Free from fear *no abbreviations*
WARNING: I am not going to abbreviate any words in this post.
Hi everyone
I have joined this forum just to share my success story with you all, in case it encourages or helps anyone. I was planning to delete my account after my post and just leave my email address in this post, because I tend to get addicted to forums in a bad way but I'd love for you to be able to contact me if you want to talk, but it won't let me post my email address because I've never posted before and I'd need to do 10 posts first. (?) So I guess I might hang around for awhile in case you want to PM me, but I probably won't check replies to this post.
So ... hmm. This could be really long, but I'll try to be as succinct as possible!
I have been afraid to throw up for almost 20 years. I remember one time that I don't think I was afraid, and I think I was about 6. By age 9 I was definitely deathly afraid of it - both me and others. Now I am 25, married, with a 17-month-old daughter. I had not thrown up since I was 13 (yes, I got through pregnancy and birth without throwing up!).
I felt like I had tried everything to get rid of my fear, except making myself throw up. I tried exposure therapy a number of times, CBT, hypnosis, general counselling, anti-depressants. I took Gravol regularly for years at every twinge of nausea or stomach discomfort and had all the usual panicking and obsessive behaviours - you know the drill. My point is I was pretty sure it was hopeless, and I had just kind of accepted that I might be like this for the rest of my life.
I became a Christian at age 18. I knew that God could take away my fear if He wanted to, but it seemed to me like perhaps He didn't want to. And yet I knew I wasn't glorifying Him by my behaviour and my obsessing and my misplaced priorities.
What I want you to get from this is that I AM WEAK. YOU are weak, too. But there is someone who is strong.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying you should ask God to help you get rid of your emet and that should be the only reason you pay attention to Him. The greatest gift He gave us was eternal life through His son Jesus. But I want Him to have the glory for healing me - so I have to be honest that He is the reason I am no longer afraid to throw up. What we need is not CBT or hypnosis or exposure therapy ... though I'm not saying those things can't help, as they sometimes helped me temporarily ... but trust in God.
As for the story part ... I'm sure this is why you're reading this, but I had to tell you first that God is awesome
My SIL and her 5-month-old baby came to stay with us for 4 days on Wednesday, and my husband's parents came to town Friday but stayed in a hotel about an hour away. When SIL and baby got here, I found out SIL had diarrhea and baby had been spitting up more than usual, but I didn't worry about it too much. I was a little extra careful with washing hands and stuff and we stayed out of the guest bathroom, but I just had to do what I had to do, which included taking care of my niece while SIL showered and stuff like that.
Friday night, all 7 of us went out for dinner. Right before we went to the restaurant I felt quite sick, but ate some crackers and felt better so thought I was just hungry and overheated (we were in a really hot store).
But when we got home and babies and SIL went to bed, I couldn't sleep. "My tummy is in an uproar" is how I described it to my husband. I ate a banana and drank some ginger tea and finally drifted off for a couple hours of restless sleep. But around 1:00 I woke with really bad diarrhea. And after awhile I heard my husband (he was sleeping in the office so DD could sleep in bed with me, so that SIL and baby could have DD's room). I thought I heard him sneeze a couple times, so I thought I'd go complain to him about my stomach and ask for some reassurance since he was awake. But when I opened the door, he said "I'm sick." He had just thrown up in his garbage can.
So I went back to the bedroom pretty scared, to say the least. I was afraid I would throw up, but also afraid that we'd all be sick at once and no one would be able to take care of my daughter! It's funny how having a child has changed my priorities re: sickness, as well.
It's a little fuzzy already the order things happened in, but basically husband came to sleep on the bedroom floor with his bucket because I wanted him there in case DD needed him while I was in the ensuite bathroom (which was often). Then DD woke up at some point and I nursed her, but while nursing she threw up. I cleaned up. (Already used to her throwing up, as she does it quite often.) Husband went back to office to throw up some more because his throwing up kept waking up DD (I wasn't sleeping anyway, too many trips to the bathroom).
Does this sound terrifying? The thing is ... it wasn't. As soon as it was happening for real, God just gave me the strength to get through it. The anticipating it was TRULY (I know you hear this all the time, and I didn't believe it either until it happened to me myself) worse than the actual.
Eventually, DD was awake and husband was in the office and I started to think I might throw up, so I walked into the hallway on the way to wake up my SIL to watch DD - but realized I wasn't going to make it. Could hear DH throwing up in the office. I ran back to the ensuite and retched a few times over the toilet but nothing happened. DD was crying from the bed and calling "Mommy, mommy!" DH came in and sat with her on the bed until I felt I could leave the toilet. The short story is, in the next couple hours I threw up twice. It made my throat hurt afterward and I had to brush my teeth to get rid of the taste, but boy did I feel better afterward other than that. And DD survived - and would have survived even if she just had to wait on the bed until I finished, even if she was crying the whole time.
I don't think I really slept for the rest of the night. We all just took turns throwing up until SIL got up to make baby a bottle at 5 or 6 and I asked her to watch DD, who was awake and apparently feeling a bit better. (I have learned a lot from my daughter from watching her throw up. She cries, she does it, she feels better, she gets happy again and forgets about it until the next time!) SIL watched her for a bit but she didn't know the drill for taking her to the potty, so when she said "Potty, poop," SIL came and got me. I was feeling decently better, still very weak and tired and in no condition to think about eating anything, but I figured I was done throwing up, though I still had diarrhea. My husband was pretty much useless and bedridden (not blaming him - I think it just hit him the hardest, whatever it was) from Saturday morning until Sunday afternoon, when he started to be able to watch DD for a few minutes at a time while I went downstairs to get us food and drinks and such. The in-laws came for a few hours Saturday morning to help SIL with the kids, so I did get a couple hours of sleep then.
My daughter is still sick and my husband is very weak, so it's a good thing God also healed me from the bug quickly, since all our "helpers" had to leave town at noon on Saturday!
Saturday afternoon was really hard. I almost panicked again when my DH's family left, realizing DH was useless and that even if me and/or my daughter had a relapse, I was basically on my own (we don't have any family or close friends in town, the kind of friends you'd ask to come do gross laundry or take care of a sick child, as we just moved here recently). But I just took it one minute at a time. DD did throw up some more and I did have some more diarrhea. But I am so glad it happened just the perfect way it did. I am so thankful to God that He made us get a stomach bug (or whatever) at just the right time, in His timing, and then absolutely gave me more than enough strength to get through it without panicking. I KNOW I couldn't have done it without Him.
"Guess what?" my husband said after I threw up the first time. "You did it!" He had been there patting my back. But the second time I didn't even need him there, and I never thought I'd EVER be able to do it alone in my life.
It's so wonderful to know that I don't have to be afraid of it any more, because now I know I can do it. Hallelujah!
But - so many wasted years! So much wasted time worrying about something that is so fleeting and can, like anything else, be used to glorify God.
So ... trust in the Lord. He gives strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.
Please PM to me if you want to talk!
I really hope and pray that reading this helps someone!
Love,
Faith
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