Hi! I'm completely, utterly new to these forums, and I'm hoping I won't need to post here too often.
Recently, I was on vacation with a friend of mine, and when we got to our hotel room, we were greeted with an adorable little surprise -
There was a little, tiny bat on our screen window, roosting. It hardly moved too much at all, but you knew it was roosting because every now and then, you could see them kicking their little legs. It was quite cute, actually.
Here's the thing - I actually love bats. I really think they lovable little things. By all means, having something like this happen to me is something that SHOULD feel like a special occasion. Unfortunately, like many other people on this forum, I have a serious issue. Anxiety. Loads of it. Even if I played it off to my friend, even in the face of everything rational, my mind kept screaming at me, "you might be in danger, what if the bat gets to you!" Isn't that a bummer? I can't let myself enjoy something even as simple and dumb as this.
Let's take a look at the hotel room in question:
The ONLY way a bat could get into the room would be through the side of the building, here - there's rooms on top of and below this one. So how on earth is a bat going to sneak in? Is it a ninja? Does the legendary "ninja bat" exist after all? Probably not.
But my anxieties really set off later that night, when we returned to our room, and the bat was gone! Where did it go? It could have snuck into our room, right? Even though, in a paranoid fit, I looked around the entire room and it was nowhere to be found - bats are ninjas, so clearly this one had just outsmarted me. Still, me and my friend went to sleep soon after returning. When I woke up, it got worse! I had a bump on my scalp. A nice, big, bump - that felt exactly like several of the bumps and pimples I've had as of late. But no, this bump meant that I was FOR SURE bitten by our window buddy from the night before. I looked up all sorts of articles about bats and rabies, and how you might not wake up if one bit you during your sleep. Scary! Doomscrolling really does a lot to set off one's anxiety.
I REALLY searched the room this time (both of these searches occurred while my friend was in the bathroom). Every single crevice, every possible little spot a bat could be hiding. None. Nada. Nothing whatsoever. Clever ninja. These little creatures are quite clever. And the funny thing is, no matter how much I looked around, my anxiety wouldn't go away. I had to be at rabies risk for even having seen a bat in the daytime.
What was more likely? That the bat found a miracle entrance into my room, sneakily bit me while I was asleep, and then hid away somewhere that I absolutely couldn't find them? Or that the bat woke up and flew away? Which one makes more sense? I would ask the question in my head, over and over, and still the fear would NOT go away. The "what if". The element of distrust and nervousness that I was risking my life over this. How could my mind spit so much in the face of all things logical and insist that I have a miserable time on my vacation? Why must it occupy so much space in my mind and cause me such trouble? The power of one's anxiety can be crippling. Anxiety can really reduce your ability to function on a reasonable level. It's actually quite frightening how easily the anxiety can take complete hold of you. It's hard to shoo it away and it'll always skitters back if you let it.
Me and my friend went to the zoo the next day. And I realized something interesting while I was there. I was staring down a frightening, dangerous predator - a polar bear, and yet I did not have the slightest iota of fear. Not even a bit. I was looking face to face at this predator, something that, in the wild, would kill me without hesitation, and I wasn't scared. Because there was a wall of protective glass around us. Because in my head, there was not even the simplest possibility that a bear could find a way to get through that barrier. Just like the window in my hotel room that stayed locked throughout my stay! Why wasn't I completely separated from that bat, in my head? Why couldn't I treat a bat like a polar bear?
It takes the full force of one's rationality to fight back against this sort of anxiety, sure, but it also takes faith, effort, and the ability to accept the cards you've been dealt. I remember reading a post on this website one time that you have to accept the micro-chance that something actually could have went terribly wrong, and you lost the lottery. Life is filled with all sorts of things that can, and might hurt us, and you must live with the danger that comes from being alive. To truly live, you must accept uncertainty. There is no guarantee that I will not end up in a car accident on the way to work today. There is no promise that the building I work in won't collapse in on itself. What if everything we knew about stars was wrong, and the sun went supernova today? What could we do against that?
Maybe I lost the lottery and I'll be dead and gone within the month. Probably not. But that's what it's all about. Accepting the possibility, but not giving it more heed or attention than any of the others. At some point it is good to look after your health, but this is not that point. This is an unhelpful anxiety that could have taken over the next month of my life if I did not take the time to rationalize it, calm my head, and accept the possibility. It really is an impossibility, but it could have happened. There are all sorts of animals probably living within the walls of my apartment. Some of them might even be bats. But I don't worry about what might happen if the bat somehow miraculously found its way to the other side of the wall. Because it hasn't. And it wouldn't.
I wrote this post, not in the pursuit of reassurance, but in the hopes that maybe I might help calm some others down as well. I'm a nervous wreck, and if I can pull myself together and quell the anxious beast inside of me, maybe this can help you do it too.
Besides, bats are really, incredibly cute. Yeah, they sometimes carry rabies, but so do dogs. And who doesn't love dogs?
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