I open the car door and walk resolutely past the emergency vehicles.  By the flashing lights, I hear myself saying out loud, “The Lord is my Shepherd . . . he leads me by still waters…”  The waters don’t feel still, but He is with me.  Jesus is good at showing up in exactly the place we desperately need him.  Hope this personal story will help you know how to help someone with a phobia.

We had been sitting in our car in the parking lot of the imaging facility (MRI).  Tears are rolling down my face.  I’m shaking and sobbing.  “I want to get better.  I want to get better.  I just don’t know if I can do this.”  My chest aches from my pounding heart.  Can you get a heart attack from your heart racing for too long?  (I have a mild heart condition.) I feel so ridiculous.  So many hurting people out there with life-altering health problems and I’m being a spoiled brat.  I’m humiliated.  Disgusted with myself.  What can possibly be so hard about getting an MRI?

“I don’t want to be a wimp,”  I repeat.  “I don’t want to be crazy.”  Dear Husband takes my hand and prays with me.  “Give us wisdom, Lord.  Should we go thru with this?  Is it worth the trauma?”  Noting that I’m still a blithering mess, he reads me a Bible passage about the happy future ahead of us when we exit this life and enter the next.  I’m thinking that it can’t come soon enough.

He reminds me of people we know who also struggle with irrational fears.  He names them and their fear and asks, “Do you think they’re wimps?  Do you think they’re crazy?  You’re not crazy because you have fears.”  The list of others with unreasonable fears comforts me.  I respect and love these people- the one fearful of spiders, the one who can’t ride in an airplane,  the one who freezes if she has to get on a roof.  I don’t question their sanity or their personal fortitude.  Husband explains again that each of them didn’t choose that weakness.  It is part of how they’re made.  They didn’t choose it or fake it.  And no amount of reasoning can change the ferocious fear.  We can agree intellectually that there’s no reason for fear, but that doesn’t calm the surging monster that overtakes us in that dark place.

What helps is compassion from those around us.  A kind touch, a patient waiting, an acknowledgment that it is real to us, a respect for our limits and not bullying, humiliating or pushing us.  Reminding us that they aren’t going to force us to go into that frightening, black place.  Affirming that we have choices.  “No one is going to force you to do it if you can’t,” he says, holding my hand.  I take a deep breath.

“What good will it do even if I can get thru it?”  I really need to re-enforce the why of all this misery.  I need a goal, a happy outcome, a light at the end of the tunnel.

“They may find the cause and be able to fix it,”  Husband reminds me.  I just needed to hear that again.  “Even if they can’t fix it, we’ll know what it is and maybe if it’s static or will get worse.  It’ll tell them what they need to know to help you.  It might be a simple fix that will improve your life.”  And he listed the people we know who got help for similar problems.

I like these reasons.  I want to do what I can to help myself.  I don’t want to go on not knowing if there is actually something that could help.  But right now my chest aches and the tears are still flowing.

Should I take the sedative?  Darkness rolls in to cloud my brain.  Horrible memories of past medication reactions rush in to push out rationality.  I remember the visions of demons and self-destructive thoughts after one small anti-depressant tablet, the severe anaphylactic shock that could have taken my life after a morning sickness pill, the allergies to a myriad of antibiotics, blah, blah.  I hadn’t taken a prescription drug for over 20 years (except an allergy med briefly) and I was terrified of another bad reaction.

Husband takes my hand and prays again, “Lord, should we use this drug?  Will it help her?  Will it harm her?”

I open my eyes.  The Costco pharmacy bag I had wadded up in fear and stuffed between the seat and the console weeks ago is on the floor at my feet and the first thing I see when I open my eyes.  I pick it up and take out the bottle with three pills.  Staring at those tiny pills I wonder what they will do to my mind.  A siren wails and then another.  An EMT fire truck approaches.  To our surprise, it turns into our parking lot followed by an ambulance with its company name in large red letters…a name with the beginning letters of my maiden name.  I’m spooked.  I want to run. I want to tell Husband to take me home.  The lights of the emergency vehicles flash at the entrance to the imaging facility.  Great, someone had a big problem getting a scan.  I’m fighting panic.  But maybe I should think of it differently.  Maybe I’m being reminded that if I have a drug reaction or heart attack, there is help close by.

I twist the lid of the pill bottle.  Not wanting to be any more of a drama queen, I push back the thoughts of impending doom.  Other people use this drug without brutal mind tricks, Husband reminds me.  He and I had done online research about possible side effects, none listed hallucinations or thoughts of self-mutilation.

I take a deep breath.  I want to help myself.  I want to cooperate with my doctor.  I don’t want to be defeated.  I swallow the pill. I open the car door and walk resolutely past the emergency vehicles.  By the flashing lights, I hear myself saying out loud, “The Lord is my Shepherd, he leads me by still waters…”  The waters don’t feel still, but He is with me.

By the time I get inside the facility, my knees are starting to feel weak, but I’m calmer.  My heart isn’t racing.  The tears have stopped, I’m breathing normally.  I’m not shaking and I’m not cold.  Hooray!  Things are looking up.  Maybe it’s all going to be ok.  The sun for the first time today starts to shine through the dark clouds.

Husband is allowed to sit beside me while I’m in the MRI.  It has an open side so I can see out, but the roof of the machine is menacingly close to my face.  He holds my hand.  I turn my head and look out and then I close my eyes as he had suggested.  The racket begins, but I was warned and I try to think of things I’ve heard in the past that make similar noises.  I have a narrow line of vision to look out when I need to.  I close my eyes again.  The tech tells me over the intercom that I’m doing great.  I calm myself by remembering that she offered to bring me out at intervals to gather myself for the next segment.

The noise stops and I ask to come out into the world again.  We have a short chat, the three of us.  I say I’m ready to do the next scan.  She kindly decides to divide the procedure into five short segments with breaks in between.  This machine is faster than the tunnel machines.  The second segment is louder, but now I know I can do it and I even drift into sleep for a few seconds.  I get to come out again.  The tech seems to me like an angel.  She is positive, kind, gentle and patient.  Giving me breaks makes her job take longer, makes her walk back and forth, interrupts the flow, but she is upbeat and uncomplaining.  And so it goes, only five segments, the longest one being just over 5 minutes.  And then it’s over.  She says the images are good, that I’ve done well. Then she allows me to try on the face mask that will be needed to do the neck scan next time I come. One more hurdle to go, but one is done.

Thank you, Jesus.  You always show up in our needy mess.

“Each time he said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.”  2 Corinthians 12:9

“This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin.”  Hebrews 4:15

This passage from a book called, “No More Faking Fine” by Esther Fleece seemed apropos to today’s blog.

“When we fake fine, we fake our way out of authentic relationship with God, others, and ourselves. 

But lament, an honest expression of grief, is a prayer that God never silences nor wastes.

It is an authentic prayer that invites God to meet us right where we are, not where we pretend to be.

It is the language for the faithful, for we know the One who holds our pain.

And He never silences our cries. Even more than that, He cries with us.

Real strength is not pretending we are fine and keeping God and others at a safe distance.

Real strength is letting others into our brokenness. 

Real strength is confessing we need God’s rescue over and over and over again.“  Esther Fleece