AIDS/HIV fears..waiting for results

[panicking]

Hi everyone.

I've always been OCD about getting HIV tests. I thought I had gotten over it but I haven't. My last test (negative) was in 2007. Since then I slept with someone (without condom, but without ejaculation) that I had already slept with before I had my last test...he had told me that since then he hadn't slept with anyone else. He lied, and refuses to tell me how many people he has slept with but I know it was at least one other person. Initially I wasn't that worried but my new boyfriend recently hinted that he would like me to have a test and so I went and got it done today and I am just freaking out completely, like I used to. I feel horrible. Like before, I am certain that I have it. I won't get the results till the 15th, which seems an eternity away. Those same day tests aren't available here. It's not fair!

How to stay calm/sane while waiting? I feel so angry with myself and with the other person who lied. I feel like my new happiness is about to be seriously jeopardized and I can barely breathe for fear.

[gracesophia]

You will get through this, and it will all be fine. I have HIV OCD too so I know how utterly horrible it is waiting for the test results. You just have to briefly reassure yourself that the chances of anyone that guy slept with having HIV are so small (something like 1/1000), the chances of it being passed on to him during one sex act are almost as small, and the chance of you getting it from him when there was no ejaculation are almost impossibly small. You do not have HIV.

But, I know my reassurance isn't going to help, just as noone's reassurance ever helps me! What you have to do is indulge your worry for a couple of days and then decide 'right, I am not going to worry about this or Google it, or ask people for reassurance today' and it will be hard, but you will manage, and then you will feel calm and you will realise that these are just irrational intrusie thoughts. I hope you feel better soon xxx

[Captain Caveman]

I agree with the part gracesophia makes about reassurance not helping a person behaving in an obsessive compulisve manner. Even if your test comes back ok, you (if you are sensitized like I was and zillions of others on forums I've read) will likely come up with a "but what if....?" Psychologist David Veale explains:

"The need for certainty is a common theme in OCD, especially for events in the distant future that are impossible to disprove. For example Mark, the man with OCD mentioned earlier, demands to know for certain whether he is HIV positive, despite repeated reassurance from negative tests or positive explanations for his symptoms. Such patients always have a nagging doubt – the blood sample could have been accidentally switched, there could be a new type of HIV which has not yet been discovered, the sero-conversion has not yet occurred and so on. Mark is demanding a 100% guarantee or absolute certainty, which is of course impossible. However, while he continues to believe that he has to be 100% certain, he will focus on the possible doubts. Obviously the feared situations are possible, but they are highly improbable. It is important not to get involved in a detailed analysis of probabilities but to help the patient to focus on the process and recognise the link between the demand for certainty and their distress and further doubt. This will help them to step back and focus on the much higher likelihood of a poor quality of life if they continue to seek reassurance. Patients can be helped to tackle their beliefs using humour: we can guarantee two things in life – death and taxes! A third guarantee is that while the patient continues to demand a guarantee that a feared consequence will not occur they will continue to disturb themselves with their symptoms."

You will never find the un-realistic/unreachable type of certainty you or other want. Thus, learning to live with uncertainty is the antidote and will give you your life back.:)