American Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming and for many all over the world this means travelling to be with family. Travel is supposed to be exciting, but if you live with emetophobia, vacations often bring dread instead of joy. What if I get food poisoning? What if there’s turbulence on the plane? What if I am far from home and someone gets sick or I do?
Travel strips away your sense of control. You’re at the behest of the flight schedules, or other people’s schedules or both. You’re eating unfamiliar goods, sharing public spaces and navigating germs in close quarters. For someone with emetophobia, each of these feels like a potential disaster, because you catastrophize in your thoughts.
Preparing helps to calm the nervous system. Do your “homework” – and by that I mean prepare yourself for each scenario. If you’re far enough along in your recovery because you’ve already received emetophobia treatment, then you can say to yourself “So what if there’s turbulence?” “It doesn’t matter if I get sick” or “Usually the worst doesn’t happen but if it does, I can cope with it. I don’t have to like it but I will get through it.”
If you’ve not even begun your recovery journey or you’re not far along, you will probably rely on safety behaviours to get you through. When it comes to flying or long car rides, it’s ok to take Dramamine or Gravol at this point, especially if it calms your nerves (which it normally does). Take your mints, your gum, your water, and your headphones for the plane. Turbulence on planes doesn’t make many people sick and I’ve never ever heard of a person with emetophobia getting sick because of turbulence. Remember that you can’t catch norovirus from being in the same house or hotel room as someone who is sick. You need to swallow the fecal particles (ew) – so just don’t put your fingers in your mouth or up your nose and you’ll be fine. Try to enjoy your trip!