It’s been demonstrated that of the hundred forms of surgery in the world, labiaplasty ranks as one of the safer ones, with few major complications resulting from the procedure. Still, no surgery is totally without risk, and few people enter into it without some anxieties. So if you have a labiaplasty scheduled and you find yourself stressed out about it as the day approaches, what can you do to control your fears? Here are a few suggestions.
First, make a list of all of the fears you have about the procedure. As you put these fears to paper, you’ll probably notice that many of them won’t stand the light of day. You’ll see right away that many of the worries are just silly or not big enough to worry about. As you see this, scratch these things off your list.
Of the items which remain on your list, examine them and make another list of things you can do about that fear. This will show that often there are things you can do to make your worries shrink. For instance, maybe you’re worried about who will take care of your kids while you’re recuperating from the surgery. Clearly this is a worry you can address by lining up someone to assist you before the day arrives. You should now start to feel empowered regarding some of your worries.
Begin working your way through the worrisome items that you can control until you’ve addressed them all. After these issues are taken care of, you can safely scratch them off your worry list. What remains will be the items over which you have no control. Closely examine this list. Now ask yourself, from this list, what is the worst thing that is likely to happen? Be honest with yourself. One woman, for instance, had put on her list “My family won’t understand and will reject me.” Really? Is it realistic that your family relationships will be permanently harmed because you had an operation that they don’t understand? Isn’t it more likely that you might have one day of awkwardness explaining it to them, and that they would get over it after that?
Even if, after going through your list, you still have some worries, it’s helpful to acknowledge that you can have fear and still take positive action. Fear can be a positive emotion. Its purpose is to serve as an alert mechanism which keeps us out of trouble. However, after we get the alert, fear has accomplished its purpose; if the fear persists, then it starts getting in the way.
Worry and fear can be positives when we use them to alert us to a problem and act to fix it. If you acknowledge the fear and work on what you need to do to fix that problem, you should be able to function despite your anxieties about the surgery.
