one thing after the other....

[Elen]

Here is hoping that Pest Control have good news for you.

At the worst they should be able to give you advice on how to ensure that you do not take them home with you.

[cofo]

Here is hoping that Pest Control have good news for you.

At the worst they should be able to give you advice on how to ensure that you do not take them home with you.

Thank you. Still waiting. Talk about exposure therapy. I keep trying to figure out how to use this to get my self better.latelt I have made a conscious effort to try to get my anxiety under controlZ I was trying to expose myself to small things to help myself gradually to desensitize and all that , But it’s my biggest fear...I didn’t realize I would be facing it right now. But since I am, what can I do mentally to help myself. Now. In this moment?

[ErinKC]

But since I am, what can I do mentally to help myself. Now. In this moment?

Answering my "what ifs" with "so whats" can help me stop spiraling. It helps me see the logical and reasonable steps that I can take in the instance any of my catastrophizing comes to be, and it makes it all seems like less of a catastrophe.

What if there were bed bugs in the first room?
So, what if there were - the chances of bringing them upstairs with you are slim.

What if you did bring them upstairs and they got on your stuff?
So, what if you did - you will ask the exterminator what actions to take to avoid bringing them home with you.

What if you bring them home with you anyway?
So, what if you do - you will bring in an exterminator and take action against them. People get bed bugs and survive. They are gross but nothing more than an expensive nuisance.

This exercise always knocks my fears down a notch - like, bring it on! I have an answer for you!

[cofo]

Answering my "what ifs" with "so whats" can help me stop spiraling. It helps me see the logical and reasonable steps that I can take in the instance any of my catastrophizing comes to be, and it makes it all seems like less of a catastrophe.

What if there were bed bugs in the first room?
So, what if there were - the chances of bringing them upstairs with you are slim.

What if you did bring them upstairs and they got on your stuff?
So, what if you did - you will ask the exterminator what actions to take to avoid bringing them home with you.

What if you bring them home with you anyway?
So, what if you do - you will bring in an exterminator and take action against them. People get bed bugs and survive. They are gross but nothing more than an expensive nuisance.

This exercise always knocks my fears down a notch - like, bring it on! I have an answer for you!

this is an excellent exercise. i already do this naturally of course, but to see it written out this way, is so helpful.
my therapist told me a long time ago that i needed to just say "#@&! it". kinda like saying "so what". i do sometimes get to that point with some things, but haven't been able to with BB. also, all of my friends here are not helping much with that. they are telling me things like i have to bleach all my stuff, and go to the laundrymat, and you can't get rid of those things if you get them, and what a nightmare, etc. they are NOT helping with the so what game.

anyway, i have managed to have some fun while i was here. i'm dreading going home now tomorrow because of all the work and anxiety of making sure i'm not bringing these bugs home with me. i'm really concerned about the clothes and shoes i had on. i washed them and then i put them in with my other things. so that's kinda making me cringe.
maybe i got some eggs on my clothes when i was fooling with the mattress/boxsprings/sheets, etc. of course, i walked into this new condo with those clothes on too. anyway, i guess that's why i'm going to take precautions.
the pest guy came and checked my bedrooms in the current condo and they checked out so that's a relief. he confirmed that what i found in the original condo was in fact bed bug casings and droppings though. of course i already knew that. he didn't find any live bugs, so he's not sure if it is a new or old infestation.

i wish i could use this as an exposure therapy somehow. but i fear that this is just going to reinforce the need for checking and worrying about them.
i'm not sure how i'll be able to go to hotels again. how can i spin this to help me, instead of hurt me with this fear?

[Scass]

I’m glad you’ve been enjoying yourself.
I imagine that when you get home you’ll was everything again anyway? Maybe if you have a steam cleaner you could use that on your cases.

The important thing is that you managed and you did well.

[cofo]

cognitive behavioral therapy - anyone here have specific steps that they would use in my situation? is it really just changing the negative thoughts to positive ones? does anyone find it scary to do that? like, somehow my negative thoughts are keeping me safer than the positive ones would? i can't quite explain what i mean, but i'm actually afraid to think positively.

i do feel so alone. my sisters are 4 hours drive away, and while i talk to them daily, it's not the same as having someone here. my husband lives in his own little world, and is sick of my anxiety. my closest friends don't live here either. the friends i do have here are more like "surface" friends. so, i feel so responsible for my son by myself. my sister asked me what the worst thing would be if i got bedbugs, and i said that i was scared we would have a really hard time getting rid of them, and it could take weeks or months and we wouldn't be able to go to anyone else's house, or have anyone else come here, and my son would have bites all over him and have to attend school and graduation like that, and then we would all be ostracized from everyone else, and it would just be us three and since my husband lives in his own little world, it would really just be me and my son, and i'd have to be the sole person trying to make his life ok, when i would be feeling so alone in my life. so, while i do not want the bugs, it's really the anxiety and aloneness that they create that i'm afraid of.
how's that for some psychoanalysis?

so, i have washed and washed and dried and dried and inspected and vacuumed most of our stuff. i have yet to be able to bring the shoes inside. i didn't see any bugs on them, but i'm afraid maybe some eggs might have traveled home with us, and since they are so hard to see, it's making me scared to bring anything inside.
i kept my duffle bag on top of the ironing board(makeshift luggage rack), adjacent to the bedroom(the bedroom and bath vanity/closet didn't have a door, just open to each other(the toilet shower area was separate), so that part was basically in the bedroom, is my point. and when i was unpacking i noticed that the duffle had a smudge on the seam of the zipper. it looked like the smudge signs of fecal matter. it was on the top and bottom seam. so, of course, that freaks me out. the pest control guy checked my bed in the new condo. he said if they were there they'd be in the bed cause they are basically lazy and want to stay close to their hosts, so if we had bugs in there we would have been bit, since we stayed 4 nights. although once i read that it can take 2 weeks for bites to react. but i'm scared that i carried a bug in from the luggage cart when it was in the other condo. it got on my bag then and who knows where it went!! or if there were more!

if i could have a plan just in case i get them. but i can't research it because no matter how hard i try to avoid the fear mongering it always shows up when i google.

oh, and of course yesterday, i got an itchy bug bite on my forearm. i have had on long sleeves so i'm not sure what it is. that's not comforting at all.

[Scass]

So, one of my favourite things from CBT is the worry diary and worry tree.

Worry diary - write down your worries as they pop into your head through the day, don’t spend any more time thinking about them after you’ve written them down. Schedule a time every day (not right before bed) to spend half an hour on your worry diary. Read through it, add to it, categorise the worries (see worry tree). Then after your half an hour, go off and do something that will consume & distract you. Cooking or cleaning, exercise, watch tv.... anything to reset yourself.

Worry tree: our worries should be able to be categorised into hypothetical and practical.
Eg. Worrying you may have picked up bedbugs is a hypothetical worry because you have no idea if you have. Plus you’re then catastrophising that worry.

Worrying that you don’t have enough money to pay a bill is kind of a practical worry. It’s something that you can apply problem solving to, like discussing with the supplier etc.


Once you have categorised your bedbug worries into hypothetical worries, you need to let them go. You need to realise that there is nothing else you can do, you have done everything you can and you are doing no good worrying about something that may never happen. So let it go. Strike it off your list of things to worry about. Every time the thought pops up, write it down to think about later in your allotted worry time, then again, decide if it’s a worry you can do anything about? You will hopefully eventually make it so unimportant that it’ll disappear.



I think that’s it anyway....

[AMomentofClarity]

The CBT question.....

Its not about changing negative thoughts to positive, it’s about challenging the realisticness of the negative thoughts and the worst case scenarios you create in your mind.
First it’s ok, what are really the odds that you picked up bed bugs and brought them home with you. In your anxious mind it’s 90%, in reality it’s probably like 10%. Then challenging the worst case scenario....moving from the anxious “it’s going to ruin my life” to the realistic “here’s what it would look like and here’s how we’d address it.”

Its essentially trying to get your mind into a similar place as a non anxious person.

As such, granted I don’t know the details, when you say “my husband lives in his own little world”, I read:

My husband doesn’t have anxiety so he won’t indulge my catastrophic thinking.