Coping With Anxiety: Alter Egos and Words of Reassurance

Phobias are weird, complex creatures. I've always thought of my emetophobia as an extension of me, in some perverse way- kind of like my alter ego. Some performing artists claim to have one that appears when it's time to go on stage. Beyonce's alter ego is called "Sasha Fierce." So for the purpose of this blog post, I used an online alter ego name generator (proving that there is in fact, a website for everything and also that I clearly don't have enough to do this morning). Anyway, according to this generator, my alter-ego's name is. . . brace yourself . . .

Silky Shalanda.

(I can't make this stuff up).


Kristin is the one who gets things done. She's the one who performs in front of groups of people, thinks on her feet, rolls with the punches, and enjoys taking risks. She's adventurous, spirited, often seeking out the comical in the mundane. But the minute her stomach starts to turn, twitch, or do anything else deemed "unusual," Silky Shalanda shows up. Total party pooper, this one. In the past, Silky has been known to cook her chicken until it has the appearance and taste of burlap. She doesn't want to do anything too strenuous, risky, or otherwise FUN because what if that would make her get sick? One of her more annoying habits was to ask "do you think I'm going to throw up?" Silky Shalanda's husband Jake- a.k.a. "Loose Goose Lucifer" (again, can't make this stuff up if I tried)- got tired of answering that question, but he almost always politely obliged her.

Old habits die hard, it's true. And so it seems, alter ego's have a knack for popping up long after they've worn out their welcome. I'd rather that Silky vacate the premises indefinitely, but she does come around less and less these days, thankfully. In the meantime, I've set a few personal and realistic goals in regards to my anxiety and one of those is to stop asking inane questions (to be fair, I've always known they were inane, but again, old habits are hard to break). As a little girl, I remember asking my parents quite often if I was going to throw up nearly every night at bedtime (I had a scary projectile vomiting experience when I was about 4 that woke me up in the middle of the night and that I suspect was the catalyst for most of this). I asked them this same question every night, like clockwork, even when I felt fine. And every night, they'd reply- "no, you're not going to get sick." (Sometimes it was more like, "for the love of God, NO, stop asking THAT!" But you get the idea....) At the peak of this phobia a few years ago, I once again found myself asking the same question to Jake. And his response was the same as theirs, often times in the same weary tone of voice. . . "No, babe, you're not going to throw up. I PROMISE you." It's kind of like asking him, "hey, do these pants make me look fat??" Any husband who doesn't want to ultimately end up sleeping on the couch knows that there's a very correct answer to this question. In the same way, my husband (God love him) had become conditioned to giving the correct answer when I asked him if I was going to throw up. Of course not. It's what he knew I wanted to hear in that moment.

Now, if I really stop to think about it, there are a couple of obvious problems with this scenario. I'm asking for reassurance about what my body is doing and ironically, I'm the only one who really knows what's going on. Anxiety? Heartburn? Stomach bug? IBS? Even *I* don't ultimately know if I'm going to get sick, so why on earth would my husband or parents know? As a child, I think it's one thing to take your mommy and daddy's word at face value because they're your world and often times, your sole source of comfort. But as a grown adult...well, I should know better than to rely on anyone else's interpretation of what's going on in my small intestines. (But hey, that didn't stop me from trying).

My emetophobia therapist just posted a blog article on seeking reassurance from other people in times of anxiety. Check it out, because whether or not you struggle with a fear of throwing up or being sick, EVERYONE struggles with anxiety and part of our nature as human beings is to seek reassurance in times of stress- it's how we cope. But, as her article points out, it can often do more harm than good, especially in the case of this kind of anxiety. When you tell a loved one that "no, you're not going to get sick," you unknowingly reaffirm that this is something they should continue to be afraid of and, to go one step further, that it is something actually dangerous to them. Every time I asked my parents- and consequently each time I asked Jake- if I was going to throw up, their well-intentioned words of consolation were actually doing more harm than good. (And to be fair, had they said, "well yes, Kristin, I think you are probably going to throw up..." there would have been mass hysteria, so I can't blame them). It's tempting to want to do whatever we can to console the people that we love and to, in the very least, temporarily take the edge off of their fear. But it's a very short term solution to what is often times a long-term battle.


So the answer to that question is different these days. The last time Silky Shalanda showed up (which was several weeks ago) and asked Jake if she was going to throw up, he simply replied without missing a beat, "I don't know. But I DO know that you're going to be okay, no matter what."

Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but oddly enough, Silky Shalanda left after that and I haven't seen much of her since then.

So now, this will become my answer to Ella and Milo when they need reassurance, for whatever reason. I know that I'll be tempted to tell them what they want to hear, but I hope that I remember my therapists words- and my own personal experiences- so that I promise them only what I do know. And that is simply: "mommy will be right here, no matter what happens."