The Blonde Choch Next Door

Story Time

I mean, god, I've been afraid of needles for 21 years, and then all of a sudden I watch a vlog where you're getting an IV and because you were there—I didn't even feel slightly queasy. Because it was you next to that needle, it meant nothing. What the hell. How can you just erase 21 years of something?

........

It hurts me so, so deeply to see 'Dear Logan,' a phrase I coined out of endearment, out of love, fall to something so unbearably ugly.

In the midst of all the hate, all the pain, all the negativity—I would like to share something positive, something I alluded to in one of my letters, but did not fully explain.

I have a phobia of needles. A pretty bad one. Always have. Seeing, thinking, being around them freaks me out, to the point it makes me faint. Yes, faint. I've literally fainted in a restaurant just thinking about a needle—I actually lost consciousness while seated upright, then the next thing I knew...BAM. I woke up on the ground, in the middle of the restaurant aisle, so many worried faces hovering above me. My mom said when my head hit the floor, it sounded like a bowling ball.

For 21 years, it's been a horrible, self-containing, torturous nightmare. Imagine a girl so broken, suffocated by fear, she couldn't complete the simplest task, something a child could do, without struggle. A flu shot. Such a small, small thing really. I knew that. But for years I'd have to sit down after I got it, vision fading to specs of black, hearing muffled, a sharp ringing in my head, cut off from the outside world—fighting to keep consciousness the way someone who can't swim struggles to keep their head above water.

Every. Single. Damn. Time.

I tried everything for the past 20 years—listening to music, thinking happy thoughts...nothing worked. I always suspected it was a mental thing—but if it was, why could I not get past it?

Then this last year, 2017, the year I discovered a 22 year old boy named Logan Paul...something changed. I changed.

I'll never forget that ordinary day in October.

.....

While I waited at the pharmacy to get my flu shot, I thought about his positive attitude the whole time, how he handles negative situations, things that are unpleasant, with grace, with laughter, with light. I thought about how small that needle was compared to everything else in my life, how I was stronger, how I could make it through. I was determined.

Fast forward to the moment it happened. In the needle went, out it went. The most amazing thing. My vision didn't blur, my hearing didn't turn fuzzy. For the very first time. I felt strong. Brave. In control.

I did not feel faint. Not in the slightest.

I conquered my fear. 2017. The same year I found Logan on YouTube.

I do not think it was a coincidence.

.........

I conclude with this:

Logan is a boy who has changed my life for the better.

This is a boy I will continue to write about.