Re: Why is rabies an infamous topic on HA forums?
I did a search here on "rabies" and the number of posts is mind boggling! I don't recall such a solid run of rabies threads in my time on the boards.
Anyway... in light of the number of rabies threads currently running, I thought it would be interesting to bump this and discuss it. I'm curious as to the mindset and internal conversation that's going on. What is the reasoning in light of indisputable facts that still allows this fear to persist?
Positive thoughts
Re: Why is rabies an infamous topic on HA forums?
I had a rabies fear in the past two weeks (I since moved to brain eating amoeba but rabies might make a comeback) and my therapist told me that much to my surprise, in a small country like mine 4 of her other patients even without history of HA have rabies fear.
She believes it's tied with: uncertain symptoms, easy to imagine scenarios, loss of control and a certain death - these things check all the HA worst boxes and this fear is especially stronger with people with OCD or catastrophic thoughts/scenarios. I mean most of us here could write good horror movies or at least scary news articles.
Re: Why is rabies an infamous topic on HA forums?
I think health anxiety searches for the most unlikely scenarios because they are difficult to diagnose, more likely to be ignored by health care professionals (since they are almost certainly not what you have), and they can produce symptoms that are very common among anxiety sufferers (aches and pains, headaches, numbness, tingling, etc...) Anxiety is like a parasite, always looking for a host. So, naturally, it will find the most succulent thing to sink its teeth into. More simple and easily diagnoses and cured illnesses are useless to the anxiety parasite.
Re: Why is rabies an infamous topic on HA forums?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Fishmanpa
I did a search here on "rabies" and the number of posts is mind boggling! I don't recall such a solid run of rabies threads in my time on the boards.
Anyway... in light of the number of rabies threads currently running, I thought it would be interesting to bump this and discuss it. I'm curious as to the mindset and internal conversation that's going on. What is the reasoning in light of indisputable facts that still allows this fear to persist?
Positive thoughts
There are three active threads here TODAY as we speak; none of them based on any scientific reality.
Re: Why is rabies an infamous topic on HA forums?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
paranoid-viking
There are three active threads here TODAY as we speak; none of them based on any scientific reality.
I know. That's why I bumped this thread. I'm just curious how the dots are connected when there's no reality involved. It's like 2+2=36. Or maybe that's the answer. Anxiety skews reality until one cannot see reality :shrug:
I see that Rabies was given it's own sub-forum. Good move admin! Good move indeed!
Positive thoughts
Re: Why is rabies an infamous topic on HA forums?
Many fears are not rational.
I this one just particularly annoys me because 1) the people suffering from it clearly can’t see that this is just another form of OCD and 2) many animals get blamed for nothing. As an animal lover and rescuer, we don’t need any extra negative and incorrect information to be out there that keep people from adopting strays. There are too many good animals without homes.