Do I need to be sick or care for someone who is sick to know I can handle it? Will my phobia come back? Will I become emetophobic again when I face my first exposure? These are questions I hear often from clients as we discuss realistic expectations for emetophobia recovery. My wonderful client Madeline’s testimony answers these questions with honesty, courage, and heart. Please take a moment to listen to her amazing story if you share any of these fears. She has just been named Thriver of the Year, and I could not be prouder. Congratulations, Madeline!
Thriver of the year
For more than 30 years, I didn’t believe anyone else actually knew what it was like to be terrified of vomit.
I didn’t learn the term “emetophobia” until I was in my mid twenties, and computers still don’t recognize it as a real word either. “No guesses found” is what happens when you click on that red squiggly line to see if it’s just spelled incorrectly.
This silent phobia haunted my world as long as I can remember. And remember I do! Every name of kid that was sick in primary school, every spot on the street that I’ve jumped and avoided for years since. My list of safety seeking behaviours was long, thoughtful, and to me a coat of armour that enabled this fear to not only continue to pull me down, but continue to grow.
I tried CBT, Meditation, Hypnosis, a version of exposure therapy that sent me running for the hills…and the cycle continued. Different therapist, anti anxiety meds, depression pills… and In my late twenties I had a therapist who said he knew how to help me beat this thing. He showed me a photo of a pumpkin with its guts coming out of its mouth (you know how some people carve this dumb “puking” pumpkin?) and I started to cry. His response was “oh, it’s worse than I thought with you.” I didn’t return.
But somehow, I’ve always found a way to pull myself out of very hard times. Little did I know, I was tapping into a thrive-like life, but it wasn’t with a plan. The plan was still blind hope that it wouldn’t happen, that I wouldn’t have to deal, and that I could go on forever avoiding it.
I’ve challenged myself a lot in my life, shown up and provided evidence to myself that I can do hard things. But when it came to emetophobia, I was always stuck. It turns out blind hope and safety seeking isn’t a way to live your life. Especially if you have a child.
In 2023 I had a baby. I was sure that pregnancy and motherhood would send me into a spiral of anxiety that I would have to crawl through for the next 20 years of my life. Was I scared of babies? no. Was I scared of protecting her or struggling with postpartum depression? no. Was I scared of the late nights and lack of sleep? no. I was scared of her, or me, or anyone being sick. Thats it. In all honesty, it’s the single reason I told myself and everyone I knew that I never wanted to be a mother in the first place.
When we determined we did in fact want to start a family, I told myself every day that I was not willing to let my phobia win. That it was not allowed to “Take this away from me” and I carried that with me for just over 2 years. Until my daughter was sick for the first time. (and not like spit up, real vomit. It happened.)
It was January 3, 2025. I wasn’t actually paralyzed. I had tried my best to visualize handling a sick situation with her, and had enough of my own coping skills to make it through, but barely. I didn’t want to hold her, I told my husband I couldn’t. He told me she needed me. I did it. I DID IT. He cleaned it up. He helped. But I wasn’t the person I wanted and needed to be, and the lingering anxiety attack lasted for about 3 days.
I send this photo to the emetophobia instagram channel in the middle of the night that night because I had to celebrate my win somehow, even though I knew I really needed help.
The truth is, I had owned the emetophobia free manual for 4.5 years by this point. Reading pieces of it here and there thinking one paragraph might just cure me if I was lucky. More blind hope.
That’s when I knew I had to fix this. I owed it to my daughter, and I owed it to myself.
I was angry, I was sad. I was broken in a way I simply didn’t know how to repair.
I went in with both feet. I hired a coach (coach lauren) and I decided to change my life.
I was a skeptic and that’s putting it lightly. I was convinced that I had “a bad case of emetophobia” because every attempt to date had led me to believe that it was just something I was going to have to live with for the rest of my life. The puking pumpkins, the avoiding public transit, the hand washing, the chicken cooking, the public washrooms going as far away from the door as possible in hopes the risk of someone having vomited in that stall was somehow less.
But I invested in myself in a way I hadn’t before. That was step one to learning how to thrive, and it’s something that is easy to forget when the rest of normal life gets in the way. Even that ONE little step is huge. And that’s the only way to approach it.
I wanted to be one of those people who was cured in 6-8 weeks. I wasn’t. I wanted to do the program perfectly. I didn’t.
I had to take my time, there was a lot to unpack and I started over a few times. There were times where the programme challenged me to my core. How could I have low self esteem and social anxiety? Not one person I know would put those labels on me. But wow did it change the way I understood myself.
In May I sat across from Lauren on my zoom screen and declared to her that I was emetophobia free. Tears streamed down my face. I never believed I would ever say that out loud, and certainly didn’t believe it to ever be true. In the months since, there’s been times I’ve doubted that it is true, times when I recognize my perfectionism, catastrophic thinking and Hypervigilance taking over but I know what these thoughts look like and sound like in my head, and I know why they’re not helpful.
In October my daughter was sick again. It was such an exciting test and I sometimes laugh at that now. Something that used to terrify me turned into a challenge I almost welcomed. (Though, no, no one LOVES this. But you can handle it. I promise.) I recorded a video of myself in the moment for no other reason than I wanted to remember what that day felt like if I needed to ever remind myself how far I’ve come. It’s the most imperfect thing I’ve ever recorded, and I got brave and sent it in for Thriver of the year.
I wasn’t going to, but in the last minute I did because I thought to myself… I did this thing. FOR me. I DID IT. I’ll send it just in case it could actually help someone else later. And here we are.
Winning Thriver of the year was a huge lesson in perfectionism and acceptance. This was a messy road for me. I was very ashamed of my emetophobia, and frankly didn’t feel deserving of thriver of the year at all. The Thrive programme was unlike anything else I’ve thrived at in my life. Like many of you I excel at most things I put my mind to, even things that are physically hard or require learning something completely new. With this, I didn’t thrive right away, and there were many times where I doubted whether I ever would. It was frustrating and sometimes I still felt really small compared to the bigness of emetophobia. But I stuck to it, I listened to the podcasts religiously, I turned the words inside out and backwards until they made sense and I changed my life forever. Believe it.
I will never forget the chilly Sunday when I was laying mulch and messaging Madeline back and forth on Instagram with my dirty gloves on and off. When she first reached out, she was hesitant about signing up and very honest about the fact that having a coach with children mattered deeply to her. I remember wondering whether she would accept me because I only have a stepson, and I knew how important that connection felt for her. She wanted someone who understood emetophobia from the inside but also someone who understood the daily reality of parenting through sickness, uncertainty, exhaustion and worry. She had been isolated in her suffering for so long, a feeling that is heartbreakingly common among emetophobia sufferers, especially since many people, including doctors and psychologists, do not fully understand the phobia.
I told her about my stepson and how, even though I did not birth him, I have been caring for him since he was six years old. He is almost sixteen now and has been sick in my home more times than I can count, easily thirty or forty times throughout the years. I understood the long nights she described, the anxious waiting for a knock on the bedroom door or a cry on the baby monitor, and the surge of hypervigilance that came whenever her little daughter looked pale, felt warm, or simply seemed unwell. Even though her daughter was still a baby, those same fears, the unknown factors and the constant worry were just as real and present, and I could relate completely. I understood the detective work afterwards, the questions about exposure at daycare or elsewhere, the attempt to make sense of what happened and whether more was coming. I lived through the same fear, cleaned the same sheets, sat in the same worry, and carried the same responsibilities before overcoming. There were even times when the anxiety was so overwhelming that I had to leave for weeks because I simply could not cope. I knew exactly what she meant and exactly how heavy her fear had become. Because of that, her concerns made complete sense to me, but I never doubted that her journey was possible.
Once she began her course she opened herself to the work with remarkable curiosity and depth. She had a great deal to unravel but moved through every step with quiet determination. Her intuition was sharp and her curiosity made each session meaningful and interesting. Perfectionism had held her tightly for years and releasing that internal pressure became one of her biggest hurdles, yet she continued to expand into new layers of confidence across every part of her life. She navigated major transitions within her family, including job changes, and challenged her fears around her daughter’s daycare while doing her best to stay grounded through the stressful changes she was experiencing. She showed up with honesty, insight and a willingness to explore her thinking on a profound level.
I still remember the moment she challenged her high disgust response by cleaning her bathroom, a turning point that demonstrated her commitment to stepping toward discomfort rather than away from it. Her courage made her progress possible and her reflections often reminded me of moments from my own past with emetophobia. She brought humor, intelligence and warmth to the process in a way that stayed with me long after each session ended. I genuinely looked forward to our meetings.
One of the most meaningful moments, in this clip above, came when her little daughter became unwell for the first time after she completed the programme. It is the moment nearly every person wonders about, the moment they fear will undo everything they have worked for.
Madeline recorded her reflections shortly afterwards, and each time I listen to her describe the experience I feel tears in my eyes. Instead of falling back into her old patterns she remained steady, calm and clear. She supported her daughter with confidence and handled the entire situation with a mindset that revealed just how deeply her thinking had changed. It remains one of the most powerful illustrations of what true recovery looks like and it isn’t about perfection, it is about growth…If you ever question your ability to handle sickness, her story is one you need to hear.
When her journey came to an end we had formed a strong and lasting connection, one that still means so much to me. Her story is a reminder that none of us walk this path alone and that even the fears we believe will break us can be overcome with the right support and the right work. Overcoming emetophobia is not easy, but it is absolutely possible. Madeline’s story is rich, emotional and deeply inspiring, and her testimonial captures all of it in a way that lingers long after you hear it.
I am grateful for all my clients, but Madeline being named Thriver of the Year feels especially moving. I am unbelievably proud of her and so touched by everything she achieved.
Congratulations, Madeline, and thank you for choosing me to be part of your incredible journey!
Coach Lauren Singer 
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