Found a dead Rat buried in garden while gardening will I get a disease? Panicking

Hi all,
Well I ended up having a private GP appointment today. I explained everything that had happened and the doctor said she thought I had nothing to worry about because I was wearing gloves and didn’t touch the rat anyway. She said I probably have a 0.000001% chance of getting Weil’s disease and that’s only because medically they can never say there’s absolutely no chance but not to be worried.
The trouble is I still am! I feel like I’m a ticking bomb and need to be on red alert for the first sign of any symptoms.
I really hate my life sometimes!

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Originally Posted by Nighttime pacer

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The trouble is I still am! I feel like I’m a ticking bomb and need to be on red alert for the first sign of any symptoms.
I really hate my life sometimes!

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Then take some responsibility for your own wellness. Don't ask strangers on the internet for reassurance and don't go running to the Doctor every time you have a completely irrational fear.

You say you hate your life, but it's your thought patterns creating your reality. You are the one focusing on the unlikely, you are the one repeating self checking and online research. You have to stop doing those things. If you have been given 0.000001% odds and STILL worry, what does that tell you?

You have to take charge of your mind. It's not a complicated thing to do, it's just a hard thing to do. So better get started today right?

Hi Anxietyjoe,
I realise you’re right. I spoke to my therapist yesterday and she said spending any more time thinking about the rat only escalates it in my mind and won’t change anything. I know she’s right and I know this is a well worn path for me as every episode of health anxiety I have follows the same pattern. I’ll try and stay off here and stop wasting my life obsessing.

Try and paint this little picture in your mind.

Your subconscious is the part of the brain creating the fear response. It's really very good at making you feel danger, because historically it's needed to be there to save your life in times of mortal danger. It's an autonomous response that you absolutely cannot control. The fight or flight response is immediate and unstoppable.

However, how you react to a trigger is absolutely in your control.

The thing about the subconscious is that it's a caveman/woman brain. All it understands is that sex and food are good, and tigers and fire are bad. If YOU spend time researching worst case scenarios, the subconscious cannot tell the difference between you reading it and it actually happening. You are visualising the worst, and the cavewoman inside you is reacting to what it perceives to be imminent danger, that's how it works. That's also how horror movies work. You know it's a film right, so why is it scaring you? You are effectively creating your own horror movie 24/7. This is how it works. This is how health anxiety works. You feed your subconscious problems that aren't really happening, and it reacts...immediately. So stop feeding it!

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Originally Posted by ankietyjoe

Health anxiety is not an affliction that comes TO you, it's a behaviour you repeat.

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This will be my mantra!

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