Forgetting how traumatic it was made confronting it again harder

I've always had this fear of pain. I don't know when did it start becoming so significant almost turning into a phobia. So, basically, I dread going for an injection or giving blood samples.

There was once when I was 16 and was due for a Booster injection for Hepatitis B. At the same time, I was preparing for the inter-school debate. At that time, I kept on wondering which was worse, the stage fright or the fear of needles. The stress from both of them were so bad that I even had a nightmare dreaming about a nurse giving me an injection and jumped out of bed as the needle made contact with my skin, waking up physically feeling a sharp pain in my left arm. The pain was just too real. What happened, I never knew. A mosquito might have conveniently bitten my arm. But could it happen at that exact moment with that precise timing with my dream?

I've inherited my father's veins which is practically invisible on both arms. There were no problem with him as he's not afraid of needles and has experience being poked many times by nurses just to get his blood sample. I, on the other hand, dread needles. Once was bad enough. Recently, it was twice.

Last Wednesday, I had to rush to the Women's Hospital to give a blood sample for testing prior to the start of my Obs and Gynae rotation. I think by rushing there on foot, it made my veins constrict even more. Even with the tornique on, nobody could identify where was my vein. The nurse tried the left arm at first, and had to give up shortly after. It was a small sharp pain, but it wasn't too bad.

Then it was on the other arm. This time, I could tell that there was a vein in there. Sharp pain again as the needle went through the skin, my worse fear happened. Halfway, the blood stopped and the nurse had to realign the needle. That didn't hurt. But when she pulled the needles out, a really bad burning sensation together with pain was felt. It wasn't to the extent of jumping off the chair but it wasn't nice. At least she managed to fill the sample bottle and not poke me another time.

After this incident, I've decided to record this experience somewhere as forgetting how bad it was (which was actually not as bad as I'd expected) made anticipating for the next confrontation very traumatizing and out of proportion to the real thing. I did end up with a bruise on my right arm but that wasn't too big a bruise.