Hello. I have neglected writing about this for far too long. It is time to shed some light so others struggling will have peace of mind knowing they are not alone, and there are people you can talk to.
My name is Jay. I am 19, an American male college student and general consensus claims I am a fun guy who really enjoys life who just happens to have Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I am involved in a lot, I volunteer, encourage talking about mental health, and I am very active creatively. I enjoyed good food and drink and spent my days happy and in love with my beautiful girlfriend and spending time with my family when I got the chance.
Except that USED to be me. Until I learned about rabies and its 99.9% mortality rate if untreated. (Only confirmed survivor by wild chance is Jeanna Giese.) To preface, there are 327,000,000 people that live in the U.S. On average, only around 1-3 people a year die in the States from this 100% preventable yet terminal zoonotic disease carried by bats, skunks, raccoons, and dogs. But my GAD didn't care, it turned to something new, HEALTH anxiety. I became obsessed to the point of borderline insanity. I found myself waking up at 3 AM with my phone flashlight shining on my body parts, looking for any stray marks and redness. I grew a fear of the dark where I would imagine bats flying out of the darkness and biting my thumb without me realizing. I have Googled THOUSANDS of times, to the point where I can quote to you, not only rabies statistics worldwide, but exactly how to prevent and identify rabies in every single organism on this planet.
I felt like I was going insane. It started to tear apart my relationships with people. I was having panic attacks every single time it got dark out. I have sent hundreds of texts and photos to my family, causing justifiable frustration in them that would grow with every single file. I would bother my girlfriend every single time I felt any bodily discomfort, and now we barely talk when we used to spend every waking moment together and happy. Every muscle twitch, tendon pain, swallowing of spit, bruise, dent, mark, and cut I analyzed, assessed, documented, sobbed over, and resigned my mind to the inevitability of my own death by this awful disease. My father is a physician, I have received the mark of good health from him no less than a thousand times, and my mind is still paralyzed by the thought of being unknowingly infected with little time left.
As time went on, eventually I got a cold, as humans do. Now a cold brings two things: muscle aches, the shakes, and throat closing/hypersalivation, the three marked symptoms presented in the rabid infection. I became hysterical. Now I had assumed I had entered prodrome and the one thing WebMD and every other godawful health page on the internet will tell you is once rabies starts symptoms, it is too late. I was/am frenzied, immediately throwing my mental health and life into disarray and sobbing every night until I was out of anything to cry while I thought I was on the descent to the worst possibility.
By now the cold is almost over, and I am still alive, still writing this forum post, and plan on being alive for a very long time after this is posted. But I am here to tell anyone who is suffering from this same thought, anyone looking to shed light on “rabies anxiety”, and anyone feeling alone and isolated right now because of how this phobia affects lives, that YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
You are going to be OKAY. You are LOVED. You are VALUABLE. I believe in YOU, and the only advice I can give is to NOT believe that voice in yourself right now, and to believe me. That feeling you have in your head is your anxiety, not a Lyssavirus, like rabies. Anxiety DOES cause physical symptoms and they will feel scary, but you are going to be just fine. Keep reading that as much as you need to. You are going to be just fine. You are stronger than this and I know that we can all win against these untrue thoughts, however incessant and daunting they sound and feel to you. I still struggle with them, on the daily, but I have struggled far too long, and that is why I decided to write this and do something about it. If you want to talk about your fear, DM me, I am here for you. If you need to just vent, DM me, I am here for you. If you are feeling like you no longer see hope, DM me, I am here for you. Also if it has gotten to that point, please seek professional help. Even if you have to do it yourself and you are scared, I promise you, life is better with you in it and you need to share how you feel with someone. This anxiety is not worth losing yourself with it. Believe me, I struggled.
This is my story and this is how I struggled. I still struggle sometimes, but it does get easier, a little more so every day. I love you, don‘t give up hope. That cold is just a cold. That scratch is just a scratch. That bruise is just a bruise. It is going to be okay, people love you. Breathe deep, and believe in me, just like I believe in you.
My name is Jay. I am 19, an American male college student and general consensus claims I am a fun guy who really enjoys life who just happens to have Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I am involved in a lot, I volunteer, encourage talking about mental health, and I am very active creatively. I enjoyed good food and drink and spent my days happy and in love with my beautiful girlfriend and spending time with my family when I got the chance.
Except that USED to be me. Until I learned about rabies and its 99.9% mortality rate if untreated. (Only confirmed survivor by wild chance is Jeanna Giese.) To preface, there are 327,000,000 people that live in the U.S. On average, only around 1-3 people a year die in the States from this 100% preventable yet terminal zoonotic disease carried by bats, skunks, raccoons, and dogs. But my GAD didn't care, it turned to something new, HEALTH anxiety. I became obsessed to the point of borderline insanity. I found myself waking up at 3 AM with my phone flashlight shining on my body parts, looking for any stray marks and redness. I grew a fear of the dark where I would imagine bats flying out of the darkness and biting my thumb without me realizing. I have Googled THOUSANDS of times, to the point where I can quote to you, not only rabies statistics worldwide, but exactly how to prevent and identify rabies in every single organism on this planet.
I felt like I was going insane. It started to tear apart my relationships with people. I was having panic attacks every single time it got dark out. I have sent hundreds of texts and photos to my family, causing justifiable frustration in them that would grow with every single file. I would bother my girlfriend every single time I felt any bodily discomfort, and now we barely talk when we used to spend every waking moment together and happy. Every muscle twitch, tendon pain, swallowing of spit, bruise, dent, mark, and cut I analyzed, assessed, documented, sobbed over, and resigned my mind to the inevitability of my own death by this awful disease. My father is a physician, I have received the mark of good health from him no less than a thousand times, and my mind is still paralyzed by the thought of being unknowingly infected with little time left.
As time went on, eventually I got a cold, as humans do. Now a cold brings two things: muscle aches, the shakes, and throat closing/hypersalivation, the three marked symptoms presented in the rabid infection. I became hysterical. Now I had assumed I had entered prodrome and the one thing WebMD and every other godawful health page on the internet will tell you is once rabies starts symptoms, it is too late. I was/am frenzied, immediately throwing my mental health and life into disarray and sobbing every night until I was out of anything to cry while I thought I was on the descent to the worst possibility.
By now the cold is almost over, and I am still alive, still writing this forum post, and plan on being alive for a very long time after this is posted. But I am here to tell anyone who is suffering from this same thought, anyone looking to shed light on “rabies anxiety”, and anyone feeling alone and isolated right now because of how this phobia affects lives, that YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
You are going to be OKAY. You are LOVED. You are VALUABLE. I believe in YOU, and the only advice I can give is to NOT believe that voice in yourself right now, and to believe me. That feeling you have in your head is your anxiety, not a Lyssavirus, like rabies. Anxiety DOES cause physical symptoms and they will feel scary, but you are going to be just fine. Keep reading that as much as you need to. You are going to be just fine. You are stronger than this and I know that we can all win against these untrue thoughts, however incessant and daunting they sound and feel to you. I still struggle with them, on the daily, but I have struggled far too long, and that is why I decided to write this and do something about it. If you want to talk about your fear, DM me, I am here for you. If you need to just vent, DM me, I am here for you. If you are feeling like you no longer see hope, DM me, I am here for you. Also if it has gotten to that point, please seek professional help. Even if you have to do it yourself and you are scared, I promise you, life is better with you in it and you need to share how you feel with someone. This anxiety is not worth losing yourself with it. Believe me, I struggled.
This is my story and this is how I struggled. I still struggle sometimes, but it does get easier, a little more so every day. I love you, don‘t give up hope. That cold is just a cold. That scratch is just a scratch. That bruise is just a bruise. It is going to be okay, people love you. Breathe deep, and believe in me, just like I believe in you.
We're going to be okay.
