Hi all,
New here. I had my first smear test yesterday and had a really hard time with it. I felt so anxious about booking it, and after putting it off for a year using COVID as an excuse I finally went, and convinced myself it wouldn't be that embarrassing and the nurse had seen it all before, and plenty of people had told me it's super easy and didn't hurt.
During my test I found the speculum opening and being there really uncomfortable, the nurse didn't say very much throughout or after, she advised me what she was doing but after reading people online saying their nurse told them 'they had a healthy looking cervix' i found that everything started to panic me. She said my cervix bled when she did the test, though I didn't see any evidence of this later on so it can't have been as bad as i imagined it when she said it. I basically ran out of the doctors as fast as I could when it was all done and then sat outside completely overwhelmed, shaking and feeling faint. Fast forward to getting home and I cried for a solid hour, and i'm not sure if it's because i just felt unprepared due to everyone saying the nurses were always chatty and it wouldn't be painful that I found it so stressful.
Now I'm anxiously awaiting results feeling terror that i may need to go through that again if they come back abnormal, as well as being convinced not having the HPV jab in school out of fear means I will have an abnormal result. I guess I'm just looking for any reassurance, I'm not sure why I've found it so difficult and I'm not sure how to not keep worrying about it for the next 6 weeks or so as I wait for results, any advice or reassurance would be super helpful, as I have no one to talk to right now as everyone around me seemingly finds smears easy.
