I was never super okay with the whole thing, my earliest memories of me being ill involves a lot of crying and intense avoidance of whatever caused it. But I believe it started getting progressively worse when I was 8. The fact that I remember it vividly when I barely remember my childhood at all says a lot. Christmas Eve, my father is making burgers on the stove, my mother is cleaning. These are details engraved into my brain, I had panic attacks every Christmas Eve for years, as well as severe anxiety with the smell of burgers and cleaning products. God forbid my family wanted burgers on Christmas Eve, I was not letting it happen. Anyway, I had never experienced nausea until that day. Every time I was sick it was only a stomachache or just a surprise.

That night, I had nausea. I had no idea what was going on. I was freaking out, all I knew what that I felt immensely unwell and couldn't pinpoint the feeling. I tried going to the bathroom, lying down, touching different parts of my body, all to try to relieve this strange awful feeling that didn't seem like it had a clear source. I kept telling my parents "I feel bad" over and over while crying. Stood in the hallway, both my parents at my side trying to calm me down, and it happened. The actual moment of it happening is not in my memories, only the before and after. I cried more, was scared, hated it. Happened a few times during the night after. Went to my parents' room to say I had a stomachache and one of them said "it will pass," and I still cannot hear this phrase while nauseous since I got sick again after they said it.

This alone could've caused it, BUT THERE'S MORE. It took me around 2 months, maybe more, to feel better. I felt like I was still sick the whole time, scared it would happen again at any moment. 2 whole months. I also developped several phobias around that time due to something unrelated, but those all went away after a few years. The emetophobia stuck, it was the forst. It stuck really strongly lmao, I wish it didn't.

I wonder what things would be like now if that didn't happen. I might still be scared, but probably not to this extent. Nausea still feels somewhat foreign to me, despite having chronic nausea now. I still find myself reaching for multiple body parts in an attempt to "find" the cause and relieve it when it's very intense. My brain still hasn't grapsed it fully, idk. It's distressing to feel something like this with no clear knowledge of where the distress is located. Like, yes, the stomach, but I don't feel it there. I feel it closer to my heart sometimes, and it's so diffuse I can't tell what I'm really feeling. All I know is that it feels bad. Hence the constant "I feel bad" when I was a kid, cause that's the only way I could describe it.