Yearly Archives: 2022

Understanding Emetophobia! Can Your Phobia of Vomiting Trigger Bulimia?

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emetophobia

I doubt if there is someone who likes throwing up or enjoys vomiting. Most of us are disgusted by it and try to avoid it. Does this mean we all have emetophobia (fear of vomiting)? Emetophobia is a rare mental health condition, it only affects 0.1% of the world population.

Most people assume emetophobia to be very common but not many people fear throwing up. Although frequent vomiting is common in children and young adults, without a traumatic vomiting experience or a strong cause, developing emetophobia is unlikely.

However, knowing the symptoms of emetophobia and the cause of emetophobia is necessary because no matter how rare emetophobia may be, it can happen to anyone.

Let’s read more about the meaning of emetophobia and why it happens…

What Does Emetophobia Mean?

emetophobia-meaning

Emetophobia is a mental health condition that can be defined as an intense and irrational fear of vomiting or seeing someone vomit. It is a type of anxiety disorder, the thoughts of vomiting generate a lot of anxiety and panic in someone with emetophobia.

Emetophobia makes you so anxious and fearful about vomiting that even the thought of it makes you feel unsettled. You don’t allow yourself to vomit, look at vomit, think of throwing up or even hear someone vomit.

In emetophobia, the fear is so strong that you can go to any extent to just avoid vomiting. The phobia of vomit has a direct impact on your general well-being and routine life because you completely change your behavior and action so that you can avoid vomiting by all means.

What Are Emetophobia Symptoms?

Emetophobia-Symptoms

Emetophobia makes you avoid anything and everything that is associated with vomit or reminds you of vomit or vomit itself. To understand emetophobia better you need to know all symptoms emetophobia has.

Here are some common symptoms of emetophobia;

  • Avoid places or food items that are associated with vomit
  • Avoid consuming things that are new to you
  • Avoid eating outside, eat slowly, and eat very little
  • Recheck the food more than once to see if it’s stale
  • Tend to overcook food just to ensure it’s not raw
  • Avoid touching anything that might have germs
  • Avoid visiting people in hospitals because of high possibility of seeing someone vomit
  • Consume medicines to avoid nausea even before having it
  • Frequently take your own temperature to see if you’re fine
  • Show signs of germophobia
  • Strictly avoid even the use of terms like ‘vomit’ or throw up
  • Run away from people who look sick or ill
  • Avoid going close to things that smell or look bad
  • Breathlessness, tightness in the chest, and increased pulse at the thought of vomit

Along with these symptoms of emetophobia, there are some behavioral symptoms like extreme fear of vomit, fear of not finding a washroom to puke, fear of embarrassment caused by vomiting in public, fear of vomiting on someone or thing, etc.

If you see these emetophobia symptoms in yourself or someone you who, you don’t need to worry. You just need to visit a trusted mental health professional and culminate your worries. If at you are diagnosed with emetophobia, you don’t need to panic because emetophobia is easily treatable.

What Causes Emetophobia?

Like any other type of phobia, emetophobia does not really have a particular cause. It can happen to anyone. Having said that, there are a few causes that can make a person more susceptible to developing emetophobia.

Let’s have a look at some of the causes of emetophobia;

  • Having a traumatic vomiting experience in the past
  • Having a family history of phobias or anxiety disorders
  • Having an embarrassing vomit incident in public
  • Experience bad food poisoning or other vomit-related issues
  • Watching someone vomit in front of you
  • Having someone through up on you
  • Having experienced anxiety or panic during a vomiting episode
  • Overthinking about vomit and things associated with it

How To Get Over Emetophobia ( Emetophobia Treatment)?

Emetophobia-Treatment

The treatment process for emetophobia is not very complex. Once you are diagnosed with emetophobia, you might go through some talk therapy so that your doctor can understand your triggers and intrusive thoughts about vomit. During that talk therapy, your doctor might help you work through your intense but irrational thoughts so that your emetophobia is controlled.

Along with talking there, your doctor can advise you to invest your time and energy in other types of treatment measures like;

  • Medication: there are no specific medicines for emetophobia but in some cases, doctors prescribe medicines to reduce the symptoms of anxiety and panic.
  • Cognitive behavioral therapy: in CBT the therapist helps you identify negative and irrational thoughts and replace them with positive and rational thoughts.
  • Exposure therapy: it works best for cases like phobias. Your doctor might begin with exploding you to vomit little by little. Once you are able to manage your thoughts on things associated with vomit, the exposure will move on to actual vomit.

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Kirti Bhati

 

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Risk Factors for Postpartum Depression: Family History of Psychiatric Illness

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In the general population, about 15% of women will experience depression after the birth of a child.  Given the downstream effects of postpartum depression (PPD) on the child’s health and well-being,  it is essential that we be able to identify women at high risk for experiencing PPD.  Identifying risk factors before delivery — or even before pregnancy — would allow us to monitor high-risk women more closely and may also afford the opportunity to initiate preventative interventions that mitigate the risk of illness.

A systematic review and meta-analysis from Zacher Kjeldsen and colleagues examined the association between a family history of psychiatric illness and the risk for postpartum depression.  In their final analysis, 26 studies were included, containing information on 100,877 women.  The meta-analysis showed a twofold increased odds ratio (OR) of developing PPD when mothers had a family history of psychiatric illness (OR, 2.08; 95% CI, 1.67-2.59).

The meta-analysis from the current study indicates an almost twofold increase in the risk of PPD in mothers with a family history of psychiatric disorders compared with mothers without a family history.  In other words, women with a family history of psychiatric illness will have a 30% risk of experiencing PPD.  While this is a useful piece of information, this is most likely not a surprise to most.  We know that having a family history of psychiatric illness increases one’s risk for depression, and having a history of depression increases the risk for PPD.  (However, some studies have not shown an association between a family history of psychiatric illness and PPD.)

The current study did not look at specific psychiatric disorders.  In another study analyzing data from the Danish medical register, researchers observed that if a woman had a first-degree relative (mother, father, brother, sister, or child) with a history of any psychiatric disorder, her risk of having an episode of postpartum psychiatric illness was about 1.5-fold higher than in women with no family history.   However, if the woman had a first-degree relative with a history of bipolar disorder, her risk of having an episode of postpartum psychiatric illness increased nearly threefold.  (In contrast to the study from Zacher Kjeldsen and colleagues, the Danish study looked at risk only in women with no personal history of psychiatric illness prior to pregnancy.)

Both studies remind us to ask about family history on both sides of the family.  While having a mother or sister who has experienced postpartum psychiatric illness may increase a woman’s risk of PPD, having a brother or father with any type of psychiatric illness also confers significant risk.

What we do not yet know is how various risk factors — such as depressive symptoms during pregnancy or discontinuation of medications — interact with each other, nor do we know how protective factors (e.g., social supports) may modulate risk.  Our ultimate goal would be to generate some PPD risk calculator so that we could evaluate each woman and give a more personalized estimate of risk for perinatal psychiatric illness and to select appropriate preventative interventions.  This is maybe where big data can help us.

Ruta Nonacs, MD PhD

Zacher Kjeldsen MM, Bricca A, Liu X, Frokjaer VG, Madsen KB, Munk-Olsen T. Family History of Psychiatric Disorders as a Risk Factor for Maternal Postpartum Depression: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA Psychiatry. 2022 Aug 17.

 

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Understanding the prejudice against, and struggles of the LGBTQIA+ community

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With all the advances in the world, one thing that remains a constant battle is the fight to live as our authentic selves. Here, columnist Bhavna shares the terrible reality for many members of the LGBTQIA+ community and implores us to stand with them to fight for everyone’s right to love, with pride

Love is love. Loving and being loved is the most basic of needs in any organism. Poets tell us that to love is the goal of human existence, and to be loved is the greatest treasure of the heart. And yet, for some like me, who are part of the global LGBTQIA+ community, loving whom we choose could be a death sentence.

Despite advances in LGBTQIA+ rights through Stonewall’s first riot to the Pride marches across the globe, loving someone of the same sex can mean death in many parts of the world.

In June, during our Queen’s Jubilee, the representative of Her Majesty in Indonesia was called to account why there was a Pride flag flying at the British Embassy. This is timely proof that there are still many countries around the world where there is a price to pay for love.

We hear of young couples being reported to authorities, sometimes by their own families, because they are gay and love each other. Why?

We hear of two young women in India, in their early 20s, hounded by their families because they have chosen to be in a loving relationship, and abducted by their families to force them apart, having to go to court to fight for their right to be together. Why?

We hear of corrective rapes in South Africa, and other parts of the world, to ‘teach’ LGBTQIA+ people a lesson. Why?

We hear of trans siblings of the LGBTQIA+ family being harassed and murdered, and transwomen being assaulted and murdered, because they found the courage to be who they are.

We hear of high rates of suicides in the LGBTQIA+ community, because of the stigma of being gay. Why?

We hear of people choosing to enter heterosexual marriage and betray themselves to keep their family happy and take the target off their backs. This raises many other questions. We can’t hide what we feel – I know, I was in the closet for 32 years of my life until it became unbearable to live the lie, and I had to come out before it killed me. I will never get those three decades of my life back.

One of the excuses I read and hear repeatedly about why being LGBTQIA+ could be a death sentence for some is that it is against ‘their’ religion. Yet, despite my study of religious literature over decades, the main lesson I’ve taken from all religions has been love, forbearance, and peace. The final commandment of Jesus was to ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’

The Office for National Statistics found that 1.9 million people in the UK (3.1% of the population) identify as LGB, whereas those identifying as trans number 1%, according to Stonewall.

The National LGBT Survey carried out in 2017 found that LGBT respondents are less satisfied with life compared with the general UK population. Furthermore, more than 66% stated concern about holding hands in public for fear of reprisals. The report stated that at least two in five people had experienced verbal harassment or physical assault due to their sexuality. It further stated that at least 2% had undergone conversion therapy in an attempt to ‘cure’ them of being LGBT. A further 24% of responders had sought mental health support in the 12 months of the survey. These statistics are not surprising, considering people’s views towards the community.

This is the same report by the government that stated ‘none of this is acceptable and went ahead to publish their LGBT Action Plan, and yet still refuses to ban conversion therapy for people identifying as trans.

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I have worked with many clients that have identified as LGBTQIA+ over the years, and who have struggled with their sexuality. I’ve had therapy myself to overcome my struggle with my sexuality and end a marriage. We have been lucky to have found the strength and courage to seek help. But what about those who felt that they had no choice but to take their own lives to stop the horrific pain? There are two cousins in my own family who took their own lives. The taboo against being LGBTQIA+ is great in Asian and African cultures and countries where being gay is still illegal.

Many families from ethnic minorities blame being LGBTQIA+ as a Western fad, and yet this community has been around for thousands of years.

In some cultures such as the First Nations Tribes in the USA, it was respected and revered as Twin-Spirit people. Despite the need for a lot of work still to be done to make people understand that we are born this way, and no amount of beatings, abuse, or conversion ‘therapies’ can change this fact, I am pleased to see more specially trained therapists like myself offer support with issues that face the LGBTQIA+ community. I am encouraged that more people are choosing to live their truth and be authentic, but we still have a very long way to go, as long as prejudice still exists.

If you have an LGBTQIA+ person in your life, love them, and support them. They are precious, too. Happy Pride, love is love.

 

 

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Cluster C Personality Disorders: Living with Fear and Anxiety

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Cluster C Personality Disorders

A personality disorder is a psychological condition where the person thinks and behaves differently. The thought process and actions of an individual with personality disorders are away from what is expected out of them, they are very atypical.

People with a personality disorder do things that they aren’t supposed to do, things that society looks down upon or doesn’t approve of. Some people end up doing bizarre things because of their personality disorders.

Today, we will be discussing the cluster C of personality disorders. To make the diagnosing and treatment easy for personality disorders, they were divided into 3 clusters, such as

The cluster C of personality disorder is not much talked about. So, we will be discussing all cluster C personality disorder characteristics, causes, treatments, etc.

Let’s get started;

What is Cluster C Personality Disorders?

Cluster C Personality disorders are a set of 3 different personality disorders which share some common traits like fearfulness and anxiety. The entire cluster C of personality disorders revolves around anxiety, doubt, and fear besides the specific symptoms of personality disorder.

I say so because anxiety, fear, and doubt almost remain constant in all the disorders falling in cluster C personality disorders. It doesn’t matter what the situation may be these three traits are present almost all the time.

People who deal with cluster C personality disorder often struggle to maintain relationships. There are various other mental health implications as well like self-esteem issues, feelings of worthlessness, self-doubt, etc.

What Causes Cluster C Personality Disorders?

The exact cause of cluster c personality disorders has not yet been discovered. Having said that, many experts believe that there are a few risk factors involved which might play a role in developing personality disorders of cluster c.

Let’s have a look at them;

  • Genetics
  • Past experiences
  • Traumatic experiences
  • Early exposure to relationship issues
  • Cultural influences

Characteristics Of Cluster C Personality Disorders

Like I told you earlier, cluster C personality disorders consist of 3 different types of personality disorders. All three of them show traits of anxiety, fear, and doubt in common. Let’s look at the characteristics of cluster C personality disorder according to each disorder;

1. Avoidant personality disorder

  • Avoid social interaction because of fear of rejection or disapproval
  • Low self-esteem
  • Talk to others only when they are sure that others like them
  • Don’t try new things because of fear of rejection
  • Obsessed with thoughts of being criticized or rejected
  • Struggle with feelings of inadequacy
  • Feelings of shame when out in public

2. Dependent personality disorder

  • Want others to take responsibility for major things in their lives
  • Face issues with decision making
  • Constant need of seeking approval and reassurance from others
  • They fear confrontation
  • Can go to any lengths to get their comfort back
  • Struggle with self-doubt
  • Feel uncomfortable when left all alone
  • In a constant need of support
  • Fear of being left on their own

3. Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder

  • Obsessed with following rules and organizing things
  • Obsessed with perfectionism
  • Intolerance of any change in belief
  • Obsessed with work (workaholics)
  • Are very stubborn
  • Might have a hoarding disorder
  • Don’t spend money because they want to save it in case they run out of money
  • Can’t work in teams unless everyone works exactly how they want.

How To Treat Cluster C Personality Disorders?

Cluster C personality disorders are treatable conditions. Most of the symptoms can be treated and managed in such a way that they stop interfering with your life. Once your doctor has diagnosed your condition you will either be prescribed medication, psychotherapy, or a combination of both depending on the severity of your symptoms.

Cognitive behavioral therapy works best in reducing the symptoms of cluster c personality disorders. CBT focuses on identifying the intrusive negative thoughts and finding a replacement for them so that they don’t bother you anymore.

Thanks for reading.

Take care and stay safe.

About The Author

Kirti Bhati

 Currently working at calm sage as a writer.

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US transitions to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline

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The United States will have a new, easier-to-remember, nationwide suicide prevention lifeline from July 16 2022

First launched in December 2004, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline has offered support to millions of Americans seeking support and guidance during times of crisis. In 2021, Lifeline received 3.6 million calls, chats, and texts. From Saturday July 16, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline will be transitioning from its old 10-digit number (1-800-273-TALK (8255)) to the new three-digit Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, 988.

What is changing (and why now?)

The change to Lifeline’s number is part of President Biden’s comprehensive strategy to address the nation’s mental health crisis. Identified as a top priority, since January 2021, the Biden-Harris Administration has invested $432 million (up from $24 million previously) to scale crisis centre capacity and provide specialist services, such as a sub-network for Spanish language speakers. This has helped support the transition to 988 and to ensure that all Americans can access help and support during a mental health crisis.

The National Suicide Hotline Designation Act was signed into law after the passage of bipartisan legislation in 2020. This authorised 988 as the new, shorter number for suicide and mental health crisis. By July 16 2022 at the latest, all telephone and text providers in the US and five major US territories are required to activate 988.

Secretary Becerra commented: “988 is more than a number, it is a message: we’re there for you. Through this and other actions, we are treating mental health as a priority and putting crisis care in reach for more Americans. There is still much work to do. But what matters is that we’re launching. We are looking to every governor and every state in the nation to do their part to make this a long-term success.”

FCC staff first proposed 988 in August 2019 as part of a report to Congress. FCC Chairwoman, Jessica Rosenworcel, said: “All across our country, people are hurting. They need help. The good news is that getting that help just got a lot easier. 988 will be available nationwide for individuals in crisis, and their loved ones, to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline more easily. This cross-government effort has been years in the making and comes at a crucial point to help address the mental health crisis in our country, especially for our young people.”

Those seeking to get through to the Veterans Crisis Line can now dial 988, then press 1.

Following the 3.6 million calls, chats and texts received by the Lifeline in 2021, it is expected that the number will double within the first full year following the transition to 988.

What is the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline?

Now called 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a network of over 200 state and local call centres across the USA. Providing free, confidential, 24/7 access through a toll-free hotline, anyone who is experiencing emotional distress or is in a suicidal crisis can call. Offering crisis resources for individuals and their loved ones, Lifeline aims to improve crisis services and advance suicide prevention through empowering individuals, advancing professional best practices, and building awareness.

Founded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, the Lifeline has previously had a 10-digit phone number.

Those using major search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo for information about suicide or self-harm methods are instead shown the phone number and website for Lifeline.

It is hoped that 988 will help people in mental health crisis to access help more quickly from those most qualified to provide support. Through providing a more effective means of triage, this should place less burden on emergency medical services and departments.

How common are suicidal thoughts and actions in the US?

In the United States, someone dies by suicide every 11 minutes. Between 2000-18, suicide rates rose by 30% according to the CDC. The number of people thinking about, considering, or attempting suicide is thought to be even higher. One study from 2017 revealed that 4% of American adults aged 18 and over have thought about suicide.

In 2020, it was estimated that 12.2 million Americans seriously considered suicide, 3.2 million planned a suicide attempt, and 1.2 million attempted suicide.

Suicidal thoughts can take many forms. Some people may experience passive suicidal ideation – for example, you may wish you would fall asleep and not wake up, but do not have plans to complete suicide. Others may experience active suicidal ideation – where you are actively thinking about suicide and have a plan.

Suicidal thoughts can be symptoms of other mental health issues, such as severe or manic depression. Both passive and active suicidal thoughts are warning signs that you could be at risk and should seek help. Studies have shown that those who experience high levels of depression and suicidality, and thoughts of passive and active ideation, have the potential to become more severe and dangerous.

Anyone, at any age and any gender, can experience suicidal thoughts. Men can be up to three times more likely to complete suicide, while women show higher rates of suicidal thinking and suicide attempts.

If you have a personal or family history of mental illness, have experienced substance addiction, abuse, trauma, major loss, or have limited access to healthcare, you may be at higher risk of suicidal thoughts or attempts.

Discover more about suicidal thoughts, how they can make you feel, and what you can do to combat these thoughts now and long-term over on Counselling Directory.

Where to find help for suicidal thoughts, ideation, and actions

If you are worried about a friend or loved one, or are experiencing worrying thoughts, Lifeline is available to text, chat online, or call, 24/7. Find out more and speak with someone confidentially through 988 or by visiting 988lifeline.org. Skilled, trained crisis workers are ready to listen, provide support, and share resources.

No matter what problems you are facing, if you need someone to speak with, call Lifeline. Their experienced crisis workers are there to talk about any issues you may need emotional support for, including substance abuse, relationship issues, sexual identity, substance abuse, depression, abuse, mental illness, physical illness, loneliness, suicidal thoughts, and more.

 

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