Crying Shame

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A week ago, I found myself sitting in a small phlebotomy room at the back of my doctor’s office. Had you been a fly on the wall, this is what you would have observed: On one side of me stood a young nurse holding a hollow needle and a glass tube with a brown rubber stopper. On the other side stood my doctor, a jovial gray-haired fellow. My left hand limply grasped the doctor’s right middle and index fingers. I was weeping.

“Squeeze them,” he said, as the nurse plunged the needle into my arm. “Squeeze them as hard as you need to.” Behind his voice lurked desperation. “You’re not squeezing. Go ahead and squeeze!” Presumably he was referring to his fingers. But I didn’t want to squeeze. I wanted to die. I wanted the doctor to go away and leave me alone with my misery. I wanted the torture to end. I wanted the floor to open up and swallow the whole goddamn lab.

The needle was in and it hurt. The bloodletting was taking forever. I began to hyperventilate. Dr. Feelgood tried another tack. “Can you count to five in Spanish?” he asked. I can. In fact, I’m fluent in Spanish. But that moment seemed like a bad time for a language lesson. “Not right now,” I replied. The good doctor could not be dissuaded. He began to sing. “Uno, dos, tres amigos. Cuatro, cinco, seis amigos!”

For those who don’t know, “Uno, Dos, Tres Amigos” is a children’s song popular with the five and under crowd. I am thirty-three. If I hadn’t been sobbing, I might have laughed. Finally the needle came out. The doctor disappeared. The nurse apologized. I fished a crumpled tissue out of my pocket and wiped my wet cheeks and nose. And then I got the hell out of there.

You may have gathered by now that I have an extreme fear of needles, a disorder known as belonephobia.Yes, it’s an actual condition, recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Needles terrify me. I don’t know why. They just do. According to one paper, three-quarters of people who have this phobia tend to faint. I tend not to faint, although I did once after my science teacher pricked my finger (we were studying blood types). My phobia manifests itself as panic. My heart races and my breathing becomes ragged and erratic. My veins, I’ve been told, go into hiding. I weep inconsolably.

What I have learned as a belonephobe is that most people aren’t equipped to deal with a crying adult. So when I need to get a shot or give blood, I try to hold it together. Usually I fail. But my point is this: For me, crying is not a choice. It’s an involuntary physiological response. If you beg me to stop crying, as the nurse did last week before shouting for backup, I can’t comply.

If I could avoid crying, I would. It’s embarrassing. My mascara runs. And my face turns pink and splotchy. These splotches last for hours. I don’t want to cry any more than you want to see me cry. Believe me, both of us wish this weren’t happening.

In 2009, a group of researchers reviewed the literature to find out what therapies, if any, can help people with needle and blood phobias. They found just five randomized-controlled trials — all published by the same group of researchers. One of the therapies, called applied tension, combines exposure therapy with repeated tensing and releasing of different muscles, a technique called tension therapy that is designed to raise blood pressure. Studies have also tested exposure therapy alone, tension therapy alone, and something called applied relaxation, a combination of exposure therapy and relaxation therapy. The results were far from conclusive.  The authors found the studies too varied and complex to deem any one treatment superior to another.

Here’s what works for me — nothing. Or maybe that’s not quite true. Sometimes it helps if everyone pretends I’m not crying. I like my nurses matter-of-fact, but not brusque. I like to be distracted, but only in an age-appropriate manner. Please, please don’t sing. Don’t treat me like a child. Don’t force me to grasp your fingers. Don’t ask me to squeeze them. Talk to me like an adult. Because I am an adult. I’m an adult who is terrified of needles. And there’s no shame in that.

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Image credit: Wikimedia commons

6 thoughts on “Crying Shame

  1. Wow. I feel bad for you that getting blood drawn is so terrifying. But you tell your story so evocatively that it’s actually quite entertaining. I hope your doctor’s visits are few and far between, now and in the future.

  2. Oh lady, that sucks! Ditto the “few and far between remark.” It never ceases to amaze me how ill-equipped medical personnel generally are when human emotion enters the equation. You’re awesome for 1. hanging in there and 2. writing so well and openly about it. I wanted to just give you a huge hug the whole time! (Or, perhaps, several shots of the in an ounce-sized glass variety).

    I had pretty bad feelings about needles for a long, long time. Then began several years of weekly allergy shots and, maybe it just broke me down, not sure!

  3. When my 7 year old daughter had her booster injection the nurse gave me the “Well Done” sticker!
    And I know it has nothing to do with bravery because I have a friend who is a bomb disposal officer but if you even mention needles he has a tendency to go v pale and faint.

  4. Oh dear how awful. I fear I m,ay have very similar or same condition. My recent trip to emergency room called for immediate iv antibiotics. I hate needles I often cry and this time I was stuck no less than six times by nurses each botched attempt to get an iv in resulted in more
    promises that theyd get a vein next time and yet each one failed and the site moved to another position. I realized I could loose my finger if I didn’t get the antibiotics, that’s what the surgeon told me but, Following the last attempt on the underside of my wrist I had become hysterical. Finally they called in an anaesthetist do the job which he did quickly and painlessly…in first time. So Why on earth I had to go through all that first…!

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