Friday 4 May 2012

Fears

I'm scared of lots of things; never being truly happy, making bad choices being just two. But those are fears I can control and can do something about. I have 4 huge fears, and 1 is a major phobia. They affect my life to varying degrees.

Death and losing my boys

No one likes to think about dying. But it is something that we will all do. What scares me about it is the not knowing when or how. I often find myself having morbid thoughts when I'm driving, about crashing. Especially when I have the boys with me. I get scared that I'll be killed and they will be scared and alone in the car not knowing what is going on. Would I be aware of the fact that I have died or will it just be nothingness? Death at the hands of some psycho nut job scares me too. Not seeing my beautiful boys grow up, not being there for them terrifies me.

Losing the boys is my BIGGEST fear. How can a person just cease to exsist? I look at them playing, smiling, sleeping, laughing and think how can there possibly be a world without them in it? How would I deal with it if the worst happens? I'm not sure I would be able to. SIDS & Meningitis are the two things I fear will take my boys the most. Issues during my first pregnancy with Noah {I carried Group B Strep} meant he could have been at an increased risk of developing a life threatening infection.  {cue major new mum panic} With both of them I have used {still using with Benjamin} breathing and movement sensor pads in the cot when they sleep. Despite this I still periodically check they are breathing.

Flying

I used to love flying, especially take off. Then 9/11 happened . And despite my best attempts to not let the terrorists win, they have completely ruined my holiday destination choices. In the last 5 years we have taken 1 trip that involved a plane. And it scared me stupid. I hate the idea of not being in control, I hate that if it were to crash it means almost certain death. I often find myself imagining quite graphically myself and my family on a plane, and having the realisation that we are going to crash. How on earth do you process that? How do you deal with that situation when you have your babies with you? I have managed to convince myself that every time I fly the plane WILL crash.

Fortunately we live within driving distance of mainland Europe, and I love a good road trip, so we can still holiday abroad without having to get on a plane.

Injections/ Needles/ Invasive medical procedures.

For those that don't know, when I was 7 I had an accident whilst on holiday in Cyprus that required stitches. I was treated in an Army hospital, by Army medics who had very little patience with an hysterical, terrified 7 year old girl. To get 4 stitches in to my leg, I was given Valium, had a sheet wrapped around my arms like a strait jacket and had 4 people hold my legs down and apart. You can imagine how this must have felt to me.

The year after, I had an almost identical accident, again requiring stitches. I have NO recollection of the treatent, it was obviously so traumatic for me I have managed to completely block it out of my mind. My Mum tells me I had to have the treatment alone, and that the Dr's would not let her in with me.

As a result I have a huge phobia of hospitals, needles, injections etc. I will avoid all medical treatment if it involves needles. I have missed out on inoculations, I will not go anywhere that requires jabs before hand. During my last pregnancy with Benjamin, for the final 3 weeks I was in and out of hospital on a daily basis for pre-eclampsia testing, which involved blood tests and cannulas daily. This was not good for me. This phobia has affected my life to a massive extent. I can't imagine that I will ever recover from this phobia.

I am trying so hard not to pass my fears on to my kids. Especially the needle/flying one. Noah is so sure he wants to go on a plane. He keeps asking when we can go on holiday on a plane? It takes me weeks to prepare myself when the boys have to have their inoculations. It takes all my strength to sit and hold them whilst pretending I am not about to pass out. When Noah was 10 weeks old he was admitted to hospital and had to have a cannula. I had to leave the room. What kind of Mother leaves the room when their 10 week old has that done? It kills me when I think about that.



5 comments:

  1. Aly, we are alomost identical!!!

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  2. I think the loss of a child is a fear for any parent. I can understand why that is your greatest fear out of all of them.

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  3. I couldn't agree with you more about the phobia of death. I'm not so scared about how I would die, what it would be like etc, more about how my two would be without me. And the thought of anything happening to them scares the life out of me. Great post :) x

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  4. I can certainly understand about having a fear of death -- especially when it comes to my kids. I didn't put it on my list but it's always there, lurking -- sigh.

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  5. Imm sure you're aware flying is safer than driving

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Thanks for stopping by

Aly