HIV OCD

[hotrodder4540]

hi, i hope someone can help. i think i am suffering from hiv ocd. i have been tested many times. 1 time was a blood test where they draw blood and send it off and you get results in 1 week. it was negative. the other times were with the little rapid test kits that are fda approved, the ones with the little line that show a line at the C area. I tested with these test about 6 times, all were negative. I also tested with the kit you buy at the drugstore and send in and get the result by phone. it was negative too. i just can't get by this worry. now, i am having intrusive thoughts about whether the tests were really negative. I have these thoughts saying, "are you sure you only saw one line at the c and did not see 2 lines." are you really sure it was negative? I have all of my test results in hand with me here at my house. they all say negative. can someone on here please tell me what is going on in my head? why is this happening? i sought help years ago with a psychologist.. she helped me a lot with the intruive thoughts i had in regards to hurting other people... i got over that **** for nearly 10 years. there was some way I did it.. i just cannot remember how i did it. some kind of cbt or something. please help me.. please do not just tell me to seek professional help.. i know someone here has an answer. thanks

[Chance13]

Hi. First and foremost I want you to know I understand where you're coming from. I have a very unhealthy obsessive fear of getting HIV, even from daily life. I mean like public bathrooms, people drinking from my glass, etc. I have taken photographs of tests or gotten printouts from clinics so I can prove over and over to myself that I am not infected.

Sometimes it affects me more than others. I have started Tai-chi and I take some herbal supplements (Valerian root, lady slipper root), they don't make the intrusive thoughts go away but they calm me and make the thoughts easier to manage. When I am able to step outside myself and really think about my problems I realize that with my low risk life style I am never going to get HIV and how sad it would be if I looked back at my life and really realized how much time could have been wasted just worrying.

Not much of an answer, probably. But I just want you to know you're not alone. Something I have read and try to follow is that if you find yourself obsessing do something really physically active if you can, then you will be too exhausted to worry!

Do you have a risk factor? or are you just generally worried about it?

[hotrodder4540]

thanks for the reply. i had a risk 2 years ago..several times that year, unprotected sex with a male. so it was a real risk. i tested during the window period and after the window period, way after the window period... so i know my tests are good. all showed negative. i have been doing really well most of this year. getting back to my old usual self. staying busy. the entire incident of my hiv fears was getting farther and farther to being a distant thing of the past.. some days i didn't even think of it until i made myself think of it.. but of course like a dumba$$ i had to come back to the message boards for some reason.. and then here came the intrusive thoughts..
during my testing... i found myself checking each test for any imperfection of the rapid test device. was the little line on the test perfect? was everything ok? how did the clinic tester act? what did she think?
this time the intrusive thoughts are about my insecurity of if there was only one line for sure.. i mean it is like this fear has always been there.. but i knew and i know there was only one line.. and my mind would never budge from that.. but when i finally got everything worked out in my mind and there were no more fears about any of my other tests.. then here pops up this intrusive thought.... it is like i am almost to the end of this **** and then another door is slammed in my face.. to keep me from happiness. i just don't know what to do.. i mean i can vividly remember going into the room and seeing the test device with only 1 line at the C. I know this is the truth.. but my mind keeps saying... are you sure?
make any sense? how does one drop it? it is like your ocd or intrusive thoughts want to lie and trick you...i mean it is like the thoughts morph into other thoughts on and on...just when you think it is over, then here it comes again.. i just want to be like i was last week... ultimately i want to be back like i was 2 years ago.. but nooooooooooo... i have to have a screwed up mind like this.... god this is crappy... please help..

[hotrodder4540]

oh and let me also add that common sense tells me that other people saw my tests too...tey saw the results. i guess what is different is that I didn't get to watch this test perform and only got to look at it for a few seconds. The test was taken into another room and I didn't get to watch it develop. I had to sit in a room by myself, nearly crying and had to listen to the jumbled voices of the clinic tech talking about lines or something... running her mouth about something that I could not understand.. I could only hear kind of what she was saying and could not make it out.. yeah, really professional of her...then I yell is my test ok? how is it looking? She says, so far so good... People, I have never felt so scared in my life.. I have never seen such unprofessionalism in my life. I sat there for quite awhile.. I know it had to be longer than 20 minutes.
She then comes into the room and tells me that everything is ok.. the test was negative. I hugged her and told her I wanted to see the test. She said ok. I looked at it and the test was negative. only one line at the c.
how do you get over this? I mean, it is like these danged message boards can make things worse.. why do i feel like I have to second question things? please help.. I sought help and it did no good.. I would gladly welcome some kind of formula to use to get over this.. thanks

[Chance13]

Hi. Take a deep breath. As you read this just take some deep breaths. You are ok! The message boards can have some scary stuff on them that can make your mind race, but I also find them comforting when I see people posting the same stuff that's going on in my head. It makes me feel less alone.

Everyone has a different formula. And I don't think any one thing works all the time. You should try to reason with yourself, say "I know the test was negative since I saw it with my own eyes. Only one line." If any bad intrusive thoughts come up just think of a big huge "CANCEL" stamp coming down and just blocking them out. I have learned that it is no use trying to reason with the bad thoughts because they are not reasonable. They are unreal, paranoid, dark imaginings. And I, too, feel like my brain tries to lie to me, to get me to believe the worst-case scenario when I know it isn't true.

I had a really scary experience just a couple days ago where I blacked out while drinking. I woke up at home with pajamas on but couldn't remember how I'd gotten there. I talked to a friend who said I didn't even seem really drunk and that I was fun to be with, gave her sound advice on a problem and I paid my bill and tipped well. Despite the fact that everything was fine and she assured me that nothing even remotely bad had happened, my mind went wild with all of the horrible "what ifs" that would lead to the conclusion that I had somehow ended up with HIV while blacked out.  I could even vividly imagine possible scenarios and I started to half believe that they were real. I didn;t even have that much to drink. I was acting normally, and I convinced myself that I had done things that were totally out of my character.

It is really amazing what the mind can make you believe. Don't get me wrong, I am still scared, but I understand that all the evidence tells me that nothing bad happened. Just like all your evidence tells you that you are HIV-negative.

Enjoy your health, don;t let life pass you by while you are worrying. And know that you aren't alone, there are a lot of us out there with fears of HIV, and you can always message me if you need a friend.

[hotrodder4540]

i sure do appreciate your help a lot..i have been doing so good over the summer starting back around june.. things were getting back to normal. i just wish i hadn't come back to the message boards. i can look back over the summer and even a few weeks back at all the small stuff that this ocd was trying to attach itself to.. but i was able to let those silly thoughts go and now, i can't even remember what most of them even were.. it is just this time that the intrusive thought was so much more scarier that it fooled me because it was such a terrible thought..
in my mind, i think this stuff is just about over.. i think i have it on the run.... hence all of silly things it is racing to attach itself to. like i said, i have been through this **** before and i re-invented myself into a whole new person and everything just went away.. i was better overnight.. i just don't know how to do it this time. i also used thought replacement at one time or another. i would lie to my ocd about how the thoughts actually were, then the ocd got so confused that it had no affect on me, then the thought would go away. i know i am almost there..and i am a lot better than i was last year..at least i am able to function now. i want to get over this stuff more than anything in the world, i guess i am trying too hard.. i mean weeks ago, there would be days go by that i barely even thought about this stuff... i had to make myself remember it, then i came to the boards again and started reading and bingo.....my mind says"are you sure, you only saw one line?" i mean how darned stupid can you get?? i have all of the negative results right here in hand..
i should just be glad that i even got to see the test results...i saw an instructional video online that was telling you how the tests were done at the clinic.. and guess what? you do not even get to see the test device results, they hand you a piece of paper with your result.. here is a link to that video..
http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-take-an-hiv-clinic-test-120304/
i guess one would really worry if they didn't get to see the test result. you would just have to trust that person.
also, i guess one could also say that the manufacturer knew that there would be people who are very frightened about this test anyway and that it is really unhealthy to allow some people to see the results.. Also, one takes a blood test at a health dept and waits for a week then only gets a printed paper telling you the results, but we always trust those, no questions asked..
hmmmm.
I know all of this sounds quite silly. man, i really appreciate you. this ocd stuff is really quite silly isn't it? it is so funny how you can have a bad thought about something, let it go, and by the next day you can't even remember what the thought was. it has been over a year since all of this started. i can now see that my memory is getting foggier about the details of those days. I guess it is a good thing. My case of OCD has been diagnosed as a mild case. What is so funny about it though, is it sneaks up on me at times and I am not aware that it is an ocd thought.. it takes me awhile to detect it.. by then, I am sometimes already depressed. Anyway, man, if you have any ideas or formulas for me, please let me know them, it would be a big help.. if anyone else here has any ideas that might help me, please lt me know. I have been doing this imaginary thought stuff for so long, it just comes natural. hard to break old habits i guess.
Oh yeah, let me ask you. should i just roll all of this "scary thinking and entire scenario into one big lump of OCD and discount it?"  I mean no one else around me was even worried about anything. The test givers looked at me like I was stupid.. one even told me i needed paxil..anyway, thanks a lot. I am almost there and I will be soon.
In closing.. let me add that if anyone else suffers from this worry about hiv testing, please feel free to message me. i have a wealth of videos, photos of tests and other info that I have gathered from the internet. maybe it can help you.
let also ask again, if anyone here can tell me another way to look at this, please do, it would help a lot and I would love to help you as well.

[Chance13]

Hi hotrodder4540,

How you doing? Hope you're feeling better. Don't be too hard on yourself. Obsessing over stuff that other people don't can make you feel bad, but you didn't choose to be like this. It is just a part of your life that you have to deal with and if you will be a stronger more compassionate person for it. As for ideas and formulas for how to feel better, I have given you a bunch. Read back through my posts to see some of my relaxation methods.

Good luck! go do something fun!