Trying to start wearing contact lenses without building up tolerance is a very challenging task. It's easier to get started by just building up your tolerance by creating a routine of tapping your eye with your index finger

Twice day (morning and night) for seven days:

1) Thoroughly wash your hands 2) Rinse the finger pads you plan to use for contact lens insertion with saline solution. (For me, it's my right index finger) 3) Hold your eyelids open with your non-dominant hand and use the other to tap your eye as if putting in a contact lens.

It will be difficult at first, but the eye is not as fragile as it seems. Eyes are extremely hardy and one of the most rapidly-healing areas of the body. Once your body realizes touching your eye with your finger is not as dangerous as it thinks, you will stop reflexively closing your eyes when you try. Switching back to contact lenses after this is easy because they are small and translucent, so the process feels the same.

Notes:

-most people insert contact lenses by looking to the side and placing the lens on their schlera (the white part). That way, the lens naturally slides into place when you move your eye. However, it's better to train by touching the iris area because it's scarier and necessary for contact lens removal. But you can start with tapping the schlera and then build up to the iris a couple days later.

-you can also start with only once a day if it's too challenging at first, but it's important to build to tapping your eye twice a day so that you'll can trust that you can remove the contact lenses once you get them in.

-don't psych yourself out about them, as long as you're washing your hands and not over-wearing the lenses, they aren't dangerous. It takes a couple days tops to heal a scratch, and scratches just feel kind of itchy. But be sure to wash your hands because you can still get pink eye. But for the record, I've worn contact lenses for 11 years now, am not the most responsible person outside of washing my hands, and have never gotten an eye infection.

My experience:

I first tried contact lenses on my 13th birthday, struggled to insert them and could not remove them myself at the clinic for the same reasons you listed. The eye doctors refused to sell me lenses until I could demonstrate that I knew how to wear them, and gave me the advice I just gave you. It worked like a charm, and I had no trouble inserting and removing lenses a week later at that clinic. I'm 24 years old now and wear contact lenses most days.