Sharing what’s helped you is a huge kindness and that’s exactly what Jenna did on our post about Sarah’s needle phobia.
Jenna left a wonderful comment explaining her own experience and some suggestions to help Sarah.
“I have white coat hypertension and I’m not good with needles either. I used to faint when having blood taken or afterwards and the last vaccines years ago when I was a child I remembered fainting.
I once had a lovely nurse who reassured me I’d be ok having blood taken if it was taken while I lied down and stayed lying down. She was right! She also used the phrase ‘give me your arm, let me have control.’ This upped my confidence for future times as I knew what worked for me, this was a huge confidence boost. I hope using therapy you can work out what helps put you in control a little too!
Fast forward to my covid vaccine and I was really scared of fainting, plus I had to have this in a foreign country, not speaking much of the language. If I was in the UK I’d have made sure someone was with me but that wasn’t possible. I kept focussing on each moment, I did a mindfulness course last year which really helped with this and I really found calm by not thinking further ahead. I hope that helps give you a few ideas. You can do this Sarah!”