I have always hated needles. Most children hate needles, but outside the superficial irritation of injection, we don’t ask why.

Children hate needles because the body knows what the mind does not. The mind knows the prick, the puncture, the afterneedle lollipop. The body knows so much more. The body remembers what the child does not – the fevers doused in paracetamol, the sleepless nights, the screech. The body felt the poison settle in its tissues, felt it leach from the injection site. The skin can heal, scab, but not the havoc on the body wreaked.

When the body observes and processes the sight of a needle, in the sterile doctor’s office, there must be a reaction. A child might cry or scream, an adult might flinch or recoil. They say to deal with trypanophobia that you shouldn’t look.

There is a reason they tell you that you shouldn’t look.

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