Does the shorter needle actually help

What worked for me was somebody else being calm. Not encouraging, not enthusiastic. Calm. That was the whole ingredient.

I had one bad experience in the first month that set me back weeks, and rebuilding from it was slower than starting had been. Be gentle with yourself if that happens.

Coming back to what Tavita wrote further up, because it is the bit I keep thinking about.

Mine is still there. I have a set of things I do that make it manageable, and the fear itself has not gone, and that is an honest description of where I am.

Talking about it here was the first time I had said it out loud to anybody who did not immediately try to talk me out of it.

I found the anticipation ran for two days beforehand, which meant a weekly thing was taking up two sevenths of my life. Reducing the anticipation was the whole project.

A specific technique taught by somebody trained is worth ten pieces of general advice from anybody, including me.

This is why I read the boring weeks. Thank you for the boring weeks.

A phobia is a different thing from being nervous, and I spent a year being told to just get on with it before somebody used the right word for what I had.

Coming back to say I did it alone, calmly, last Tuesday, and then sat down and cried a bit. Both parts are the update.

I worked with someone for six sessions, specifically on this, and it was the best thing I did that year. It is a treatable thing and it does not have to be endured.

Building on what Bramwell wrote rather than answering the original question.

Mine improved and then regressed during a very stressful autumn, and I had to accept that it is not a linear thing and I had not failed.

What changed it was doing it at the same time every week with the same person present, for about ten weeks. Repetition with safety, rather than repetition alone.

Not a solution, just company.

I keep a small written plan of my own steps and I still read it sometimes, eighteen months in. It costs me nothing and it steadies me.

Quietly agreeing from the other side of the country.