Smears/ internal exams - i'm terrified

[Biscuits4Cheese]

I'm late 20s and never had a smear.
Am roughly mid cycle, last few days i've had bloody discharge. Not much but smears and spots, some fresh blood colour, some brownish.
I realise i probably need to go to the gp but thinking this has made me face the fact that i am petrified of internals/ smears
I honestly feel like i'm going to vomit, i'm crying ffs.
I dont know why i feel like this but it cant just be me can it?, how do i get past this? Is there an alternative?

Have to sort out bath time. So any replies, i'm not ignoring, will be back.

Have to sort out bath time. So any replies, i'm not ignoring, will be back.

could you go to a family palnning clinic, for some reason I am not keen on having my smear done by the same nurse who give's dd her flu jab, so i go to the family planning clinic, it always seems very fiendly and efficient there.
have you got a friend who could go with you(and wait outside of course)

I know exactly what you are feeling and going through. I was in exactly the same situation as you about 2 years ago. I was petrified, just the thought of taking my knickers off made me feel sick. I went to the nurse and explained how I felt and left untouched and hysterical in tears. She didnt make me feel any better whatsoever.

But then I just found the strength from somewhere and decided to have it done. I must say it wasnt half as bad as I thought it would be, still not nice but definately not painful and not embarrassing either.

Just want to say, I know what you are going through, dont give yourself a hard time over it, just decide it need to be done.

Can you write down exactly what you are afraid of? (Either on MN or on a bit of paper at home.)
Is it:
nudity? Body image issues?
having a stranger look at your bits?
the idea it might hurt?
lack of dignity?

If you can analyse what it is, then you are half way there to overcoming the issue.

I think you could help yourself with some visualisation techniques- instead of feeling "invaded" by the procedure, think of it as helping you- and a good thing.

Tell us why it frightens you so much?

Try thinking about it this way.

Would you really rather die that take your pants off in front of an experienced nurse? Is it so bad for you that you would be happy to leave your children motherless? If it is you need to get some help to deal with it - counselling or maybe just valium for the smear. If it's not that bad you must go.

I found I felt a bit better about this sort of thing after talking to my SIL who is a GP. When she talks about being on the other side of it, ie. having to look & touch other people's various yukky bits, I can put myself more into her/a nurse's position. Thinking about doing this maybe 20 times a day (or more?) made me realise I am nothing special, they won't be particularly interested in exactly how I look, or even how "clean" or how "tidy" I am. And in fact docs/nurses have to deal with much nastier things than a normal fanjo!!

And of course as ThingOne said, I'd rather not die/get very ill/have much worse treatment so I decided to just get on with it. A bit like blood tests and injections.

Another thing that has helped me is that each time I have gone and done it, it hasn't been as bad as I've been expecting, the nurse has been very gentle, and I've gone away feeling quite proud of myself.

I did also find, like others have said in other threads, that various aspects related to giving birth have made a simple smear seem positively gentle! I have to say that having my waters broken when not in labour was much worse!

HTH, you'll be fine!