Fear of rabies and terrible anxiety :(

[MagpieWitch]

Hello! I am Maria and I am new on this forum so hello! Nice to be around people that might understand.

I'm 21 and I've have been suffering with really severe anxiety and hypochondria on and off for the past 5 years and this summer since my exams ended I've been constantly anxious day and night.

Now I got this terrible fear that I have rabies. I am scared because as usual I was taking a walk in the park at night and there were many bats flying around (and there were also a lot of people, familes, people my age going out and so) and I got scared a bat might swoop down and bite me so I hurried back to the more opened area away from the trees. And then I felt this weird tingling like sensation on the back of my head.

Of course anxiety kicked in and I thought a bat had bitten me. Few weeks later here I am now and I began getting strange itching from that part of my scalp in the past week and began thinking that its the rabies coming to claim me since it says one of the first symptoms is pain and tingling at the bite site.

I just want to talk to people that might've had bat rabies fears too in hope that I can figure out if this is a irrational fear. My parents (who are doctors) dismissed it quickly and said I couldn't have had a bat land on my head without me feeling it while being completely conscious and also my mom said that I have long hair so if it were to scratch or bite me it would have to at least push my hair so there would be no way I wouldn't feel it. I mean I felt a small moth landing in my head few days later so I would have felt a whole entire bat?

I just remember reading stories of some woman who got touched by a bat and got rabies and died and that just comes back to me. I am pretty scared about this so if anyone can give me just a little peace of mind I will be very grateful

[Fishmanpa]

Rabies is one of those fears that defies logic. With respect, what you describe is frankly just impossible.

Positive thoughts

[NervUs]

Seems your parents are right. You saw a bat and started having intrusive thoughts. That kind of thing has happened to me before. The bottom line is, you don't know if you've had an exposure so that means you didn't have an exposure. If everyone who saw a bat got rabies, a LOT of people would be dead. It doesn't work that way!

[MagpieWitch]

To be honest I didn't even see a bat. I know that there are bats around and I've seen some before but I didn't see one that night in particular so the anxiety rabbit hole goes deeper
I don't know whats worse the physical sensations of anxiety or the fear

[budgie1979]

I'm in the same situation, and it's making me miserable. Last week, I was fostering an 8-week-old puppy (so, too young to be immunized). The puppy was super mouthy, and broke the skin on my wrist with one of her bites. Since then, I've been convinced I might have rabies. The SPCA that I was fostering from assured me that since the puppy had come in from the Cayman Islands, which does not have rabies in land animals (just bats), there's no way the puppy had been exposed to rabies. I kept trying to tell myself everything would be fine, but the arm that I was bit on now feels painful and heavy. Today I broke down and reported the bite to the county health department, who scolded me for not reporting it sooner and not keeping control of the puppy for monitoring (she is with another foster now). The puppy is still apparently healthy according to the woman who is currently fostering her, and I only have 2 more days in the monitoring protocol before they say no, the dog is fine, there's no way you could have gotten rabies. And logically I know it's basically impossible for this puppy to have rabies and even if she did, I wouldn't have it this quickly. I just don't know how to convince my anxiety that everything is okay. I made an appointment with my therapist for tomorrow, but this whole thing is making me miserable, and now I also feel like a failure for giving in to the anxiety and reporting the bite.

[MagpieWitch]

I get scared cause I am feeling feverish and nauseous and theres a part on my scalp thats tingling. I'm also restless and google says those are symptoms of rabies.
I don't know what to think I mean bats are not little if one touched me I would have known and felt at least something right???

[TattooArtist]

They are symptoms of anxiety. No one on this thread has rabies.

[MagpieWitch]

Thank you...
Do i need to have high fever to be considered rabies? And I would have felt a bat hit in me and bite me right?

[Bigboyuk]

Hi I think the best thing here to do is stop asking Google it only makes you worse, seen countless posts on Googling and the fear of god it can cause. You don't have rabies I can assure you of this, so try and relax now Cheers

[Fishmanpa]

Ok... I realize you're in a state of panic. For a moment consider this analogy...

Essentially, with absolutely no evidence, you're attributing your feelings to a disease that for all intents and purposes does not afflict people anymore. You're saying the sky is green when the entire world knows it's blue.

You don't have rabies (.) 'period'

Positive thoughts