My story of OCD and fear of hiv, long post

[Spectracular]

Hello, so i am 27 years old girl with OCD from Czech Republic and this is going to be quite a long story:)

I live with OCD for 9 years, I take SSRI meds but now i am going through med change. My OCD used to relate to death of someone close to me (not myself), accident or some bad things happening to people around. After some time after my first sex with my first guy i developed fear of hiv. It was  primary because of oral sex i did to him not because of sex as itself - condom. I wasnt worried at start, but after short time after breakup i met my exboyfriend and i fell in love with him. I loved him so much and i was scared. I even went on tests eventhough i was talking about it with my first guy, and he told me he was okay, my mother told me i dont have to be scared, my actual boyfriend told me the same and everoyne around told me it is okay. I went to tests, and they were okay, and i was calm for some time. But after some time i started to develop thoughts again (as a good person with OCD). I got so obsessed it took me and held me for next few years in which i was struggling with this fear.

It went away eventually, after some time (6 years or so). And then came back again, after i shared a weed cigarete with a random guy i was talking with in coffe where i worked for one day. Again it took me and held me for some time, i even wrote on one forum, and after my thinking and their answer from expert i let it go, as a really irrantional fear.

Well i fell in love with a girl during last spring and summer at that time still with my boyfriend who knew about that and was okay. Yeah take it that i am bisexual and was missing something so i chose to try to find it, and after experience with girl i got totally lost  in it. We broke up with my boyfriend last June after half a year since i met that girl, but not because of that. Love just went away, everyone wanted something else, we were arguing all the time, but now we are still friends :) I went on „other side“, looking for a girls now, but still attached to that one i fell in love with who is married, which is kind fo different story. She is a lesbian but well it is her life i cant push her to anything eventhough i know for sure she was and actually still is in love with me. She is that reasonable type of person. Back to topic anyway.

During all this my fear of hiv went away. I even met with friends and a guy who was hiv positive on swimming place during last summer. I sat next to him on grass and we talked and i was okay, even after i was okay and no fear that would grab me again. I felt so free and fine.

Things went bad this winter when i decided that when i let my fear of hiv go away, it is time to start work on letting all the obsessive things go. So i can feel at least close to how normal people feel. To do things, they do, without any anxiety, without deciding based on axiety.

I started to work on it and i tried but it wasnt like i expected. I somehow pushed the ocd by letting the thoughts in my head just be, but i started to feel way more depressed after. Like the thing i am loosing control and letting things go made me feel hopeless and basically like there is no purpose. So i decided it is time to change my meds after 7 years, i wanted to change sertivan for something else because it wasnt working very much. Doctor gave me Brintallix, and from the start it wasnt so bad but after one week i started to feel it is not working at all and maybe even that it is worse with the pills than without them. I started to have headaches, feel dizzy and i had nausea after everytime i took the pills. Eventually i also had problems with feeling dehydrated so i was drinking like i just came from desert and still had feeling i am thirsty.

Change of meds is hard but i thought i can handle it and just go through it.

So during this meds change i went with my friend for walk and we ended in pub. And we talked and it was okay, and one random guy came to our table to ask us if we want to play darts with him and his friend. And i was like we can. So we sat at their table and were drinking beer and playing darts. The guys seemed okay but they were the type of „rebel guys“. One of them was in prison for some time for not intended hurting during some club fight. So and he had problems with getting a job because of that. He also used to take drugs when he was younger. Second one had a job, but still they were not the career types. The first one was living with some girl, they were even married i guess but the marriage wasnt working from what he was saying.

So during the talk the first guy took a drink from a beer and someone said something funny and he started to laugh and he spitted the beer on me and in my eye. At that point I started to freak out. I went to toilet to clean my eye, but since i came back i started to google „hiv spitting in the eye“ and here we go. It started again, with even more intensity than before. It has been 4 weeks and i am basically at point of breaking down. Let me tell you why.

Because, who would not freak out after this, right? My brain stopped working, i just refused to think about it in racional way and i started to be convinced this is how hiv is transmitted.

It has been 4 weeks, i was talking about it with friend, mother, my therapist and i even posted a question on this forum.

The answer was „No this is how hiv cant be transmitted“

I googled more similar questions (there are a lot of question regarding to this, maybe from the same crazy people) and the answer was still the same NO.

But thats not ebnough for me, so i had to assure one more time about blood in saliva and beer, and how it is then. The answer was BIG NO, and topic was closed because i obviously have other problems regarding to OCD than this.

I know that. But why i am still freaking out?

Because it has been 4 weeks and i am on med change for 4 weeks and i havent felt like this since i dont know when. And i know that some things are caused by the meds change. So i stopped to take the new meds since it was really bad. In few days i go to new doctor that will help me with it. Anyway here are the things that i feel and my brain keeps telling me LOUDLY „what if it can be related to transmittion of hiv“

Headaches – got from thesstart of med change
Dizzinesss  - got after one week
Nausea – got after 1 week every day after taking the pills
Dehydration – got after 3 weeks
White  overlay on part of my tongue – i never had this before thats why i am freaking out mostly
Sometiems i feel a bit cold and sometimes a bit hot flushes

Now this things maybe related to med change but what if they are not. Especially the thing with white overlay on tongue, i dont rememeber when i had something like this. I also have a feeling of dry mouth and weird taste there. In common i am tired and depressed.

Now experts with crazy people like me.

Tell me please, what now? I am trying to keep some sense for humor but honestly i am starting to be incredibly tired and i am not sure how to overcome this. It feels just like i am not going to come over it now, like it is just way too much with everything around.  

I want my brain to start work and explain me all the things as i am able to just explain things to me and say „no this is irrational“ but here and now, everything is real. I basically cant enjoy a single moment of day.

The reason why i write here is i still obviously have some power in me that wants to fight and wants to get rid of this, but i CANT do it on my own. I really dont have the power, or do I?

I need to explain the things i feel, the physical things i feel and if there is any relation to what i was talking about. I need to help my brain since i have some parts when i just cant explain it to myself and i start to have thoughts all around.

Thank you for reading this, i appreciate the time you spent with me, have a nice day and just keep fighting with OCD like i do:)

[JGF25]

I did read it and I have been where you are.  Yes we know what is rational from irrational but we just can't help ourselves sometimes.  My advice to you is to talk to your therapist about your medication.  Not every medication works well for everyone.  Also discuss the possibility of depression.  I'm not clinically depressed but when I'm in OCD crisis, I'm depressed and it is all brought on by the fight.  The continued ever-present fight that has to go on with our rational brain and our irrational brain.  That damn war with our own mind.  Lastly, discuss with your doctor about adding a benzo such as klonopin (clonazepam) to help you while you are figuring out the medication part of this.  

And I do agree...that beer incident is a non-issue as far as HIV goes but hey...our brain wants to look at it with a different sent of dark eyes.....

Let me know how you are doing.  

[Spectracular]

Hello and thank you very much for answer. I actually found yesterday a small node under my right ear. It think it is because of, my period coming in few days (i am having this type of bearings that cant be squeezed few days before my period especially down there and around cheek) or the fact that i use to scratch my ears a lot inside and few days ago i overdid it so now actually i got a lymph coming from my ear and it is very irritated. Anyway this fact made me go totally crazy and i should say apathetic to everything else around me. It totally consumed me, i am bearly able to get from bed in thew morning and i really guess my OCD is now combined with depression.  Today i spend whole day in bed, sleeping or just staring, and actually i dont enjoy anything i used to.  Yesterday before the breakdown i had crying session when i went for my lunch to one fast food place, i was so broke i had to ask my mother to pick me from work. This is so embarassing, i so much want to see the things clearly, but everyday morning i wake up with same thought "why i woke up to this again". This is something that is telling me i have something to do with depression right now, and i am actually scared, because my energy that i had to fight OCD is now gone, so i am basically just coexisting on some basic level of breathing and watching world around me. So i go to my therapist tomorrow, asking her to write me sick note and i guess i will attend some day care program for some time.
I will let you know how it goes, but still i feel i can do it, but not alone  :)

Thank you again.