9 yo daughter suffering
Hello all,
I’m looking for advice, my 9 yo daughter is really struggling with emetophobia.
To give you some background information, at about 5 or 6 there was one particular winter where I believe she picked up about 5 sickness bugs from school. This set her on, what I believe, the initial path of being worried about being sick.
We first noticed that it was more than just a concern and more of a phobia last summer when it was the school holidays. She would constantly ask if she looked pale, whether she had a temperature or whether she was going to be sick. Initially we reassured her (we quickly worked out this was a mistake) however the problem didn’t seem to go away.
When we realised it was more than a concern and she was displaying symptoms of emetophobia we arranged a call with our GP. Due to the significant waiting times we decided to pay for private treatment whereas parents we would take advice and treatment suggestions. Our daughter was not involved in the process.
We seemed to get a positive result, it was steady and we had setbacks, however we do seem to have gone back to square one again, to the point where I am struggling to get her ready for school.
In terms of how we approach it, we do not offer her reassurance, we offer comfort, acknowledgement that her feelings are real and exposure therapy in that she still takes part in the situations that make her uncomfortable and we have specialist books that talk about the feelings that we read on occasion. We talk about sickness, we also do not provide temporary assurances that she won’t be sick.
I think what has made me post today is that I’m really upset over her comments this morning which were “I hate feeling like this all the time, always worrying, the feeling of being sick, I hate it and I don’t like to be this way”. I almost cried.
I think she is naturally going to be an anxious person anyway, like me and her mum, and I just want to make sure I’m not missing anything glaringly obvious to help her. If anyone has any advice that can potentially help us id love to know.
Thank you.