Child injury sat here feeling so guilty

[NoSleepAtNight]

We was all in the garden just playing, enjoying the last of the summer holidays. My toddler (2) was running and he tripped over his feet.

I picked him up and he was literally bleeding from his mouth. His tooth went through his lip. Now if you know me you would know blood is my number 1 fear , I can’t stand it I’ve suffered my whole life and it’s got worse as I’ve got older. Luckily my neighbours were in the garden and I panicked and they heard and jumped over the fence to help.

all this time my boy wanted me. They took him off my hands to clean him up , he was still screaming shouting mum mum mumma mummy . I literally stood next to him but my phobia was so bad I couldn’t even look at him.

he grabbed me so I took him back and literally turned round so they could carry on sorting him out.
He’s fine now he’s gone to sleep after having some lunch , but Aibu to feel guilty cos

1. he hurt himself in the first place and
2. I couldn’t even deal with my own child cos my phobia is that bad 😩😩😩

if my neighbours weren’t in the garden obviously I would of had to deal with it myself before anyone comes at me, I feel like a terrible parent as it is 😩😩

Kids get hurt. That was an accident, it was no one's fault.

Kids also bleed. You need to work on your phobia of blood. The fact that you said that you would have had to have done it if the neighbors weren't there leads me to believe that you could have done it.

I'm fearful of vomit. I wouldn't go so far as to call it emetophobia, but it's close to that. But sometimes kids vomit and you have to clean them up. Even if you're crying at gagging the whole time.

Yeah my daughters got emetophobia.

yeah I would of done but i faint and im sick every time 😩😩
I did try hypnotherapy a few years back, it literally did nothing

How do you cope with periods? How did you cope with the bleeding after birth?

Is it only other people's blood that is the issue?

Your child will hurt themselves again and it is important that you learn to manage it - so this might be the impetus for you to seek help - see below

https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/phobias/treatment/

That blood is fine. It doesn’t freak me out at all. It’s the blood that comes from cuts and stuff that makes me go like it and I don’t know why.

And no it’s mine too, I cut myself a few weeks ago on a corned beef tin, I hit the deck 😩 luckily oh was home but it’s getting worse

You need to get on top of your phobia and get proper, regulated therapy for it. Not nonsense hypnotherapy. This is clearly having a serious impact on how you can safely look after a child

A little bit of guilt is good for us, makes us reflect. If your guilt means you seek help for your phobia, thats great.

No need to feel guilty about a standard childhood accident but this definitely won’t be last so you do have to work on coping strategies because next time there might not be helpful bystanders within earshot.

As you say, you would have dealt with it if you'd been the only adult around. It's a scary injury and seeing your baby bleed from the mouth is horrible. DS3 had exactly the same accident at about 18 months, I could barely look I was so frightened about what had happened to his face. It looked much worse than it was, we were out at an event and St John's Ambulance cleaned him up, and he was fine. But it was 23 years ago, and I remember it so vividly!
I'm not great with blood myself, though not as phobic as you. With hindsight, my advice to you is get more exposure to this - if you cut yourself, or DH or DS do, make yourself be the one who cleans it up, even if DH is holding your hand while you do it. Take a First Aid course. As a parent you have to be able to deal with this stuff, sometimes you will be the only adult around.
And consider whether he might need stitches or butterfly tape to hold it together - can you get him checked out this afternoon? Local walk in centre maybe?

It's your nervous system responding to a perceived threat but blowing it out of proportion. Obviously bleeding from a wound CAN be a panic-stations emergency but it usually isn't. Your nervous system has trained itself into thinking it always IS so you subconsciously react as though it is.

My phobias were always spiders and heights. I'm much better now but it has been a long process of retraining the nervous system response, and sometimes I relapse when I'm tired/stressed/anxious. Hypnotherapy/meditation did help me, I'm sorry it didn't for you. There will be other methods, I hope you find one that helps you x

You don't need to feel any guilt about him getting hurt, every toddler has fallen over and hurt themselves. I do think you need to work on your phobia. Desensitisation therapy works for some people or CBT. You may need to look at private therapy. Even people with significant mental health issues impacting day to day life struggle to get therapy on the NHS.

Putting your reaction to one side (I hope you can fix that) I do think you ought to have it checked out at a walk in centre if you can, if it really did go right through. It might be that you can minimise scarring with a little glue or a butterfly plaster.

Get some help, kids have accidents all the time and you need to be able to deal with them.

You should probably of had this dealt with b4 having children. Is there any way you can get therapy/hypnotised now?

Forget the guilt. It is neither appropriate nor helpful.
You did not cause your child's accident.
You did not ask to have a phobia.

The only thing you can do is get some more help with the phobia. I can guarantee this is not the only time there will be blood when you are bringing up your family!!

Good luck.