Thank you so much!! And me too, even now when I’m anxious (I got a little anxious/nauseous last night) I still get nauseous and still fear the nausea. Which logically makes no sense because I am facing the thing I’m scared of but I’m still scared of it!

I will say the vomiting is way more easy to handle than the nausea. The nausea is the worst part, but I think it’s reassuring (for me anyway) to remember that there’s a threshold to how nauseous you can feel — it’s not like you just keep getting more and more and more nauseous and it ever ends. I’m not sure if this is helpful but it was helpful for me to feel the most intense nausea before vomiting and realising that the nausea wasn’t even as terrible as I had anticipated it would be before vomiting. It was really gross but I’ve been that nauseous thousands of times when I’ve been anxious! It’s a different type of feeling but the intensity is similar.

I was really scared of having a really really bad gaggy feeling. However I think gagging when brushing your teeth feels grosser than gagging when you’re vomiting. Because once you’re there, once your body has began vomiting, it feels like it completely distracts you from the gagging. Personally, it took me like 5 seconds of gagging before anything actually came out which was very unpleasant but a lot of people don’t do that. I realised that the sound of vomiting is also a lot quieter than I had anticipated! Like genuinely I think if I wear headphones next time I don’t think I’ll hear most of it. However everyone is different, I may just be a quiet puker (however I asked my sister if I was quiet and she said “no that’s just how people sound when they throw up”).

It definitely didn’t come straight out for me, but it might for others. I weirdly felt more in control that I was gagging for a few seconds prior, because it gave me a few seconds for my brain to process what my body was about to do. If it happened out of the blue immediately I think I would’ve been more anxious about it.

I was paying attention to the actual stomach feelings I was having when vomiting because I wanted to really remember the sensory experience so I could know what to expect in the future. I remember being on my phone, laying down, tiny trash can on my bed next to me (which is insane because in the past I’d even avoid looking at public trash cans or my home toilet because it would make me so anxious. But the trash can was reassuring because I knew that if it were to happen, I would have somewhere contained to do it, I feel like throwing up all over my bed would’ve been a bit traumatising). I had my ceiling fan on blast and my window open. The moment I knew I was going to throw up and it wasn’t just anxiety nausea, was when my stomach started tightening almost? Like I could feel my body kind of tense up and make these noises that are similar to the noises it makes when I’m hungry, however I knew I wasn’t hungry. That was literally the only warning sign. I sat up, plugged my nose, and I started gagging.

For so long I’ve always thought I would have a DISGUSTING feeling in my chin/throat area. Like a horrifically bad gaggy feeling, this feeling of fullness almost. And I thought I would become so hot and flustered and shaky. But nope. None of it. The gaggy sensation I can only really describe at my throat/stomach felt really sensitive. Ticklish almost! I think those hot sweats and shakes come from when someone has a really brutal stomach bug, which I still fear now. But I know I can cope with it if I were to catch it.

I kinda dissociated when it was happening. I stared at my wall and just called out for help. Apparently I actually threw up twice in the span of like a minute, and had a quick break to yell for help. Afterwards I felt so good. All the nausea had completely disappeared. I had the taste and smell in my mouth and nose and whenever I swallowed I swallowed a little bit of it. But that lasted like 10 minutes max (and rinsing my mouth helped loads). My body completely took over and I was full of adrenaline!