View Full Version : Found my rabies ocd trigger
Hi.
Recently I made a post about my rabies fear.
Finally, after two weeks it got better.
I don't have anxiety or obsession about this situation.
However, three days ago I happened to be near that place where it all started. It was around 9pm and usually there are no people. It's really quiet place. There is a mansion house which is now a school. Also there are some other small buildings, crop fields and behind that mansion there are like 10 really big trees, like a small park.
Sunset was really beautiful and I really like to walk there, so I thought I should stop the car and just walk for 5 minutes. I remember how I walked behind one building and laughed how I should be careful, may be some mysterious bat bites me from these trees. And then I noticed a car driving past that building with loud music. I stand there for like 15 seconds, I thought may be the car was coming behind that building, but no. Then I took my phone and it got my attention for a minute may be. And then IT HAPPENED! I got an idea. How can I be sure that bat didn't just bite me? I looked my hands, everything, there was no bite, no bat, no bat noise.
Next day I decided to go back there, because I go to gym near that place. It was really uncomfortable to be there.
And yesterday I went there again and this happened again. I was looking at these big trees and felt like a mosquito bite me and my brain told me... BATS, RABIES. I went to my car but had to go back and check twice that there are no bats and I calmed down.
Now I think I got rabies three days ago when I first time visited this place again.
Now I'm just so confused. I go to forest almost daily and for hours. All kind of bugs and things bite me, scratches on hands. But nothing, no obsession that may be a bat bite me. I've been at this place hundreds times, during the day or night, I've never seen a bat there. But now these trees triggers everytime.
What should I do? I take many herbs for my anxiety and quit coffee and it really helps for anxiety. But what can I do with this trigger?
Maybe it's time to do more. Why don't you try the "Anxiety and Phobia Workbook" by Bourne. It would be a good start, and maybe some journaling. Keep track of your triggers.
If that doesn't work, you can also go a step further and try therapy.
Thanks for the book recommendation.
May be I'm doing something wrong or react wrongly? One part of me knows all these facts that I would feel the bite or see a bat. I ask myself.. "okay, let's consider that you have rabies and you got it from there. Where did that bat, that you didn't see, bite you? Where you felt pain?" And I can't answer that question.
But I can't just forget this situation too. These doubts haunt me. I know techniques how I should just let it be in my mind and don't react. But how? This incubation period is also so long.
With hiv and cancer it helped to accept the fact that I may have it and also that these diseases are not death sentence anymore. But what about rabies? How can I accept the fact that I have rabies. Then it means that I will die soon.
Yeah, but you don't have rabies. You need to accept the fact that you don't have it. Unless you live in India or some other third world country and have been actually attacked and have bite marks and remember being bitten, you don't have rabies.
Another book I recommend for OCD is Brain Lock.
Thanks, I will read that too.
From the first book and from the internet I've learned that you must resist or delay doing your compulsions. But I still can't figure out how to apply this in my current situation.
I've done it with my driving ocd. I just don't go back and don't check and the idea will fade. But in this situation there is only an obsession. I don't even search information about it. It's irrational and would happen only in some fantasy movie. But how should I deal with it?
I made a huge mistake that I tried to ignore that idea when I was at that place. I tried to not think about it and of course it went worse.
MyNameIsTerry
29-07-17, 14:52
But in this situation there is only an obsession.
Here is a compulsion:
I went to my car but had to go back and check twice that there are no bats and I calmed down.
Compulsions are not just physical, they can be covert/mental. You aren't searching out information, which is great, as that would be one form but what else are you doing? Are you making mental checks or using diffusing statements or repeating words or anything like that even?
I think it's great that you aren't allowing avoidance to stop you going back. Do you feel you want to go back? If so, that's great. If you feel you have to go back because of the anxiety, that's compulsion. If you feel you have to go back to try to evoke the same expected anxiety/panic reaction, that may be a testing compulsion. Behavioural Experiments and therapy to work on problems, like exposure is great though.
Thank you for your response.
Yes, I do many compulsions in my mind. I think all the time about that evening, how I walked there, what I did, what I felt. So yes, this is a compulsion.
And I know you have to break your compulsion. Accept that it's in your mind but not react. But how I make difference between irrational thought and a real one? I think may be I'm wrong, may be something happened and now I think it's my ocd and ignore real danger.
Evenings and nights are best for me. Every day I go to sleep and think that yes, it's so impossible situation and irrational thought, it feels like my logic works during the night. And when I wake up, it starts again. My brain just forgets everything and it all starts again.
With my driving ocd it's easy. I just hope that it's ocd threat and that I didn't kill anyone while driving. Then I distract my mind for some time and see that police didn't come to get me and everything is fine. But with rabies I have only one chance. If I make a mistake and hope that it's only in my mind, then I'm dead.
So the main question is. How to know that my thought is unreal? How to make difference between ocd threat and a real threat?
In that book there is an exercise with writing your thoughts down on paper in a tgraph and looking at the natural consequences like you've done with driving. So you know how the police will come to get you if you were involved in a hit and run? With rabies, you would have flesh missing, scratches. You would have evidence on your body of an animal attack. You don't have that.
My mistake was that that I tried to ignore the thought. I remember how I looked my hands very closely in bright light and decided to not take photos. Because these photos would become a compulsion for me, to check them.
I've watched videos how people get bite by a bat. They always scream, have atleast some bite marks. But some websites write that you may not notice bat bites. However, while sleeping or when you are drunk.
So then my brain just creates that impossible scenario. And then it seems so real threat.
Have you ever tried medication?
Have you ever tried medication?
Not yet. This situation is something new for me.
When I was 16 and and "got" hiv 7 times in one month, then I didn't know anything about ocd or health anxiety. Later I read that it's a psychological problem.
And always my ocd about disease disappeared when I accepted the fact that I have it. Like with hiv, I told myself that I can live 20-30 years with it and then would be cure for it. Same way with eye cancer or lymphoma.
I call and make an appointment with psychiatrist tomorrow. It would be long-term solution but I have to live somehow today and this week. I haven't been in therapy so I really don't know how to react to these thoughts.
Well, I would suggest therapy first, but meds do help. They help you not dwell on those thoughts and get stuck in the anxiety spiral so that you can work your therapy program.
Yes, OCD is a psychological problem. People have an intrusive thought that turns into an obsession, like "I might have rabies." And then the compulsion is something like constantly checking one's body for bite marks, or looking up things on Dr. Google or doing into the doctor for medical tests. Then there is some relief for a time, but soon the mind fixates on the obsessive thought again or shifts to another obsessive thought and the cycle starts all over again.
Therapy is so helpful because you learn strategies to break down the cycle. The meds help your mind not dwell on the thoughts.
It will wax and wane. During periods of stress and big life events, it will get worse, and during calmer life periods it usually dies down a bit. It's like this for all of us with lifelong anxiety--whether it be OCD or GAD.
I understand. Tomorrow morning I will make an appointment.
But let's take my situation. There is 2-3 minutes time period when I just stand here, watched how car was passing this place and googled some random things. And after that I got the idea and tried to ignore it. I think I wouldn't google random things when bats are attacking me?
How would people who has been in therapy would react? I feel like my anxiety spikes when I understand that I can't check this time period. I can't go back in time.
MyNameIsTerry
30-07-17, 14:03
Not yet. This situation is something new for me.
When I was 16 and and "got" hiv 7 times in one month, then I didn't know anything about ocd or health anxiety. Later I read that it's a psychological problem.
And always my ocd about disease disappeared when I accepted the fact that I have it. Like with hiv, I told myself that I can live 20-30 years with it and then would be cure for it. Same way with eye cancer or lymphoma.
It's a variation, you will find a way through it. Sometimes you change strategy as old methods don't always work. But if you could learn to accept those others, that's a massive thing in your favour because acceptance is one of the hardest things I think you can learn to do and keep doing until your subconscious learns through observation that it's just not important.
So, can you alter this to work for the rabies issue? For instance, rabies is very rare, it's often non existent in countries and even then only occurs in very limited situations e.g. bat handlers with continual exposure or people bringing it back from abroad.
Really the same arguments apply. You couldn't get HIV I take it the way you worried about it (since OCDers tend to have quite outlandish ways of even contracting it)? So, the same applies here because you have no evidence to even consider the fear to have a basis. The facts all counter it. The rest is acceptance and the subconscious learning to mothball this perceived fear.
---------- Post added at 14:03 ---------- Previous post was at 13:33 ----------
Thank you for your response.
Yes, I do many compulsions in my mind. I think all the time about that evening, how I walked there, what I did, what I felt. So yes, this is a compulsion.
And I know you have to break your compulsion. Accept that it's in your mind but not react. But how I make difference between irrational thought and a real one? I think may be I'm wrong, may be something happened and now I think it's my ocd and ignore real danger.
Right, so you do have compulsions to target then. Break them down so you know what they are.
Obsessive thinking is more worry (future) or rumination (past). But if you have specific things like "I must think of X" or "I must repeat X statement in my head" then it will be compulsion.
Evenings and nights are best for me. Every day I go to sleep and think that yes, it's so impossible situation and irrational thought, it feels like my logic works during the night. And when I wake up, it starts again. My brain just forgets everything and it all starts again.
That's the case for a lot of people with anxiety, it's not limited to OCD. This is more likely about your overall levels of anxiety driving up obsessive-compulsive thinking. For instance, if you experienced a stressful event, these cycles intensify but in times of calm, they reduce.
Therefore you don't always need to challenge thoughts head on, you can weaken a disorder by pulling the rug from under it with healthy practices. For instance, relaxation work. The more your body is calmer, and gets used to being in that state, the more you will see OCD reduce. I'm yet to come across anyone with OCD say the opposite of this in their cycles on here.
In therapy I had to work on my GAD, which was the primary condition, as my OCD wouldnt' budge. Bringing down my 24/7 anxiety levels had an impact on the strength of my OCD and i could attack it head on more.
So, add more tools to your toolkit. And keep healthy life practices going, like things you enjoy.
With my driving ocd it's easy. I just hope that it's ocd threat and that I didn't kill anyone while driving. Then I distract my mind for some time and see that police didn't come to get me and everything is fine. But with rabies I have only one chance. If I make a mistake and hope that it's only in my mind, then I'm dead.
I think that's the selective nature of Cognitive Distortions. You mind could think of a driving offence so bad it would mean life imprisonment. That[s a one chance issue too just like this one.
You accept it is an intrusive thought, apply a wait period to expose yourself to the anxiety of not acting to neutralise the threat (compulsion), distract yourself to shift your focus, realise nothing bad has happened and see the fear dissipate.
So, you apply acceptance as well as self assurance, exposure to escalating symptoms, etc.
So, with the rabies fear how can you do the same as that? Can you stop yourself Googling about it, not be forced back to the site of the fear out of fear alone (wanting to go is different though) but also no avoid possible sites where it could happen, apply a wait period, distract yourself, etc. [/QUOTE]
So the main question is. How to know that my thought is unreal? How to make difference between ocd threat and a real threat?
The first thing is to recognise what is an intrusive thought and what is a conscious thought. Then you look at your conscious thoughts to see which are worry/rumination/irrational/illogical rather than logical/practical/rational/balanced.
Intrusive thoughts just pop into your head. Triggers can often be very subtle. There may be imagery or urges.
Current situation with rabies is exactly like the situation with hiv. I went running and later found small abrasion on my leg. And it was exactly same, just an idea popped into my mind. "I got hiv". And my compulsions were same also. The pattern was 100% identical.
These thoughts are not so strong today, but still.
Oh, at first I didn't see your edits. I will take some time later and read them carefully. I have to go now.
I tried to make an appointment with a psychiatrist and everywhere you have to wait atleast three months. So at the moment I have to deal with it without a doctor.
It's 8 days after my last "possible" situation to get rabies and the obsession is still so strong. It seems I just can't find a way to forget it. Sometimes the obsession gets weaker but at random moments it comes back and takes over my life again.
I think vaccinating isn't also a solution? I would doubt about efficiency and safety.
No competent doc would give you the vaccine anyway, and there are harmful side effects with the vaccine. You don't have a possible situation to get rabies. Nothing happened. It was all in your head.
While you wait for the psychiatrist, can you get set up with a therapist? Did you order any of those books?
MyNameIsTerry
03-08-17, 01:47
Well if there's such a thing as an anxiety disorder vaccine I'll be standing next to you in the queue!!! :yesyes:
For rabies? Nope, what you need to remember is that this is just acting on an irrational obsession. Would have getting HIV shots have done anything for you when you went through that? Would calling the police & hospitals have helped you with your hit-and-run theme? No, they would have reinforced the need for the obsession to exist though.
It takes 3 months on average for a lot of us in the UK with the NHS to get to a therapist, getting to a psychiatrist is a whole lot harder. It's not great because that time can be spent obsessing so I would suggest going the self help route to make a start, there is nothing to lose from it and everything to gain.
Look at your behaviour, work out the compulsions so you know what to eliminate.
No competent doc would give you the vaccine anyway, and there are harmful side effects with the vaccine. You don't have a possible situation to get rabies. Nothing happened. It was all in your head.
While you wait for the psychiatrist, can you get set up with a therapist? Did you order any of those books?
Yes, I'm reading one of these books.
Breaking a compulsion just makes the idea weaker. I think I have to find something to believe in.
Currently my "what if" thought is about feeling a bat landing on me and biting me. I found only one injury on my hand later. There was 5 small dots with different distance between them. I don't obsess over this injury because then it means atleast 3 bites from a bat.
I have to find a way to believe that I would feel a bat landing on me.
I'm telling this story to all my friends to finally convince my brain that it's so irrational. I had one post about my hiv scare in this forum. Now I'm so embarrassed about it that I had to edit it and delete.
How to convince myself that it's impossible that within about 3 minutes a mysterious bat couldn't fly towards me, land on me, bite my hand( I was wearing a t-shirt), then fly away and I wouldn't notice anything?
I find that writing my triggers down helps make them seem less irrational. It takes time and you keep having to work at talking to yourself. For instance, I'm very claustrophobic, and one of my huge triggers is automatic car washes. I could avoid them all together, but that doesn't help me. So I write my worries down on one column and refute them on the other. Then I sit and read the paper during the automatic car wash. Lol
My triggers are so random. I watched a movie yesterday and someone died, it automatically reminded me how rabies kills.
I write all facts here. May be it will help someone else with rabies ocd and I would also like to get feedback how irrational it is.
First about bat rabies in Europe.
There are two types. The main type is EBLV-1. It's quite common in some countries, in Netherlands, Spain, France, Poland, Germany.
About 1000 EBLV-1 bats have been found in 1970s-2017. It's mainly in Serotine bats and this kind of bat doesn't live in my country. So, EBLV-1 is out.
Now, EBLV-2 is very rare type of rabies. It's in Daubenton's bat, which lives in my country. There are around 30 cases in 32 years over whole Europe. EBLV-2 is quite interesting, even for researchers.
Because big amount of bats doesn't get it. They found 14 bats in Sweden who had antibodies for the virus, but never found virus itself. Also they tried to infect bats but only 1 in 7 bats got infected.
There are 6 cases in bats in UK, also 5 cases 20 years ago in Netherlands, 2 cases in Germany, one in Norway. So, even finding a Daubenton's bat with this virus is extremly hard.
Two people who had been handling bats for years that got EBLV-2 and died. One in 1985 and the other in 2002. Both of them confirmed that they got multiple bat bites over years.
Almost every case the bat is grounded or acting very abnormaly, like flying against tree.
However, it's theoretically possible that there is a EBLV-2 positive bat in my country.
Now, when we talk about bats biting people then there are videos in youtube about bat bites.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zivnerDI0vw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aet8QGuUe1s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5ZLHnwVxuc
There are few cases when people don't scream when bat bites them, but still they know it and have bite marks.
And of course I'm the special one who doesn't feel or see anything.
And even writing all these facts out here I'm a little bit worried.
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