A little note before you read 🤍
This one talks about motherhood, toddlers, tummy aches, and some of the fears that come with emetophobia. I’m keeping it as emet-friendly as possible—no graphic stories or unnecessary details. Take care of yourself while reading. 🤍
I knew when I became a mom that sickness would eventually be something I had to face. Kids get sick. Their stomachs hurt. They have days where they don’t feel good, and sometimes there is absolutely no warning. I knew all of that before becoming a mother, but knowing it and actually living it are two completely different things. Now that I have a toddler, I feel like I am entering a stage of motherhood that is challenging my emetophobia in ways I wasn’t prepared for.
My son has recently learned how to say, “my tummy hurts.” Unfortunately for me, he is still learning what that actually means. His tummy hurts when he’s hungry. His tummy hurts when he’s full. His tummy hurts when he needs to use the bathroom. His tummy hurts when something actually hurts. Sometimes I don’t think he even knows what he’s feeling yet, and he’s just trying to find the words for a sensation in his body.
For him, it’s three innocent words. For me, those three words can instantly change everything happening inside my head.
My mind immediately starts trying to figure it out. What does he mean? Is he okay? Is this actually something, or is my brain doing what it does best and jumping ten steps ahead? A completely normal moment with my toddler can turn into me trying to quiet a hundred thoughts in my head. All while trying to act normal so my toddler doesn’t associate it with fear as well.
It has honestly been really hard.
I’ll spare the details because—emet-friendly zone over here—but they’ve happened. The dreadful moment I have been waiting for- two occasions I have been face-to-face with my fear. Did I get through them? Yes…. but I learned something I didn’t necessarily want to learn: becoming a mom did not magically turn my emetophobia off.
I think part of me genuinely believed it would.I love my son more than anything in this world, so surely some magical maternal instinct would kick in and suddenly I wouldn’t be scared anymore.Unfortunately, emetophobia did not receive that memo.
In order to cope with this guilt, I had to crush this stereoptye in my head of moms needing to be perfect.I can love him more than anything and still be scared. I can know that he needs me and still feel the anxiety creeping in. I can comfort him while also trying to calm myself down. There are times when he’s completely moved on from something and I’m realizing that mentally, I’m still back there.
That has been one of the strangest things for me to accept about motherhood with emetophobia. Becoming his mom didn’t erase this part of me. It just gave me someone I love enough to keep facing it for.
But lately, my biggest struggle hasn’t even been my own fear.
I don’t want to give him my fear.
He’s learning about his body right now.These are all sensations he’s still learning how to identify and explain.
I have years and years of fear attached to some of those sensations.
He doesn’t.
And I desperately want to keep it that way.
When he tells me his tummy hurts, every anxious part of me wants more information. I want to ask question after question until I can somehow prove to myself that everything is okay. I want to watch how he’s acting. I want to keep checking.
Those things might temporarily make me feel more in control, but I’ve started realizing something that has been really difficult for me:
While I’m watching him, he’s watching me too.
I don’t want him to see panic on my face every time he tells me his tummy hurts and eventually decide that tummy aches must be scary. I don’t want him to become hyperaware of every sensation in his body because I was hyperaware for him. I don’t want my fear to become something he learns before he’s even old enough to understand what it is.
Most of all, I never want him to feel like he can’t come to me when he doesn’t feel good.
I want Mom to mean safe.
And sometimes, if I’m being completely vulnerable, being his safe place while my own brain doesn’t feel safe is really freaking hard.
It honestly gave me a moment of clarity- how can I help him if I can’t even help myself.
I started going to therapy, and I truly cannot say enough about how much it has helped me.
Nothing crazy. Nothing extra specifically for emetophobia. Just regular therapy—a place where I can say these thoughts out loud, work through them, and understand why my brain reacts the way it does.
And there is absolutely no pressure from me saying that therapy is something everyone has to do. Everyone’s journey with this fear looks different. I can only speak for myself, and for me, having someone to talk to and help me sort through what is happening in my head has made such a difference.
Therapy hasn’t magically made my emetophobia disappear. I still get triggered. I still overthink. I still have days where this feels incredibly hard.
But I’m starting to recognize when I’m responding to my son and when my fear is trying to respond for me.I don’t have a perfect ending for this because I’m still living it. I’m still scared sometimes. I’m still learning. There are parts of toddler motherhood that emetophobia has made harder than I ever wanted them to be.
I spent so much of my life trying to protect myself from the things that scare me. Motherhood has changed what “protecting” means.
Of course I want to protect my son when he doesn’t feel good. I want to make him comfortable, take care of him, and make everything better in the way a mom wishes they could.
But I also want to protect him from carrying a fear that was never his to carry.Maybe that’s one of the biggest reasons I keep working on mine.Because no matter what he’s feeling, I want him to know he can always come to me.
I want to be his safe place.
Even while I’m still learning how to feel safe myself. 🤍
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