My name is Alice, and I am a coward. That’s not the most politically correct way to phrase it, but for the past nine years, I’ve lived with a life-ruling phobia – and when I sit down and consider the facts, the word coward sometimes feels appropriate. I’ve spent a lot of my life feeling almost paralysed with fear, over what seems like practically nothing to most other people. Sometimes, I’ve physically run away from things that a toddler might just sit and laugh at.

The phobia I have is surprisingly common: emetophobia, the fear of vomiting. For such a specific fear, you’d be surprised at how general the threat becomes. Because a fear of vomiting becomes a fear of everything. We are our germs; bacteria outnumber human cells on every inch of our bodies. Every single person: friend, foe or family could – with a couple of errant viral particles splattered on their hand – be the one to make your whole existence unravel, or so it feels.

"I washed my hands so often and so frantically that the constant onslaught of soap stripped them until I had permanent red rivulets cracking their way across my skin"

I couldn’t go to school. It was a breeding grounds for germs. I couldn’t leave the house. What if I walked past a pool of vomit and inhaled a bunch of viruses? I couldn’t eat food, not because I wasn’t desperately hungry, but because I was so scared it’d come hurtling straight back up as food poisoning, no matter how innocuous the foodstuff seemed. My weight shrunk to just over 5st, my attendance at school dropped by 40 per cent, I washed my hands so often and so frantically that the constant onslaught of soap stripped them until I had permanent red rivulets cracking their way across my skin.

But these weren’t the worst things about it, by a long shot. Yes, I’d missed so much school, for so many consecutive years, that I felt slow and stupid, despite knowing myself to be at least as capable as most of my peers. My confused friends bought me bottles of hand cream by the dozen for at least four birthdays running, thinking I had some kind of eczema. But the very worst bit was what the actual fear did to me. With what felt like almost laughably cruel irony, I’d spend each day feeling so scared about vomiting that it’d physically make me sick.

On the days I’d make it to school, or even when triggered by something in the house, I’d stop, have a brief panic, calm down momentarily – and then shuddering waves of nausea would drown me. I would be completely, absolutely, unequivocally convinced that this was it: the game was over, because, my God, I was about to be sick, I was absolutely certain of it. I wasn’t the only one who’d believe it either, because the colour would visibly drain from my cheeks like a corpse, my temperature would measurably shoot upwards, and I’d shake uncontrollably until the nausea passed, which could be hours. I spent the best part of three years with my head over a bucket.

I was living my darkest nightmare every day. I could be triggered by the most minor sensory nudge; even a suspicious smell could send my heart crash-landing into the roof of my mouth. No matter how hard I tried to rationalise with myself, nothing could make me enjoy life like a ‘normal’ person. It got to the stage, at its very worst, when I was about 12 – knowing that the insufferable cycle of nausea and fear would repeat itself that day no matter what I tried – that I would wake up in the mornings and wish that I hadn’t.

"I had to be brave, just once, or I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. I climbed Himalayan mountains and fought off altitude sickness with a smile"

And yet, there’s a terrible allure that comes with living with a phobia daily. Facing your most intense fear on a day-to-day basis comes with a perverse sense of triumph: sure, I ran half a mile home and cried hysterically when someone casually mentioned they were feeling queasy after lunch, but I wasn’t sick. In fact, no matter how scared I’d get, during that time I was never actually sick. It was a daily burst of self-validation that came every time I calmed myself down from a panic attack, or managed to discipline my hyperactive lungs, or got through a day at school without hurtling to the nurse and begging to be sent home. To me, I was fighting something powerful, something important – and it felt like I was winning, no matter how much I lost in the process.

You can get addicted to adrenaline. I’d constructed my whole life around a narrative in which there was only one enemy, and when you’re living life in fight-or-flight, complexity is irrelevant. So what do you do when your phobia finally evaporates, when for years battling it has consumed you? When your pulse rate fades to normal, and stays there more or less every day for weeks at a time, the complexities become mundane. You almost ache for the nemesis you can fight against, and win – while knowing deep down that it could still floor you in one punch if it wanted to.

Emetophobia is uniquely, treacherously torturous as a phobia, especially for an otherwise logical person. Because here’s the oxymoron: it’s a rational phobia. It is very difficult to describe a fear of pathogens as irrational – because doesn’t the desire to safeguard our health comprise one of our most primal instincts? It just makes so much sense, in a warped and hyperbolic kind of way, and this makes it even harder to overcome.

After five years, I snapped. My life had been so limited, for so many years, and it was time for this to stop. So I booked a plane to India. I was petrified – but I just couldn’t let myself care anymore. I had to be brave, just once, or I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. I climbed Himalayan mountains and fought off altitude sickness with a smile, and threw myself into the backstreets of the namesake home of ‘Delhi Belly’ without inhibition, and I was in my element.

Learning to love life again – Cambridge-style

When bravery and courage are so closely associated with moral fibre in every novel, film or television show, living with a phobia can fill a sufferer with shame. It’s also one of the most readily scorned of any mental health problem, and one of the most overlooked – “here’s a solution: why don’t you just stop being so pathetic, and grow a pair?”. It can be hard to maintain even low levels of self-esteem, and I have experienced several bouts of depression.

Thankfully, after nine years, the fear has mostly faded – and what remains, I’ve come to terms with. I live my life wearing yellow-tinted glasses, and one day, I hope I’ll come to realise that I might see more clearly without them