Having a lot of trouble with my shots

[meatwagon]

Not with the needles themselves, but with me.  I keep getting really psyched out about my shots, and I feel like it's been getting worse and worse in the past few months.  I'll just sit there moving the needle back and forth like i'm preparing to stick it in, but I get too nervous at the last second and stop.  This can go on for an hour or so some days.  I used to be able to take my shots in only a few minutes.  I don't know what happened.  Even the times I've messed it up haven't been that bad, so it shouldn't logically scare me so much, especially when I've been doing it every week for well over a year.  What's going on and how do I stop getting nervous?  I try talking to people, lighting incense, listening to music, etc and it's always so hard.  It should get easier over time, not harder.  It didn't used to bother me like this.  I am really confused and upset tbh...

[jill610]

Hi there, I have experienced something like this as well but maybe not to the same extent. I find that when the anxiety starts climbing, just putting it down and coming back in a few minutes or an hour is enough.

For me the anxiety was caused because I passed out on two different occasions because my blood pressure dropped too low and I have very low BP to begin with. So I was getting anxious about that happening again, so I changed the venue where I do my injection and learned to not do it when there was any anxiousness at all.

Maybe this helps but if you can't get past it maybe consider going to your gp to have them do it? Or a topic for the therapist.

[meatwagon]

I still need to find a new therapist since mine left a while back, but if it persists, I will bring it up with the new one.  Putting it down and coming back to it might help, thank you. 

[skipulus]

I'm curious as to how it is going and have you tried meditation?

[meatwagon]

I would love to say things are going better, but they're really not. 
I don't really have the time or quiet space to attempt meditation.  I was doing better with my shots the past couple of weeks, but today I'm back to being unable to do it again and I don't know why.  I'm under a lot of stress, so I'm sure that's not helping.  I cannot relax at all, no matter what I do.  I wish I had someone else to come do this for me, because I desperately need to go to sleep but I can't go to bed until it's done.  I'm so sick of this always happening.  Going to try getting up and walking around for a while, though I've already taken a break once and it didn't help.  I wish I knew why it was like this, especially since it didn't used to be. 
I've tried talking to my friend about it, that actually made it worse.  I've tried saving something nice for myself as a reward, but incentives don't make any difference.  I try listening to music to keep my mind off it, but since I still have to watch what I'm doing carefully, it doesn't always help.  And I have not yet spoken to a therapist, as the one I was trying to get in touch with hasn't replied to me and I haven't had the time to hunt down another one. 

[skipulus]

Mindfulness meditation only takes a few minutes and it can centre your mind in the now which reduces anxiety.
Just google it, there are thousands of free mindfulness exercises.
Anxiety is caused by the mind wandering into the future and mindfulness works on focusing the mind in the present.
You can even do it as the first step in administering the injection.

I think that what may be happening is that your resolve is frayed.
Even though the injection doesn't really hurt and it doesn't really cause discomfort it is still a trial and you need to steel yourself to stick a needle in you.
After a while, that can build up until it tips over a level or limit and then the minds resolve lapses.
Something like taking a plaster off is relatively painless but if you need to do it multiple times then it starts to wear thin and at some point, it can become too much.
Needing to do this weekly is quite frequent and it starts to make that day of the week connected with this action. So you may actually start to dread the next one right after you complete each injection.

There can be other challenges in your life that are causing anxiety making this be the "last straw".

I notice you seem to be doing the shots in the evening. In the evening you will be more tired and whatever challenges you faced in the day can build up making it much harder to do this. You may even dread this the whole day so when you finally start you are already really anxious.
It may help to do this in the morning or midday instead.