Throughout childhood, I had to get at least one shot and one blood draw per year and the occasional IV. I would start getting scared at least a week before I knew one of those was going to happen.
A needle counselor had given me a backpack of special toys that I only got to play with leading up to and during a needle procedure. I think those might have made it worse. Playing with those let me know that it was time to be scared.
I tried using a numbing cream for a while, but that contributed to the anticipation as well. Eventually I stopped using it.
During the procedures, I would cry and scream and hide my arms. My mom would have to hold me in place. Once, I realized that the corner of the room provided the least access to my arms, so I ran over there and crouched down and held my arms back as far into the corner as I could push them. One time, when I was maybe 12, I screamed so loudly the nurse had to cover her ears. I was proud of myself then, although the terror was still the more prevalent emotion; I had managed to delay the event that I usually had no control over, so my strategy had effectively achieved the goal. I never got out of eventually being poked, though.
As a teenager, the crying and screaming was replaced by crying and hyperventilating and shaking. I handled it a bit better, but it was still an ordeal of building up the courage to sit still and let the nurse do the procedure. It helped when my mom wasn’t there; when she was there, I illogically felt embarrassed to act differently than I did as a kid; I never wanted her to see when things about me changed.
As an adult, I’ve learned to handle shots. I still get fairly anxious when it’s about to happen, but it helps if the nurse talks me through it and I don’t look.
Blood draws are still pretty hard, though. Even more than the pain of it (which isn’t good pain – no masochism there), I hate the idea that there is a piece of metal inside my arm that is NOT SUPPOSED to be there. After blood draws, the nurses always congratulate me for handling it better than most patients by holding so still. Yeah! Because I’m terrified that if I move, that needle is going to stab OTHER things inside my arm!
Since I started exploring BDSM, I’ve been curious about whether I could change my perspective on needle procedures. Maybe I could talk myself into thinking of it as practicing submission through fear. And maybe I could look at the pain and fear objectively; maybe I could explore them in the same way I’ve explored other types of pain recently. I haven’t had needed any shots or blood draws lately, though.
However, as I was going through some boxes, I found my old blood sugar testing kit. My doctor wanted me to test my blood sugar for a few weeks when I was a teenager. My mom told me I had to do it, so I sat on the couch for maybe half an hour crying and trying to push the darn button that would make the little needle shoot out and prick my finger. Eventually, I accidentally did it. Maybe because I was trembling enough to trigger the button. My blood sugar level was totally normal, which I made sure my mom knew. I didn’t do any more blood sugar testing after that. The ordeal was too much.
But when I found the kit, I thought I might like to try it again. So I could prove to myself I could do it now. And to study the pain I’d been so scared of.
As I set up the needle device and washed my finger, it didn’t seem like too big a deal. I would just put it up to my finger and push the button. But I couldn’t do it. I would put it on my finger, then think about what I was doing, and I couldn’t convince myself to do it. I would imagine what it would feel like and would be horrified that I was about to put metal inside me and make myself bleed.
I kept trying for 15 minutes or so. I tried to tell myself to do it on “three,” but I would say “one” and lose courage. I washed a part on my arm to see if I could try it there, but I couldn’t do it there either.
I took it off my arm and pushed the button in the air a few times. I couldn’t even see the needle come out. It seemed like a little less of a big deal then.
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| Blood drops not proportional to fear experienced to get them. |
The device has a range of seven depth settings. I’d started on the shallowest one, but turned it up to 2 and tried again. I think it finally drew blood on my arm at level 3. By 4, it made my finger hurt, but not my arm. I went up to 7 on my arm before it hurt a bit. It was so empowering to keep pushing the button and watching the blood and to not feel fear. Between my fingers and my arm, I probably did it about fifteen times.
The needle pricks hardly hurt at all. I had remembered that it didn’t hurt when I was a teenager, but that hadn’t made my fear less now. I think I’m more scared of the idea of needles than I am of any sort of pain.
I was surprised at the amount of fear I had when I actually tried to use the needle. That fear doesn’t leave much room for imagining submission situations.
I don’t know if being able to poke my fingers and arms like this will help me handle other needle procedures; the other needles hurt more and go deeper and have more pre-poke rituals designed to increase anticipation and fear (or to increase sterility, but it depends on your point of view).
But I’m pretty excited that I was able to overcome a needle situation from my past; it caused so much fear then, but tonight I was able to do it several times until the fear was completely gone. It makes me feel powerful within myself. In my triumph, I can shout, “Ha! Take THAT needlephobia!”
