hello ocd community! my obsessions and fear of throwing up and compulsions of praying about it cause me to have physical anxiety and my stomach hurts almost every night before i sleep. this triggers my ocd because i am deathly afraid of throwing up which causes me to act on obsessions when i start to feel sick. the anxiety and stomach aches can trigger each other, and when one happens, it is a vicious cycle and they make each other worse. i have a hard time getting out of this headspace or relaxing without taking xanax or drinking alcohol, and if i don’t, i will stay paralyzed in fear for 1-2 hours. any suggestions for healthy coping strategies? anybody have similar fears?

I have a fear of throwing up too. Why don't you try to take travel sickness meds? May help the anxiety of being sick

For fear of throwing up I would look into a couple things. Number 1. Am I actually scared of throwing up? Or am I scared that something bad will happen if Im not careful with my health hygine like will my mother get cancer. If so I would highly recommend reading about thought action fusion before you run to any excersises/exposure. You first want to recognize that just because I had the thought that something bad will happen through throwing up doesn't mean it's true. It's known as obssesion about obssesion while really throwing up isn't the problem but obssesion that if I throw up than something bad might happen... Besides for that I would look into medication for this if you are experiencing Hyperawernes and on maybe even Depression. Do you see yourself thinking in all or nothing. Are you having thoughts like Did I just do that? I just did that ? Did that really happen? What if it's not ocd? Why this thought? If any of the above thoughts occur I would really look into medication as it does wonders for health anxiety/ Hyperawernes/ emetephobia - fear of vomiting. Now even more f you are currently on a medication you can still go for an evaluation m In my experience with health anxiety - emetephobia since the obssesion are body related it's very hard to believe that a medication change will help because I'm already feels ng my body. At it's all you want to give me a medication. That was my thought for two years but than I switched ssri from Zoloft to Prozac and things got a lot better. If you still like not interested in medication I believe Emdr can really help because it targets fear of fear and with throwing up we are also scared that this fear will be there forever . Or what else will the fear indicate. So Emdr can really help with fear of fear. Remmember w obssesion about obssesion it can get very confusing. Please note I'm not a clinical proffesional and my advice shouldn't substitute a professional but I strongly believeif you are experiencing symptoms for more than an hour a day than it should indicate a licensed clinician.

Good luck

ive had this my whole life too! erp helps. start really small. like think of the word “vomit” for two minutes. when that doesnt freak you out, imagine someone vomiting. step it up a little, piece after piece personally, i still have the fear, but ive managed to rid myself of many aspects of the fear. when i was a kid, just seeing someone vomit would make me go crazy. now, i dont have any problems at all if people throw uo because of alcohol, because i know it wont be contagious. i know i can get rid of this fear the same way ive made it affect me less. i totally know the cycle of feeling unexplainably nauseous, then panicking, then becoming even more nauseous from panickinh and then doing this for hours on end. one time, i actually ended up trowinh up because of it, and you know what? i was way better afterwards. the “worst” had happened, and it was over. i know this isnt a good thing to say because you might start worrying your panic will make you throw up too, but i highly doubt it. if i would have to guess, ive probably had about a thousand panic attacks because i was afraid of throwinh up, and only once i did. but yeah, erp helps A LOT

OMG i have the exact same thing, we’re gonna be ok, yep, i feel sick too when i start to worry and have those obsessions!