My hands shake and I cannot line it up

Started 19 October 2025 · 17 replies · 149 hearts · read 2.3k times

OmarAmman, JO · 19 October 2025

9 months ago

My hands shake and I cannot line it up — putting it in its own thread so it does not get lost in the check-in.

Squeamish subject, so I am going to be plain about it and get it over with.

I would like to hear timescales more than remedies. Knowing how long other people's lasted would turn this from an open-ended thing into a bounded one.

What I cannot tell is whether this is the ordinary tax or the sort of thing that needs somebody today, and that distinction is the whole of my question.

No advice needed if you would rather not. Recognition is genuinely enough.

CatoAntwerp, BE

The dread built through the day and peaked about an hour before, so I moved mine to first thing in the morning and cut the anticipation to ten minutes.

7me too 8

Ozzy GWalsall, UK

Omar, I have been where you are and I would rather say so than stay quiet.

Counting down out loud sounds silly and was the only thing that stopped me hovering. Three, two, one, done, and the hovering was where all the fear lived.

NylaNairobi, KE

I was three days late twice because I could not face it, and I want to say that here because I felt like the only person that had ever happened to.

EsiFacilitatorToronto, Canada

Two things. First, nobody here can tell you what is happening in your body. Second, the conversation you want to have is with a clinician, and we can help you write down what to say.

GavinDundee, UK

What helped was letting it be a big deal at first rather than insisting it was not. Pretending it was nothing made it worse for about two months.

BrackAlnwick, UK

Cold hands made mine worse. Warming up for a minute beforehand genuinely changed the experience and I found that out by accident.

8me too 2

TedIpswich, UK

Picking up Esi’s point rather than starting a new one.

The anticipation faded for me at around week ten. Not gradually — I just noticed one week that I had done it without the preceding hour of dread.

GwynforLlanidloes, UK

I looked away for the first six months and then one day watched, and it was so much less than my imagination had been supplying.

BrodyDunfermline, UK

Just marking that I read this properly rather than skimming it.

TabbyMargate, UK

#10

My partner did the first several. That is a completely legitimate arrangement and it is not a permanent one unless you want it to be.

GaelanInverurie, UK

#11

What Brody described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

Something that helped: I stopped calling it an injection in my own head. Silly, and it took a surprising amount of weight out of the word.

6me too 7

DelythBala, UK

#12

What I would say is that the anxiety is not a sign you should not be doing this. It is a very common response to a genuinely unusual thing to ask of yourself.

OrlaithDonegal, IE

#13

I set a timer for two minutes, sat down, and told myself I only had to do it when the timer went. Ninety per cent of the time I did it before the timer.

OttaviaBologna, IT

#14

Mine got much worse for a fortnight after one that stung, and then went back to baseline. One bad experience can reset the whole thing temporarily.

IslaOban, UK

#15

I would have written the same thing a year ago, word for word.

EsiFacilitatorToronto, Canada

#16

Adding this thread to the circle's standing resources, because it is the clearest account of this we have and the question comes back every few months.

16me too 3

SableCape Town, ZA

#17

Ottavia has already said most of this and I want to add the one part that was different for me.

My nurse talked me through the first one on the phone and stayed on the line, and I have never been more grateful for nine minutes of somebody's time.