Fun with Phobias

At this moment, I am sitting at my desk at work, dizzy, finding it hard to catch my breath, and wiping tears from my eyes. I've been this way for about half an hour, since I got off the phone with my mom. She didn't give me bad news - not in the way you may be thinking, anyway - and we didn't get into a fight. I didn't injure myself, and no one close to me is in any pain or danger.

I looked up the surgery I am going to get in a few months, and I am ready to completely lose it.

I'm not going into detail about it because a) it's not life-threatening and who wants to hear about it if it's not going to be exciting? and b) I'm going to fucking lose it even more if I start typing out what they're going to do.

I don't know why I have such a deep rooted fear of anticipated pain. I mean, no one is thrilled to find out they need surgery or a shot or whatever, but they're capable of dealing with it like civilized, rational adults. They don't break down two months before the procedure. They don't Google for more information on it and then freak out when they find first hand accounts of worst case scenarios. You'd think someone as self-aware and screwed up as I am would know not to go looking for this shit, but there you have it. Phobias are, by definition, irrational fears, and I'm about as irrational as it gets when it comes to this.

That's not to say that I haven't been able to overcome it in some situations. When Abby collapsed senior year, I was in her hospital room for the majority of each her stays. I saw her bruised forearms and IV needles that had to be inserted and reinserted and adjusted. I was there every time they had to give her an injection or blood test. But I was so overwhelmed with Is she okay? Is she going to be okay? pounding in my ears over and over again that I didn't even think about the needles.

I felt downright selfish, in fact, when a nurse came in to take her blood, and Abby looked at me, vague-eyed and pale, and said, "Jana, turn around." My inability to deal with needles was so overwhelming that even if her mostly-unconscious state, Abby mustered her last bit of remaining strength to warn me.

"I'm okay," I said, still numb. I'm pretty sure I forced myself to watch, but nothing was really registering at that point other than Is she okay? Is she going to be okay?

The closest thing I'd ever been to being angry at Alec in eight years of best-friendship was when he was screwing around with a drink straw from an orange juice container, flipped my wrist over, and pretended to jam the straw into my forearm. I don't remember if I screamed at him or ran out of the room or what, but I have a very vivid memory of it happening.

It's not something that comes up often enough in my life that I really feel like I should do about it. I mean, it's not like I'm afraid of meeting new people or speaking in public or making left hand turns. I rarely have to get injections, I absolutely refuse to get a flu shot, and I've never broken a bone in my entire life.

I wish there were some traumatic experience in my life I could just talk out with a psychologist and get out of my system, so I can function again. But I don't remember anything other than my dentist being particularly mean (He made me beg him to drill my teeth so I wouldn't have to get braces later in life; I didn't know until I was much older that those two things weren't even remotely related.). The only time I was ever deathly sick was before I could remember.

The closest thing I can think of that could be a reason for my fear of needles is the lie adults tell. Not the one about Santa or the Easter Bunny and not the one about the car not starting unless you had a seatbelt on (although I think I'm the only one that's gotten that). Adults always say that it doesn't hurt. You won't feel it. It'll just be a pinch. METAL IS BEING SHOVED INTO YOUR SKIN AND MUSCLE. Sure, it's not the hysteria-inducing trauma I perceive it to be, but there's no way around the FACT that it does hurt.

As part of my Counseling in Communicative Disorders class, I have to either write an 8-10 research paper or I have to go to four counseling sessions and write my responses to those sessions. I was really looking forward to writing the paper - honestly - but I might as well kill two birds with one stone.

I just don't look forward to walking into a room with a stranger and then bursting into tears.