Hi guys. I hope everyone remembers mother's day tomorrow. I have beendoing really great lately. I even for a brief moment felt like I could go into a store or restaurant without my mom. But I had a relapse just yesterday. I was putting suet into my birdfeeder and was just coming inside when for some reason my ocd thought that I could have or had caught rabies from the birdfeeder. I suddenly became a germaphobe. My hands were alwaysdirty. "IT" was still on there. I washed my hands about 4 times, then the sink, the soap bottle, the handle, and then the sink basin. I threw the feeder away, and I sat at my computer, without touching anything for about an hour and just let the ocd fire run through my brain. I have had the ocd about becoming ill before, but I am never ready for a new wave of it to hit. I of coarsedid not get rabies, I know that ridiculous. But the fear of the hopelessness of getting adisease that is incurable and fatal is just food for my ocd to create new phobias. There has been rabies reported about 1000 miles away from my area. So I have seen it on the news and on the internet and I am sure that is where the rabies came from. I never thought about rabies before. It alsodoesn’t help it’s been adifficult time in my family. My grandmother has passed away from pancreas cancer. There are probably a lot of other factors that are making me weak right now to.
But summer is coming, that means the fishing is going to start. I just hope I can get something’s figured out this summer beforedepressing winter comes.
I have serious issues with germs and disease. I was watching my mother in law cook chicken and she didn't wash her hands. I felt like I was going to faint. I kept thinking that she was spreading disease. I will sometimes wash and clean my house until I feel like it's clean enough. usually when my anxiety is at it's all time high, the ocd tends to bring in some random thought and then I freak out. I hope you feel better.
Epix, to be honest in this case you are correct. You SHOULD wash hands after preparing raw chicken!!! LOL
But in regards to the original post. I think rabies can seem scary when you are not near it. I grew up in the UK where rabies does not exist and they used to have scary BBC documentaries on about what would happen if it arrived.
Then I moved to the US. I worked on a horse farm that had many rabid animals found. I have also seen rabid animals and so I know that it is much more difficult to get than just via contamination. We are taught to fear it and it is much like our OCD fears. The more we aren't desensitized to it, the worse it seems. (Oh and birds don't carry rabies FYI).