From formspring.me: Is there anything you would encounter in your studies that you feel you might be squeamish about*?
There’s a reason why I’m not becoming a medical doctor. Well, one reason. I am very squeamish. I’ve always hated dissecting things in biology classes, no matter how much I logically tell myself why its worthwhile. When we had to dissect the fetal pig in AP Biology, I just drew everything while my partner gleefully ripped into our subject. Thankfully the only thing I had to dissect in college was potatoes, so I survived my lab classes.
I’m surprisingly okay with bleeding, but I hate hearing about injuries. Stories about breaking bones or destroying organs in a number of spectacular ways really freak me out. I have few stereotypically “girly” qualities, but one of them is flailing when people get graphic about medical situations. I hate being surprised by random injury photos in blogs.
And for some reason, I’m especially squeamish about wrist related injuries. I’ve never hurt my wrists, but they just seem like such a fragile part of the body. One cut and you’re doomed. A couple years ago my grandma fell and broke her wrist, and her doctor reconstructed it using cadaver bones and a giant metal contraption that stuck out of her wrist. She would gleefully come up to me, take off the clothe covering, and go “Look, I have a machine gun arm! Pew pew!”
Little did she know I already had a wrist-phobia, so seeing metal jutting out of it was not the most pleasant experience.
Do you have anything in your studies or work that make you squeamish? Or just particular things that make you squeamish in general?
*I think I may have interpreted this question too literally. Oh well, it’s late.
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Lol! “Pew Pew!”
Most of that post was instantly forgotten once I read about your grandmother.I think we all need to accept that Jen’s grandmother is superior to any other person who has ever lived.
Way cooler than either of my grandmothers!
Your grandmother is the coolest ever.
Yes, agreed. Jen’s grandma is possibly the coolest grandmother ever to grace the face of the Earth.Weirdly enough, I have a thing about wrist/hand injuries too. (I used to get especially nervous around the time of year when I had my piano exams, and would walk around with my hands held protectively close to my chest, jumping at loud noises or sudden movements). I think writers/artists/bloggers/musicians etc have good cause to be squeamish about wrist injuries, since they potentially can ruin careers. Or, you know, maybe we’re just paranoid.
My favorite part of ninth (or tenth?) grade science was dissecting a sheep’s eye. I was the only person in class able to remove the iris without ripping it into pieces. It was also the first time I believed that the pupil was actually a hole that allowed light to enter the eye so that we can see. I remember learning something along those lines before, but I didn’t have empirical, personal evidence of it until that moment.Sometimes I sincerely wonder how I ended up with a degree in sociology.
You have the best grandma.
We dissected sharks in 5th or 6th grade. I don’t remember feeling squeamish about it. I do remember being very impressed with how tough they were. You could cut yourself on their skin!
I like dissections just fine, but I have issues with graphic descriptions (0r visuals) of injuries and such. And by issues, I mean that they cause me pain. I’ve been known to say… grab and squeeze my leg when a character in a movie gets shot and the film lingers on the person/injury. My fiance makes fun of me for this. Like, every single time it happens.I don’t know if the problem is too vivid an imagination, excessive empathy for the injured person, or general craziness, but it sure does get old.
Anything having to do with eyes and eyeballs freaks me the HELL out. If I see any picture or video with something going into somebody’s eyeball, I turn away and run for the hills. That one scene in Mission Impossible 2 where a knife gets within inches of Tom Cruise’s eyeball freaked me out… hearing that it really WAS within inches of his eyeball during the shoot and Tom was just brave enough to trust the contraption that kept it from piercing his eye, made it THAT much more of a freak-out moment for me.Strangely enough, I wear contacts and can touch my own eyeball without much of a problem. And that lady who can bulge her eyeballs out of her sockets doesn’t really freak me out that much. It’s more about piercing and damaging the eyeball. Just hearing about somebody’s lens being torn off just… eck. I need to shiver in revulsion now.
+1
Puke. Makes me want to. And when you have a kid, let me warn you: puke will be in your life.Cat puke doesn’t bother me, though. My dogs eating the cat puke phases me not a bit. But a person retching sets off a chain reaction…
Things that make me feel squeamish:Leg injuries, especially when someone’s knee twists the wrong wayAny procedure involving the eyesAny procedure that involves a drill or bone saw (which made the last episode of House very difficult to watch)Anything involving teeth and/or dentists.
I’m almost abnormally unsqueamish, if there is such a thing. Watching anatomy class videos while having dinner, being a casual cutter, stuff like that. I’m afraid of being sick or in pain though, so I cannot touch spoiled or moldy food (gut issues as a kid, bad memories with it). Also, and this is way weird coming from someone who otherwise likes blood… but endometrial bits in it creep the shit out of me. Menstrual blood looks/feels somehow… dirtier than what I get by injuries. That’s all, I think.
Ha, I’m squeamish about wrists too. It seems to be quite a common ick. I wonder where it comes from… maybe just the vulnerability of them… *shudder*
snot
Heh, I guess in my studies all I have to be squeamish about is papercuts (studying mathematics and going into computer science).