Holidays and Anxiety

The holiday season is upon us. And often, instead of reveling in the burgeoning ability of my daughter to understand and participate in many wonderful events (trick-or-treating, decorating, baking, etc), I find myself wrought with tension over the fear that IT will happen any moment. At any time, our days could be ruined by a stomach virus. I always imagine that it will start with her, and spread to the rest of the family. It will be horrific, messy and miserable. We will miss the fun of the holidays, and only be able to recall those days with some relief that they are past us.

Why does my brain do this? Why am I hijacked by these fears? I keep telling myself that even if she gets sick, or the whole family gets sick, it's not the end of the world. It's not as if we're facing foreclosure or poverty, cancer or life-threatening injury - events and issues that could really hurt us. There's just the possibility of stomach upset. That's it. And I ruin days by thinking that it's definitely lurking around the corner, and that it's the worst possible scenario I could imagine.

I am very thankful. I am thankful for our good health, for the amazing child we have and the one on the way. I am grateful for our home, for our friends and family, for our jobs and for the little luxuries of time my husband and I have on occasion. But no matter how much I remind myself of these wonderful elements of life, there is no escaping the phobia.

Recently, I finished "Rewind, Replay, Repeat: A Memoir of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder" by Jeff Bell. Although I don't suffer from the type of compulsive behavior that Jeff and many others struggle with, I found great inspiration from his attempts to escape the crippling burden of his OCD. I copied down one of his notecard instructions into my phone, and I look upon the words often: "Keep perspective. Take initiative. Release and have faith." I find these to be very simple and striking directions. I believe that those of us with obsessive thinking realize the irrationality of our thoughts, but we are still at their mercy. By keeping perspective, I feel that I constantly keep those thoughts in the scope of a bigger picture of life. I imagine countless scenes of a beautiful future: my daughter's first day of school, her first crush, her high school graduation and her wedding day. I conjure up the first sight of my new baby, my daughter as a big sister, family vacations and outings. By taking initiative, I feel that I place myself in power over my phobia, in a position to someday conquer my irrational thoughts. I feel empowered, even if it's only me winning by one point over emetophobia. I also feel responsible to continue to look for solutions instead of feeling cornered by my thoughts. And finally there's the instruction to "release and have faith". As a control freak, I think I have the hardest time with this point. In fact, it often feels that the harder I try to let go, the more my obsessive thoughts invade my mind.

I will persist. I will not be eaten alive by my fears. And I will enjoy every moment I have with my family, because they are the most beautiful reminder of what life has to give. Easier said than done, but I will not be deterred.

Hello, my name is...

Mommy. That's my new name. It's been my role for two and a half years now, since I first held my daughter in my arms, but it's become much more than that. It is no longer foreign to my ears, or a way I refer to myself, longing to hear it repeated from my baby's mouth. It is who I am. I am Mommy - the name she calls out in the morning, excited to get out of her crib; the one who helps with frustrating tasks or soothes her in moments of anger, sadness or pain; the one whose leg she strokes as I sing her "one last" goodnight song.

This is not to say that Daddy is not equally as important to our little girl. She adores her Dad - her first question of the morning (after asking to "watch something") concerns Daddy's whereabouts: "Where is Daddy? Is he sleeping? Daddy's at work? Daddy's at Chicago?" Once secure in her knowledge of Daddy's location, she can go on with her day. Still, there's something about Mommy. For the moment, at least, I seem to get the most of everything from her. The grandest declarations of love, the most adoring gazes, and of course, the most difficult tantrums. Because I know I mean so much to her, I make sure she gets the most and the best of me every day.

There is something that keeps me from doing the best I can for my daughter. It is the constant companion I wish I could simply ignore or erase - my unrelenting obsessional thoughts and worries about vomiting. Most days, I spent two to four hours thinking about throwing up. Those are my good days. My bad days, the high anxiety days, I can't even give a good estimate of the time wasted on these phobic thoughts. And that's exactly what it is - time thrown away, used up by totally irrational thoughts.

This blog will follow my struggle with my phobia and my attempts to combat, confront and alleviate my obsessive thoughts.