Anticipation

I'm very afraid of needles.

I will worry, shake, and not be able to think about anything else. I cry every time, no matter how hard I try not to. But I know it really doesn't hurt, and I calm down the second it's over. I know it doesn't hurt, I know it's over in a few seconds, and I know it's no big deal. I can't tell myself this, though, because no matter how I explain it in my head, it's still a piece of metal piercing a vein. The time spent thinking about that, the anticipation, is far worse than the injection itself.

Anticipation, good or bad, is often better than the thing you're anticipating. Thinking about something, building it up in your head, is in itself a horrible period of anxiety or elongated periods of happiness. Actual events that make you happy or sad don't last long, and after the memories of them persist, but they fade as time goes on. With anticipation, those feelings get stronger as time goes on and the anticipated event closes in. Good or bad, anticipation is seriously underestimated.

Love,
Juliana