Emetophobia nightmare

[emetophobiahelpme]

Hi everyone.

Not sure if this is the right place to post as I do know deep down I am being unreasonable but absolutely desperate for help.

I have severe emetophobia (vomit phobia) and currently ttc. I've seen a therapist about this for years and I have made some improvement, some quite significant.

However the thought of potential morning sickness and my child catching sickness bugs and passing them on to me just will not leave my mind. I am aware completely how selfish this is, I just cannot shake this phobia. I'm in my thirties and really don't want to put off not having a child any longer for a phobia that, in my opinion, isn't going anywhere.

I've seen other similar threads saying that you have to decide which is the biggest fear to you - never having a baby or risking getting sick. I am more afraid of never having a baby - I have so much love to give.

Can anybody please please please help with any tips/advice on this situation.

Not quite the same thing, but I had a fear of child birth, that took me a couple of years to overcome. In my experience of this anxiety and other things, the fear of something happening is usually much worse than the thing itself.

Just to reassure you, I had heard so many stories of constant sickness bugs, but my dc have only been sick once each in more than 13 years. I didn’t catch it from them and despite now having teenagers I haven’t been sick since before they were born

I also suffer from this - however mine started years after my child was born - in terms of the sickness bugs, it doesn’t always mean you’ll catch it from them - in fact I’ve given my child a sickness bug (I had it first and then they did sort of thing) and I don’t recall them ever giving me one first! Also about the morning sickness - you could potentially speak to your GP/midwife about this and they could perhaps prescribe you some anti-sickness before it actually starts (but obviously once you’re pregnant!) so you can take them at the first signs of nausea x

Plus every pregnancy is different - with my first pregnancy I felt VERY nauseous for about a week and was sick once that’s literally it but with my second pregnancy I was sick a lot more but mainly because of anxiety (which can be controlled to a degree but mine wasn’t at the time) rather than the pregnancy itself x

I have emetophobia and two DC aged 3 and 4. Luckily I had no real morning sickness, just some mild nausea, though that is basically luck of the draw.

In terms of bugs, I do struggle with the constant fear of this - though ironically I never seem to catch sickness bugs, it’s more the fear of it happening / dealing with others being sick. Before kids I knew that I could at least avoid sick people as much as possible, but that’s obviously not an option with small children and that’s what makes me panic.

I’ve done a fair bit of reading on CBT / mindfulness techniques and am a bit more pragmatic about it now. My DC have had 2 sickness bugs in their lives, both very short lived. Neither DH nor I caught them. My youngest has also been known to randomly puke for no apparent reason a few times. Each time my anxiety surges and I’m on edge for a while waiting to see if it happens again / someone else gets it. Thankfully we haven’t had norovirus in the house which is something I live in fear of 😆

But generally it’s pretty few and far between. I sometimes freak out reading posts saying people’s kids are sick multiple times a year but that hasn’t been my experience so far and generally it doesn’t happen that often. When it does it’s just a case of getting through it unfortunately- but the joys of having DC massively outweighs the phobia for me.

That said I do totally understand the fear and you have my sympathy. It might be worth seeing a therapist who specialises in phobias to talk things through, though in my experience it’s bloody hard to find a decent therapist with real experience / understanding of emetophobia.

www.thriveprogramme.org/

I know someone who did this for emetephobia. You do have to pay though but they highly rated it.

Thank you so much for your replies - didn't expect to get so many so quickly. There are lots of us emetophobes out there unfortunately!

I am trying to look at my experience in my childhood - I haven't been sick since a young child and my family aren't a 'sicky' family at all.

Massively agree - I hear all of these sickness horror stories about people having week long sick bugs and children having them multiple times a year and it just terrifies me and makes me wonder if I'm really capable of doing this. It is the worst phobia in the world - I wouldn't wish this on anyone.