Emetophobia- help

[Marne]

The past couple of weeks have been really hard for me, i can't seem to go one day without worrying that one of the dd's will be sick. Now there is a bug going around at school and dd1 has come home from school with a high temp and hasn't eaten her dinner. I am sat here shaking like a leaf, i cant cope with the thought of her being ill and worse of all me possibly getting it. I sometimes feel that i would rather die than get D&v . Each time dd gets ill my phobia gets worse. I just want to cry .

I can't get hold of Dh and even if i could he would not come home early.

Please tell me how silly i am being, all will be ok wont it?

I hate this stupid phobia, i wish someone could help me.

Could you put your daughter to bed with a bucket? Is she old enough to be expected to vomit into it? What time does your DH get home? If she's sick in the bucket at least it won't be on herself and your DH can sort it out when he gets home. If her temperature's high your DD might just want to sleep. Otherwise opening a window might help, or olbas oil, or lemons,anything with a strong fresh smell.

The last couple times my boys have had a bug I've managed to avoid it by clearing up the sick with kitchen towel, spraying everything that might have sick on it with dettol, wiping it again with kitchen towel and then washing my hands with anti-baterial soap, and this did the trick. I stayed bug free.

Good luck. Hope your DH gets home soon.

Dd1 is 6 and not great at getting it in a bucket, she seems fine at the moment its just me worrying as last time she didn't eat she had a bug and was sick in the night.

I have prepared her bed (covered it in towels and put a bucket upstairs) ready for bed time.

I have only caught it off her once (a few years ago) and it made my phobia so much worse.

Dh just phoned and said he will be back by 6.30 so i just need to keep busy until then (which will be hard).

I've just thought of something else more generally about phobias. Sometimes the best thing to do is to take the bull by the horns. Things are sometimes not as bad as they seem. Otherwise things can be made to seem less bad by eg singing loudly, chewing gum, reciting times tables. These things all help me!

Thanks, chewing gum now.

Still shaking like a leaf, dd now led on sofa.

please can some one talk to me , i'm not coping well with this, i feel so bloody useless .

I feel for you. I have the same thing. It is hard but you just have to go with it and I know it is very hard but try not to let your DD see how upset you are. She might be fine. I've caught bugs off my children and only had the D part which I can cope with. Have you tried anything to get over / calm down your phobia?

I had counciling last year but they wanted me to face my fear face on which i could not cope with, i am going to the GP on monday to try and get a referral to CBT (if i'm not ill by then), i have had enough of feeling like this, i thought it would get easier once i had kids, thought i would get used to it but each time it gets worse, its stopping me from going out, traveling and i have stopped taking the children out to places like softplay in case they catch something. I feel so stupid but i can't get rid of this anxiety.

Dh said he will stay up tonight to listen out for dd1 (in case she is ill) and i can sleep downstairs, he even offered for me to go to mums for the night but if i did that i would be letting dd1 down (she always wants me, not daddy when she's ill).

She's now zipping around the sitting room on a wheely bug , maybe i am worrying about nothing (just a high temp). Its her birthday next friday, so i'm trying to look on the bright side, if she is ill at least she will get it out of the way before her birthday.

I'm trying not to let her see how anxious i am, i cried when dh got home but managed to do it in the kitchen out of the way of dd1.

I feel so silly as i can cope with everything else (blood, spiders etc...), why cant i cope with this?

How about hypnotherapy? You don't have to face your fear but it teaches your body to relax in a situation where your fear is normally causing you anxiety. It won't get rid of it totally but can help. CBT is supposed to be good stuff too.

You are not stupid. A lot of people have this phobia (there is a support thread here - have you seen it? I only found it the other day).

Some people are terrified of spiders which I don't get either. I've held a terrantula! I have a friend who rang me up once to get rid of a spider in her house as she was home alone. She wouldn't go to bed until it had gone.

I also have a phobia of balloons! Now that is so silly to most people but it makes me hate children's parties with a passion. I'd take a valium to get through them if I could!

You're not alone and you're not silly. Phobias are very, very real and frightening.

I'll be thinking of you. I had a similar worry last week when my DS2's nursery teacher told me there was a raging tummy bug going around. I spent the weekend waiting for him to throw up. He didn't.

PS I'm pleased you have such an understanding DH. It must help hugely. My DH is pretty good too

You aren't stupid for having a phobia - it is a very real fear for you. Have you tried hypnosis?? I am doing a diploma at the moment to become a qualified hypnotherapist and so it is in the forefront of my mind!! If you can source what started the phobia off then it is relatively easy for you to banish the phobia forever!

how are things now?

i am the same at the moment! having cbt but scared about it, have been thinking about being hypnotised and dh said he would pay!!!

so glad your dh is supportive it really does help

hope you get some sleep and try to relax, i have tried meditation as well which has really helped!

My mum is a hypnotherapist and she did a session on me for balloons - it worked for a period (you may need more sessions depending on how severe the phobia - my balloon one is pretty bad - last children's party I went to I had to ring DH to swap over as I couldn't even enter the building as the balloons were ALL OVER THE FLOOR my idea of hell). All the hypnotherapy did was send me into a more relaxed state when I was around balloons. It did wear off though - it was a few years ago she did it. I haven't asked her about my sickness issues as she doesn't know how bad they are. She knows I get in a state when one of the DSs, DH or I are ill but she thinks I am just being a neurotic mother!

Hi Marne. Can you get in touch with your thoughts when you feel like this? If you follow the fear through, what is your worst fear about what the vomit means/will mean?

How is your DD today? How are you today?

Sorry for abandoning you yesterday i had to cook dinner. How are things today?

Eurostar- i think my worst thought/fear is me getting it and being sick. I think i could handle cleaning up after the dd's if i knew i wasn't going to catch it. I hate the sight of V but i can now walk past it in the street without feeling out of control with anxiety.

Dh said he will pay to get me help, he saw me at my worst yesterday , i didn't get any sleep last night, every noise woke me even though dh stayed up to listen out for dd.

Dd1 was not sick and slept from 8pm-8am. She still looks very pale and has a high temp, i took her to the walk in GP this morning as this is the 5th time since October that she has had this virus (similar symptoms), the GP thinks she may have anemia so i have to take her to our local GP on monday to ask for a blood test (which she will hate).

I am going to try and get CBT but whilst i am waiting i am tempted to try a hypnotherapist.

Thank you all for your advice yesterday, i feel a lot calmer now, i think if she was going to have the D&V bug it would have showed itself by now?

Glad things are ok today . She probs would have shown signs by now, these things usually hit suddenely and fast don't they? I'm the same: my fear is me being sick. To think I've been pregnant five times too (two MCs)! Did you suffer from morning sickness? I got it slightly worse each time but was never actually sick. It was a tough time to get through though.

I have posted on here to about my phobia, although until recently I thought I had a grip on it until last week when my partner got a D&V bug. Since then I have once again become a nervous wreck.

I have two small dcs and am now in a paranoid state that they are going to succumb - there is a D&V bug at school at the moment.

It is truly debilitating and I am so tired of it now. I have never told anyone my fears and have quietly dealt with it. Trouble is it is once again in forefront of my mind and I just can't shake it.

I hate feeling this way but I really don't know what to do about it. I can handle sick if I know I am not going to get it. But as we all know that is often not the case.

I try to put some perspective on it as I have only been sick once in 16 years and I dealt with it reasonably well. However once this phobia gets a grip on you it is all consuming and I don't know what to do about it anymore. All I know is I want to be free of it. There is so much on the web about it that I am thinking of printing some off and giving it to my mum to read as if I explained it myself she would probably think I had gone loopy!

Do any of you have any coping strategies??

Marne, she's probably not going sick now. You've got through it! :0

Becky- i was lucky not to have morning sickness with the dd's although i felt sick i was never actually sick.

Upsydaisy- so sorry you are going through this too , so far i have only caught it once from the dd's, dd1 has had it a few times since and i havn't picked it up.

I think the only way of learning coping strategies is to get CBT but i think theres a waiting list .

I look forward to the school holidays so the dd's can be at home away from all the bugs.

Hi again. CBT would make you follow that fear - so you're scared that you will be sick...CBT will look at the thoughts behind that and try to get you to challenge the evidence. That's what I learnt when I had CBT. Fear could be that you're going to choke, going to be smelly and dirty so that people will reject you...that sort of thing
Exposure is important too. Finding out that if you are sick you won't die/be rejected etc..However, it takes time to work up to that place. With my phobia I started with pictures, then moving images etc..

Hi, sorry to hijack your thread but the old one I wa posting on seems to be full.

Firstly, Marne, sorry i didn't see this when you really needed support - I know exactly what that panic feels like. If it helps to know - I have just started cbt for this on the NHS, and I know that they sometimes prioritise mums of young children (so that the issue can be addressed without you passing on your anxiety to them).

Secondly, I'm in a state of panic myself as ds1 (2.6) had no supper, said he had a stomach ache, and has been sick twice tonight in his bed. I was with ds2 (6 months) and dh now has ds1 in bed with him.

I just don't know what to do.

dh justd gave ds1 chocolate!! What's wrong with him? I begged him not to but he's so ill-informed about what can make stomach bugs worse. I already told ds this morning that he couldn't eat anything for a bit now until his tummy was better and he was fine with that. Now he's eating milk chocolate?!! And now dh is going out to work and I'll have to deal with the consequences.

I know this is an oldish thread but I am in a mess too and have been for years.

Even when my brother was sick as a kid, I couldn't be in the same room as him and wouldn't touch door handles etc.

Now I have 2 dd's (nearly 7 and nearly 3) and I am shockingly awful at dealing with them; esp the older one when she says she has a tummy ache even.

This evening she has a tummy ache and I just went in to a panic (shaking and couldn't be in the same room as her) We were in my younger dd's bedroom and she got hiccups and I asked if she needed a sick bowl and she said yes. I ra and grabbed it and then suggested/ordered her to go to the bathroom.

She wasn't sick, but I still feel shaky an hour on and can't face eating anything. I can't relax either and dh is away for 4 more nights

What the hell can I do. I feel like dreadful mother.

Sorry for the ramble.