COVID Worries

I’ll preface this by saying I haven’t posted here in a long time, I used to do so all the time, but because of my medication things have calmed down for me for awhile now. However, lately an obsession has been clouding my mind with paranoia, and I haven’t been able to shake it. I have diagnosed OCD and generalized anxiety, so it makes sense, but I still can’t let go of this fear I have. Basically around early last year AKA February/March time (I actually posted about this when it was happening, you can find it in my old posts) I had a cruise scheduled with my parents.


It was right around the time COVID was starting, things were really bad in China, but only a few cases had popped up in the US at that point, I think. Well, a week before my cruise, I went out clubbing with my roommate in college (the first and ONLY time i’ve done this btw), and kissed a guy, shared drinks, etc. I was stupid, so stupid. And of course I ended up getting sick. It’s been awhile but I remember that I had the WORST sore throat ever. A horrible cough, where I was coughing up chunks of yellow/green-ish phlegm, and a headache. I don’t remember my other symptoms, but yeah.

Anyways, I had reservations about going, not just because I was sick, but because of the pandemic that was slowly growing at the time. My parents assured me it was fine, and I had the flu most likely (They really just didn’t want to cancel the cruise and end up losing their money as refunds weren’t available). I went on the cruise and was sick the whole time, and really just shouldn’t have gone to be honest. My sickness lasted for awhile, actually, I think about 3 ish weeks. By the time I came back from the cruise, which was about a week long, I was STILL sick. With the pandemic, smack dab in the middle of the cruise was when things really started to get bad in America, I think. Shortly after I came back from it was when my college moved classes online, and the lockdown was issued.

Ever since things have gotten worse, and we now know more about the virus, my OCD is fixated on this whole thing, more and more. My parents have assured me I most likely didn’t have COVID, but I can’t stop worrying about the possibilities. I’m very very paranoid I DID have it, and brought it onto the ship, possibly killing someone. I know I’ll never know for sure, but i’m extremely worried about the possibility. At that point in time, tests weren’t really available yet, but I did get tested for strep throat, which I was convinced I had because the sore throat was so godawful, and my results for that came back negative.

My parents have both taken the serologic (? I think it’s called) test, the one that shows if you had covid in the past previously, and for both of them it came back negative, as well as the fact that I bunked with my family during the cruise, and when I first got sick I was in close quarters with my roommates, and none of them got sick. But my paranoid mind worries they were all somehow asymptomatic. Ever since the cruise I’ve been vigilant, and only go grocery shopping or to my job, I stay home besides that, and I always wear my mask, as well as taking all the precautions. But I worry somehow I had COVID, and spread it on that cruise.

I know the cases were low in America at that point, but I’ve read how it could’ve been in the US sooner than thought, and that I had it and did something horribly irreversible and seriously harmed someone. My parents are saying I’m overthinking and being paranoid, and they keep pointing out that none of them got sick, and if I had COVID at least 1 of them would’ve, and I know that, but my conscience is so guilty. I feel like I seriously killed someone, and I can’t stop thinking about it. I know things were also different at the start of the pandemic, and when I posted about the subject in here about the cruise, many others said not to worry, and just enjoy the cruise, but with how much the virus has progressed and everything we know now, I feel so terrible and guilty.

I guess I could take the serologic test to see, but I’ve heard those only work if you had the virus the last 9 months, and I went on the cruise March of 2020. I don’t know, I guess I just need somehow that I didn’t have COVID, and harmed anyone by being careless.

Hi

This is just a courtesy reply to let you know that your post was moved from its original place to a sub-forum that is more relevant to your issue.

This is nothing personal - it just enables us to keep posts about the same problems in the relevant forums so other members with any experience with the issues can find them more easily.

Please also read this post:

http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=213239

It was a different world back then where no-one would have thought twice about going out when they had a cough. Now things are different obviously.

There are a few ways of looking at this...
1). This is how viruses spread in life. Someone gave it to you didn’t they? If you gave it to someone else you can’t really be blamed unless you were purposely coughing in their faces to make them ill. My daughter has a cold this week, she caught it at school, she’ll most likely pass it on to me and my partner. He might pass it on to the person he works with. None of it is intentional, often by the time it’s passed on it’s too late to do anything.

2). No-one you were with caught it which means it’s likely that you didn’t give it to someone else. You aren’t patient zero or anything, you just went on a cruise. It’s likely a lot of the other people on that cruise we’re carrying all sorts of germs too.

3. Time to work on your anxiety over it.

Xx


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I really feel for you and understand how your OCD is playing with your mind and riddling you with misplaced "guilt" about being responsible for the pandemic taking off on the cruise ship and beyond..but as Scass says, it's a different world now and back then people did still continue to go out and socialise when they had a virus. A cough wasn't "ominous" and a sneeze was benign.

Yes you had a nasty bug but not every bug was Covid a year ago. There's actually nothing you can do about this anxiety other than try to rationalise it and alleviate this "guilt" and sense of "responsibility" for being a perceived "super spreader". Don't let the ruminations take over your life. You did nothing wrong but you must believe this xx

I don't have anything much more to add, that Scass and Pulisa haven't already covered. I would say one thing though - its clear you are a deeply moral person, who cares hugely about others and would never knowingly put anyone at risk. That is the fact that you hang onto here - 'intention' and 'knowledge' make the difference in your type of situation, and you can't carry guilt when you had neither the intention to hurt anyone, nor the knowledge that the rest of the human race didn't have either. ;)

Thank you all for your responses. Yeah, with this virus, I really don’t even care about myself, as I know I’d be okay and fine if I ever got it, I worry about carrying it and possibly infecting and killing someone vulnerable. I’m as health conscious as possible now, but I worry about actions taken in the beginning of the pandemic, like the cruise. I guess I’ll never know for sure if I had it, which sucks.

But if you knew you had definitely had Covid and had gone on the cruise unknowingly..what then?

Maybe best to assume that you had a bad virus but didn't pass it on to your parents or even to your friends. Covid is so contagious so not everyone would have been asymptomatic.

You are overthinking and ruminating on something over which you had and have no control. You mustn't torment yourself.

Your worries must now be reduced since there are already vaccines available. However, are you willing to be vaccinated?