The month is August. First day of school. I walked through the front doors ready for the new year. All of my classes started off fine, only going through the syllabus for the first semester. I had just met someone named Emetophobia. Little did I know that he was the person who gave people the fear of throwing up.

It’s hard to say when I first met Emetophobia. I believe that it was sometime in August or early September. He started to follow me around everywhere that I went. I could never escape Emetophobia. When I had first met him, he was following me around constantly. He always made me believe that I was going to be sick, and I have no idea how or why, but I started to believe Emetophobia.

At first, he reminded me that I might get sick only when I had an upset stomach for a short period of time. Then Emetophobia started getting worse. Constantly following me wherever I went. I went to the mall with a couple of my best friends, and he was sitting there right next to me. I had ordered a burger and fries from one of my favorite places to eat at the mall. I sat down and took a bite of the burger. It tasted delicious. Every single ingredient was perfect. Then I saw Emetophobia come over and sit right next to me.

“What do you have there?” he asked.

“A cheeseburger with lettuce, tomatoes, onions and pickles.” I respond.

“That looks really good. But wait, doesn’t that have meat in it? You know that if it in undercooked it could give you food poisoning, right? That could make you sick.”

“Wait, it could?!” I yelled.

I didn’t eat another bite. Every night after that, I started to look up what foods could and couldn’t make me sick. I couldn’t eat any more meats without having a panic attack, which meant having to give up some of my favorite foods. My panic attacks started to get worse because of the emetophobia. I didn’t eat anything at all. I remember when I had nothing for lunch, I broke down crying and started to freak out. I came to my senses and went to see one of my best supporters for dealing with Emetophobia, Mrs. Ruiz. She tried to help, which worked a little bit, but Emetophobia was still controlling my life.

I started missing classes because of Emetophobia. I had panic attacks constantly, which meant me not being able to pay attention in class or missing class all together. I started to fall behind in all of my classes, especially chemistry. I started to not understand anything that the teacher said and started not doing my work because of Emetophobia. I was no longer myself, I was a clone of Emetophobia.

I had started to become very depressed because of three things: Emetophobia, my family, and my friends. My family and friends made me feel alone in my fight against Emetophobia. My depression and stress made me suicidal. At first, it was just to the point where I said to myself that I wanted to go to sleep and never wake up in order to stay in my dreams. Then my thoughts started to get a lot worse. I was in math class when I started to freak out about germs because of Emetophobia. I asked my teacher very anxiously if I could go to the restroom to wash my hands. After I had finished drying off, I thought to myself that I shouldn’t go back to class. I walked to the stairs right next to the bathrooms and still standing on the ground, I hung my arms and head over the edge. That’s when I had the thought ‘Would this height be enough to kill me?’ I stayed there and thought about what I had just asked myself. After the period was up, I continued on with my normal day. This sort of event happened 3 more times because of Emetophobia and stress from school.

I have hope for myself that I will get better. I have started taking medication in order to relieve some of my anxiety and stress that has been caused by Emetophobia. I really hope that Emetophobia will stop following me and stop following anybody else that has to deal with the pain that I have felt.