Battling Phobias

I’ve had anxiety for as long as I can remember. I remember having anxiety in kindergarten. I was convinced my teacher hated me, and dreaded going to school. There’s never been a time in my life, that I can remember, that I wasn’t anxious. Ever.

Along with this generalized anxiety, I’ve also had phobias from a young age. At some point in my early childhood, I became phobic of using the phone. I used to talk to my dad on the phone all the time, but he called me. It was making phone calls that was fear-inducing. My heart would pound just dialing the number of a school friend. By the time I was in my teens, I’d bribe people to make calls for me. Ordering food? I’ll pay if you call! Forget making appointments. I have to rehearse what I’m going to say, and often put off the call for days or weeks. Except, on good days, I can remember that I need to make a call, pick up and dial like a regular person. No rehearsal or heart palpitations involved. At one point I had so many “good days” that I was able to take a job that required making calls. I thought I was starting to get over this one, but recently it’s flared up so badly that I’m months behind on calls and appointments I need to make. I don’t have the slightest idea why I’m petrified of making calls. There’s no logical explanation, no traumatic event that led to it. It’s just always been there, a paralyzing fear that keeps me from functioning normally.

But there is hope, as there always is, even when it doesn’t feel like it. After many, many years of being extremely phobic of having blood drawn, this Saturday I will donate blood for the second time.

This phobia has roots, and I have always known what they are. When I was a baby, I developed a seizure disorder, inherited from my mother. The doctors put me on seriously toxic anticonvulsants and I had blood drawn weekly to make sure they weren’t killing my liver. My mom would make my dad take me for these draws due to the fact that they could never hit my vein. My mother couldn’t handle watching me shriek in pain as they poked me again and again. My first seizure was at six months old, my last at four years old. That’s a whole lotta blood draws. And a whole lotta trauma. After that lengthy experience, I was so terrified of having blood drawn that I would start shaking and vomiting at the mere mention of the procedure. Contracting mononucleosis at ten years old was a fun experience. I threw up on the floor when the emergency room Doc said a blood draw would be needed to confirm the diagnosis. And so it went, every time I was sick or needed routine checkups. Shaking, sweating, puking, crying, long before the needle got anywhere near me.

Then, when I was twenty-one, I got pregnant with my first child. My doctor handed me the script for all the necessary blood work and I walked into the lab, put out my arm, turned my head away, and had my blood taken. No vomiting included. My love for the tiny baby in my belly somehow trumped my fear. It just stopped. Like a switch flipping off. I went for blood work multiple times throughout my pregnancy, and never once did I puke. I may have still shook a bit. By the time I got pregnant with my second, I didn’t even shake. Unfortunately, that pregnancy ended almost as quickly as it began, requiring many blood draws in just a few days to figure out what was going on. But my phobia did not return. My next pregnancy was healthy and required only routine blood work, but the baby after that had it out for me. I was so sick during that pregnancy that I kept ending up in the emergency room. So many needles and blood draws, yet my phobia did not return. Even when I was so severely dehydrated that two nurses couldn’t hit my vein and the pain was so intense that I was screaming and clutching at my husband, my phobia did not return. Even when my arms carried bruises four inches long, my phobia did not return.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that only light can drive out darkness. For me, personally, it’s true. The love and light that my children have brought me drove the darkness of my phobia right out of my mind. This weekend, I’ll pass a little of that light on to someone experiencing a dark time, in the form of my blood donation. It’s the least I can do.