yikes!!

I have an irrational fear that has inhibited me from watching scary movies, getting shots (or blood drawn), and helping others around me who are picking their finger warts or severely bleeding on MY desk (hem, hem). It is a fear which I find perfectly reasonable; but in the words of my hematologist-oncologist (BLOOD and cancer doc) father, it is considered by some to be “overly dramatic” or “just a phase”. HE IS WRONG!!! Whenever I see blood and/or needles, I feel as if I am having an anxiety attack! My heart starts racing faster than it does during a soccer game, my palms get too sweaty to clench, my head starts to hurt because it makes me feel as if I am spinning, and my stomach is doing backflips as if it is also trying to get away from the horrendous sight of the long and slender needle that is about to puncture my skin and squirt fluids which will make my arms and legs sore after a few minutes. I am sixteen years old, both of my parents are doctors (one even specializing in blood disorders!), and still cannot have a syringe within a meter of my body without crying. And I don’t mean quietly weeping to myself. I mean clenching whoever’s arm is closest to me until it turns white and having to look away, because after I accidently kicked a pregnant woman giving me a shot when I was four my mother thought it best to numb any part of my body that may be pierced by those darn things, until the poor nurse having to watch this scene tells me that she is done and has already taken the box out.

I understand my fear of needles more than my fear of blood, or more specifically severe wounds. Whenever watching a scary or violent movie with my friends and someone has an anatomical part hacked off, my body has the same reaction as it does when I know I am going to be the syringe’s next victim, and when asked why, I can’t explain it. Perhaps it’s the knowledge that to have blood spewing out of a body some brute force had to have inflicted it, which immediately and subconsciously makes my mind and body try to avoid any circumstances in which I would be drawn to a similar situation. But who knows? I am not a psychiatrist and just came up with that theory while writing this blog (although it does sound relatively reasonable to me).

Hopefully, I will, as my dad so believes with such a passive attitude, outgrow these “silly” fears! In the meantime, I will rigorously avoid any shots (so far I have accomplished this feat by winning the debate with my parents on flu shots vs. mist), having my blood drawn, and/or watching movies that cause my sympathetic nervous system to kick in!