98- Hemophobia : blood phobia (1)

If you type ''blood'' on my blog, you'll notice that I mentioned several times that I suffer from hemophobia, or : blood phobia. 


I select the shows and movies that I can watch, in relation to amounts on-screen blood and gore.
I can faint at the sight of my own blood - and have done fainted numerous times, especially in my teen years as my nose bled often. 

I wanted to do a little research about this, in order to understand this phobia and work on reducing its effects on me - maybe even cure it eventually. 

In the previous post  I conjectured whether my bloody intrusive nightmares were related to this, but on retrospect, they couldn't have caused it : I had helophobia years before the nightmares ever started. 

I don't know if it's really important to find when and where it all originated, really. I don't know if my wife is right and I should work on what I already have right now : CBT for social phobias, blog for self-expression and my normal therapist to work on my CPTSD related issues. It's indeed a lot to work on, and maybe I need to get most or all of that done with, before tackling blood phobia. 

Thus far, I found a very short video on youtube : the narrator talked about the fact this is a very common phobia, and the images were scenes from very gory & bloody horror movies. Evidently, the docu makers didn't think about the fact that people who'd search for this would have difficulties watching the damn thing, so I had to turn it off. 

I went to wiki  but the information isn't detailed enough. They talk about the fears of needles & injury and that many people suffer from all 3 and which are called Blood-Injection-Injury phobias in the DSM-IV. 

Now, I did experience multiple traumatic events and continuous trauma and abuse. 
I did experience nose bleeds. Blood exams. 
I accidentally watched very gory horror movies.
I had my intrusive nightmares with lots of blood. 

I have many possible factors, and this phobia also triggers such disgust and nausea, that I think it got entwined with my emetophobia as seeing blood on-screen also gives me nausea, and I guess that I don't have time to get it when I see my own, because I feel faint so fast. 

I've quickly mentioned my hemophobia to my CBT therapist, as I listed the phobias that I identified thus far - well, to be clear, the ones that I suffer from (or have suffered).
I'm aware of many other phobias, but don't suffer from them all. 

As we just started my therapy and will concentrate on my social phobias, and maybe some of my traumas (it'll depend on her talk with my other therapist, the ''normal'' un-CBT psychotherapist), I may use the exposure worksheets that Jessthemoose has shared on her vlog about exposure therapy at some point and start tackling this phobia, so I could one day better handle the sight of blood -my real or fake on-screen. 

I know that I have managed to deal with part of my social phobias by exposing myself, so I think that I can do part of the job here on my own, and if I see that it's too much, I'll wait until I can take care of it with my therapist. 

If you have had experiences with this phobia, and have any ideas and pointers to help with dealing, and later healing from it, please feel free to share.