CEO of Otasune

are you gonna be weird about feeding tubes? are you gonna ask invasive questions about catheters and ostomy bags? can you cope with seeing someone give themselves an injection? could you walk up to someone with a tracheostomy and talk to them? how about someone with a central line?

please don't harass this person but lots of responses like this, lots like this specifically about the injection part. and here's what i have to say about it:

being squeamish is not the same as having a medical need. being uncomfortable is not the same as having a medical need. and furthermore, being uncomfortable or squeamish is not the same as having a phobia.

in the nicest way possible... if other people's medical needs make you squeamish or uncomfortable, that's something that you need to learn to cope with. this post is asking you to do one thing: be normal to people with medical devices/needs. and yeah if you can't be normal to someone with a medical device that makes you a little uncomfortable, that is something that you need to work on.

and the way to do that, as some other people have pointed out under this post, is exposure. the solution to being squeamish or uncomfortable around medical devices is not to avoid people with medical devices/needs or treat them differently, it's actually to be exposed to them more.

and that's not always easy, some medical devices are not common to see in public, but like... do some research? google is cool? look at some pictures? wikipedia is awesome? there are large communities of people with these medical devices educating about them on various social media platforms?

phobias are different. phobias are a type of anxiety disorder. they're not uncommon, but they are generally considered to be highly treatable! if you have a genuine phobia of needles or some other medical device, that's a different situation than being squeamish or uncomfortable. but it's still a situation that needs to be managed without mistreating other people with those medical devices.

it's okay to feel uncomfortable without it being a phobia. uncomfortable is not a life threatening experience. delaying a medically necessary injection could be. when i said can you cope with seeing an injection, that was intentional phrasing. you can be uncomfortable, but can you cope with that discomfort?

we're not asking you to do anything ridiculous. just be normal about medical devices. be normal when you meet people with medical devices. we're sick of being treated like we're contagious!!