Emetophobia and the first trimester

[ktt512]

Hi everyone

I didn't know whether to post this here or in pregnancy, but either way I think I need a bit of perspective.

I've been battling emetophobia for 15 years and in the last 3, i've come so so far. I have two young step children who have taught me to deal with other people being sick and my other half had food poisoning and I was actually able to look after him - 5 years ago that would have been unthinkable. I still hate being sick, but I can cope with it a lot better than i've ever been able to before. That was until I got pregnant.

I'm 7 weeks and this week morning nausea has started. I haven't actually been sick yet. But it's almost paralysing me with fear when leaving the house. I can cope with it when i'm home - it's not even that bad - but I just cannot leave the house. I feel like such a fraud having to call in to work and pretend it's worse than it is because I can't say 'I'm feeling a bit sick so now I can't go anywhere for the day'. I thought i'd cope a lot better than this, I feel so pathetic. The only thing I can think of is that with morning sickness, you can't control it and you have no idea when it's going to happen and you have no idea how long you'll feel that way...at least if you've got a bug, you can predict how long it's going last. So that might be what's making me hide out in my house?

I've had CBT and NLP numerous times and they've never helped. I feel like I got myself out of the hole I was in myself, but i'm so annoyed and worried at the moment. I just feel like an idiot and totally pathetic, but like for the next few weeks, this might just be the way it is. Is that even acceptable though? This just doesn't feel like an acceptable reason to not go to work.

You poor thing Morning sickness and nausea is rubbish anyway, without emetophobia to complicate matters.

How bad is the nausea - is it nausea, or sickness? For a lot of women it will remain at just nausea, which is still horrible, without ever developing into actually being sick. Eating a little and often to make sure your stomach is lined can help a lot, even if you don't feel like eating anything. Just nibble on dry crackers and bread, which can be quite settling.

There are safe medications which you can take to try and limit the nausea. Would you feel comfortable taking those? You could try talking to your GP and seeing if they could prescribe you something.

Thanks for the reply Thurlow! It's really not bad at all, I guess think it's bad because I can't cope with nausea really, but on the scale of badness, it's going to be low. Low enough that I doubt they'd want to give me anything for it! I haven't been sick yet, but I walked into my kitchen this morning and last night's leftover dinner was still in the pan, I had to walk straight out again because that nearly sent me over the edge!

I've been nibbling on biscuits this morning and I tried sleeping it off, but it feels manageable today because i'm at home. Can I realistically just spend the next 5 odd weeks at home because I feel a little bit sick? It feels so stupid and fraudulent, some women have to go through so so so much worse and they cope fine, i'm being pathetic but I just don't feel like I have the will power to fight my anxiety at the moment. By then end of a day i'm so tired walking up the stairs is a chore let alone keeping a hold of my thoughts and preventing panic attacks whilst trying to work and act normal because none of my colleagues know (other than my boss). Panic attacks can't be good for the baby, right?

This is a good site:

www.emetophobiaresource.org

Maybe you could try CBT again?