The Last of Us star Bella Ramsay has opened up about the “irrational fear” that kept them homebound for months.
Speaking with Louis Theroux on the latest episode of The Louis Theroux Podcast, Ramsey explained that over the years they’ve struggled with emetophobia, which they described as a “really intense fear” of “vomit and everything to do with it”.
“If you feel a bit sick, if someone else feels sick or is sick… the whole thing is absolutely terrifying,” they said.
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The Game of Thrones star described their phobia as “all encompassing” explaining the “unpredictability” of their own and others’ sickness is what is so frightening.
“If I’ve been in contact with somebody who has got norovirus, for the next like two weeks it’s a thing of monitoring how I’m feeling, like what if I go out and go on the tube and then the symptoms come,” they explained.
“And then I throw up on the tube and how bad is that?”
Ramsey shared that their phobia became so deep that at around 13 years old they “couldn’t leave [their] house” because “everything outside was a threat”.
“You go out and it’s just like you just see, it’s like you can see germs, you see sickness everywhere,” they said.
They shared that they didn’t leave they house for months but even then, they still didn’t feel entirely safe.
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“Because then people have been like walking outside in the street and come in in shoes, and then in the emetophobic brain, there’s like vomiting bug germs on the shoes,” they began.
“And then the shoes have gone through the house. And then you’ve sat on the floor and then it’s on your clothes.
“And then you’ve touched your jeans. And then suddenly you’ve got the vomiting bug germs on your hands.
“And then you accidently like touch your hands to your face. And then you’re going to have like a vomiting bug. It’s the thought process.”
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In Ramsey’s case, there was a point at which they say they would have “rather die than throw up”.
“That’s how intense it is for a lot of people,” they explained.
To most it may seem like an irrational fear, which Ramsey says they have always been aware of.
“It’s like you know logically it’s not something to be afraid of,” they shared.
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So, over the years they decided to work on their phobia, now saying they’ve come so far they wouldn’t even classify themselves as emetophobic today.
Explaining they did a emetophobic specific program called The Thrive Program, and have continued to do so several times over the years, Ramsey said they have now “gotten so much better”.
“Literally the other day [I] though I was actually going to like throw up,” they said.
“[I] was like fine by the idea of it. I’m like, ‘I can do it. This will be fine’.
“So, I’m basically, all of this is a long ramble to say that I feel now that I’m not emetophobic anymore.
“I think that I have a slightly stronger reaction to vomit than the average person, or I’m slightly more averse or afraid of it.”
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