Healing Image Hi – Phobias

Hello, this is Eva May, and I'm speaking to you from the Women's Radio Station for another in my series called Healing Earache High. Today I am going to be talking about phobias. I think a lot of my complex— having complex PTSD so complex post-traumatic stress disorder, which has now been diagnosed as one up from that, so a dissociative disorder, mind dissociative identity disorder. And I do have quite a good understanding of what this is, but I don't really have an understanding, um, yet that, that I think at the level that I perhaps need of how and why it really works and what it does to me. I know how, um, it makes me live, um, and there are things that I wish I could do that I can't, so it does have its limitations. And at the moment I'm going with that. I am receiving treatment for this, and I'm extremely lucky. In the UK, the dissociative disorders aren't recognized by NICE, which is the governing body that sets out guidelines in the UK for, well, training of professionals, their ability to diagnose and then to treat. It's, it's really, really rare, and I'm extremely lucky, although it's taken 33 years for me to actually be diagnosed. I got my diagnosis 8 years ago when I went to the United States to a facility for trauma. The impact of what happened to me, and I was abused, just couldn't be helped anymore in the UK, so I went further afield. And the United States is a country where they do have trained professionals for this, and they do have, you know, programs, things to do. And so for me, that— I was fortunate that I was able to actually go and get this diagnosis, which has helped now what I have in the UK. I think I'm, I'm with the Center for Dissociative Studies, which is in London, but they have a therapists over the country, so it's not just in London where people are treated for this, but I'm only one of about 50 people who are fortunate enough to have this, and the NHS, there's a body of it that have funding which is quite complicated and difficult to get But it's worth the fight to get where you need, because the treatment I'm getting now is, you know, it's very, um, it's very regular. It's 2 hours a week face to face, and then it's another hour a week over the week spread, either as an hour or in bits, or messaging or phone calls or Zoom, or however we feel is needed what's happening during that week. There's always physical constraints. I go to London and we've had train strikes, and obviously people go on hot— take holiday. But when I was being treated from, from the age of 19, and I'm now 57, in the UK, it was really quite unusual for me to turn up for a one-on-one session and actually have the same person, and I wouldn't even know that in advance that it wasn't going to be the same person. Um, so it was very difficult to form an attachment and to, to trust people, and I think I do have difficulty trusting people. I've now been with my therapist in London, and I have never seen anyone other than her. During my initial assessment, which had to be done, then there were two people, but from the funding being secured and them acknowledging, you know, the treatment that I need, I've actually got one of those people who was involved in that assessment process, and that's been extremely helpful, and that is the person that I see. And if she's on holiday or I'm on holiday, then it, you know, thankfully we can use Zoom, both without, or we can talk on the phone. So that I've got this continuity. And in, in normal terms, a therapeutic session would be about 50 minutes. Well, I get 2 hours, and the difference is amazing, and it's something that I really want to push for, for other people, because my treatment is predicted to last me— to last for 6 years. That's what I need, that's the level, and it's just not available at the moment in the NHS. I want to talk about phobias. I always want to talk about the fact that Dissociative Identity Disorder is just lacking the support in the UK, and I shouldn't really have had to have gone to the United States to get my diagnosis, but that's what I had to do. You know, nobody's going to turn up in their GP's and say, I've got Dissociative Identity Disorder, and if you did do that, your GP, they're not going to have had any training during their career in it because it's just not something done in the UK. There are countries in Europe, quite a lot of Europe, that do, and that's where, um, you know, therapists that I see, um, you know, they've had their training but just not— they just couldn't train in the UK. But thank goodness they are because, um, I don't know how much longer I could have gone with the service I was getting, either privately or within the National Health System. So, um, so I do have a lot of phobias, but that's part of— but though they result from what happened to me, um, as, as a child. Of being abused. So, you know, a lot of phobias are formed in childhood, and I have dissociative parts, so different parts of me react in different ways, and I don't have a lot of control over that. What I need to, to understand is that it's going to be— it's a process of learning And it's a process of trying to make sense of things and then trying to manage my life and live with them without them overtaking me. And it's really difficult to explain to people what happens, but I have had a dissociative episode recently, quite a bad one, and It's scary. I suppose I have a phobia about this, about it happening, but when it happens, I don't actually know what's going on. I have no memory of it. It's the, the people that I live with that seem— they get that, and I don't like that for them. And it is very, very difficult. So I'm not quite sure why this happened, recently. I have some thoughts about it, but it seems really irrational behavior compared to what I think might have caused it, or at least to some of it. But I, I dissociated, and I— sometimes the pattern is that that I've been okay, like pretty much okay, and then it can just happen. And, um, my husband found me and, um, in a dissociative state, um, outside. And there's absolutely no, like, physical way we can work out how I even got outside. All the doors were locked. I didn't have a key or anything on me, and I've absolutely no idea how I got there. I mean, I'm pretty battered and bruised, but I've got absolutely no idea of what happened. And it's scary for me later on, but it was also, I mean, terrifying for him at the time. But fortunately, he, um, he woke up and realized I'd gone and found me, because it does put me in dangerous situations. So I live my life trying to be okay, and one of the things that makes me okay, and I never ever thought it would do, is having a dog. And we only got our dog 7 years ago, and that is our first dog. And it's difficult. You've got to make a decision when you take on a pet. And I never ever had a dog, nor anyone in my family, so I didn't really know what it was going to mean. But my kids were grown up and they wanted a dog, and I wasn't working. I'm not— I I don't work other than doing the radio program once a week, really because of being unwell. So we got a dog, and after 4 years of just not leaving the house, sometimes— I mean, I could live like that quite well. There wasn't a need for me to go out and get children anymore. They weren't at school, they were all grown up and gone. But it's not really a very healthy way to live, and it wasn't really the way I wanted to live. But I could live just staying in my house and being quite, you know, safe and secure in my own environment. I did try sometimes to go out, but, you know, I'd open the front door and look out, and I just couldn't go. It's just the, the world seemed too overwhelming, too frightening. Logically, I know the, um, you know, the, the people who harmed me when I was a kid, and this went on for quite a few years, and, you know, it was quite repeated and quite severe. I'm not saying that it's a competition as to who's got the worst trauma, but, um, this is how mine left me, and I don't actually know other than the people I met in the States, I don't actually know anyone in the UK with DID, so I can only speak for how it is for me. I don't think I'll probably ever will meet anybody from the UK who's, who's got it because it's just not something— there aren't groups or anything that you can join because it's just not recognized. So when we got the dog, dogs need to go out for a walk and I began focusing on the dog rather than on the dog's needs because I had to take care of— responsible. And I brought up 3 children, so now I had the responsibility of dog. So long story short, she got me out. She got me out. And I actually met friends through her as well. So, and that's been extremely good for me, and it's something that I've done ever since. So for 7 years, I just about every single morning walk my dog and meet my friends for a coffee, and then I'll walk home. And that might be the only time I go out during the day, but at least I've been out and spoken to people. I've not been on social media. I've actually spoken to, to real people who I've got to know very well, people who I've got to know so well that I've been on holiday with. And I'm actually going away this week with one of the group too, just for a few days. We're going to have a break without our dogs because I think that's important too, probably important for my dog because I rely on her probably far more than she relies on me. She— I don't know why, but she's so amazing. She's very She empathizes with me, really, and I don't— she doesn't really know what's gone on, but so much so that I've now taken her and she passed her assessment to be a Pets as Therapy Animal. They have dogs or cats in the UK, so, um, I— she's passed. Now I'm waiting for I've got a pass, so I've had to send in some references and I'm waiting for that to come back. So hopefully in sort of end of October, I'll be able to take my dog to establishments that are— have put in a request to the— it's a not-for-profit, Pets as Therapy, to say that they would like a therapy animal their establishment. So I can just go in and I can look online and put in a radius of miles and see where we, we can go. And I, and I know that she is going to help people. I absolutely know it, otherwise I wouldn't put myself in this position. I really don't have any anxiety about having a dog and going as a handler an owner of a therapy dog. And I think animals could be used a lot more. In the, in the United States, you can have an emotional support animal that is recognized by your physician as to make your life easier. So if you have a mental illness or a health issue, then your dog, your animal, any animal— in fact, they've even— I've spoken about it on the program a couple of weeks ago there's somebody in America who has this, an alligator. He's called Wally. You can Google him, there's quite a lot. Well, I don't know, I've never actually had anything to do with alligators, but I actually think I'd be pretty scared, um, and not want to, to be in a place, a public place or a restaurant, something like that, where somebody walks in with a 5-foot-5-inch alligator because it's helping their mental health. Yeah, I think that would probably— it's a little bit extreme. Alligators don't tend to get good press, but he seems to be a little bit of a celebrity in the States, and his owner does acknowledge that, yeah, it could be he— Wally the alligator has the, um, you know, he could easily just bite this guy's foot off. But then he says that, you know, dogs do— can bite. I think biting your foot off might be— my son, he couldn't do that. So I think it's something that you have to think about carefully. But I hope my dog will go out and about and we will together help some people. And it would be really good for me to talk to people, to too. Um, not, not about my problems, but, um, about their lives. And I think it's good to talk. I also watched this, um, program, uh, by Panorama. So if you're in the UK, it's, um, by the BBC, BBC One. I think it's BBC One, certainly the BBC. And it was about, um mental health, particularly in, uh, so children and young adults, with a particular focus to the situation now following COVID, where the demand for referrals and treatment has just sort of escalated. And everybody interviewed on this program was saying the demand is so much that they're getting a referral and It made me really, really sad because these, these people who, who need help have got to wait maybe 2, 2 or 3 years because that's the level now that they're at. There's a crisis point. They also did show some facilities in the UK, in the NHS, that have inpatient facilities, and they're closed. They've got nobody in at all because they can't get the staff to run these safely and to run these, you know, effectively to help people. It did focus on, um, you know, families who had some— someone, a child of theirs who was waiting for help, you know, couldn't go to school, um, and they're going to be waiting a long, long time. And I just don't understand why we are quite like this. If we're not, okay, fine, don't, don't recognize dissociative identity disorder, but everything else that people were presenting with, it was recognized there was no way they were going to get the help, and they were going to have to hang on. So things can get worse for them, um, you know, missing out on school and being so— socializing and things like that are really hard. And there were, uh, sort of some sort of educational facilities were available and some art classes, but the number— the places there were nowhere near the number of places that were required for the number of people who needed these and to benefit from them. So I just, I really hope now we've got a new, a new Prime Minister, we've got a whole new like cabinet reshuffle, so people now are in different— so we've got new people in charge of the NHS, um, you know, there's an MP who's who's in charge of that now, but they will have a team, and I really hope that we're gonna get some help for people. And it's one of the reasons why I do this radio station, is just to let people know not to give up, and that there is definitely such a gaping hole that has to be filled to help people, because living with a mental illness is, is not— it's not what you'd want for anybody. It makes life extremely hard, and we only get one life. I don't think— I don't believe this is a rehearsal. And I'm, you know, I'm 57 now, and I should be able to live a little better when you think that what happens to me. I think the worst period of my life was between the ages of like 8 and 19, so a long time. So I've got a lot of unhealed trauma to deal with, and I do have phobias. So I suppose like not going outside for 4 years, that's agoraphobia. That's fear of, um, it's, it's fear of socializing really, and going out, um, and being part of society in a way that's not structured, so you're just gonna go out. Well, I can't do that. I do have to structure my life. There aren't that— other than going out in the morning for coffee with my friends and my dog and going to the gym, there are very few places that I go. In fact, I don't usually go out, and people don't really know this about me. But that's the way it is at the moment. It's not how I want. I mean, I do get up to London for my therapy session, and when I go on my way home, I always get a message from my therapist to check how the journey's going, because it can be really difficult having to then, you know, get onto public transport after dealing with difficult things in a session. So I do have some phobias. That result from being in childhood. In fact, most phobias do result in— before you're— you're unlikely really to develop something once you've reached the age of 30. So under 30 years old, then you have phobias, and they— there are so many. I mean, a phobia can be the fear, sort of an irrational and extreme fear of things. I don't think that mine are irrational because I know my past. I cannot be left in a room. If somebody switches the light out in a room, that's not good for me. There are quite a few things that I can't do. I can't do big supermarkets on my own. I need to take somebody with me. But it probably doesn't look like a problem to people. It's like normal. I also have a fear of, um, I don't have a working bladder. I have something called detrusor failure, so my bladder stopped working about 6 years ago. So I have to self-catheterize every time I go out. Well, not every time I go out, every time I want to go to the toilet, I have this. And I had a card with me that does it say to people, you know, I would ask for help, say, please can I use the toilet, you know, in a shop, in business, or, you know, something like that. And I've been denied it, um, and it means I can't go out for as long if people— now it's better, but during lockdown, no, I was not allowed to use the toilets were shut, and even though I had a problem and I have a card, that card is only in my wallet, it's not displayed on toilet doors. I've had to ask in, um, you know, sort of women's toilets if I can, um, please, you know, go ahead of them because I need to do this, and I've been told no. I mean, I've had some— I don't— to me it doesn't make sense. If somebody asks for help, I would always say yes, and I say I've got a card. I mean, once I did actually get the card out and pulled out the wrong one and showed my Costco card, which is definitely not going to get me access to toilets. But I don't know, as a society, whether it's after COVID that people are not so kind anymore because They used to be kind. We, before COVID we had the tragic death of Caroline Flack, who was a TV presenter, and the, the feeling in the UK was that she, you know, what she was going through in her personal life became so private that she couldn't cope with it, and it's almost like, um, bullying, a media bullying, and whether it's the press or people or whatever. And you know, she took her own life. It's an absolute tragedy. So the whole feeling in the UK used to be like, to be kind to people. If you can be anything in this world, be kind. There were t-shirts. And then COVID happened, and it seems like everything like that went out the window. It was— this is— COVID's impacted on, on everybody, and I was certainly extremely busy as I had parents to shop for and things. So, and I have my family, most of them— well, my husband is a key worker, so he continued working throughout. So I kept everything else going and took on the extra responsibilities. So I do have a phobia of being left in the dark. I have a phobia of certain color cars, certain types of car. They would be the car that I was, um, sort of transported about in, um, to— from— by my abuser. Um, I was put in the boot of one once. Um, that's absolutely terrifying to be driven around in the boot of a car. Um, So, so that's a problem. But even though I know no one's going to actually put me in the boot of the car anymore, I still have a fear. So I don't know if that is a phobia or if that's just part of Dissociative Identity Disorder. I mean, having, having some sort of phobia or fear around dangerous things is a good— a good thing because you have awareness of it. So not going too near the— too close to the edge of a cliff, you know, sensible measures. You can't— your body has to be aware of potential dangers. So I don't know if those— so, so that's kind of the healthy side of phobia. And there are so many phobias. When I started looking into this, I mean, there's There are— my husband has a complete fear of wooden lolly sticks and wooden spoons, and we've got no idea where that came from. But he, um, I mean, it's— it doesn't actually change his life too much. If he comes into contact with an ice lolly, he uses the wrapper to put around the wooden stick so he doesn't have to directly hold it, but I don't know, he has that. My son has it too, and I don't think that my husband has willingly passed it on. Maybe it's just a genetic trait. But, you know, people are— have fear of, um, chickens, um, walking, mirrors, making decisions, fear of long words. There's even a fear of peanut butter. And one article I read, they had spoken with somebody who had a fear of ducks looking at them. They— any— if they saw a duck, they had a phobia that it might look at them. Well, hopefully they don't work anywhere in a wildlife center, but you can avoid certain triggers quite well. There's also a phobia of pronouncing long words or just dealing with long words. Well, all these phobias, they have very, very long words, so if you've got a phobia of long words and you want to research about it, you cannot avoid long words, and some of them that I looked at I don't even know how to pronounce, but we've got the thing now on your phone where it will pronounce it for you. So a lot of, a lot of our family life, a lot of what we do, places we go to, it all revolves around what's safe for me. And it works. It's probably a little bit selfish, um, and I've got into this sort of thinking of safety. When I go away, I go to the same place. Um, I mean, yeah, pretty much we, we go to the same place as a family. That's what we do. And, and we go to the same repeat places when we're there. When I go over this week with a friend, we're going to the place that I know, and I've, um, sort of planned and arranged it. If I was going somewhere that I didn't know, I wouldn't cope very well. I, I would, I would probably work myself up too much that it probably wasn't worth going. And because I do have an awful lot of phobias around the trauma that happens to me. And I'm calling them phobias. I don't even think they really are. I think they're parts of unhealed trauma that should never have been a phobia. If I hadn't been abused, then I wouldn't have these problems. So we conquered going out, going out with the dog, um, but I still— I can't actually go in the back garden. That is difficult. I don't go in the back garden on my own, and I can't really explain why. I just— I'm too— it's, it's too much. It, it— I don't know, it just reminds me of bad places, and this is my own home. So if it's, um, an irrational fear about a situation or a living creature, a place or an object, then it just— we can shape our lives to, to avoid it, anything that is considered dangerous to us. I have a really, really bad fear of heights. I wish I didn't, but if I go so high somewhere or I'm doing an activity that makes me sort you know, go higher up, then my body just starts like shaking and my legs go all funny and my breathing goes funny and I'm hanging on for dear life, just thinking the worst, just that I can't do it, that I'm in danger. I think it's the fear of being in danger. I was a teacher. I used to have to take children away on activity holidays And they would scale up things like climbing walls. Like, they, you know, some of them, most of them, it was the first time they've ever done it, and especially something quite so high. And they were obviously using safety harnesses and equipment. And then we would do it too as staff, um, and that was so hard. That was so, so hard. And I spent a long time stuck to a climbing wall with the two instructors and a load of children watching me, just trying to climb it. And I actually did manage to get to the top. I think I was hauled up the last bit. And when I actually got there and looked at what I'd done, it wasn't really that high at all. But the effect on my body was— I don't know, I mean, any higher, I think I would have needed medical assistance and for my breathing, but I don't know why this happens, but I don't need to be a professional climber. I've had— I have a— my dad, when I was 11, was in a shipping accident at sea, and he was missing for 2 or 3 days, so It happened— it was two ships collided, um, the one my dad was on went down and 13 men died. And although my dad wasn't actually lost in the water for 2 or 3 days because there was a sort of an international rescue operation, it was more the coordinating as to who have been rescued and where they've been taken to. Now, I absolutely love the sea, but I respect it. I think it's, you know, you have to respect the sea. It's an extremely powerful thing, and I, um, and I do— I'm quite mindful of that. But I don't like my dad to go near the sea at all. I mean, anyone else in my family or friends can go in the sea, but my dad going in the sea causes me a great anxiety because I have this, this memory and this fear. And I don't think that when— it wasn't actually something we talked about. I think now if it happened in this sort of day and age, because we are, you know, going on like, um, well, 40-odd years since this event happened, then it probably would have been more talked about. But I was— we were just delighted to get my dad home. But I'm like, if he walks near the sea, Dad, please, can you stand back? I don't like you near the sea. So he understands that, but it's not really something we've talked about. I don't know if he's— if he— what memories he has, because it was a pretty big trauma for him. He was, you know, saying that because this— the accident also happened in the dark. Um, so being in the sea in the dark when your, your ship's going down and you've got really heavy clothing on and you're trying to— the only bit he spoken about was trying to get the heavy jumpers off that they wear and, um, boots. So really heavy items of clothing that were weighing them down in the water, because he was in the water for quite some time and holding on to sort of debris, bits of wreckage from the ships, with two other men, and they just spent their whole time talking about each other's families, and that's what kind of kept them going. And if one person went quiet, then they would make them talk. I guess maybe— I don't even know, they probably were being trained in all this stuff. I don't know. But so that's a rational fear that I have if my dad goes near the sea. I've obviously got these phobias and fears from, um, being abused as a child. I couldn't— we couldn't really discuss it I didn't speak about it for, oh goodness me, so many years, so many years. Even though now when it's come out and we've been through the police investigation and all that sort of stuff, and I'm getting help, um, and you can see as a family and my friends, we can, we can see the pattern, we can see how it happened, how we were groomed, and But the damage it did, it's just— don't underestimate what the damage can do because it's, it's severe. I don't know what my life would have been like without this happening. And I think things got a lot worse for me once my children all grew up. Having— I've got 3, so having 3 young children, and actually one of them, um, the the middle one, at the age of 14 months, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. So that was nearly 4 years of treatment, and then with an awful lot of worry and sort of running home and hospital life kept me really busy. So I think I almost managed to keep a couple of steps ahead of my phobias and ahead of having to deal with the abuse that happened to me. And obviously having a very sick child in a family, I did rely on, uh, huge support from my mom, um, and my— and other family members and friends. So thankfully that, um, my daughter is now, uh, 28 and She's been in remission for, gosh, 26 years. She does know that she is at a higher risk of getting another form of cancer, and so we make sure that she has— well, the hospital talk to her, I don't have to. She's an adult now and they treat her very, very well. As an adult. She needs the information. She needs to know that she needs to protect her skin from, you know, the sun. If she's on holiday, I make her wear a sun sort of spray protection on her face all the time. I make all my kids do that because I think the sun's rays are quite harmful, even though it doesn't seem hot. And there is a fear of aging. Maybe I've got that too. I don't want my kids to age, so I'm piling them with sprays to protect them from UVA and UVB. But I got a bit of a wake-up call this week, and sometimes this needs to happen, uh, because there are other people in my family and they're all going out and about doing their thing now. But then there's difficulties in the world that they're facing, and I need to be a mum and a person that people could maybe talk to about things. I often talk about things because it's been my life that will seem quite inappropriate to other people, and I really don't mean to do that. But it's just my experience, and I'm actually getting better at it. But I can say things and people are like, look, all my family will be like, Mom, that's not really what they said. But if you've had a life and it's impacted on you so much, I'm afraid sometimes things are going to come out and I mean, they forgive me, they're not that bad. Um, so I had a big wake-up call this week. My daughter— none of them live at home anymore, and, um, that's good. I mean, that's really, really good that they've all grown up into adults and they're all doing what they want to do in life, and I'm extremely proud of them all, and I love them all, and the happiest times for me are when they're all home and we can shut the door and spend time as a family, or maybe go out and be somewhere as a family. Those are my happiest times, definitely. And I think a lot of mums, dads, parents would say that. But my daughter phoned me and she was, she was extremely upset and extremely distressed. And apparently it's happened before, but I didn't know really quite the extent of it. But she is really, really frightened at the moment of death, anything about it— dying, um, us dying, something happening to us, um, really, really upset. And it is, it is a phobia, and it's, it's recognized as sort of a, as a mental— it can become a mental illness because it is pretty complicated. And it's called thanatophobia. So I had to like look that up, how to say it. So it's thanatophobia. Um, but I've never really had to deal with death in a way that she has to deal with it. She's 28, I'm 57. I have only ever seen somebody dead once, and that was a very close friend of mine who died unfortunately in an accident and fell downstairs and broke their neck because the bottom of their slippers had gone shiny. So, um, I mean, I am— I do remember wearing slippers that got a bit slippery underneath and did slip downstairs a bit. So I'll tell you, anything like that in our house is just not happening goes on no one's feet. No one has slippers that they can possibly fall downstairs like that. And I did see my friend at the funeral director's, and it was hard, but it was peaceful. And I spoke to her. I know she— well, I hope she could hear me from wherever she might be, but I did that. But my daughter was just so distressed about this dying, dying little— she's— the difficulty is that she's a doctor and she's a doctor in a hospital and death is part of the job, um, and being a doctor is a job, but she's an extremely caring, kind, and compassionate person, and she has to deal with death sort of every day. And I just wonder if it's maybe— it's not something that they really talk about, um, obviously they— there's all the paperwork and the things that have to happen in a hospital when somebody dies that she's involved in. And the department, the ward that she's working on at the moment, um, you know, these are very, very sick people, and she's She's got herself extremely scared of anybody dying, like being responsible for— not what she's not responsible for anybody dying, but not being able to save them. And their age, and then calculating it as to how old she is. And because she is, you know, they do have to spend quite a long time when someone dies with them, where, you know, where do they go? I think she's really questioning, you know, what's it all about. And then her, her own fear around being diagnosed as a child with leukemia. And I need to— I can see, I can, I can understand where all this has come from. But in her job, she can't avoid that something could happen to people, um, and that they will die. And I don't quite know what to say. I feel quite inadequate as, as a person. Um, I mean, the only thing that we are guaranteed in life is that we're going— we will die, but we just don't know when. I tried to explain to her why when she goes out running— because she runs a lot, um, she does loads and loads of marathons and, I don't know, like open water swimming and cycling, you know, far away, and she's got medals and it's really her thing— I worry that she goes out running with listening to music and that that music might mean that she's not fully paying attention to cars. She did get knocked off her bike, um, in a country lane by a car, and the car didn't stop. Um, fortunately she just needed— she had to have about 8 stitches in her leg for that one. But I'm going to have to get her some help. I need to I can't deal with this as a mum adequately, but what I can do is get some help. I have asked her if they— they don't offer really any sort of support really for junior— she's a junior doctor, she's just been a doctor for a year, that's it, just a year, and there isn't much, um, there isn't, there isn't much support for them. There isn't time for them to have support and sit and talk about it and things like that. It really isn't. But when she's been dealing with young people who have died, it's really, you know, people her age and younger, it's really starting to affect her. And she's also rather scared herself that she's going to, you know, get cancer again. She still is seen by a hospital yearly for checkups, and that's after 20— well, it's 27 years since she was diagnosed, and she still, you know, has checkups. And I did explain to her that, and she does know, but maybe sometimes people they do have a fear, break it down a bit for them. Because I don't really know what to do about this. I mean, yeah, I'm, I'm scared of dying. I'm scared when I dissociate. I've ended up in intensive care, you know, critical care, on dialysis, in a massive line down my jugular, um, being told I might not actually live, um, the harm I've done to myself in a dissociative state. Has been, you know, so severe. And I don't really understand why this happens. And to come around and just to be told that, you know, your, your organs are being supported and they actually might not come through, it's not something I actually talk about with my, my family. Maybe it's a protection, but yeah, it makes me really sad that I've put my family through that. She also did say that she was worried that something might happen to me, and this was during a week where, you know, I have had a dissociative episode. Fortunately, I've got nothing more than a few sort of scrapes and bumps, but I need to— I wanna, I wanna help her. So logically, like, she's cured, she doesn't need to— we can't dwell on the fact that she had cancer as a child. Um, we can talk about it and talk about what it was like and talk about how she feels about it. But I need to get her to talk about— talk to somebody really about this. She said the thoughts just do not leave her head. And this is, this is, you know, and I've tried to read about it, this is a— it's a sort of a complicated phobia to have. They have Covid is not spoken about quite so much. Well, it isn't. It's— Covid is not spoken about so much now, and people generally get on with their lives. But if you're working in a hospital, that's where the COVID patients, they still are. And even if they have underlying health conditions, there are people who are still dying. I don't know if— I really don't know what suddenly triggered this for my child, but there was a doctor who— a consultant who she absolutely learned an awful lot from and had a huge amount of respect for— who caught COVID and then was unwell, so couldn't be working as a doctor, and he was due back in a couple of days. But he, he just, he died. He did. I don't think anybody actually knows why, or, you know, I think there's, um, inquests and things like that that will need to be going on. But that hurt. That impacted hard, losing a respected colleague, um, who was completely, you know, fit and well. And she's scared, I think, scared for herself, scared for us, scared for others, scared for the, the people who have died and how young they are and where do they go. And it's just, it's too much. I think, you know, a lot of people have a fear of hospitals, a fear of dentists. I've always had a fear of dentists. I had a quite a brutal dentist I remember when I was a child who used to put some anesthetic in and and you put your hand up to say it was— it hurt, so it hadn't really taken, or you needed a bit more. And she'd say that was nonsense and then carry on drilling. So I've— for 3 children, I've managed to take them to— they've had to come to the dentist with me. I can't leave them at home. So when they were little, they all come to dentist with me, and I'd be like clenching my fists like for dear life, trying to show them my face that it was an absolutely fine and normal and easy thing to do because I didn't want to pass the fear of the dentist on to them. So I've never talked about that to them, and they're all fine. They've all got great teeth. So, you know, there, there are 3 main groups of phobia. The first one is something that's specific, so simple, so something like an object. So for my husband, it's a lolly stick. Stick. So we just wrap the lolly stick up in the, in the lolly wrapper, job done. The other one is the, the social one. So it's like, um, social anxiety going out in public. I have that. I can't, I can't go out in large groups socially, and I don't go to sort of what you call parties, um, I just can't do it. And I know it's upset some of my friends when, as a family with another family, we maybe arranged to go somewhere for a meal and I've just not been able to go. But I have to, I have to do this. I can't, because if I go, um, and you have social anxiety, I shut down. I'm not— and I'm no good to anyone anyway. I'm just like this like shutdown quiet person that can't, can't join in. And I feel, I feel completely separate, so it's no good for me. But I'm going to try and work on that. By the time I'm 60, which I've got 3 years, I'm hoping that I can have some sort of small party, sort of gathering. I quite like to do that, but that'll be in a controlled, managed way. And then you have, you know, the agoraphobia, which is the fear of being alone or in places where there's no easy way to escape or to get help, which is in public. So my family know this. They know that, you know, when I go through an airport, they're with me. They don't leave me. I can't— I mean, I can't cope with that. Um, so it's not a problem. So I do cope with it because they're there for me. I certainly couldn't travel on my own. But I think, um, so the message from this one is that, you know, I didn't know how much my own daughter was suffering with this, um, fear of death, and there aren't really— I don't know how I could— how she's gonna have to accept there aren't answers. Like, where do people go? What's the point of life? Well, I think that quite— I think, well, was I abused? Was I born bad? Maybe that was the thing, but that's not right. I know that that is not right. I might think it sometimes, but it's not right. So I'm going to, um, I'm going to get some— we're going to go and talk about it together with somebody, and we're going to do it this week because I don't think it's something that should be left. I don't want her to have prolonged distress. She works long hours, she has to be alert for her job, and to make sure that this is definitely the right job, I think She's, she's an absolute brilliant doctor, but she needs some sort of support that she's not getting from work that I can only give in a small amount. So I'm gonna go and get some help. So I think, you know, even somebody who is like afraid of chickens or ducks looking at them or peanut butter, then they, they deserve to to talk about this phobia, to own it. It doesn't have to be something severe like I've been through. If it's something that you have a fear of, then you have a fear of it, and you know, you can avoid peanut butter and lollipops and things, but I can't avoid the fact that I dissociate, so somewhere takes my body— makes my body shut down and take itself away, but it actually ends up doing— can do dangerous things. And I'm going to help my, um, my daughter, and I'll let you know how we get on. And I hope that, you know, I think I just— I'm pleased. I think I failed a lot as a mom because of my own mental health, but But if I can actually be the mum that she can pick the phone up to, because she doesn't live at home, and say, I'm having this problem, and then we've managed to speak every day and she just still can't get the thoughts out of her head, I'd rather she be honest and say, they're still there, they're still there, I don't want them, I need them to go. Then, then I'm gonna go and we can go and talk about it together. I don't want her to go somewhere on her own. She wants to come with me, so we're going to go and sort this out. And I've— there is support for things. There's such a lack of support for some things, but, you know, I've decided now that if we need support as a family, we go and get it. And about something that I can do for my kids, because I've got someone doing that for me, somebody who turns up for me every week who, you know, is listening to things that aren't pleasant. And I'm not the only person that they're helping. And they have— I know that they do have supervision so that they can offload and discuss. But as a junior doctor in the NHS at the moment, there isn't this type of supervision. And I think, you know, death is a big thing for, for anybody, um, at any age. I can remember when I realized, you know, when I had lost my first grandparent, that, you know, that my parents telling me that that was it, they weren't going to be coming back, um, and I found that very difficult, but Yeah, it was hard to understand that, you know, you can't fix your heart, make people go on forever, because that's, that's all I knew at that stage. So with age, I'm afraid, brings few problems, but also responsibilities and the opportunity for solutions. So thank you very much for listening. I hope it was helpful. And, um, I hope everyone has a good week. And this is Eva May from Healing Image High series for the Women's Radio Station. Thank you.