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How Vomit Phobia Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:13
Speaker 1: There's Charles b Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there. This
0:17
Speaker 1: is Stuff you Should Know, very special surprisingly sad edition.
0:23
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think so. Yeah, of course it's sad.
0:28
Speaker 1: It's really gross. It is gross. I'm gonna have a
0:32
Speaker 1: hard time getting through this one, so we should give
0:34
Speaker 1: everybody fair warning. We are talking about a metaphobia, which
0:38
Speaker 1: is a specific phobia, a fear of throwing up. And
0:43
Speaker 1: we'll get way more into um all of that and
0:48
Speaker 1: what it means, but we're talking about vomiting. It's basically
0:53
Speaker 1: tied for first as the subject of this episode. So
0:57
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about vomiting a lot. And I
1:00
Speaker 1: found from researching this reading and I imagine hearing about
1:05
Speaker 1: vomiting for a good thirty minute forty minute stretch, it
1:09
Speaker 1: can make one queasy. So just fair warning. I don't
1:14
Speaker 1: think it's actually going to make you queasy, but it's
1:17
Speaker 1: possible if it starts to happen, just plow through it.
1:23
Speaker 1: To just say, Josh and Chuck would want me to
1:25
Speaker 1: plow through it, and your queaziness will magically go away.
1:27
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, all right. Uh So, like you said, it
1:30
Speaker 1: is a specific phobia and it is actually listed in
1:34
Speaker 1: the d s M. Now, I'm not sure how long
1:37
Speaker 1: it's been in there, but it is, well a meta phobia, isn't. Well,
1:43
Speaker 1: I thought the specific phobia vomiting. Now, I guess I
1:46
Speaker 1: think specific phobias are. I don't. I don't know if
1:49
Speaker 1: it's if it's a specifically listed chuck. So when this
1:53
Speaker 1: says it is a specific phobia a current according to
1:56
Speaker 1: the d s M, what does that mean? I think
1:59
Speaker 1: it means that it falls under the umbrella of a
2:02
Speaker 1: specific phobia. Okay, you see what I mean. Not really,
2:05
Speaker 1: but that's okay. Um. This means, well, you're afraid you
2:11
Speaker 1: might vomit. You're afraid someone else might vomit around you. Um,
2:16
Speaker 1: you're afraid what people will think of you if you
2:18
Speaker 1: do vomit. Yeah. It's just uh, and it's not this
2:22
Speaker 1: article where'd you get this stuff? Anyway? Was just sort
2:25
Speaker 1: of cobbled. It was cobbled together from some pretty good sources,
2:28
Speaker 1: including Psychology Today, the American Association of Anxiety Disorders UM,
2:34
Speaker 1: the National Institutes of Health Library, the BBC Vice and
2:40
Speaker 1: I want to give a shout out to the listener
2:43
Speaker 1: who wrote in to share her a metaphobia story. I
2:47
Speaker 1: had never heard of it before, and she had a
2:49
Speaker 1: very harrowing experience and overcame it just through sheer grit
2:53
Speaker 1: and willpower, um, and came through the other side of
2:57
Speaker 1: this very serious phobia. Yeah, which you know, we'll to
3:00
Speaker 1: the how to do that later. But um, these articles
3:03
Speaker 1: and make great pains to point out that it is. Uh.
3:07
Speaker 1: I think all people think it's gross and are very
3:11
Speaker 1: much repulsed and turned off by the sound or the
3:15
Speaker 1: smell or the look or anything that deals with somebody
3:18
Speaker 1: getting sick like this. Um. But this is different than that.
3:22
Speaker 1: This is a debilitating fear that can overtake your life. Yeah,
3:27
Speaker 1: that would specifically be a metaphobia. There's actually it seems
3:31
Speaker 1: like a spectrum where you can also suffer from what's
3:35
Speaker 1: called fear of vomiting, which is much less um overwhelming,
3:40
Speaker 1: but still you're preoccupied with the idea of vomiting. With
3:44
Speaker 1: the metaphobia, your life does not resemble what your life
3:48
Speaker 1: would be if you if you weren't afraid. Yeah, it's
3:52
Speaker 1: a it's a real impairment to your life in a
3:55
Speaker 1: lot of different ways, which will go over It seems
3:58
Speaker 1: like there's not a lot of study about it. I
4:02
Speaker 1: mean I ran across a few studies, but even in
4:04
Speaker 1: the studies I found, they specifically say not a lot
4:07
Speaker 1: of studies about us. So a lot of the guests
4:10
Speaker 1: is about the prevalence are guesses. But um, one thing
4:13
Speaker 1: I saw was that UM in the general population eight
4:17
Speaker 1: point eight percent. I think that's actually fear of vomiting.
4:21
Speaker 1: I think a metaphobia is more like less than one
4:23
Speaker 1: percent of the population has actual a metaphobia, but that
4:27
Speaker 1: it tends to be UM about four to one ratio
4:31
Speaker 1: of women to men. Women suffer from it. They have
4:34
Speaker 1: a tendency to suffer from it more. Yeah, and I
4:36
Speaker 1: certainly do not have it. But um, like I said,
4:40
Speaker 1: like almost everyone in the world probably it is a
4:43
Speaker 1: trigger for most folks. Yeah, nobody wants to throw up.
4:47
Speaker 1: But if you have a metaphobia, just seeing the title
4:51
Speaker 1: of this come through your podcast feed could have set
4:54
Speaker 1: off an anxiety attack. And like I feel very guilty
4:58
Speaker 1: about that. There nothing we could do because even if
5:01
Speaker 1: we warned everybody in the episode before this that this
5:04
Speaker 1: was coming that would set off a panic attack. Just
5:07
Speaker 1: the mere mention of the word vomit can can set
5:10
Speaker 1: the the anxiety disorder into UM full gear. Yeah. This
5:15
Speaker 1: one article you sent. One of the clinicians they interviewed UM,
5:18
Speaker 1: who treats anxiety disorder, said it is, in her practice,
5:22
Speaker 1: the most common fear among children that they see. Yeah. Uh,
5:26
Speaker 1: And that's typically how it starts. So it's a chronic disease,
5:29
Speaker 1: meaning that if you don't treat this, it's going to
5:32
Speaker 1: persist basically every day of your life, and it tends
5:34
Speaker 1: to get worse over time. UM. And it usually starts
5:39
Speaker 1: with a traumatic experience of vomiting, most frequently of all
5:45
Speaker 1: in childhood, So it's it's more common I think, among kids,
5:49
Speaker 1: but it can survive into adulthood and it can start
5:52
Speaker 1: in adults. But what seems to happen is you have
5:56
Speaker 1: a traumatic experience from vomiting, and just like with any
5:59
Speaker 1: other true attic experience, whether it's surviving UM, a violent
6:03
Speaker 1: crime or being in war, UM, vomiting can have that
6:08
Speaker 1: same effect on the brain apparently, and you developed something
6:13
Speaker 1: pretty closely akin to PTSD at the thought of vomiting,
6:18
Speaker 1: and it overwhelmed the life as a result. I had
6:20
Speaker 1: a traumatic experience with this when I was a kid. Um.
6:25
Speaker 1: I might have told the story before for another reason,
6:28
Speaker 1: but um, I was on the bus going to elementary
6:31
Speaker 1: school and there was a scary kid. Remember an elementary school.
6:35
Speaker 1: They were just the scary kids. I remember my scary
6:38
Speaker 1: kids first and last name. Yeah, right, And they're scary
6:41
Speaker 1: for various reasons, whether they were bullies or I mean,
6:45
Speaker 1: you could probably diagnose something that was wrong as an adult,
6:49
Speaker 1: but as a kid, they were just scary kids. And
6:51
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about like I mean, I'm talking about
6:56
Speaker 1: like sociopathic behavior, not something that you know, like some
7:00
Speaker 1: They weren't, yeah, exactly. They had like real issues that
7:05
Speaker 1: were affecting other people around exactly. So this one kid,
7:08
Speaker 1: I remember his name was Tony something, but he on
7:11
Speaker 1: the way to school one day would or many days,
7:15
Speaker 1: he would make himself throw up outside of the uh
7:19
Speaker 1: with his face out of the window, and it would,
7:21
Speaker 1: you know, the school bus was going down the road
7:23
Speaker 1: and it would fly down and land on the windows
7:25
Speaker 1: all the way down and other windows, and he would
7:28
Speaker 1: make himself vomit, and it just it's scared the crap
7:32
Speaker 1: out of me. Man, and it wasn't like I was
7:37
Speaker 1: scared scared, scared scared of this dude. Yeah, well that's
7:42
Speaker 1: really bizarre, yeah behavior, especially if he was doing it
7:46
Speaker 1: to like intimidate, to freak other people out. Yeah, and
7:48
Speaker 1: I think I might remember a story because it's you
7:53
Speaker 1: know how sometimes a certain event can tie something else
7:55
Speaker 1: in your brain. You know. My dad was my elementary
7:57
Speaker 1: school principal. I don't know why I was riding the
7:59
Speaker 1: bus because he usually just went to work with him.
8:01
Speaker 1: He wanted to normalize things maybe, but um, I ran
8:05
Speaker 1: to my dad's office right when I got to school crying.
8:09
Speaker 1: He wasn't in there, and the secretary, Dot Jones let
8:12
Speaker 1: me in the office, and Dot let me stay in
8:15
Speaker 1: his office because I was sad. And he had one
8:18
Speaker 1: of those big um cabinet stereos record so the stereo
8:24
Speaker 1: was already on. But the song that was on, weirdly
8:28
Speaker 1: was the BGS How Deep Is Your Love? And to
8:33
Speaker 1: this day I hear that song and it makes me
8:36
Speaker 1: want to cry. Yeah, it's just a trigger from that
8:39
Speaker 1: day with that guy, you know what, and that weird
8:41
Speaker 1: that's a sad story because that's a good song. I know,
8:45
Speaker 1: it makes me want to weep. It makes me want
8:46
Speaker 1: to thinking about Tony making himself throw up, And I
8:49
Speaker 1: always wonder what happened that guy. He's in Jim Rose's
8:52
Speaker 1: side show right now. Maybe is that still around. I
8:56
Speaker 1: don't know, Puky Tony, but yeah that was him, Yukiitonian,
9:00
Speaker 1: hippie robber and like a little jug band together. But anyway,
9:04
Speaker 1: that's a long way of saying that that was not enough.
9:07
Speaker 1: Even the traumatize me to the point where I have
9:10
Speaker 1: a metaphobia. No, but I mean it could have been.
9:13
Speaker 1: It just it seems to be like and it's not
9:16
Speaker 1: even necessarily like a type of person or um. It's
9:21
Speaker 1: it's the brain can just the synapsies can fuse in
9:25
Speaker 1: a certain way, and all of a sudden you have
9:28
Speaker 1: this phobia. And the problem is this is it starts
9:32
Speaker 1: from a traumatic experience. So let's say that that had
9:34
Speaker 1: had this impact on your chuck, right, what would have
9:37
Speaker 1: come next if you were on the road to a
9:39
Speaker 1: metaphobia would have been to um, start to fear throwing up,
9:43
Speaker 1: seeing somebody throw up, probably is how it would have started.
9:46
Speaker 1: And then that would have spread to throwing up yourself,
9:50
Speaker 1: and then you would have become hyper vigilant. You would
9:53
Speaker 1: you would want to protect yourself from seeing somebody throw
9:57
Speaker 1: up or from throwing up. Well, how do you do that?
10:00
Speaker 1: To prevent yourself from throwing up? You're gonna monitor every
10:04
Speaker 1: single weird feeling you have to say it would mind
10:07
Speaker 1: about to throw up, I need to like tamp this down,
10:09
Speaker 1: or I can't eat that food it might make me
10:11
Speaker 1: throw up. Or I can't read in the car, it
10:13
Speaker 1: might make me car sick and I'll throw up, Or
10:16
Speaker 1: that person looks kind of sick. I'm going to avoid them,
10:19
Speaker 1: and then let's just take it a little further and
10:20
Speaker 1: avoid everybody altogether, because anybody could really throw up at
10:24
Speaker 1: any given time. And you start to become preoccupied with this,
10:28
Speaker 1: and you adjust your life and alter it, and then
10:31
Speaker 1: you're constantly worried about throwing up. And once that happens,
10:38
Speaker 1: it's the phobia is complete. Your life has changed, you're
10:41
Speaker 1: constantly worried about it. And then the cherry on top
10:44
Speaker 1: of the whole thing is that when you finally are
10:47
Speaker 1: confronted with the word vomit actually seeing somebody something like that,
10:51
Speaker 1: you enter a panic attack, an actual panic attack, and um,
10:57
Speaker 1: the only way to overcome that is to get away,
10:59
Speaker 1: to run, to get out of there, to um, I'm
11:03
Speaker 1: not sure all the ways you can handle a panic attack,
11:05
Speaker 1: but then it calms down and your anxiety returns to
11:09
Speaker 1: normal levels, which is to say hi for the average person. Yeah.
11:13
Speaker 1: So in my case an elementary school, how that could
11:16
Speaker 1: have gone was, um, I had another ride to school.
11:20
Speaker 1: But if I hadn't, I might have stopped taking the
11:22
Speaker 1: school bus and started skipping class and not going to
11:26
Speaker 1: school at all because I was afraid to get on
11:28
Speaker 1: the school bus because of puky tony and gone weeks
11:32
Speaker 1: in a row. And then my parents get a call saying,
11:34
Speaker 1: Chuck hasn't been in school for weeks, what's going on?
11:38
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what's going on. Like it can get
11:40
Speaker 1: that severe, and it all boils down to the at
11:44
Speaker 1: least in most cases, the anticipation of this more so
11:48
Speaker 1: than the actual act in every case, because the the
11:53
Speaker 1: people that are struck with this, by all accounts, are
11:56
Speaker 1: less vomitous than the general population, so much so because
12:01
Speaker 1: they've tried to avoid it, so much so that this
12:03
Speaker 1: one article said that most of these people can even
12:06
Speaker 1: name like the three or four times in their life
12:08
Speaker 1: they have ever puked and what they ate that day,
12:10
Speaker 1: and what they had on television and what they wore,
12:13
Speaker 1: because it stands out that singularly to them. And then
12:17
Speaker 1: so that's horribly ironic that the people who are the
12:20
Speaker 1: most worried about throwing up are the people who are actually,
12:23
Speaker 1: statistically speaking, at least likely to throw up. Right. Um,
12:28
Speaker 1: But there's an even greater irony to the whole thing,
12:30
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about that after this break. How about
12:32
Speaker 1: that it's a chuck where you're on the irony train
12:56
Speaker 1: and I want to keep going. Okay, Yes, the the
13:00
Speaker 1: irony of paying attention and being hyper vigilant about vomiting,
13:05
Speaker 1: especially when you are, um, worried that you're going to vomit,
13:10
Speaker 1: because again, there there's a number of things that you're
13:13
Speaker 1: you're worried about. You're going to be worried that you
13:15
Speaker 1: won't be able to find a bathroom in time to
13:18
Speaker 1: go throw up. You're worried about throwing up in front
13:20
Speaker 1: of other people, um, and embarrassing yourself for being teased
13:25
Speaker 1: for throwing up. Um. You're worried about just the experience
13:30
Speaker 1: of throwing up, this horrible experience. But once you start
13:33
Speaker 1: to get a metaphobia, you you lose perspective completely, Like
13:39
Speaker 1: it becomes like I've seen multiple they call them a metaphobes,
13:43
Speaker 1: people with a metaphobia. I have seen multiple people say
13:46
Speaker 1: you would prefer to die than to throw up. That's
13:50
Speaker 1: how much they fear throwing up, and the rest of
13:53
Speaker 1: us it's like, God, that would suck to throw up,
13:55
Speaker 1: but I know I'll be fine on the other end
13:57
Speaker 1: of it, not to a person with a metaphobia. So
14:00
Speaker 1: the irony of all this is the more you start
14:02
Speaker 1: to focus on this and you start to uh think
14:06
Speaker 1: about every gurgle in your stomach or every weird twist
14:11
Speaker 1: or turn um, it actually produces more anxiety. And here's
14:16
Speaker 1: the ironic part. Anxiety can actually make you queasy when
14:20
Speaker 1: you're thinking about throwing up, that's right, So it makes
14:23
Speaker 1: the whole thing worse and it becomes this vicious cycle. Yeah,
14:26
Speaker 1: and they recommend trying to tell yourself, like, I might
14:30
Speaker 1: feel queasy, but I'm not going to throw up. My
14:33
Speaker 1: anxiety might be making me feel nauseous, but I am
14:36
Speaker 1: not going to throw up. Yeah, Because there's a confusion
14:38
Speaker 1: of queasiness equals nausea equals throwing up and that's just
14:42
Speaker 1: not the case. Like, you can make yourself sick with anxiety,
14:46
Speaker 1: but you can't make yourself throw up from being anxious,
14:50
Speaker 1: so the whole thing is just wasted. Worry. Yeah, some
14:53
Speaker 1: of the other things you might do because of the spear.
14:56
Speaker 1: You might not shake hands with anyone ever again you Well,
15:01
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people avoid looking at television
15:04
Speaker 1: puke scenes. Yeah, you cannot watch. You really can't watch
15:08
Speaker 1: those at all. You can't watch Stand by Me or
15:11
Speaker 1: The Meaning of Life. Those are so funny looking though,
15:15
Speaker 1: but still probably not. Uh. You might throw away food
15:19
Speaker 1: in your fridge that uh is not even past this
15:23
Speaker 1: expiration date. You might have a trigger there. Um. You
15:27
Speaker 1: might overcook your food on purpose, and then before you
15:30
Speaker 1: eat it, you will lift the bread a bunch of
15:32
Speaker 1: times called checking behavior. Sure. Um, you might not eat
15:37
Speaker 1: on vacation as readily because you only trust your trusted
15:41
Speaker 1: food sources. You might go into a place and like
15:45
Speaker 1: you know, when some people go into a music venue,
15:48
Speaker 1: like they check for the exits, like you're checking for
15:49
Speaker 1: the bathrooms. You you may not even make it to
15:53
Speaker 1: the music venue. You A lot of them. A lot
15:55
Speaker 1: of people with the metaphobia end up being agoraphobic and
15:57
Speaker 1: just don't leave their house really developing it's it's often
16:01
Speaker 1: confused for agaphobia by by UM counselors. Yeah, shrinks, I've
16:07
Speaker 1: got another one, all right. Apparently a lot of people
16:09
Speaker 1: who have a metaphobia walk around with a plastic bag
16:13
Speaker 1: on them at all times, something to throw up into,
16:15
Speaker 1: an emergency throw up bag. They walk around with this
16:18
Speaker 1: because they're so afraid of throwing up that they never
16:20
Speaker 1: need to use because they probably don't ever throw up,
16:22
Speaker 1: I know. And some of them will actually carry a
16:26
Speaker 1: change of clothes around with them as well, for the
16:29
Speaker 1: same reason. If they throw up on themselves, they can
16:31
Speaker 1: change their clothes. Yeah, And of course, air travel, drinking
16:36
Speaker 1: alcohol um, any of those things are, or car travel
16:41
Speaker 1: even like any kind of travel is probably avoided. Definitely
16:44
Speaker 1: don't booze it up or Yeah, they probably don't drink
16:48
Speaker 1: at all, and subsist on things like pasta and bananas
16:52
Speaker 1: and very very safe um digestively speaking foods, although banana
16:58
Speaker 1: could gag you. Yeah, you know, God, that would be
17:01
Speaker 1: a nightmare if you had a metaphobia. I wonder if
17:05
Speaker 1: they mash them up and eat it like like mashed
17:08
Speaker 1: up with a fork. Maybe maybe you could see it. Yeah,
17:12
Speaker 1: and I could see cutting your food up into you know,
17:14
Speaker 1: the tiniest pieces, because you feel if you're choking. And
17:17
Speaker 1: that's one of the fears too. I don't think we
17:19
Speaker 1: mentioned like they're not just afraid of the vomiting, but
17:22
Speaker 1: they sometimes can fear choking on vomit and dying and
17:26
Speaker 1: affixiating and or going to the hospital or starting to
17:29
Speaker 1: vomit and the vomiting never ending. That's another fear of
17:33
Speaker 1: a metaphobia. One other thing that I saw people do,
17:36
Speaker 1: um is prevent getting pregnant because of a fear of
17:41
Speaker 1: mourning sickness. Um. So yeah, so your life is is
17:44
Speaker 1: altered and curtailed because you're afraid of vomiting. Everywhere you
17:50
Speaker 1: look there's some potential trigger out there. So it just
17:53
Speaker 1: be easier to stay home and eat your pasta and
17:56
Speaker 1: not watch movies basically, and it just lie there and
18:01
Speaker 1: monitor your stomach for signs that you're about to throw up.
18:04
Speaker 1: That's what they do. That's what you do when you
18:06
Speaker 1: have a metaphobia. That's your life. It's no way to live. So,
18:11
Speaker 1: like this is not all just academic and stuff. We're
18:14
Speaker 1: grasping at shows and pulling together from different cases like
18:17
Speaker 1: this is. There's actually a case study we found, UM
18:20
Speaker 1: that was of an eight year old girl who had
18:24
Speaker 1: a terrible experience throwing up and really kind of encapsulates
18:28
Speaker 1: the experience of a metaphobia. She had full blown to metaphobia.
18:32
Speaker 1: She had appendicitis and had been throwing up before the
18:36
Speaker 1: doctors figured out she had a pendicitis and had her
18:38
Speaker 1: appendix removed. And that experience throwing up was um while
18:44
Speaker 1: it triggered a metaphobia in her. She when she came
18:47
Speaker 1: to and Um was recovering from her surgery, about ten
18:50
Speaker 1: days later, she started getting really worried she was going
18:53
Speaker 1: to start throwing up like that again. Yeah. It was
18:55
Speaker 1: a really sad case and uh pretty much covered everything
18:59
Speaker 1: we've said and and even then some to the point
19:02
Speaker 1: where her father traveled for business and she didn't want
19:06
Speaker 1: him to travel anymore. Her father to travel anymore for
19:10
Speaker 1: fear that he would uh get some sickness and then
19:14
Speaker 1: bring it back to the house. Uh, I mean that's
19:17
Speaker 1: pretty extensive, you know. Yeah, Like she didn't want to
19:19
Speaker 1: eat herself. She she didn't want to eat any outside food.
19:22
Speaker 1: She had her safe food, but she also didn't want
19:24
Speaker 1: her parents to eat any outside food either because she
19:27
Speaker 1: didn't want them throwing up. She stopped um playing with
19:30
Speaker 1: other kids because she was worried about throwing up in
19:32
Speaker 1: front of him and being teased. That was her big thing.
19:35
Speaker 1: Um And as as one of the clinicians who we
19:40
Speaker 1: came across in this research said, it's not the vomiting
19:45
Speaker 1: that's really the problem, Like that's the focus, that's the obsession,
19:48
Speaker 1: But the real problem is the worry, the constant worry.
19:52
Speaker 1: It's the worry that's altering your life, and it altered
19:55
Speaker 1: this little girl's life, you know, very sad. So let's
19:58
Speaker 1: let's take another break and then we'll come back and
20:01
Speaker 1: put a silver lining on this thing and talk about treatment.
20:26
Speaker 1: All right, So we've talked a lot on the show
20:28
Speaker 1: over the years about CBT cognitive behavioral therapy or exposure
20:33
Speaker 1: and response prevention e r P, basically exposure therapy, and
20:37
Speaker 1: this is definitely probably the way to go when it
20:42
Speaker 1: comes to a metaphobia. So depending on who you go see,
20:47
Speaker 1: you might undergo various kinds of treatments, ranging from starting
20:52
Speaker 1: out by literally saying the words vomit out loud or
20:57
Speaker 1: throw up or puke or just all the words um,
21:02
Speaker 1: because that's literally the first step sometimes into getting over
21:06
Speaker 1: this is just being able to speak the word yeah.
21:08
Speaker 1: And you may have to start out by writing it
21:09
Speaker 1: down first before you can say it out loud for real.
21:12
Speaker 1: And so once you move past that, um. The the
21:16
Speaker 1: therapies range from um, they're kind of all over the board,
21:21
Speaker 1: from looking at fake vomit that your therapist has made
21:25
Speaker 1: in a toilet. Yeah, now you're starting to move into
21:27
Speaker 1: exposure therapy, right, Yeah, I mean this is all of
21:30
Speaker 1: this stuff, uh E r P and CBT, but um,
21:34
Speaker 1: you know, they'll make up some fake vomit, put it
21:36
Speaker 1: in the toilet, make you go look at it. They themselves,
21:38
Speaker 1: the therapists might make the noises in front of you,
21:42
Speaker 1: just out of nowhere. Well I imagine they probably prep
21:45
Speaker 1: them or maybe not. Uh may may go in the
21:48
Speaker 1: bathroom and jump up and say I gotta go get sick.
21:51
Speaker 1: And all of this is just exposing this patient over
21:54
Speaker 1: and over to the point where they can handle hearing
21:56
Speaker 1: the sound, seeing the thing, saying the word. Hearing the
22:00
Speaker 1: smell is another one too. One of the recommendations for
22:03
Speaker 1: exposure therapy is you make your own throw up, like
22:07
Speaker 1: in the toilet, a little bit of um, cold soup
22:11
Speaker 1: something like that, maybe mixed in some oatmeal with it,
22:14
Speaker 1: and then pour a little vinegar in there to like
22:16
Speaker 1: make it pungent, and sit around and think about that
22:20
Speaker 1: being vomit. Maybe try to make the sound of throwing
22:23
Speaker 1: up yourself, um, try to make yourself gag and and
22:28
Speaker 1: all this is to show you, when you have a
22:30
Speaker 1: metaphobia that this is, first of all, it's manageable. That's
22:34
Speaker 1: the first part. Is what you're trying to do is
22:36
Speaker 1: get to this point without having a panic attack. But
22:40
Speaker 1: then also um that if you gag, it doesn't mean
22:44
Speaker 1: you're automatically going to throw up. And if you do
22:46
Speaker 1: throw up, it doesn't mean you're never going to stop
22:48
Speaker 1: throwing up, or that everyone's going to ridicule you for
22:51
Speaker 1: throwing up. And and that's you know, the point of
22:54
Speaker 1: any cognitive behavioral therapy is just kind of change your
22:58
Speaker 1: perspective and give you a more realistic view of the
23:01
Speaker 1: thing you're worried about. Um. There's also a website called
23:04
Speaker 1: rate my Vomit. Have you heard of it? Yeah? I
23:06
Speaker 1: wouldn't get to mention that, But go ahead, you have
23:08
Speaker 1: heard of it before, No, no, no, I read about it,
23:11
Speaker 1: but I just it just sounds like, I mean, that's
23:13
Speaker 1: like classic internet stuff, right, Somebody's like, oh, let's put
23:16
Speaker 1: pictures of throw up on there, and you guys tell
23:18
Speaker 1: me how gross it is. Well, it's actually used by
23:21
Speaker 1: people with a metaphobia too, as exposure therapy at home
23:26
Speaker 1: to just go look at this stuff and see it.
23:28
Speaker 1: There's also videos of people throwing up. There's a lot
23:30
Speaker 1: of stuff the internet like unintentionally is this great place
23:37
Speaker 1: for people with a metaphobia to go get over their fears?
23:40
Speaker 1: And I'm sure, like if you have a fear of snakes,
23:42
Speaker 1: it's good for that too, But so is like a
23:45
Speaker 1: time life book. You're not gonna find a time life
23:47
Speaker 1: book that's nothing but pictures of vomit. You're gonna find
23:51
Speaker 1: it on the internet, Yes you will. That's not in
23:54
Speaker 1: the Old West series. And then I found this other
23:58
Speaker 1: um to other type of therapy Chuck called eye movement
24:02
Speaker 1: desensitization and reprocessing e m d R, and it's used
24:07
Speaker 1: for post traumatic stress disorder. And it's the most bizarre
24:12
Speaker 1: treatment I've ever heard of in my life. But apparently
24:14
Speaker 1: it really really works. Are you ready for this? So
24:19
Speaker 1: say I was your therapist and you were you have PTSD, uh,
24:24
Speaker 1: and it's been used to treat a metaphobia a couple
24:26
Speaker 1: of times. But you're talking about the thing that gave
24:29
Speaker 1: you PTSD. You're focusing on the worst aspect of this
24:34
Speaker 1: traumatic experience, and you're talking about it out loud. But
24:38
Speaker 1: while you're doing it, I'm moving my finger back and
24:41
Speaker 1: forth and up and down and maybe in a slow circle,
24:45
Speaker 1: and I've instructed you to follow my finger wherever I
24:48
Speaker 1: move it while you're recounting this horrible traumatic experience. Supposedly
24:55
Speaker 1: just doing this over multiple sessions, but sometimes just in
24:59
Speaker 1: one long session, PTSD can be treated. And the way
25:03
Speaker 1: that this they think this happens, if it actually does work,
25:06
Speaker 1: it just sounds like such, just like totally made up
25:11
Speaker 1: that in fifty years are going to be like they
25:12
Speaker 1: actually thought this worked. But if it does work, they
25:15
Speaker 1: think that it works because it it taxes your working
25:20
Speaker 1: memory to follow the finger, and your recall then is
25:25
Speaker 1: not aided fully by your working memory, So the vividness
25:30
Speaker 1: of this horrible memory isn't as as robust as it
25:33
Speaker 1: would be if your full working memory. Was was working
25:36
Speaker 1: on it, and so it when it when you reprocess it,
25:41
Speaker 1: when you file it away again, this memory it's lost
25:44
Speaker 1: its luster, it's lost a lot of its um bite
25:47
Speaker 1: because you've gotten it out there and reprocessed it in
25:50
Speaker 1: a way that's not nearly as traumatic because you're working
25:53
Speaker 1: memory was being used in part to follow your therapist finger.
25:56
Speaker 1: Supposedly it works, Yeah, and that nuts it's pretty neat. Yeah,
26:02
Speaker 1: I think so too. I wonder if it really does work.
26:05
Speaker 1: You should try it. Anybody, anyone who has ever undergone
26:10
Speaker 1: eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing. I would love to hear
26:14
Speaker 1: your story if it actually helped you or not. And
26:18
Speaker 1: if you have a metaphobia, godspeed, We hope you get
26:22
Speaker 1: well soon. And to take this on or any phobia
26:26
Speaker 1: really has so much courage and grit that just taking
26:30
Speaker 1: a first step towards treatment, My hat is off to
26:33
Speaker 1: you for life. Yes, and chances argued probably didn't even
26:37
Speaker 1: listen to this episode. Yeah, but if you have a
26:39
Speaker 1: different phobia, yeah, you know, any phobia. Uh And since
26:43
Speaker 1: I said phobia a couple of times, that means it's
26:45
Speaker 1: time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this our second
26:50
Speaker 1: p s A in as many weeks. If this releases
26:54
Speaker 1: the same week, okay, but this one's about dogs. It's
26:58
Speaker 1: very sad. Hey, guys, take a while to write this
27:01
Speaker 1: because it's been very difficult to talk about your animal lovers.
27:04
Speaker 1: Oh so, probably a good majority of your listeners are,
27:07
Speaker 1: and I thought sharing our tragic story would help prevent
27:10
Speaker 1: others from experiencing the same thing. We lost our our
27:14
Speaker 1: dog River about two months ago because I left the
27:16
Speaker 1: bag up chips out. We were at work while she
27:19
Speaker 1: got her head stuck in the bag, and we came
27:22
Speaker 1: home to find our dogs stiff and lifeless from suffocation.
27:26
Speaker 1: We've always been careful about plastic bags and stuff like
27:29
Speaker 1: that and kept them stored away for recycling, but never
27:33
Speaker 1: occurred to us said a chips bag on the counter
27:35
Speaker 1: would something would need to be concerned about. No one
27:38
Speaker 1: ever would ever think about that. Everyone we've also told
27:43
Speaker 1: said it was something they never thought about either. So
27:45
Speaker 1: now we keep all of our bag foods in the
27:47
Speaker 1: cupboard and cut the bottoms off of anything that goes
27:49
Speaker 1: into the recycling and waist pins. It's a good idea too.
27:53
Speaker 1: I started doing that since these guys wrote it in. Yeah,
27:56
Speaker 1: we were and still are extremely heartbroken. I hope no
27:59
Speaker 1: one else will have to go through experience. Um, it
28:01
Speaker 1: was the worst and if I can help save just
28:04
Speaker 1: one other dog's life, it's been worthwhile. So thanks for
28:07
Speaker 1: being you guys. Thanks for being you guys. There's a comment,
28:13
Speaker 1: there's not, but I think that's how I'm supposed to
28:15
Speaker 1: read it. I hope you make it into your next
28:16
Speaker 1: Seattle show. That's Jackie W from Seattle. Jackie, thank you
28:22
Speaker 1: for writing in. I'm so sorry about River. Um, but
28:25
Speaker 1: I hope you guys are doing okay. Yeah, that sounds
28:27
Speaker 1: like a guest list. Yeah, I agreed action to me. Yeah,
28:31
Speaker 1: right back in and uh we'll guest Yeah, we're coming
28:34
Speaker 1: in January. So yes, so just right back in. We'll
28:39
Speaker 1: throw you on there. And she sent a picture of River,
28:42
Speaker 1: beautiful dog, very very sad, River look very sweet. Um,
28:46
Speaker 1: if you have a p s A that happened to
28:49
Speaker 1: you that you think we should share to warn everybody
28:52
Speaker 1: else about, we want to do that. UM. You can
28:54
Speaker 1: tweet to us at s Y s K podcast. I
28:56
Speaker 1: met Josh ump Clark. You can also check out my website.
28:59
Speaker 1: Are you see is clark dot com Chuck's on Facebook
29:02
Speaker 1: at Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's the official Stuff
29:06
Speaker 1: you Should Know Facebook. Two. You can send all of
29:08
Speaker 1: us and Jerry an email to Stuff Podcast at how
29:11
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at
29:13
Speaker 1: our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com.
29:20
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
29:23
Speaker 1: that how Stuff Works dot com