Model and former Celebrity Big Brother star Rhian Sugden reveals she has been diagnosed with anxiety stemming from a phobia about being sick.
The star, 35, spoke out about her anxiety diagnosis for the first time, revealing her lifelong phobia of being sick, which began when she was just three-years-old, has caused panic attacks and left her hospitalised.
Speaking to former Love Island star Dr Alex George on the Stompcast podcast, Rhian admitted her phobia of being sick has taken over her life and even her husband, former Coronation Street actor Oliver Mellor, has struggled to deal with her panic attacks and anxiety.
Speaking out: Model and former Celebrity Big Brother star Rhian Sugden has been diagnosed with anxiety stemming from a phobia about being sick
Rhian revealed her fear has impacted much of her life for over 30 years – from preventing her from getting on school buses, to stopping her taking holidays abroad and eating most food, leaving her seriously underweight.
For years, medics had struggled to help the model, but after she decided to try out different therapies herself – including shock therapy and hypnotherapy – she said more recently she has finally started learning to cope better.
Rhian explained: ‘Over the last five years I’ve been diagnosed with anxiety. But I’ve had it since I was about three, four years old and it wasn’t really a thing back then.
‘As long as I can remember, I’ve had it bad. I feel like it’s taken over a lot of my life, but it stems from a phobia of being sick.
![Sickness: The star, 35, spoke out about her anxiety diagnosis for the first time, revealing her phobia of being sick, which began when she was three-years-old, has caused panic attacks](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/08/22/15/61612261-11134639-Sickness_The_star_35_spoke_out_about_her_anxiety_diagnosis_for_t-a-48_1661178404974.jpg)
Sickness: The star, 35, spoke out about her anxiety diagnosis for the first time, revealing her phobia of being sick, which began when she was three-years-old, has caused panic attacks
‘I have ideas where it came from because I’ve had so many different types of therapy over the years. I’ve had hypnotherapy, CBT therapy (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), shock therapy.
‘And they regressed me somehow – something that I never thought was possible. I thought this is just ridiculous talk, but they managed to get memories out of me that I didn’t realise I had. That was hypnotherapy that did that.
Rhian explained that hypnotherapy helped memories resurface from her childhood including witnessing a dinner lady at her school being sick, helping her to understand when the phobia started.
Asked by Dr Alex George, the former Love Island contestant who is now UK Youth Mental Health Ambassador within the Department for Education, if it was the act of vomiting that affected her, Rhian said: ‘Everything around it. Not illness in general – just specifically sick.
‘Every time I say to people ‘oh, I’ve got this fear of being sick, they go ‘oh, I hate being sick’. But it’s not the same.
![Candid: Speaking to former Love Island star Dr Alex George on the Stompcast podcast , Rhian admitted her phobia of being sick has taken over her life](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/08/22/15/61611505-11134639-image-a-43_1661177762095.jpg)
Candid: Speaking to former Love Island star Dr Alex George on the Stompcast podcast , Rhian admitted her phobia of being sick has taken over her life
‘It’s like being terrified of spiders and not knowing when it’s going to appear. If I get too hot and start feeling sick – panic attack.
‘I only recently started eating Chinese, Indian food, fish. This has all been the past five years. I’m scared of getting food poisoning.
‘Like drinking, I never get blind drunk.
‘I would stand over the sink at home crying every single night – it’s haunted my mum and dad – crying over the sink, heaving, and going ‘I’m going to be sick, I’m going to be sick, please tell me I’m not going to be sick’.
‘And they would take me back and forward from the doctor’s. I was so thin because I wouldn’t eat that much.
‘And the doctor just said ‘she’s got stomach problems, that’s why she’s not eating’.
‘So they gave me antihistamines, where the side effect was hunger, and they gave me fibre gel to make me go to the toilet. And that’s all that they would give me – they didn’t see it as anxiety.’
![Support: Rhian added that her husband of four years Oliver is 'getting better' at dealing with her anxiety, but she added that 'he does get very frustrated because he's obviously there when I'm having a full on panic attack'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/08/22/15/61611499-11134639-Support_Rhian_added_that_her_husband_of_four_years_Oliver_is_get-a-44_1661177793186.jpg)
Support: Rhian added that her husband of four years Oliver is ‘getting better’ at dealing with her anxiety, but she added that ‘he does get very frustrated because he’s obviously there when I’m having a full on panic attack’
Rhian added that her husband of four years Oliver is ‘getting better’ at dealing with her anxiety, but she added that ‘he does get very frustrated because he’s obviously there when I’m having a full on panic attack. And I’m like £you need to ring an ambulance”.’
‘The other day when I had a panic attack my heart rate went up to 192 from resting 69. I was thinking ‘I’m going to give myself a heart attack and then I’m going to choke on my own sick’.
‘The amount of times I’ve looked at myself in the mirror and gone ‘what is wrong with you?’.’
Rhian said although she has only ever been sick about four times in her life, she gets caught in a vicious spiral of her fear causing panic attacks, which in turn make her feel sick.
![Getting better: Rhian revealed that hypnotherapy and dog walks have helped ease her anxiety in recent years](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/08/22/15/61611501-11134639-Getting_better_-a-45_1661177807801.jpg)
Getting better: Rhian revealed that hypnotherapy and dog walks have helped ease her anxiety in recent years
‘I tremor. I sometimes violently shake, and I feel like I can’t catch my breath and I feel like I’m being strangled, which in turn makes me feel sick. So that triggers more panic. And I can’t seem to snap out of it.
‘The build-up to it is very traumatic… I’ve been so close to ringing ambulances sometimes.’
She said it’s only recently she has been able to talk about her fear without triggering it.
She said: ‘A lot of people with Emetophobia, which is the fear of sick, can’t talk about it. But I think I’ve done so much research on it now, and it’s so popular, I can talk about it.
‘It’s the build up that’s worse because I think I’m going to choke. I don’t know where I’m going to do it. I have to have buckets and bins in the bedroom.
‘When I actually am sick it’s fine, but then afterwards I’m traumatised and thinking ‘I can’t go through that again’.
She told Dr George on his Stompcast podcast: ‘Medical professionals, I don’t think they believe that the phobia is something that can cause so much damage.
‘There’s been times when I’ve hospitalised myself because I’ve refused to eat because I’m scared of getting ill.
‘I’ve done exposure therapy. They made me put cold soup in my mouth and pretend to be sick. That was traumatic.
Rhian said it was hypnotherapy that finally helped get to the root of her problem and led to her anxiety diagnosis five years ago.
‘I’ve got more quality of life now. If you’d have spoken to me when I was 20, 21, I hadn’t been abroad, I couldn’t get on a plane, I couldn’t eat food. All I would eat was bread and chips – so underweight, so unhealthy.’
Listen to the full interview on the Stompcast podcast.
![Lifelong condition: 'As long as I can remember, I've had it bad' Rhian explained of her phobia and her anxiety, adding that her parents have struggled to cope in the past (pictured with her father)](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/08/22/15/61611731-11134639-Lifelong_condition_As_long_as_I_can_remember_I_ve_had_it_bad_Rhi-a-46_1661177948031.jpg)
Lifelong condition: ‘As long as I can remember, I’ve had it bad’ Rhian explained of her phobia and her anxiety, adding that her parents have struggled to cope in the past (pictured with her father)
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