but I have gotten a hold on it. Emetophobia still affects my life. I may not enjoy the compulsiveness, but I have not thrown up in 10 years so I think that is a bonus.

4 thoughts on “Phobia and Taste Aversion”

  1. While I do not have emetophobia, I do have entomophobia. This is the irrational fear of insects, and although not technically included in this category, spiders. I had an experience just like yours when I was about 4 or 5 years old that has since brought serious difficulties into my life. When I was little, I lived in Texas where we had red ants, they would bite unlike black ants, and everyone knew not to touch them or go near them. Unfortunately, my dad took my car seat out from the car one time and left it in the garage for the weekend, not knowing the trauma I would face on that following Monday. Like all little kids, I often had snacks in the cupholder attached to my car seat and when it was in the garage, a colony of red ants moved into it without anyone knowing. So that morning on the way to gymnastics, I was strapped into my seat, unable to move, and while my mom was driving on the highway they began to crawl out all over me. The word traumatizing doesn’t begin to describe the fear and anxiety that overcame me that day as hundreds of ants began to climb all over me and bite me. Ever since that day, I have been mortified by insects and spiders. I wouldn’t go play outside in the woods with my friends, I would scream and cry at the sight of any bug, there was no lightning bug catching or wishing on ladybugs, and absolutely no way for me to even get close enough to stomp on a bug. My brothers would often use it against me and chase after me with dead bugs in their hands and to this day if they do that I still react the same way, crying and sometimes screaming. Overall, phobias are really such an unfortunate thing to suffer from, and while they may be “funny” to view from the outside, those who are suffering from them understand the enormous amounts of stress and anxiety that can build up because of them.

  2. I personally have had a bad taste aversion experience with a food that everyone loves; that food is pizza. I know, everyone I talked to about this has had the same exact reaction. I remember the last time I had pizza was 10 years ago when I was 9. I remember eating pizza and throwing up 3 consecutive times and when you’re a kid, getting sick is the worst feeling in the world. Not only did this avert me from eating pizza, but it also gave me a fear of vomiting and getting sick. I too would stray far away from whoever was sick because I always hated the sound of puking. I remember one time when my family and I used to live with my grandparents, my brother got sick in which he had a stomach virus and me being scared of throwing up, I remember going upstairs and sleeping with my grandmother for the night until my brother got better. Now luckily I have learned to understand that it’s a part of life and that it is more important that the person who is sick gets the attention they need to insure they are ok. I still don’t like pizza.

  3. This is really interesting, I’ve never heard of emetophobia before. You’re right in that everyone dislikes vomiting but a phobia is much different then simply disliking something. I was fascinated in class to learn about how VR is being used to cure certain types of phobias. Although this might not work for emetophobia it would be interesting to see if this something that you could recover from.

    I personally have a taste aversion to mushrooms. When I was a sophomore in high school my family and I went to Paris. After a long day of traveling we wanted to get dinner so we went to this italian restaurant. I got the chicken marsala and long story short, later that night I got food poisoning. It was a terrible experience and every time I have mushrooms I think of that time. Our brain makes negative connects to these things. I thought it was really cool how farmers will poison a sheep to make wolves have a taste aversion so they won’t kill the sheep.

  4. Even though it’s not a phobia, I have a strong aversion to fettuccine alfredo with chicken and broccoli. When I was a kid, my family went to Ruby Tuesdays and I ordered this along with one of those chocolate lava cakes. I’m not sure if I got sick from the food or from a different illness, but I remember feeling horrible. I had vomited in my bed, so I had to sleep in the living room. After being asleep for a while, I woke up to puke up whatever was left of my meal. After this incident, I found that I was able to eat fettuccine alfredo, chicken, and broccoli separate, but not together. It’s only been recently that I have started to order this meal again at restaurants. Instead of having it all together, though, I ask for them to prepare everything separately. Even once I get my food, I will only eat one part at a time, because I still get nauseous when I mix everything together. It is also safe to say that I’ve never been back to a Ruby Tuesdays since that night.

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