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Hi Libby

Thanks for your reply. I have spoken about this lack of feeling again to my therapist and she believes that there is a very young part of me who is pushing away any bad feelings from the past as a way of detaching from the pain. This would have been a necessary function as a young child, in order to survive and carry on with life. We are working on connecting with these feelings, and soothing the young, very hurt child part of me, so that I can resolve the trauma, grieve and move forward with my life. All the other symptoms of phobia, anxiety, etc should resolve once these deeper issues are dealt with. It seems a bit clearer to me now.

With regard to feeling anger, my therapist encourages me to feel my anger, journal about it and write anger letters to my perpetrators. The anger needs to be felt and safely processed, rather than simply letting it go. Apparently this is a necessary  part of healing. I do however also struggle to feel anger as it makes me feel so guilty!

I wish you well on your healing journey 😊

Something that I'm really struggling with is the fact that I don't seem bothered at all by memories of my childhood abuse and neglect. My therapist keeps trying to assist me in processing 'traumatic' memories, but if the memories don't cause any bad feelings, is this processing necessary? I can remember being beaten and severely emotionally neglected, but these memories don't upset me in the slightest. I am more concerned with my vomit phobia, social anxiety and being bullied in more recent years than things that happened in my childhood.
Am I supposed to have bad feelings about my abuse? If so, how do I get in touch with these feelings? I've tried jounalling, etc, but I'm just blank really.

I have explained this to my therapist but she is convinced I am carrying trauma from childhood and that this is driving my anxiety and that we need to keep working on it.

I feel there is a big piece of the puzzle missing that I just can't find. Does this sound like a form of dissociation?

Thanks in advance for any opinions.

Thanks ah for your reply. I really struggle to hold on to the 'safe' feeling in between sessions, and I guess this is something I need to work on. And I need to practice distraction techniques too.

Junipershadow, thank you for your reply. You have given me some hope for dealing with future episodes of sickness. Another of my worries is that I will pass this awful phobia onto my son because I find it so hard to not panic in front of him when 'it' happens. Me and my husband long for another child, but this phobia is stopping that from happening at the moment.

I am taking two different antidepressants as well as a sleeping tablet at night and I do feel that they stop me from becoming suicidal about this phobia.

I'm sorry that you suffer with this too.

Thanks all for your replies and  for you too.

I guess I'm getting frustrated at the slow progress. My therapy is trauma-informed and therapist is amazing at supporting and reassuring me. But in between sessions I find it so difficult to put what I've learnt into practice and the hopelessness I feel is all-consuming. But something keeps me plodding on, so there must be some hope in me somewhere!

I understand from my therapist and from what I've read, that the first stage of cptsd treatment is safety and stabilisation. The problem for me here is that I never feel safe, because I am in a permanently triggered state. This is due to me having severe emetophobia (fear of vomiting) and I am constantly terrified that my 3 year old will vomit at any time. He has had two stomach bugs recently and this has left me unable to function.

How am I ever going to achieve safety and stabilisation when I am constantly triggered? I am very dissociated and foggy most of the time.  Grounding techniques don't work for me and I have tried yoga and relaxing in the bath and mindfulness, etc. I have been working so hard at this all for three years and cannot seem to get out of this state. I cannot get away from my trigger as he is my dependant son. How am I ever going to get out of this?!

Thanks for reading if you've got this far.

Hi Libby

Mine started really early on in life - the first time I became aware of being terrified of it was when I was 6 years old and, like you, am thinking it's something to do with my early relationship with my mum. My violent stepfather came on the scene when I was 4.

I'm glad that you feel you are beginning to make sense of things in your therapy. I hope to be able to do the same soon.

Thanks for your reply sanmagic7. It's interesting to hear that your mother may have had similar troubles as me. I too cannot look after my 3 year old son when he is sick, I literally run away from him when he vomits because of the uncontrollable panic. I have to leave that all with my husband to deal with.

I think on some level I might be a bit 'in denial' about the link between the phobia and past abuse. Maybe a defence against dealing with the past.

Thanks again for your reply.

Does anyone else here suffer from emetophobia (fear of vomit) and is it a symptom of your cptsd? I originally went to my therapist with emet as my primary concern, but she says I have cptsd (due to physical and emotional abuse and neglect and abuse in childhood) and is therefore treating the cptsd.

I do not ever get triggered or feel upset by memories of my abuse. The only thing that makes my life really difficult is the emetophobia. Am I ever going to resolve the emet by focusing on past abuse? Feeling very confused. I having been seeing the therapist for 3 years now and emet is really bad at the moment.