Haemophobia

The phobia of blood.

I'm fairly sure it started when I was a kid, I remember walking in to town with my mother and brother and I remember smelling something very distinct before we came to the main road. As we got there, there was an old man who'd been hit by a car. I don't remember seeing any blood but the smell has stuck with me and is something I don't think I'll ever forget.

It fully manifested as a teen when I went to get blood taken. I'm not scared of the needles, I don't look and I can barely feel it. But when they attach those lil suction vials and you hear it rushing with blood? And you feel that weird pull in your veins? I wake up on the floor anywhere between 1-3 minutes later.

I'm fine with it in movies because I know it isn't real but as soon as it's a real life scenario, I need to remove myself immediately (and/or sit my ass down exactly where I'm standing). Sometimes even talking about the subject with friends can make me very queasy and we have to change the subject.

I'm spewing all of this out because i'm at a point in my life where I'm trying to decide what I want to do and caring for people keeps popping up. For the last year or so I cared for a couple of family friends, F&M (87+). I thoroughly enjoyed going to visit them daily, making them dinner and doing some chores that they find hard/time consuming. Seeing the direct impact I was making on their quality of life was rewarding in so many different ways that I decided I'd like to try and follow a career path being a carer and eventually a nurse.

And that's where the phobia comes in. It makes me laugh when I think about it because it seems silly wanting to be a nurse when I suffer from something completely irrational that could very much affect the career path I want to take. Have any of you broached a subject like this with your doctor? I'm not really sure how to do it.

I know it's not something super serious but it's something I would like to address. Thank you!