An Unusual Therapeutic Technique
TW: Emetophobia
This week, I went to T.J. Maxx and bought a new purse for everyday use. Whenever I buy a new purse, I always spend a good deal of time transferring things over from my old one before hanging it up in the closet: my wallet, Ventra pass, keys - and three little pill bags, each with one bright yellow pill inside.
I use these pills maybe once a year. They often expire before I can do anything with them, and then I request another prescription. You see, these aren’t like the pills I take every day for my OCD or my blood thinners. They’re more like my Epi-Pen: not designed to be used on a regular basis, but kept around for emergencies. The only difference is that these are primarily for my mental health.
Specifically, they are antiemetic pills - which means that if I am feeling nauseous, I can take a pill and know that I will not throw up. I don’t get nauseous very often, probably thanks to my incredibly rigid diet, but whenever I do, I quickly spiral out of control. I return to every horrible memory I have of every time I threw up (which I could recount right now with photographic accuracy), and once I’m that far out of control, it’s very hard for me to get back to normal.
So, I have the pills. On the off chance that I am legitimately feeling nauseous, I don’t have to think about the reason or what could happen. I just need to take one pill, let it dissolve on my tongue, and firmly believe that it’s working before moving on to a distraction until I’m better.
It’s been a long time since I used one; I’m pretty sure the last time was on the way home from getting ice cream with my parents when I had eaten too much food at once and wasn’t feeling well in the car. When my mind started to return to the time I threw up in the car on the way to a pediatrician appointment as a child, I took the pill and felt better both physically and mentally.
When my psychiatrist first presented this solution to me as a way to help me start trying more new foods, I was doubtful. After all, we’d been working on this phobia for years, why hadn’t we tried this earlier? But I quickly realized that if I had access to these pills as a child, I would have been taking one every five seconds and would have become completely dependent on them, as I thought I was constantly about to throw up. Instead of physical symptoms from my stomach, I was listening to my fears in my head, so I would always think I was in dire need of the medicine.
Nowadays, I am very proud to say that I entirely listen to my body for fears of throwing up, except in very specific circumstances. I would only take a pill if I either feel nauseous in my stomach or have accidentally eaten meat (which I believe would make me throw up as I have never eaten more than a bite or two by accident before).
Even so, whenever I put a new purse together, I always make sure I have a few pills in there. A few, even though I maybe use one in a year. And I have a few more at home, which I keep around to let me know when they are going to expire. I am never far from these pills, even if they are usually (thankfully) far from my mind.
I keep them around because they help me be brave. I can convince myself to try a new food or a familiar food in a new restaurant if I know I have a fail-safe. If I know that I am guaranteed to not throw up, I am willing to do a lot more than if I had the threat of that hanging over my head. Even without using the pills or even seeing them, just knowing they’re there provides me with a deep sense of security and confidence.
When I think about this pill system, I think of how far I’ve come since the days when I always thought I was on the brink, just about to throw up if I didn’t do a particular compulsion a certain number of times. Nowadays, I am able to listen to my body and prevent something that would harm my mental health with a simple pill that has no side effects and doesn’t interact with anything else in my body.
Part of me wonders if the pills would be just as effective if they were sugar pills or placebos instead of actual anti-nausea medication. After all, I start to feel better long before they would actually take effect in my body - it’s the idea that I am not going to get sick that shuts down the panic in both my head and body and probably helps to stave off symptoms of sickness. I’m basically using my head against itself, which might sound like an unusual technique, but it certainly works for me.
Ellie, a writer in the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.