Woman's Hour - Parenting: How do you cope with fear of vomiting?

Episode Date: February 19, 2020

Does your fear of vomiting make parenting a challenge? Emetophobia, a fear of vomiting, is a relatively common but under-researched psychological disorder that mostly affects women. We speak with Lucy Burton, who’s been coping with emetophobia for most of her life, and is the mother of two young children. And Professor David Veale, a consultant psychiatrist at Maudsley hospital, which has a specialist centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma.

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, this is the Woman's Hour Parenting Podcast. This is Jane Garvey and in this episode we are discussing emetophobia, the fear of vomit or vomiting or both. It's under-researched, it is relatively common and it's much more likely to affect women. Lucy Burton has it. She also now has two young children. And we get

the expertise of Professor David Veal, who's a consultant psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital. Here's David defining emetophobia. It's predominantly a fear of vomiting of yourself. Occasionally, it's about other people vomiting, but then it's usually because they're contagious and they'll pass on the vomiting to you. Oh, I see. So it's rooted in a fear of infection. Mainly. Okay. Lucy, tell me about your own experience of it. Well, as a small child, I never liked it when other people vomited. I mean, who does?

But I would go and hide in another part of the house if my little brother was being ill. But I don't think that I realised that it was a problem until my early 20s when I really started to change what I was doing in my daily routine to avoid being ill or avoid seeing vomit. So I wouldn't go out and eat at restaurants. I would avoid going on the tube. If I had to, I'd be bathing myself in hand sanitiser after, which I still think is no bad idea. You know, my hands would be red raw from hand washing. And if I saw vomit or if I felt sick myself, I would have horrific panic attacks

and felt completely stupid because of this. Because who has this? It's not something that's going to kill me. And people have to deal with far worse things in their lives. So I felt very silly. And then it abated for a bit. And then I had two children. And as we know, children are little germ factories. And this fear raised its ugly head again. Who had you told about your fear? No one.

My mother, my father, my husband. And now you and everyone listening. So no one. But the people you did tell, did they laugh or did they understand? I think they were very understanding, but perhaps slightly baffled and would, you know, be very supportive. But you say, well, it's nothing to worry about. But for me, it was something to worry about. Because it was really impacting on how you lived your life.

It was impacting on how I lived my life. I mean, I think I'm quite lucky. I probably have the milder end of it. There are people, and if you go on online forums, who have it so bad. You know, women that considered terminating pregnancies because they didn't want to deal with morning sickness or children's bugs. I mean, I was reading this morning about a lady that had stage three breast cancer and didn't want to have chemo because she was so worried about the nausea. And people even say they want to kill themselves when they have this. I mean, it's so serious and no one talks about it.

David, how many people have you treated with it? Well, I've certainly assessed at least a few hundred. And it's the same pattern over and over again. So it is about 90% sufferers who are women. And we don't know why, because there may be some sort of genetic component or it may be that women are just more focused on preventing illness and contamination and men

tend to have a more jokey attitude towards vomiting. Why? Why would men have a more jokey attitude? I mean you can say honestly this is a show where we talk about anything and in great detail so tell me. No we don't know. We really don't know. I mean well men tend to brush things off more don't know we don't we really don't know no i mean well men tend really

tend to brush things off more don't they that anything to do with bodily fluids uh well um do they i'm saying in general on balance okay i mean i get told off for generalizing about men but i suppose we'll allow a male consultant psychiatrist to get away with it um so at the extreme end as lucy points out, it really is something that is ridiculously impactful on somebody's life. Definitely, because individuals may be avoiding a wide range of situations or activities, but it may also be a reason for seeking help. So for example, when women do want to have children or get pregnant, or when they get children, as Lucy said, that's maybe the main reason or motivation for getting help

because when they have had children, they may be escaping and the child vomits and they may be escaping from the situation or getting a relative to help them and so on. And sometimes it overlaps with things like obsessive compulsive disorder where there's lots of checking and need for certainty and constant hand washing and so on. So it's still trying to understand

how best to help it is the key issue. How best can it be helped? I'm going to just, from my own experience, I remember years and years ago when I was on a local radio station, I interviewed a psychologist who told me that one of the ways of treating this was to make fake vomit and actually use, I don't sour milk flour the inevitable vegetables we all know the one I'm thinking of um and you sort of it sounds ridiculous but you just sort of stir it and perhaps put your hands in it and just get over the whole thing yes but it's very difficult of course because the key issue is vomiting and rather than the vomit itself doesn't it depend on the individual it does but I'm just saying it's just saying it's not like facing up to, say, a fear of spiders or blood or something where you can touch the spider eventually and so on, because you can't repeatedly vomit as such.

It wouldn't be ethical or helpful necessarily. But you can certainly face up to those situations or activities that you're avoiding and without all those little checking behaviours and trying to control yourself and all the things to do, monitoring everybody all the time. And you may well be role-playing vomiting, pretending to play, because you've got to really practice in terms of preparing yourself to vomit at some stage in the future and giving up this need for control. Is that at the heart of it then? Yes, because a lot of phobic phobics fear losing control. I see. Does that ring true for you, Lucy? Certainly elements of it definitely do. I think for me, having tried to cure myself over the last few weeks and months,

I think what I've come to realise is that for me, I'm not so scared of the vomit itself or vomiting, but the worry about the emotions. I'm almost scared of being scared of it, if that makes sense. It does to me. Go on, David. Yeah, no, that sounds absolutely right. But I was just saying that often it's not so much

the pictures of vomit or vomit itself. It's more to do with the sound, perhaps, or the smell of vomit. And, you know, so certainly sometimes we've been experimenting with things like virtual reality. So it sort of seems to immediately help people tolerate the distress of vomiting and be able to test out their expectations. You have two young children. Being a parent means you are going to come into contact with any number of different sorts of bodily fluids.

Do you make certain that you don't deal with your kids being ill or are you now able to get through it? I think in the past my automatic reaction has been to delegate to my very calm husband who isn't phased by anything like that. But I'm by myself with them a lot during the week and you don't have a choice. You've got to just get stuck in and sort it out. And I might be a bit shaky and a little bit worried by it, but you just have to get on. I think... And you don't want your fear to transmit to them. That's the last thing I want. And that's why I wanted to try and get it sorted because I don't want to pass anything on or stop them, you know, enjoying themselves because of my fears. I don't

want to say, oh, don't throw yourself into that soft play ball pit because clearly there's vomit on the bottom of it because it's a softball ball pit. If they want to, they can. I've never considered there to be vomit at the bottom of a softball play kit. But this you do. But when you have this, every single scenario, you're almost kind of trying to guess. It's a threat. I see.

Sorry. Yes, you were just making it very clear. I haven't thought of it. David, any more final thoughts? I mean, the key issue is that preoccupation, constant monitoring of people, whether they look ill or whether there's a potential vomiting come up. You know, it needs it is treatable, but it's tough and it requires a lot of courage and perseverance to resolve it. I'm still slightly puzzled by the gender angle. And I don't really think, you know, either, do you? don't no i mean is is it because women

are i mean this is again a generalization more likely to admit to these things no there's been lots of surveys now that that sort of fear and particularly the vomiting that the specific phobia is definitely more common in women i mean i had it to a very mild extent um don't have it anymore fortunately but i remember i met a cousin who'd grown up on the other side of the world and also had it so it suggests some sort of genetic predisposition at least gosh okay right lucy thank you very much do you feel any happier uh absolutely i mean it's interesting to share it and i think that if other people uh listening have got it and they know that they're not alone i felt very alone and you're not. As David says, lots of people come to him for treatment. My colleague next door, the producer who's in charge today, Anna, has just said that

we've had loads of emails about this already. I can't actually, well I can see your emails now. We're hoping to raise more awareness and try and start a charity for sufferers. So where do people go for help? Well, they can go in the NHS. There are lots of good services and psychological therapy services and following the right protocol. And it's the doing that counts usually rather than just the talking about it. Just a quick question from a listener who says, my daughter's not worried about vomiting herself, but really will have a meltdown if other people are doing it. What should that concerned mum do? I think it depends, wait for the moment to see how

it evolves, because it may just be a passing thing but if obviously if it persists and really interfering in your life then it is certainly important to get help. David Veal a consultant psychiatrist and Lucy Burton. A quick word from you Ali says I've had this since I was eight got told off at that time for being sick in somebody's car coming back from school it really has shaped the way I've lived and I'm now 62. I've never got drunk, I've never wanted to travel or eat different food but I have managed to have lots of help over the years. And from Stephanie, I've had this as long as I can remember but I thought I was the only one. I had no idea it was a recognised thing. It has and still does

big effects on me. I dread it when I hear of anybody with a sickness bug in case I catch it. And I couldn't deal with it when my children were young. If they had a tummy bug, their dad had to do all of that. If I do get caught out by the radio, for example, it induces something very like a panic attack. Stephanie, thank you for that. We do have some help available on the Woman's Hour website, bbc.co.uk slash Woman's Hour. That's also the place to go if you'd like to email the parenting podcast suggesting a topic for it. So please do feel completely free to do that. You can tell us if there's something that you are burning to hear discussed about any aspect of parenting.

We'd love to hear from you. BBC.co.uk slash Woman's Hour. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig. It was fake. No pregnancy.

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