Worst mum. Nothing I can do

[Gonewiththemoon]

I’ll start by saying IABU but posting here for traffic in the middle of the night.
I have 3 DC and I have emetaphobia. It’s crippling me again the past 6 months. The fight or flight kicked in tonight when DC age 3 woke up with tummy pain. I started cold sweating, heart rate shot up to 125 and I did what I thought was best… text my mum.
she was actually awake and called me. Said I could take DC3 to her house(she’s a 3 minute drive away). So I did.
I bundled my 3 year old into the car, covered in a towel, at 2am.
I can’t carry on like this. But what can I do?
I already take citalopram, I’ve just taken a diazepam. I’ve tried CBT but it was horrific. Exposure therapy that I simply couldn’t handle.
ive started to get full blown panic attacks lately too. Something I’ve not had in quite a while. I hate leaving the house. I don’t want to send the DC to school for fear of them getting sick.
im desperate. I’m not suicidal, but I hate this life. Hate it. I want to be the mum that holds her children when they’re sick(I have done in the recent past, but tonight hit me like a tonne of bricks). I want to take them on days out to fun places that they deserve, not just stay at home incase someone picks up bloody norovirus!

You're not the worst mum.

I have no experience with emetophobia, but from what I have read about it, it's awful. It's not in your control. You've tried your best to get past it, but you're finding it difficult.

The two are in no way comparable, but it's the only anecdote I can use, so I apologise.

I have a really bad "habit" of catastrophising. If I read about car crashes on the news, I'm convinced me and my son will get hit by a car. If my mum picks my son up from school instead of me, then I'll sit waiting anxiously until they're both home. I'll literally be checking the news every minute until they're home. Checking for car crashes, road closures, stabbings etc. It's impacted my ability to go out with my son because I'm scared something will happen to one, or both, of us. I've had therapy for it, but the therapy only made the thoughts worse and I kept having more and more panic attacks.

It's awful, OP. I empathise with you. But you are not a shit mum. I promise you that x

This is harsh but coming from someone who had a mental breakdown over ocd- intrusive thoughts etc feeling like I had no control… here goes. And I say this being kind.

you have to get a grip. You do have control. You thought yourself this much this way and you have the power to think yourself back.
you tell the thoughts no-
im in control. So much so that it becomes automatic eventually.
within months. You reprogrammed you brain.
believe you can. Think you can. Drill it into your mind.
start today. Stop freaking out. Wash your face, have a calm moment and get CONTROL.
if you thought yourself this way you can think yourself the other way.

it works.

Where is your dh in this - did he stay in bed to “mind” dc1 and dc2 while you were running about in a panic? If you do not have a dh, please tell me you didn’t leave the other kids home alone while you took dc3 to your mum.

What would you like to get out of posting on AIBU? It’s not a sympathetic forum. You’ve solved the immediate problem, so I would ask MN to move this post to the MH group where you might get some more experienced replies.

No one feels up to tackling sickly kids in the night, so this isn’t the right time to be deciding anything. Wait til morning and form a new plan then to become the better mum you need to be for your kids’ sake.

Kindly, I’ve had this phobia since early childhood. It’s all I’ve ever known. So ‘thinking myself out of it’ simply isn’t a thing. It’s engrained into my brain

Single parent here. My other two are teens so they were fine for 10 minutes and I told them I was popping out. Thanks for thinking of them though.

Hi there OP. This part struck me - you've been dealing with this since childhood.. I'm a play therapist and did a wonderful training on emetophobia with oh... the name escapes me at 3qm but she's the head of infant mental health in UCL and renowned in the field. The training was a case study on emetophobia and the key thing was that any phobia is a stroy untold... there is something there you need to unpick - so CBT for me would be a no. Emdr perhaps worthwhile but don't give up. There's a story untold for you.

You've got this phobia - OK so what will happen if your child vomits? Go there in your thoughts when ready. Then what would happen? Go there. And then what? Keep going... of course ideally you work with a professional here. The child in the real life case study turned out had been over relied on. The fear underneath and story untold was - she believed no one would be there to help her clean up - in life. That she would be left covered in vomit and in life's messes it's not about the vomit but its not an easy fix.

You did what you had to do tonight. You're not the worst mum and self compassion has to be part of you 'jjourney'. A good therapist will help you with this.. Hope this is of some help. Wishing you the best.

Oh you poor thing it's awful. I struggle, but not nearly as seriously as you by the sound of it. Things that help - reminding myself that on the times it actually happens I'm somehow able to just get on with it, plus it's not as bad as I imagine it will be. The fear and horrible anticipation is absolutely worse than the event (but very hard to beleive that when you're caught up in the fear).

Also, preparation helps psychologically. Have multiple buckets available, put towels down if someone feels unwell, have cleaning products and bin bags and kitchen towel upstairs in a cupboard. Keep everywhere clean and tidy as it feels even more overwhelming in a chaotic house.

The last thing that helps me is a bit morbid but I'll share anyway. I imagine the possibility of me/one of my children getting a really devastating diagnosis/a huge disaster or war breaking out/terrible car accident and how much I would want to swap that for norovirus where I know we''ll get better from it in a couple of days even if it is awful. It does take the edge off for me if i hold onto that morbid imagination - being thankful that it's just norovirus, and it's just me having to suffer with the panic of it, and ultimately we're all safe and it will pass.

Hang in there, you're not a bad mum, you're just struggling with this one thing.

This is really dismissive. If it works for you, great, but this isn’t how it works for the majority.

I can't get over the fact, you dragged a 3 year old out, at this time in a morning, when they weren't well.

@Gonewiththemoon I havent got this phobia but I have something else which would have impacted how my kids grew up. I also felt supremely depressed at how my fears consumed me, even to the point of thinking my kids would be better off without me. It seemed insurmountable.

What helped finally was using a therapist who solely dealt with these types of phobias. My prior people dealt with other issues like addiction/smoking which i didnt have, but thought they could do phobias as a quick add on. This wasn't enough, you need a specialist.

The gist of it was they teach you coping techniques through say hypnosis but so that you dont need any medication/any external factors to help. The logic is what if you forget your medicine or dont have your phone/mum, you need to be able to do things alone. They talk through coping strategies. It was hard but changed my life. Its still not easy, and truthfully my therapist wasn't talking rocket science, but it makes you focus on the outcome rather than the journey. For you, I guess the outcome is your kids and making their lives easier/not putting your anxieties onto them.

Tough OP, you’re far from the worst mum. How wonderful that your mum was able to take your DC - that’s lovely and solves the problem for this evening. It’s a horrible phobia though possible to overcome. Anything can be overcome over time by building new connections in the brain. At this stage you probably need some trauma informed therapy tbh (trauma sounds dramatic in this sense but can be a subjective trauma e.g. something you found traumatic that I wouldn’t).

Here for you. I have a 5 year old who has coughed all night and I’m at the end of my (very stressed) tether. Hate it when they’re ill.

I know it won't be what you want to hear, but graded exposure therapy. Worked wonders for me.

You say you wouldnt cope, but done properly, with a properly trained therapist, you move through the stages in a graduated and controlled way, in such a way that your anxiety never actually escalates.

Hi OP - I think this actually shows that you are a good mum. You recognised that you wouldn't be able to meet your DD's needs yourself, because of your illness, and so quickly took steps to ensure her needs could be met another way.

Be kind to yourself tonight but use how you are feeling to endeavour to find a new approach to your emetophobia tomorrow.

I hope your DD feels better and any illness passes soon.

Please don't feel you're a bad Mum. Emetophobia is a very misunderstood phobia. I had never heard of it until last year when my teenage daughter was eventually diagnosed 12 sessions in to therapy for her mh. She is hyper sensitive to smells, can't go near hospitals and lives in constant fear.

TBH, I think you totally did the right by taking your DD to your Mums. Don't feel bad you were unable to cope on this occasion, it's just a blip in the grand scheme of things.

At the end of the day I would say you're a fantastic Mum for realising you wouldn't be able to cope this time, it would have been so much more traumatic for your DD and yourself if she was sick. Stand tall and straighten your crown and tell yourself you're an amazing Mum 👏

@Gonewiththemoon
Try EMDR.

www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/treatments/eye-movement-reprocessing

Are you OCD free now?

You are not the worst mum.

there are many worse things that can happen to a three year old than going to grandmas unexpectedly in the middle of the night.

If this from childhood, was it triggered from a specific incident? Also, how did you manage 3 pregnancies?

I don’t think it’s all in your head. But if CBT is too much, you should try an alternate therapy like EMDR.

I have had quite bad emetophobia for years now, at one point it led to agoraphobia and really struggling to leave the house.

I have had weekly and then fortnightly therapy for the last few years too with a wonderful private therapist. The thing I have found the most helpful is exposure therapy - it rewires your brain into a positive feedback loop which does help with the fear/phobia. I am still restricted in some ways but I can do things now I thought I would never do again all those years ago.

Unfortunately as a parent, we do need to get a grip so our own issues don’t affect our children and we do need to do whatever we can to get better for them. When my child is sick and has a bug of some sort, I do what I can in terms of cleaning and hygiene (clinell wipes and hand sanitiser are the only wipes and gels that kill norovirus for example so I always keep a stash of them at home), but other than that I realise that comforting my child when they are unwell is more important than my own fears and I get to a place of acceptance - I need to help my child at this moment in time, I won’t start being sick right now, if I get sick in a day or two than so be it.

I have also found EFT extremely helpful for an immediate calming effect when on the brink of panicking about a situation (such as child being unwell). The tapping solution is a brilliant app for this and I think they also have a YouTube channel. You really need to work on grounding yourself in the moment to get through it - sour sweets, something nice to smell, something you can physically feel like a spinning ring etc.

Not much to say OP, but I've had emetophobia since I was a very small child and know how bad it is! I dread winter and norovirus going round.. luckily I have my husband to help, I'm not sure how I would do it as a single parent.

PP, I have no specific trigger for the phobia that I'm aware of myself, and I managed fine during pregnancy/labour.. I wasn't sick at all

You’re a good mum. You made sure your DC was cared for, and did what you needed to do in the immediate circumstances. Next, you need to make a plan to recover from emetophobia It sounds as if you didn’t have good CBT. If you can manage financially, even if it’s a huge stretch, go privately. Find a specialist emetophobia therapist. It’s honestly worth the investment. It sounds as if fhe CBT you had was not paced correctly but you have a very treatable condition. If you’re reliant on the NHS, ask for choose and book and see one of the private providers. It’s also worth asking for an autism assessment and getting on the waiting list as women are often missed or diagnosed late, and the sensory sensitivities that often come with autism can show up as emetophobia. Best of luck. 🤞🏻

SIL had hypnotherapy for a similar sort of fear/phobia, it worked. I think she found someone through her GP, although she had had to pay/go private.

Unhelpful post of the day 🙄

I totally understand. I'll be honest, my fear of sick is actually one of the main reasons I have chosen not to have children. I just cannot deal with it.

You’re not the worst mum. Next time I’d ask your mum to come to you then you are dragging a poorly child into a freezing car and leaving the other 2.