'EastEnders' actor Jamie Borthwick has a phobia of being sick.
Jamie Borthwick on his phobia of being sick
The 27-year-old soap star - has played Jay Brown in the BBC soap since 2006 - revealed that he suffers from a condition called emetophobia, which leaves him fearful of anything to do with vomit and at one point was unable to leave the house because of it.
He said: "I’ve never really spoken about it, but I’m just having a moment where I’m like, ‘Whatever.’ I’ve got a real phobia about being sick, called emetophobia. I really suffer quite bad with that, and it affected me in so many ways."
" I didn’t want to go out, I didn’t want to shake people’s hands. It became a thing about germs and I got quite OCD about things like that."
The telly star also explained that his phobia of vomit had left him feeling "so unsafe" and eventually became "frustrated" as his phobia led to him missing out on opportunities.
Speaking on the 'Lads, Dads and a Couple of Beers' podcast, he added: "It just made me feel really anxious and I didn’t like that at all. I don’t really like being away from home. It started off just about that, but then as I got older it developed a bit more into random bouts of anxiety, where I just felt awful. I felt so unsafe.
"Then, it got to a point where it’s really frustrating. It was stopping me from living my life, it was stopping me from going out. I was missing opportunities."
However, since then, Jamie has managed to "seek the right help" and admitted he was "really selfish" in the days when his phobia was at its height, even though he knows his phobia will never truly leave him.
He said: "“I managed to seek the right help and it’ll never go. I will never ever be OK about being sick. Ever. But I just get to a point where I cope with it, and just deal with it the best way I can."