Internal Conflict: Blood Donation

Donating blood is one of best things you can do.
Or so I am told.
See, look how happy these people are:

I, on the other hand, see a needle and immediately turn into this:

In fact, I don’t even have to see a needle to freak the hell out, I just have to anticipate it (in fact, right now, I have phantom pain in my right arm).  Yes, I am aware that I have a tattoo and a number of piercings; of which were done with needles.
I hate my yearly physical due to blood work and let’s not even talk about the tantrum I threw last year at the mention of a tetanus booster and blood work.
It wasn’t pretty.

Now, granted, that was “old” Stephanie and “new” Stephanie is a lot calmer.  However New Stephanie still gets all creeped out by needles.  In fact, I may have started hyperventilating at the sight of the sharps container at the doctors office.  Just saying.

People with degrees agree that most people with needle-phobia have such due to traumatic experiences.  I can atest to this.  My childhood was a blur of biopsies and surgeries.  Full of doctors who didn’t believe me when I said I could feel them suturing up my surgical site, doctors who insisted that the scraping I felt was just the peripheral skin being tugged, phelobotmisits who would have to poke many times to get a proper vein (called “rolling veins” for those of you who are curious), doctors who didn’t understand why a grown woman would be crying as they grind skin from her scalp (and ejected her husband from the procedure room for saying, “Wow Steph, look at the size of the needle!”), nurses who don’t understand how suture removal could have one turn grey.  Although, on that last one, I got Chips Ahoy! and some O.J.

Now the internal conflict sets in.
Blood is good.  I have lots of blood.  In fact, I have enough blood that I should stop hording it and give it to people who need it.  I’ve seen what good blood can do.  Grandma has an iron deficiency and blood transfusions bring her back to the Grandma I know and love.
But I hate needles.
Totally.
Needles scare me.  Terrify me actually.
I don’t want to show up and turn into a banshee but I know I really should try.  In fact, there’s a blood drive tomorrow for my office group and I’m trying (really really hard) to get the gumption to go.

Have you donated blood?  How horrific was it?  Anything you can say to quell my “completely irrational” fear?

(and for the tattoo, I was really upset when I got it as one of my friends had just died and the pain of the tattoo felt like nothing compared to the pain in my heart.)