A Flight Back to My Truest Self – Recovery from Emetophobia

by Sean Dudley

Listen to Executive Director Gabriel Nathan read this post aloud:

This is me with one of my oldest mates, Jimmy. We have known each other since we were 2 years old. In this photograph, we are in our early 30s.

We were in a pub in Dublin for Jimmy’s stag do, and two weeks after this photo, he got married in a beautiful ceremony to his now-wife, Lucy. Looking at this image, I can tell how happy we were for Jimmy’s promising and beautiful future, but the more personal reason behind my smile is less obvious. You see, simply joining him in a pub in the Irish capital and taking this photo wasn’t as easy as it sounds.

Earlier that day, I was on a flight from Birmingham to Dublin. I remember looking out the window, seeing a trawler ship way down below on the Irish Sea, and thinking “that looks a long way down”. But that was it. I didn’t freak out. I didn’t hyperventilate. I saw it, and then my thoughts moved on to something else.

That flight was my first in 13 years. Now, I know what you’re thinking—“another fear-of-flying story!” And it may look like I’ve already given away the ending. But this is a little different. This story does end with a pint of Guinness in the Auld Dubliner in Temple Bar, but it starts with something I’ve spent a long time trying to understand.

This “something” was anxiety. But back in the mid-2000s, when I was 16, the word “anxiety” wasn’t even in my vocabulary. I thought I was sick. I used to wear sea bands all the time because I believed I suffered from chronic nausea. To be fair, I did feel nauseous practically all of the time. Whenever I went to a party or a social event, my stomach did somersaults. I would suddenly develop this dry cough that I didn’t usually have. At this time, I was forcing myself through things, hoping that whatever it was would one day just stop.

But that’s not how mental illness goes. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, I hit an apex on a holiday with my friends in Greece, the summer before we all went off to university.

I felt it crawling all over me all week in Greece. I was not eating right. I was not able to relax my body. After seven days of pretending to have fun, just as we were getting ready to go home, I felt a familiar sense of dread on the bus to the airport. Then, when we got to the departure lounge and were told there was a 3-hour delay with our flight, I broke.

I had a panic attack. At least that’s what I know it was now. When it was happening, I had no idea what was going on. I hid in the toilets. I thought I was going to vomit—something I had had an acute fear of since childhood. I tried to pace around the duty-free shops to distract myself. I couldn’t seem to shake this dreadful feeling in my stomach. It only eased slightly when we got on the plane (after what turned out to be a 4-hour delay, an extra hour for luck), and we flew back to the UK.

Now people have had panic attacks and been able to get back to a normal life pretty quickly. People have had panic attacks at airports. People have had panic attacks on planes. In the grand scheme of things, I know I wasn’t alone in this experience, though I truly felt like I was at the time. Growing up, anxiety and panic attacks were not spoken about openly. Mental illness wasn’t something I knew people suffered from or lived with. I couldn’t comprehend that people could struggle with their mental health and then go on to have good, productive lives.

At the time, I didn’t have a sense of curiosity about what happened at the airport. I didn’t do research or speak to people. I just remember holding onto one clear feeling: I could never, ever put myself in a position where something like that could happen again. This meant being in airports, flying on planes, travelling abroad, and a thousand things beyond suddenly became out of reach.

Now reflecting on it, this was one of my biggest mistakes. But the fear of losing control, of humiliation, of having eyes on me, and this physical release of some beast from within me was all powerful. It was almost like I had something in me that was so unfathomably terrible that the idea of letting anybody see it was excruciating. This manifested in emetophobia, but was likely stemming from some deeper discomfort about who I was, what I wanted people to think of me, and a latent discomfort about my place in the world.

For the next ten years, I did everything possible to avoid what I experienced in Greece. I was so terrified of having a panic attack again that it began shaping my entire existence. I started to develop an intense fear of travelling away from places I deemed ‘safe’. That meant, no more flying or foreign holidays; even travelling within the UK became extremely difficult. As time went on, my list of ‘safe’ places grew smaller and smaller.

As my fears became deeply entrenched, my personality and habits changed to reflect it.  I suddenly found myself analysing certain activities I previously didn’t think twice about for threat. I became reclusive and isolated, prioritising my own ‘safety’ over living my life in any meaningful way. My friendships suffered as I neglected meeting with people, and I got annoyed with those in my life who didn’t seem to understand what I was going through, eventually distancing myself from them. From a panic attack in a Greek airport on a hot afternoon, I had spiralled into an isolated world of neuroses.

So, how did I end up drinking a pint in the Auld Dubliner? Well, it starts with another type of pint—a dodgy pint of milk in the office fridge. I smelt it and it smelt off to me, so I left it. A colleague asked why I’d done that, and I gave him a true answer—“I’m always wary of dodgy food and drinks because I’ve got a really bad fear of vomiting”. That was, of course, the short answer. The long answer is that the thought of vomiting sent me into an unmanageable spiral of dread and panic. At the Greek airport, I felt stuck, so I panicked, which made me nauseous, so I panicked more, which made my stomach feel worse, which blew things out of the water. This wasn’t simply about not wanting to fly—I was fairly comfortable flying then. It was more an urgent need to feel okay again after an anxiety-filled week, and deeming myself unable to feel better until I reached a place of perceived safety.

My colleague then casually told me he had a friend with a similar condition who had received some help and had made considerable improvements. This passing comment was an eye-opener. I had never considered getting help for a phobia before. I just thought it was an unchangeable life sentence.

But that evening, I finally put a name to it—emetophobia. Soon after, I bought a workbook that helped support people with their emetophobia recovery. As I delved deeper into this workbook, I started to recognise unhealthy patterns within myself—an external locus of control, negative self-talk, and catastrophising. The book gave me the initial tools to help myself. And while it’s hard to change such an embedded mental trend, I did make progress. The acute anxiety and panic I felt when outside of my comfort zone, suddenly, had another narrative to contend with. This narrative was more supportive and kinder, and while quiet initially, it grew in volume as I worked towards recovery.

In time, my life became more tolerable, more life-like. I got a new job. I started socialising more. I started travelling more in the UK. I started pushing my boundaries further and further. But still, there was work to do. I didn’t feel comfortable enough to even think about going abroad yet. I still avoided this topic with others, and in my own mind.

Finally, I felt ready to take the steps to change things. I had gotten the bit between my teeth in other aspects of my life and had made positive steps—why not this too? I was tired of avoiding things and wanted to see more of the world again. I wanted to fly, proverbially and literally, once again.

The first step I took was to speak to a private therapist. While I understand that money can be a deal-breaker here for many, I believe that genuine growth and enhancing your mental health are worth the investment. I made a decision to invest in my recovery, and it paid off. These sessions helped me digest and reflect on memories, thoughts, and feelings in a way that truly helped me move forward.

Next, I booked a visit to an airport. This was part of a service called ‘Fly and Be Calm’ run by East Midlands Airport. Myself and a few other attendees were guided around the airport and given various pieces of information about what to expect when passing through an airport. This was a great way to refamiliarise myself with the airport scenario, while also creating a new narrative for my body and mind when it came to airports.

Eventually, I saw an EMDR specialist. I had read about EMDR and its relation to trauma in Bessel Van Der Kolk’s book, The Body Keeps the Score. The EMDR sessions helped me process and reinterpret what had happened in Greece. I started to see the situation more rationally, and was able to take myself out of the mindset I had been in for so long.

Finally, I booked a session with a company called Virtual Aerospace. These guys run sessions in a passenger plane simulator, and I travelled to Northamptonshire to essentially ‘fly’ a plane with an experienced pilot beside me. During the session, the pilot talked me through all the processes and procedures of the plane, and explained how safe and secure even the most standard of aeroplanes are. By this time, I had mentally committed to making Jimmy’s stag do my first ‘actual’ flight since Greece. So we simulated a journey from Birmingham to Dublin. This was excellent as it helped me get a feel for how take off would be, and how long flying between these two places would take (48 minutes!).

Thanks to the steps I took, as the stag do approached, I went from being somebody who couldn’t even contemplate going into an airport to being ready to fly again. Sure, in the days building up to the flight, I was nervous. I had intrusive thoughts and visions of disaster. But I could now identify these thoughts as being ‘my old way of thinking’, and focus on ‘my new way of thinking’ instead. I practised meditation to calm my nervous system, and looked after myself by eating well and staying hydrated. I couldn’t get rid of every physical nervous symptom, of course, but I never swayed from my belief that I would get on the plane, take off, and let what happens happen. I had lost the need to control everything and avoid how I felt, and that was when I knew recovery was near.

Then the big day came. I caught the train to Birmingham Airport, made my way through security, and sat in the departure lounge. I let myself feel my feelings until it was time to board. I sat down, put some music on, and felt the plane taxi to the runway. Then I listened to the noise of the engines for takeoff and, before I knew it, I was looking out the windows at the clouds floating by.

When I touched down in Dublin, the sense of accomplishment and relief was beyond anything I can describe. In the blink of an eye, there I was with Jimmy. And all things considered, I deserved that pint at the Auld Dubliner.

​EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Gabriel Nathan | EDITOR: Kavita Sarmah | DESIGN: Leah Alexandra Goldstein | SITE ORIGINATOR: Bud Clayman

See Related Recovery Stories: Anxiety, Mental Health First Person Essays