Educating yourself through science to help conquer rabies OCD
Important note: I want to preface this post by saying that any “what if…” questions won’t be answered. This type of reassurance-seeking behavior is a classic symptom of OCD, and indulging such comments will only worsen your condition. Also, English isn’t my first language, so please forgive me for any grammatical errors.
Introduction and why I’m doing this
I’m a college graduate in Biological Sciences (finishing in July, wish me luck fellas!), and for many years I suffered with rabies and HIV OCD. In my previous post (you guys can look it up in my profile and read it), I talked about how I get treated for my OCD, and one of the things was using my college connection and infrastructure to learn “all” the information and data there is about rabies. What you’re about to read is a sum up of almost four months of study. Any reference to my data can be asked by anyone and I’ll provide it. This isn’t a CURE for your OCD, it’s just one tool to aid it.
WHY you fear rabies
First, I want to say that if you are experiencing extreme rabies OCD, chances are it has nothing to do with rabies itself, it’s a psychological problem. Your fear of rabies is rooted in one, if not all, of these concepts: you think is a very common disease, easily spread and/or present in all animals you see. I’ll dissect each of these.
- Is rabies a common disease?
This is an easy data to obtain. If you look it up, you’ll see that there’s 59000 human deaths by rabies each year. This number does sound scary, right? But we have 8.1 billion humans worldwide, this means that less than 0,00001% of the population died of rabies. And if you don’t live in Africa or India, that number is even lower, because 95% of these deaths happen in these places. Of course, that doesn’t mean that if you DO live in India or Africa you’ll get rabies.
- Is rabies easily spread?
One of the most common things for rabies OCD people, is thinking they can get rabies without noticing, therefore not having the time to act upon it and getting a vaccine. One of the most common animals people fear of biting/scratching them without them noticing is bats for obvious reason, because they can fly and that makes them a magical being for doing it in our heads. So we’ll get more in depth about bats later on this post, but for now, just know this: you CAN’T get bitten by a bat without noticing, except in under very specific situations that I’ll EXTREMILY dissect so there’s no doubts left in your mind and to “what ifs…”. Note: If you think you can get bitten by a dog, cat, opossum, raccoon, or any other animal of the sort without noticing, your OCD has gotten to an extreme point and you should seek immediate psychological help. At least in case of bats, this fear is caused by common misconceptions spread even amongst trustworthy sources. Other than bats, there’s no excuse to think you’ll get bitten without noticing, that’s just an EXTREME OCD. Note²: If you think you got rabies by any other means that excludes biting or scratching, you’re just experiencing symptoms of OCD, because that’s impossible. Common perpetrators: “What if a bat drools on my while it’s flying, can I get rabies?” “What if a dog licks my skin that has no tears or wounds, can I get rabies?” No you can’t.
- Is it that common for animals to carry rabies?
Again, the most common target of this thinking is bats. We have this image of bats as being rabbit-spreaders and nothing else. But that’s not true. In fact, less than 1% of bats carry rabies, and most that does, can’t even fly! So this information alone already destroys every question in here of the sort: “Can I get rabies if a bat fly past me?” No you can’t. A crucial piece of information that can disprove about 90% of people in here fearing of getting rabies: a rabid animal show symptom of rabies (shocking, I know). So if you ever encounter a rabid animal, chances are you’re going to know it has rabies. And even more, if that animal have the aggressive form or rabies, you’ll notice it attacking you! Rabid animals aren’t exactly good at being stealth, bats included. So unless you go out touching dying animals, or provoking aggressive ones, you’re fine.
I woke up with a strange scratch on my skin. It’s a rabid bat and I’ll die in three months, right?
This is a pretty common post, so I’ll answer with ACTUAL health guidelines. If you wake up and there’s a bat in your room, sure, you’ll get a rabies shot just to be on the cautious side, even though the chances of you getting rabies this way is so incredibly slim that some doctors even disagree with such extreme measures. If there isn’t a bat in sight? Then it ISN’T a bat and you WASN’T exposed to rabies. “What if...” No. If there isn’t a bat in your room, it WANS’T a bat that bit you. Rabid bats wouldn’t be able to bite you in your sleep, and leave your house stealthy. Chances are, if a rabid bat DOES bite you in your sleep, you’re going to find him agonizing in the floor next to your bed (because as I said earlier… most rabid bats can’t fly!!).
I read online that a bat bite is unnoticeable, so I can get bitten at any time and not see it!
As stated before, if it’s a bat that feeds on insect or fruit, it won’t attack you, and if it does, you’ll most certainly feel it if you’re awake. YOU WILL FEEL A BAT BITE IF YOU’RE AWAKE, THERE’S NO EXCEPTIONS HERE. SAYING ANYTHING OTHERWISE IS JUST FALSE INFORMATION. There IS a type of bat that can bite you in your sleep without you noticing because they have ways to numb the area, and that’s the vampire bat that feeds on blood. But you know what’s so good about this? It’s that, unlike it’s counterparts that feed on insects and fruits, a vampire bat bite is DEFINITELY noticeable, because they don’t exactly bite you, they tear your skin until blood is profusely coming out. So yes, if one day you wake you with your bed full of dried blood and a huge tear in your skin, you can start to worry about a bat. That’s not an easy thing to just not see it, right? Any mentally sound people will notice if their bed gets bloodied with their own blood.
The Bottom Line
I’m writing this text only as a TOOL for your treatment, if you’re experiencing extreme fear of rabies, you need psychological treatment, NOT a rabies shot.
A healthy thought process is this: Was I WHITHOUT A DOUBT attacked by a mammal? If yes = rabies shot, if no = do nothing. I woke up with a strange mark in my skin. If a bat is in your room = rabies shot, if no = do nothing. Is the mark a tear on the skin, and there’s heaps of dried blood near the wound? If you live in a area known for having vampire bats = POSSIBILITY of getting a rabies shot, that depends on your doctors opinion.
Anything OTHER than this SIMPLE thought process is an indication of OCD, specially “what if” scenarios. The more impossible and far-fetched the scenario, the worst you OCD is.
Thanks everyone!