Rabies fear again...

[maz063]

I was just freaking out on here last week. But I have another rabies trigger... so tonight I was walking on campus without my roommates and I felt a pinch or something light hit the back of my knee. I immidiately turned around and rubbed the area and saw nothing. But I'm afraid a bat scratched my or bumped into my leg and got away without me noticing. I would have heard a bat hit me right? Especially since they have those leathery wings. Or I would have heard it flap or chirp? I was wearing my gym shorts under my sweats so maybe that's what I was feeling? The fabrics either dropping or hitting the back of my knee?

I really don't want to go through this rabies obsession again....
Please help me to stop beliving in ninja bat.

[paranoid-viking]

Has the rabies scare story from Florida got to you now?

I see you post a lot of rabies threads. Your problem is health anxiety, not rabies.

[maz063]

I didn't even hear about Florida. I known deep down this is OCD but the fear and what ifs I'm feeling are so strong right now.

[axolotl]

I posted this on another thread last night...

Actually...

Going on stats on Wikipedia and some back-of-a-cig-packet calculations...

There were 15 human cases of rabies contracted in the USA between 2008 and 2017.

Elsewhere, it says c30% of cases in 2015 were from bats, so let's extrapolate that to the cases across that whole time period.

Which means around 5 cases of bat-borne human rabies in nine years. 0.556 cases per year in a population of 323 million people. Let's make that 0.5 to make my sums easier...

So, very roughly, you have about a one in 646 million chance of getting rabies from a bat in the USA in any one year, which is the equivalent of winning the lottery 46 times.

Of course that's very crude - it's dependant on State, habitat, line of work you're in, etc, so obviously not every American has the same odds... but you see how astronomically unlikely it is?

[MyNameIsTerry]

Remember how your fear is trying to skew your thinking. It's shouting "bat" when it could have been a cat, a rat, a brick thrown or even just a twinge of some kind. There are many possibilities but the subconscious knows to be afraid of bats and so it's pops that into your mind.

Try to not react to it. Go about things as you need to. Cut down thinking time and recognise when you are trying to obsess and do something to distract yourself.

[Chris 614]

I just want to add that I had a bat fly into my house about a year and a half ago. There was nothing stealth about it. If it had hit the back of my knee I would have noticed.

[axolotl]

I just want to add that I had a bat fly into my house about a year and a half ago. There was nothing stealth about it. If it had hit the back of my knee I would have noticed.

This is a good point, a bat shouldn't be in a house, has found itself in an unfamiliar place, and if anything panics. It's not lurking ready to pounce at knees and then slip undetected back into the shadows.

There's a hilarious viral video of an Irish family trying to catch a bat in their kitchen. If you've got a bat phobia don't look for it, but it shows they're hardly stealthy things!

[Fishmanpa]

When I was a young teen, my buddy and I used to catch bats. Much to our mother's displeasure, we would take a pair of nylons, put rocks in the toes and throw them into the air at dusk. The bats would think it was prey and attack them, get tangled up in the nylons and the rocks would bring them down. We'd keep them in cages as pets for a few days, hand feed them, observe them etc. and then let them go. Handled them with gloves. They're actually pretty cool animals. Never got bit and no rabies

Why am I posting this story? Because it's the absolute polar opposite of this fear. Never, ever, ever, have I worried about this. Our Moms were another story! ~lol~ It's like the quote I posted from tryingtosurvive1... This is what your HA/OCD chooses to fixate on. It's what YOU choose to fixate on! Why not a lightning strike (more probable than rabies) or a car accident?

Anyway... I know they'll be more rabies threads to come but it's still an absolute fantasy.

Positive thoughts

[maz063]

This is a good point, a bat shouldn't be in a house, has found itself in an unfamiliar place, and if anything panics. It's not lurking ready to pounce at knees and then slip undetected back into the shadows.

There's a hilarious viral video of an Irish family trying to catch a bat in their kitchen. If you've got a bat phobia don't look for it, but it shows they're hardly stealthy things!

True but my concern involves being outside at night. That's why I'm scared of it being stealthy.

[axolotl]

True but my concern involves being outside at night. That's why I'm scared of it being stealthy.

Unless your knees look remarkably like a juicy moth I think you'll be OK...