Trypanophobia

I have been trypanophobic for as long as I can remember. I can't stand injections. I really can't.

Trypanphobia is basically the fear of injections - and I am truly terrified of them. I constantly get bullied and teased by it, and even those who should know best, those supposed nurses and doctors and medical professional personnel, think I'm a wimp.

I don't think I'm a wimp for being scared of injections - you would too if you were me, and, anyway, there are a lot more pathetic things to be scared of.

When I was little, I spent a little time in hospital, and an operation is inevitable in the near future. But, I'm not scared of hospitals. Sure, I don't really like them, nobody does, but I'm not scared of them.

Operations creep me out a little, especially considering 4000 people die in Australia alone simply because of operation errors, stupid things like leaving tools in a patient's body! You'd think they'd notice a big silver metallic thing amongst the blood, but, obviously not...
I'm also not thrilled about the idea of anesthesic awareness, which is a scarily common thing where anesthesia doesn't work, and you're paralyzed but you feel everything. And if you aren't paralyze, doctors inject you with shit that does make you paralyzed, and then convince you afterwards you just had a nightmare and, if that doesn't work, beg and grovel and bribe you not to sue and keep your mouth shut.

It's a lovely society we live in these days.

But back to needles. I can't stand it. I just think it's so crude to jab shit into people, in this day and age and in our world of such advanced technology. It's so barbaric.
I'm also not so crazy about the pain - I can't stand it. Other pain I can deal with, but not needles. It's because it's the only physical pain another person inflicts on me - other pain is just the shit my body goes through. But to willingly inject someone is just sick.
It's not the blood - it's the idea, the whole concept of injections, the pain, and the endless bullying, trauma and general unkindness I've learned to associate with needles.

Everyone is so unsympathetic - wimp, loser, baby, crybaby, mummy's girl - I've heard it all before. Medical staff are a little more classy, and bitchy, with their vocabulary - uncooperative, impudent, immature, disruptive, even cheeky - but what's so cheeky about a five year old girl who's just come out of hospital being scared of needles? Maybe if I had gotten the support I needed my phobia wouldn't be so bad.
And I can't trust people about to inject me at all. 'This won't hurt a bit' is one phrase that means, in my head 'It's going to hurt like death ten times over' and they threaten me, embarass me, humiliate me in front of all my classmates, and then call me a crybaby. One nurse even told me to shut up when I started crying.

And then MW - the fat idiot who goes to my school - teased me endlessly about it - and he still does. At my old school, we had pins to denote whether we were student councillors or whatever, and the boys would take off their pins and corner me, shoving them near my face and waving them in front of my eyes, or grab my wrists and poke my arm with them. And I was screaming, terrified, and the teachers just said 'don't be such a baby' and to 'stop making so much noise'. What the fuck? Well maybe I'll get something you're scared to bits about and wave it in front of your face. Is it snakes? Well I'll grab a bloody python and shove it up your arse. I'm not scared of snakes, and I don't give a fuck whether you're scared of needles or not. I am. And I'm not ashamed of that.

People don't understand that people can die from trypanophobia - there's a syndrome called VVS, when the sudden plunge in blood pressure, which is a learned response to needles and injection related-trauma, that kills several people each year. My phobia has become so severe that I literally have to be forced to get injections and blood tests, and I scream the whole time. It's not funny.

But everyone seems to think it is.