People Who Are Mortified of Vomit Have Emetophobia

Consider this your trigger warning: If you can't talk about puking, vomiting, throwing up, yakking, barfing, hurling, or ralphing, stop reading now. We're going to explore emetophobia, the highly paralyzing (and not uncommon) fear of all things vomit.

Thinking about vomiting, thinking about someone else vomiting, thinking of the mere existence of vomit as a substance are all triggers of the phobia, which goes far beyond merely disliking the sensation of tossing up whatever you've just put into your stomach.

In addition to these internal triggers, external stimuli—such as heavy drinking, eating intensely flavored foods, and undertaking strenuous exercise—that are known to cause vomiting are often avoided by emetophobes.

Imagine if you had to avoid all the things that could make you vomit. Going out for a beer or three with some friends? Think again. Your days as a competitive eater would be numbered (at zero) if you were diagnosed; your aspirations of running a marathon would be quickly dashed.

Symptoms are usually similar to those common with any anxiety and are often self-defeating: A fear of vomiting can lead to dizziness, anxiety, nausea, and well, vomiting.

Like many phobias, the underlying causes and original triggers for the phobia are not fully understood, but most literature suggests that it's something that's instilled in you with a particularly bad vomiting episode when you're a child.

Take the case of one 10-year-old girl, whose appendicitis-induced vomiting and subsequent fear was studied for a paper published in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry:

"She had constant thoughts of feeling nauseated. She started eating less, avoiding outside food which she used to ask for previously. She would worry about the pungent smell of vomitus in toilet and ask mother to clean it frequently. The fear increased slowly to the extent that, she started avoiding playing with other children in a fear that they will avoid her and tease her if she vomited in front of them.

She also developed reduced and non-refreshing sleep with constant thoughts/worries about vomiting at night with complaints of nausea and regurgitation after having her dinner."

Thankfully, that girl eventually recovered. Not everyone is so lucky.

Emetophobia is also known as SPOV, an acronym that sounds kind of like a euphemism for puke and stands for the Specific Phobia of Vomiting. That brings up an important distinction: Most human beings are moderately to extremely averse to vomit and vomit-esque situations, because it's gross.

That being said, the intense and often debilitating disorder of emetophobia isn't at all a rare thing: One Dutch study found that 8 percent of the population has the disorder, and that women were much more likely (at least in that population) to experience it. In fact, women with the disorder outnumbered men by a 4:1 ratio.

"Although only very limited clinical and scientific knowledge exists on this phobia, it is not a rare condition in clinical practice," Viljo van Hout, the study's author, noted.

There are several different types of emetophobia, though they are not mutually exclusive:

"For some patients, their greatest fear pertains to vomiting as such, whereas others predominantly fear that other people vomit in their presence," van Hout wrote. "Fear of others vomiting may be primarily related to fear of contamination and therefore of vomiting oneself. Still, others' worst fear is that they might vomit in a public place or social situation in the presence of other people."

Serious cases of the phobia can lead to unhealthy behaviors such as extreme dieting, a measure taken to avoid any chance of vomiting. According to some research, as many as half of women who suffer from emetophobia either delay or completely avoid getting pregnant out of fear of having morning sickness.

As with many phobias, there's plenty of online support for those suffering from the disease. Emetophobia.org, for instance, has thousands of members and a highly active online community.

Many of that forum's members won't use the word "vomit," and opt for alternatives such as "v*ing." Likewise, emetophobes (or "emets," as they often call themselves online) probably do a quick scan of PhobiasAtTheMovies.com before they hit the theater, just to see if the movie they're going to see is going to put them face to face with their trigger.

As with most phobias, treatment for emetophobia comes from the standard slow and controlled reintroduction of stimuli (in the case of the girl I mentioned above, she started with simply reading the word). Beyond that, patients undergo cognitive behavior therapy, which is the conscious practice of rational thought to overcome an anxiety or phobia. For those with cases stemming from trauma, hypnotherapy is another option to be considered.

If, thus far, you've managed to read to here without experiencing any anxiety, you can probably breathe easy knowing that you don't have emetophobia and merely dislike puke. You probably just feel like you're going to vomit, like I do, and want to stop reading this now.

Psyched Out is a new, weekly series in which Motherboard will explore little known, but somewhat common psychological disorders. Previously on Psyched Out: People Who Chew on Their Own Skin Have a Disorder Called Dermatophagia.