Found my rabies ocd trigger

[sportboy]

Hi.

Recently I made a post about my rabies fear.

Finally, after two weeks it got better.
I don't have anxiety or obsession about this situation.
However, three days ago I happened to be near that place where it all started. It was around 9pm and usually there are no people. It's really quiet place. There is a mansion house which is now a school. Also there are some other small buildings, crop fields and behind that mansion there are like 10 really big trees, like a small park.

Sunset was really beautiful and I really like to walk there, so I thought I should stop the car and just walk for 5 minutes. I remember how I walked behind one building and laughed how I should be careful, may be some mysterious bat bites me from these trees. And then I noticed a car driving past that building with loud music. I stand there for like 15 seconds, I thought may be the car was coming behind that building, but no. Then I took my phone and it got my attention for a minute may be. And then IT HAPPENED! I got an idea. How can I be sure that bat didn't just bite me? I looked my hands, everything, there was no bite, no bat, no bat noise.

Next day I decided to go back there, because I go to gym near that place. It was really uncomfortable to be there.
And yesterday I went there again and this happened again. I was looking at these big trees and felt like a mosquito bite me and my brain told me... BATS, RABIES. I went to my car but had to go back and check twice that there are no bats and I calmed down.

Now I think I got rabies three days ago when I first time visited this place again.

Now I'm just so confused. I go to forest almost daily and for hours. All kind of bugs and things bite me, scratches on hands. But nothing, no obsession that may be a bat bite me. I've been at this place hundreds times, during the day or night, I've never seen a bat there. But now these trees triggers everytime.

What should I do? I take many herbs for my anxiety and quit coffee and it really helps for anxiety. But what can I do with this trigger?

[AntsyVee]

Maybe it's time to do more. Why don't you try the "Anxiety and Phobia Workbook" by Bourne. It would be a good start, and maybe some journaling. Keep track of your triggers.
If that doesn't work, you can also go a step further and try therapy.

[sportboy]

Thanks for the book recommendation.

May be I'm doing something wrong or react wrongly? One part of me knows all these facts that I would feel the bite or see a bat. I ask myself.. "okay, let's consider that you have rabies and you got it from there. Where did that bat, that you didn't see, bite you? Where you felt pain?" And I can't answer that question.

But I can't just forget this situation too. These doubts haunt me. I know techniques how I should just let it be in my mind and don't react. But how? This incubation period is also so long.

With hiv and cancer it helped to accept the fact that I may have it and also that these diseases are not death sentence anymore. But what about rabies? How can I accept the fact that I have rabies. Then it means that I will die soon.

[AntsyVee]

Yeah, but you don't have rabies. You need to accept the fact that you don't have it. Unless you live in India or some other third world country and have been actually attacked and have bite marks and remember being bitten, you don't have rabies.

Another book I recommend for OCD is Brain Lock.

[sportboy]

Thanks, I will read that too.

From the first book and from the internet I've learned that you must resist or delay doing your compulsions. But I still can't figure out how to apply this in my current situation.

I've done it with my driving ocd. I just don't go back and don't check and the idea will fade. But in this situation there is only an obsession. I don't even search information about it. It's irrational and would happen only in some fantasy movie. But how should I deal with it?
I made a huge mistake that I tried to ignore that idea when I was at that place. I tried to not think about it and of course it went worse.

[MyNameIsTerry]

But in this situation there is only an obsession.

Here is a compulsion:

I went to my car but had to go back and check twice that there are no bats and I calmed down.

Compulsions are not just physical, they can be covert/mental. You aren't searching out information, which is great, as that would be one form but what else are you doing? Are you making mental checks or using diffusing statements or repeating words or anything like that even?

I think it's great that you aren't allowing avoidance to stop you going back. Do you feel you want to go back? If so, that's great. If you feel you have to go back because of the anxiety, that's compulsion. If you feel you have to go back to try to evoke the same expected anxiety/panic reaction, that may be a testing compulsion. Behavioural Experiments and therapy to work on problems, like exposure is great though.

[sportboy]

Thank you for your response.

Yes, I do many compulsions in my mind. I think all the time about that evening, how I walked there, what I did, what I felt. So yes, this is a compulsion.

And I know you have to break your compulsion. Accept that it's in your mind but not react. But how I make difference between irrational thought and a real one? I think may be I'm wrong, may be something happened and now I think it's my ocd and ignore real danger.

Evenings and nights are best for me. Every day I go to sleep and think that yes, it's so impossible situation and irrational thought, it feels like my logic works during the night. And when I wake up, it starts again. My brain just forgets everything and it all starts again.

With my driving ocd it's easy. I just hope that it's ocd threat and that I didn't kill anyone while driving. Then I distract my mind for some time and see that police didn't come to get me and everything is fine. But with rabies I have only one chance. If I make a mistake and hope that it's only in my mind, then I'm dead.

So the main question is. How to know that my thought is unreal? How to make difference between ocd threat and a real threat?

[AntsyVee]

In that book there is an exercise with writing your thoughts down on paper in a tgraph and looking at the natural consequences like you've done with driving. So you know how the police will come to get you if you were involved in a hit and run? With rabies, you would have flesh missing, scratches. You would have evidence on your body of an animal attack. You don't have that.

[sportboy]

My mistake was that that I tried to ignore the thought. I remember how I looked my hands very closely in bright light and decided to not take photos. Because these photos would become a compulsion for me, to check them.

I've watched videos how people get bite by a bat. They always scream, have atleast some bite marks. But some websites write that you may not notice bat bites. However, while sleeping or when you are drunk.

So then my brain just creates that impossible scenario. And then it seems so real threat.

[AntsyVee]

Have you ever tried medication?