#tokophobia / like discussing my phobia

[sniffanimal]

In a very pregnancy-heavy plot arc on LOST and like. Really has me wondering if I should have ever gone to therapy for my tokophobia because i just sorta ignored it forever and the only reason it's any better than it was when I was younger is I'm on meds. But that never addressed the fact that I have the fear in the first place. The entire idea of someone seeking a fertility doctor because they want to be pregnant is insane to me. I would sooner [I redacted the rest of this sentence bc it was needlessly violent and graphic so uhhh yeah]. Like I physically cannot understand how there's people out there who are SAD they can't conceive. And yanno maybe one of you who is reading this is sad about that for themselves and I'm empathetic to the idea of being frustrated your body doesn't do what you want it to do but I just cannot put myself remotely near the mindset of someone who wants biological children and wants to be the one to carry them. The movie Baby Mama (2008) is a horror movie to me.

And I've done the soul searching and this isn't wholly about dysphoria, or even myself. I used to be dragged to baby showers and I would hide in the bathroom as much as I physically could because the setting was revolting and anxiety inducing. I was in an elevator with a pregnant woman one time and I was so terrified the elevator would stall and I'd have to be in there any longer with her that I almost passed out. This is like a real and extreme phobia that I never tell anyone about and have never addressed in therapy bc it wasn't like, hindering my daily life that much. But watching TV with a lot of pregnancies getting screen time is making me consider therapy again.

I almost thought about rewatching sense8 a few months ago but the idea of seeing a split screen shot of 8 crowning childbirths genuinely spoils the whole show for me because it's all I'm thinking about and I can't enjoy anything else. Not even the lesbian sex

[theweirdoinurhouse]

Phobias, am I right?

Sorry for the bad title, but in my Ted Talk of the day I'll be discussing Tokophobia and thanatophobia (mainly this one). I've seen some talk about them, and want to share my own personal experiences with them and spread more light on the subjects.

CW: Talk of death, pregnancy, childbirth, and rape (very briefly) Please proceed with caution, I don't want anybody to have a mental crisis

So first off, what are tokophobia and thanatophobia? Tokophobia is the fear of childbirth/pregnancy, and thanatophobia is the fear of death. That one is pretty broad. I will section off talking about each of them. Warning, they might be long.

Thanatophobia:

I'll just get this one out of the way. I personally have thanatophobia stronger than tokophobia, and that's because it's literally unavoidable. And that's the main reason I'm so scared of it. Unlike other fears like heights or spiders or snakes, you can decently avoid those. But you can't avoid death. It's always looming over you, no matter how safe you seem. Not to say those other fears aren't valid or anything. They absolutely are. But nobody can avoid death. Not forever anyways.

Everytime I get home and open the door I'm scared someone might be on the other side with a gun. Or when I enter my room. Or whenever I'm walking I wonder if that maybe someone will drive by and shoot me. Lots of shooting thoughts, because it's one of the easiest methods. But no matter where I am I always have the looming thought of dying.

Then there's the fact about mortality. It absolutely angers me. Inside me are two wolves (sorry I have to joke to make myself feel better). One wolf thinks: Why do anything? We won't matter. We won't do anything that matters to the world or people. We're gonna die one day. We're not special. Why try so hard? The other wolf thinks: We're gonna die one day, so why not live life to the fullest? (Can you tell which one I listen to most of the time?)

I try my best to live my life to the fullest. But I'm always so stressed about everything. Then whenever I try to do something "cool" or think about doing something cool, I can only think of how that might make my life even shorter. I watched this one movie where this girl was the embodiment of "YOLO". Guess what? She died.

I don't want that to be me. I don't want to finally decide to do something fun and then die. But I also don't want to stay cooped up my whole life. Every thought I have contradicts each other and it's so hard to live with. I hate thinking about how we're all just going to die one day and that we can't do anything about it. And we have no clue what's after.

I'm not religious. And honestly? That makes this even worse. I have nothing to hold onto. I have nothing to look forward to. I have nothing. 😋😋 I won't talk much about religion. Like ever. But yeah, I don't have a belief of what's after, and it's makes the unknown so scary to me. I don't like not knowing. Just endless black? No consciousness? Nothing? Nothing.

I have oh so many thoughts about death. None positive. Sometimes I think about killing myself to escape this sad, non-satisfying world. When I was younger I made this idea with my step dad that when you die you get your own island in the sky and you can make it as perfect to you as you want. Sometimes I want to die to go to my own personal, amazing life. But what if that's fake? What if everything everyone has ever thought of about the afterlife is fake? Not having an answer is scary enough for me.

Earlier today I was helping out at a theater put away some stuff. I was standing on top of a latter. Then suddenly it was getting a little hard to breath and I was crying. Had to steady myself before getting off the ladder. So really other fears that can correspond to death scares me too. How diverse! 😄

Anyways that's the basics. Ill just stop it there before it gets too long.

Tokophobia:

This one will be shorter, so people who don't like reading a lot of words: here ya go.

Remember in thanatophobia I mentioned walking? Yeah sometimes I think about someone 🍇 me and (bc the government low key sucks) being forced to have a child. TERRIFYING!!! Honestly props to all the moms in the world, i could never give birth.

Whenever I think about pregnancy the first thing that pops up in my brain is that one scene from Alien. You know the one. There is a literal LIVING BEING GROWING IN YOUR STOMACH!!! WHAT?!

The thought just really grosses me out, and I just would have a mental breakdown if I was pregnant.

This one time in like 3rd grade my teacher was talking about her giving birth to her two daughters (no clue why she did). She had to stop because one kid was crying, knees to their chest and rocking back and forth. That child was me. I was absolutely mortified of the idea of giving birth. Still am. People call it the beauty of life. I call it absolutely disgusting (no offense. Omg opinions!!)

Anyway yeah. In summary: I don't like the world ☺️☺️

(I did not re-read this, so sorry for any mistakes in spelling or grammar!)

[starfallensyndicate]

Hey I saw your comment on that one post about terms for transmasc oppression. I had not heard the objection for the phobia suffix. Would mind explaining a bit more on the ableism at play when that is used? If not, I'll keep looking. Thank you for mentioning it on that post.

So basically, phobias are medical terms for certain disorders. Like: arachnophobia, tokophobia, you know, things like that. Now, calling different kinds of bigotry "-phobia" sort of sounds like implying that bigots are bigots due to sort of disordered thinking, what is rather meh. Why? Well, it reinforces stigma around mental disorders as a whole.

Some may say that "well, different words have different meanings". But unfortunately, sometimes this association of -phobia suffix with bigotry leaks the other way. We know anecdotic evidence is no evidence, but we have seen at least a few times usage of aforementioned tokophobia, an actual medical term, as a descriptor of bigotry towards pregnant individuals. Which kinda sucks.

Also, they aren't scared, they aren't afraid. So kinda this misses the point. -misia suffix means that they *hate* something. So it's kinda more accurate and straight to the point.

We know it's not the most urgent issue, so we personally bring it up only if there's a discussion about what terms would be more proper and not under any post that uses words like "homophobia" and such. But it is an actual reason why whenever possible we try to choose the words that don't use this suffix. So in case of terms for bigotry against transmascs, when there is a rather big pool of terms and none of them is dominant, there is a chance to avoid the pattern.

I know my reply is kinda chaotic right now, but we're quitting caffeine and cigarettes simultaneously (don't do that, we do it only for financial reasons) and our brain feels like a mush.

[gothy-froggy]

TW: Talk of Tokophobia (childbirth and pregnancies)

Hello everyone,

So I want to have more of a discussion on a topic that even makes me feel uncomfortable and got me squirming around in discomfort while making this.

Pregnancy. Childbirth.

A very scary thing for many, but also very beautiful to others.

Why am I talking about this? Because I find that I never met anyone who understands or feels the same way I do about pregnancy and I want to know if it’s just me or others also understand my exact thoughts.

Every time I hear people talk about the topic of phobia of birth, or any articles explaining what the phobia is (which is Tokophobia), it’s always about the pain of childbirth and the list of awful things that could happen. Which don’t get me wrong, it is part of my feelings, but no one seems to talk about my main issue?

Which is the overall pregnancy. The overall process of pregnancy.

Ever since I was a kid when I learned about pregnancy, the thought of something living inside of you, moving around, kicking you and YOU CAN FEEL IT? It actually makes me gag. Like something growing inside you and the process just makes my skin crawl. I don’t ever see this part of fearing pregnancies be talked about?

It honestly makes me feel like I’m the only one who fears this? The whole thing of pregnancy and childbirth from the beginning to the end freaks me out and I DON’T SEE THIS BE TALKED ABOUT A LOT?!

Is this a part of Tokophobia or something else? Do you feel this way? If so please talk about it under this post because I don’t have anyone who I can relate to when it comes to this.

[droidmom]

Sorry, I had to unfollow for all the drama earlier, that pro-baby anti-baby thing really freaked me out. (I'm sorry, but just as someone who's extremely tokophobic, hearing someone I respect say that no one reasonable would say mean things about babies freaked me out)

that’s understandable. if it at all helps, my issue wasn’t like “no one reasonable would say mean things about babies.” it was more “i don’t understand why this particular story is being shared with me of all people or anyone for that matter” bc of the contents. maybe if i’d like, responded directly that would’ve helped clear things up but i didn’t want my followers to see a story about someone accidentally making fun of a baby’s physical deformity and laughing about it.

idk. i get why the vagueness of my response could be read like that w/o the ask’s contents, esp if you already have a sensitivity to it, but calling people unreasonable for having personal issues with kids is absolutely not what i was saying. for all anyone knew the ask could’ve been something horrifically violent or inappropriate, which is again what i would have been referring to. not just someone admitting a repulsion to kids.

all i was asking is that people don’t send me rude stuff about babies and to think about how they express that kind of thing if they absolutely feel the need to.

[bread-and-roses-too]

Btw when people who have the ability to give birth say "people who don't have this ability shouldn't be involved in discussions on abortion" it's not just because of misogynistic cis men. It's also because there's a lack of understanding of the actual stress and severity of the situation when an accidental pregnancy occurs.

This is one of the reasons we see infertile people who want kids being hateful towards people who have abortions. They can't imagine being in a situation where they would have an unwanted child because having any child is so difficult for them. No matter how empathetic you are, you're not fully able to understand the emotions involved, and the emotions involved are very important to this discussion.

I have severe tokophobia (phobia of being pregnant/giving birth). For those of you who don't know what a phobia is, it's a panic disorder triggered by a specific, usually harmless, stimuli like spiders or needles or yes, being pregnant. Some phobias are mild, mine tend to be very severe. If I were ever to be pregnant, I would basically have to be out of my mind on tranquilizers the entire time, or I would seriously harm or kill myself to escape the situation. I used to lay awake at night and cry because a guy who I knew sexually assaulted a friend of mine lived down the road from me and I was terrified of being raped. Not because I was afraid of the actual trauma of being raped, but because I was afraid of potentially getting pregnant. I was a minor with very few connections outside of the church and my parents were anti-abortion. One night I decided that if I ever found out I was pregnant, I was going to attempt suicide at night and hope I was dead enough to not be revived by the time my parents found me in the morning.

I never got pregnant. But I will never forget the hopelessness I felt. I will never forget that my plan of action was to end my own life to spare myself the trauma of being pregnant. I will never put another person through that kind of stress. I frankly don't give a flying fuck if one day my actions are judged as being "pro-murder". What I care about is the mental harm an abortion ban will do to every living person who is able to get pregnant who doesn't want to be.

[chiefinfluencermusic]

Pregnancy has never been easy for a soon-to-be mom. The tension begins from family planning to being pregnant. This fear also envelopes childbirth in some mothers’ minds. This fear is called Tokophobia where a woman feels to have a baby but is too scared of birth, preventing her from getting pregnant or even opting for a cesarean, in case they can’t deny pregnancy. In this blog, we will discuss tokophobia in detail to help you understand your fear of childbirth in simple language.

Tokophobia: Scared of Childbirth

This phobia is related to over-anxious women over the topic of childbirth and pregnancy. The women who experience this phobia will neglect giving birth or becoming pregnant altogether. If by any chance they are unable to terminate their pregnancy, they’ll shift for the C-section, then going for the vaginal birth.

These women don’t dislike kids but, the pathological fear stops them. This phobia can be observed in new mothers and even in moms who experienced traumatic birth incidents.

Related Topic:

When is the right time for a second baby?

Some men even experience Tokophobia, where they fear extremely about the safety, and health of their partner, and the baby.

Symptoms:

Tokophobia comes under the category of specific phobia, further categorised under anxiety disorder where excessive and irrational fear is observed over certain situations or objects.

After knowing about what Tokophobia is, now let’s figure the symptoms of this phobia.

Panic Attacks are quite common.

Sleep disturbances can occur frequently.

Nightmares can worsen the situation.

The woman facing this phobia will often have an avoiding behavior for the situation.

Depression because of the overwhelming anxiety.

Extreme feelings of fear at the thought of birth and pregnancy.

The woman facing the phobia will deny vaginal birth and will insist on a C-section.

The woman filled with a phobia will severely fear defects in birth, maternal death, or stillbirth even before all this happens.

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Types:

To understand Tokophobia a little better, let’s first figure out its types. Tokophobia has two different types:

Primary Tokophobia

This type of phobia is an experience by women who haven’t yet experienced this birth process. It can begin from the early age of adolescents or even if they are currently pregnant. It is most common in raped or sexually assaulted girls. Sometimes medical exams performed during pregnancy or childbirth can often lead to original trauma flashbacks.

Secondary Tokophobia

This type of phobia is an experience by women who had traumatic birth past experiences. It is experienced by women who had miscarriages, unsuccessful fertility treatments, termination of pregnancy, and stillbirth. In some cases, women having no past traumatic experiences can also face it.

Factors:

The contributing factors that can lead to scaring regarding childbirth and pregnancy are:

Fear of Pain.

Fear of death through miscarriage or any complications related to birth.

No trust in the medical practitioners.

Faced child abuse or have a history of depression and anxiety.

Reading or hearing distressing stories or news over social media related to childbirth.

Sometimes, imbalance in hormones even influences anxiety levels making them out of control or hard to handle.

Fear of losing control or lack of privacy.

Sometimes psychological factors also operate in, for example, getting pregnant in adolescence, lacking the social support required, or getting impoverished.

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Tips To Manage Childbirth Fears

Don’t stress about knowing you have a particular type of phobia. Try to follow the below-listed points to make yourself better.

Remember, fear increases even more if you keep it caged in you. Talk to people about your fear without the feeling of judgment and ask suggestions to conquer it. You aren’t the first one to experience there, are many on the list. Don’t suffocate yourself with those constant negative thoughts. Breathe in the fresh air with the people who love you and care for you.

Talk to your doctor and the team responsible for the childbirth. Check on everything and clearly state your fears so that they can work on reducing your anxious feelings by providing you with a secure environment.

Don’t communicate with yourself in a negative tone. Get your gear and attend a yoga session to make you feel calm and composed. You can even go to a nearby birthing class. And, don’t forget to create a birth plan.

Follow these, and you will feel much better and strong to conquer your fear!

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Parenthood is one of the most beautiful yet exhausting phases of life. The changes that come with it are so unexpected that it is difficult to see them coming. One moment you were having a movie night with your partner. Next, you both are rushing to change your diaper. And after some time, you start taking it all in stride, be it your baby puking on you or crying in the middle of the night.  Here are the top ten aspects of your life that would change when you become a parent. Read More:

[cloverandcrossbones]

I try to keep my blog safe for everyone and their environments so here are some of the tag warnings I currently use if any followers wish to blacklist them in their filtering settings (instructions below) :

"NSFW"

"NSFW audio"

"nudity"

"partial nudity"

"Sex Ed": this one will not contain nudity or pornographic imagery, only important information about sexuality, bodies, respect, and safety.

"reproductive rights": anything to do with birth control, contraception, abortion care, sterilization etc. I have tokophobia so even though I am sex-positive and support contraception, safety and choice, I sometimes have to avoid these topics and discussions of pregnancy and understand other might as well.

"food"

Also animals in case anyone has phobias (if you have something you would like me to tag for you message me to politely let me know)

"rodents"

"dogs"

"cats"

"birds"

"frogs"

"horses"

"goats"

"sheep"

"spiders"

"butterflies"

"insects"

"bees" —also "honeycomb" (I know some people find the shape unnerving and I reblog a lot of honey posts)

To black list any tag simply go to your own blog and select the settings symbol

Go to general settings > filtering > then + add new