I hate how tokophobia isn’t taken seriously
Tokophobia is the phobia of pregnancy and childbirth. For me it manifests in self-harming behaviour where I hit myself in the stomach. My tokophobia is so bad it can be triggered by the word pregnant alone.
Anyway, I’ve noticed that so many people treat it like “a phase” or “something you’ll grow out of eventually”, I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been jumpscared with untagged pregnancy imagery. My class had to watch a movie adaptation of a book we read where the mother was heavily pregnant and it was really hard to sit through, only my science teacher (he’s an angel) asked me if I was okay and eventually let me leave the room until the mother was off screen.
I remember telling this phobia to a therapist before I even knew what it was called. She spent ages telling me about the “joys of pregnancy and motherhood”. I was 11.
It upsets me how little people care about tokophobia, really. Even more so knowing that me and many others likely have it as a result of CSA. I hope this changes.
