Reaching way back into the past
I think it’s time for an Open Diary flashback, going all the way back to the turn of the last millennium. It was in this time when I was fighting an epic psychological battle against a situational phobia that had gripped me since childhood. This all came up again recently because I spent the last couple of months cleaning out an old office space in my basement. My ten+ year old desktop computer, along with loads of CDs and old hard disks, lay buried in a maelstrom of old junk. Luckily, that old PC still has drives that can read those ancient media storage devices. But, before I went about going thru all of that, I found a printed portion of one of my old OD writings. This spurred my search for the digitized version of these files, which I found on one of those hard disks. I could have re-opened this old diary, but I chose not to, instead I started a new one simply because I am at a far different point in my life.
I set about reading thru all of it, as well as various emails back and forth to one person in particular who had a huge hand in helping me over come this fear. This brought back all sorts of memories, some of them quite horrifying. While that phobia had its genesis in my childhood, there was a triggering event that finally motivated me to try and conquer it once and for all. It was not unlike this current diary where the genesis for my ongoing exploration was the fall of the Key Bridge. While that past event really only affected me (instead of me and tens of thousands of other people), it was every bit as monumental. I do not think I’m going to revisit all of those past entries, as I was able to defeat the phobia and so there is little point. However, I will perhaps make some updates as to how my life has gone with regards to events that would have once ignited abject terror. As well as maybe post some of the back and forth emails where I was received help to overcome my fear. The following is a copy of the incident that forced me to finally take action and confront my fears:
Type of phobia: Unknown
Description: Centers around medical situations only, not specific to any one object or thing. Does not cause me to avoid the source all together, but does cause unrelenting terror.
Situations: medical procedures that are out of the ordinary, i.e. – not regular check ups.
Most recent flare-up: Removal of a mole on August 2nd, 2000’
Key words that come to mind describing my mind-state during this event: Fathomless terror, imminent death from fear, can’t stand it any more, revulsion, psychological torture
My gut emotions and take on the event (as separated from my logical higher thought) “I’m trapped in a pit surrounded by hungry lions snapping and biting at me” “Doctor Terror’s House of Horrors.”
The real objective description of the event: “I am willingly laying in a chair in a surgical room while a doctor, assisted by a nurse, cuts an abnormal mole from my arm.”
Analogies: “I’m sticking my hand into a shark’s jaws to retrieve something that I desperately need”
I am running through a doorway ringed in flames to escape being burned up in the building”
“I’m diving into a slimy, murky, bottomless swamp to escape the deadly swarm of killer bees”
My feelings about doctors, nurses and other medical professionals:
Gut feelings: wolves in sheep’s clothes, predators lurking in ambush, vultures, all powerful authoritarians, keeper of the keys to Hell, Charon, the mythological boatman who takes souls across the Styx, river of death, blood-thirsty ghouls, torturers, dungeon masters, they are waiting for me and are going to get me.
Logical intellectual feelings: people who mean well, repairmen (and women), the keeper of the gate, helper, healer,
A breakdown of the actual feelings I had while enduring this event, regardless of actual circumstances:
I’m entering a dangerous place, something awful beyond my control will happen, I can’t escape their clutches, they have complete control over me and I can’t refuse and all I can do is deal with what they do to me, I won’t be able to stand what will be done to me, I’ll have this awful gruesome slash on my arm, he is hacking out part of my flesh.
An objective description of the exact event complete with my very subjective thoughts:
4:00 PM, August the 2nd, I arrive at the medical office where the procedure is to be performed. While sitting in my car in an adjacent parking lot I had moments earlier consumed a wine cooler, and now I was working on my second one. But alcohol’s normal effect of making me mellow wasn’t happening this time, when I needed it the most. I anxiously watched the clock in my car, ticking closer to 4:30, the hour of doom. Since I didn’t know where in the building to go exactly, I decided at 4:20 to make my move. My heart began to accelerate as I approached the lobby. Once inside I signed in, paid the balance, signing the check with shaky hand, and headed up stairs to room 208. As I entered the hallway I felt a confining feeling, like a rat unknowingly making for the dead end of a maze. I wanted to turn back so badly. To the left there was a door marked “laser room”. That gave me even more of the creeps. Then, to my right, there it was, room 208, the lair of the beast. The door had a sign with the word “surgery” and I stopped, turned and for a second began to make for the exit. Then I halted and retraced my original path to the room, realizing that it wouldn’t be wise to attempt an escape. Carefully I grasped the knob and slowly pulled the door open, being cautious not to cause it to creak. An unending corridor awash in that dreadful shade of hospital blue greeted me. Then my ears homed in on a “zapping” sound coming from the room to the immediate right. I crept forward, not wanting to be discovered, and I could just discern a pair of legs in a dentist-style chair that was fully reclined. The legs belonged to a man, judging by the slacks and shoes. The zapping continued, sounding similar to some sinister Tesla Coil-like device from the original Frankenstein movie. I didn’t want to see what was producing the noise. On the wall, thankfully out of view of the beast that wielded the electric torture device, was a plastic file holder, and I quietly dropped my paperwork and card into it. The waiting room was just to my left, again thankfully out of sight. I sat stiffly and attempted to read an article in a magazine, but my mind had one preoccupation: escape. Now’s the chance, I thought, they haven’t seen me yet. I can still leave and just call and say I hit bad traffic. But I then realized that I had already signed in, paid and there was no way I could get away now. So there I sat, hands trembling, muscles ready to battle or flee, energy coursing through my every cell and nerve, my stomach knotted and my mouth full of cotton. Then the slacks-wearing victim passing by the door of the waiting room and escaping into the labyrinth of the medical building lifted me out of my dread-riddled stupor. My heart received a sudden jolt when I caught a glimpse of the doctor as he exited the torture chamber, followed by the nurse. I still hadn’t been spotted, this was my last chance to make a run for it. But before I could adequately consider that ill-advised notion a voice drew me to its source. “Which arm was it where I took that thing off?” the doctor asked as he slunk towards me, just out side of the relative safety of the waiting room. I found that the proverbial cat had indeed seized my tongue and I simply pointed to the spot on my right upper arm. He nodded and re-entered the chamber, leaving me alone for a while. Now I was in their grasp, having been marked. At this point I could barely contain my desire to burst forth and run like hell to my car far out in the parking lot below. “Hello, come with me.” Another voice belonging to the nurse entered my ears, and ended that escape notion. I reluctantly stood and followed her. The doctor re-appeared, and perhaps he said something to me, I don’t remember what. I looked at him and said in a cracking voice, “I’m really, really scared.” “Don’t be scared.” He replied calmly as he vanished into another room. I went with the nurse into the house of pain, a small surgical room hued in ghastly medical blue just like the rest of the place. Both the nurse and the doctor were dressed in scrubs dyed the same fearsome tint. They also had hairnets on. I was shaking so bad I couldn’t stand it now, and everything the nurse said slipped unprocessed through my brain as I furiously tried to figure out how to elude what I knew was coming up soon. I think that she asked me a few questions, like what was I allergic to, if anything, and she said she needed my plan card again. I told her that whoever I talked to on the phone last week to schedule the appointment got me really frightened. I even told her that I had had some wine but that it was doing no good at all. She replied that I had talked to her, and wanted to know what she said that so terrified me. I said what she described, all the cutting, stitches and a long time to do it got me very nervous. She replied that I should have called her back if I was concerned and had questions. I stood there as she filled out a form, reiterating how afraid I was, like a condemned prisoner begging for his life at the gallows. Next she approached me with a blood pressure cuff, and I said that she must have been kidding, wanting to take my pressure at such a time! I remarked that it would be rather high. She took the reading and it confirmed what I already knew: “Yes, it’s a bit high.” She said. Then the time was drawing nigh. She asked me to lie down in the chair of horror. A second later she explained that she had to put this electrode pad on my leg to ground me so the doctor could use the cauterizing tool if there was bleeding. I nearly blanched at the thought, exclaiming, “Oh no! Don’t tell me I have to smell burning flesh!” She didn’t answer right away, but then said something to the effect that the doctor might not even have to use it and she didn’t think I’d smell it anyway. Then she briefly left the room, calling out into the hallway inquiring of the doctor if he was ready. She summoned the executioner. Without any hesitation he appeared in the chamber, and by now my nerves were singing like a tuning fork, a high-pitched tremor echoing across my entire anatomy. It was all I could do to remain still as everything the doctor did by the second just ramped up my dreadful anticipation. With the nurse’s help he shrugged on a plastic suit, of that horrid blue, an outfit well suited to butchering a hog. Then of course came the standard gloves. I could see visions off blood dripping from a massive gash in my arm, splattering all over that plastic and clotting on his gloved hands. From my vulnerable vantage point I could see the doctor looming over me, and I had quite a good view of his crooked teeth as he spoke. He was an older man, in his 60’s I would assume. I guess it was like noticing the tattoo on the robber who holds you up. By now the nurse had taken up a position by my left side. She briefly grasped my left hand, but let go when she realized that the doctor was only marking on my skin where he would cut. Then came the needle, and as he pierced my flesh again and again with it the nurse had then returned and squeezed my left hand, perhaps to reassure me. With each consecutive needle stick I felt less and less, and a second later just a pressure. Next came a faint stinging, like a paper cut, and I looked at the nurse and mumbled that I could feel him cutting. The doctor was apparently absorbed in his work and didn’t notice my plea, so the nurse said “Dr. Adams, she can feel it.” At that point he looked up and then injected more of the anesthetic into the wound, and the sensation subsided. Then I felt the distinctive snipping of scissors cutting out the affected section of skin. My stomach lurched. “The cutting part’s all over now.” He looked at me and said. I felt little relief, knowing what was to come. He blotted the wound, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a deep crimson stain on the spent gauze pad. “There’s a little bleeding here.” He remarked, and then I heard the Tesla coil buzzing as he singed the severed blood vessel with the cauterizing tool. Thankfully there was no odor. Then the stainless steel glint of the curved needle flashed before my peripheral vision, and the final terror began. I could feel no pain, but the sensation of every jab of the needle as it cleanly penetrated my flesh, and the pulling of the thread cut into my dwindling sanity. I was gasping shallow breaths, staring unblinking at the random patterns stamped into the acoustic ceiling tile as the edge of my vision beheld the needle, thread, and my ears so close to the scissors clipping the thread. My brow began exuding copious sweat as chills shot up and down my body, and I could discern that the room was beginning to dim noticeably. Nausea grasped my gut as the unbearable pall came over me. “If I was sitting up, I would be passed out by now.” I stammered, looking at the nurse. “Don’t do that.” She answered, taking one look at my face. “Look over here, at that hanger on the door, don’t look at what he’s doing.” She added. I was fading fast, but the next thing I know the nurse had placed a cold wet rag on my forehead. She gently wiped my face with another damp cloth to try and keep me conscious. “Take a deep breath, breath in and out, real deep.” She told me as she continued to sponge the icy sweat from my head and face. I tried to do as she said but I could barely expand my lungs for even a brief moment. “We’d give you some wine if we had any.” The nurse smiled and jokingly said, and the doctor laughed and agreed. I felt kind of ashamed that I had not been able to “take it”, and I told the doctor that I used to do taxidermy work and knew exactly what he was doing to my arm because that was how a taxidermist cuts out flaws in an animal hide. He then told me about a taxidermist he knew, and the conversation distracted me sufficiently that I was able to endure the remainder to the procedure without fainting. Finally he announced that it was over, and I let out the biggest sigh of relief, I felt like a snake that had been crushing my chest for the past half hour just let go. The nurse then bandaged the wound and helped me to my feet. I could barely walk without staggering, and she had me sit for a few minutes in the waiting room until she was sure I was OK. Then she gave me a card for the next appointment to have the stitches removed next week, and I was free! Still shaking, I made my way as rapidly as possible without running, exited the hellhole and leapt into my car, leaving a little rubber in the driveway as I peeled out onto Roscoe Boulevard. Free at last and I fled all the way home.
Afterthoughts: I keep wondering why that situation inspired so much horror. The doctor and nurse weren’t beasts or ogres, quite the contrary. They were about as scary as someone’s grandparents, yet I was thrust into black terror as though they were inquisitors torturing me. And still I trembled at the sight of the doctor coming down the hall towards me. In fact, that night I even had a nightmare where I could see the doctor, and I knew he was concocting a really horrific procedure to perform on me, but mercifully I awoke before he was able to do it. But neither one acted in a callous, cruel or indifferent manner, actually they both seemed sympathetic to the fact that I was scared half to death. The procedure itself generated little pain, and when the doctor realized that he didn’t have it fully numbed he gave me more of the local anesthetic. In retrospect it was not a horrible procedure, yet to me I felt as though I had faced and battled a savage beast.