Exhausted but too scared of bed

[BedPhobia]

I'm having a one night stopover at a hotel on my way to visit friends.

I've been having quite extreme anxiety about bed bugs for years so I knew I'd struggle but it's actually so much worse.

I'm thinking of going to the station now and sleeping on a bench instead. I'm exhausted but can't bear to get into bed as I'm absolutely convinced it has bed bugs and/or scabies.

I carried out an inspection and found suspicious marks and am now petrified.

I don't think a sleepless night will do my anxiety any good but what can I do?

All my belongings are in the bathroom and I'm thinking of sleeping sitting on a stool and leaving my pyjamas behind.

But even that won't prevent me worrying for weeks that I've brought them home with me.

I'm in such a bad way 😥

Do the iron on the mattress trick.

You sound like me last year when I started obsessing over asbestos poisoning and silverfish in our house. It was a stressful time refurbishing this old house we bought, and I guess my general anxiety and ocd came out as an obsession with really random things, like the asbestos or the humidity levels in our house. I was also super concerned about germs and stuff. DH was losing his patience with me because I would be up at night sweating and crying about the possibility of us all dying because we had artex ceilings. It sounds mad but the fear was real.

I went to the GP and was put on a low dose of sertraline and I was back to normal in a few weeks. Now I don't think about this stuff at all and I'm a normal functional person. 😃 I only had a few days of side effects and nothing since. Just go to your GP. It will get better.

I've had scabies, as a student. It's not a benign experience, it's full in torturous itching and the bumps are highly visible, to everyone. What you have is invisible.

I know that all the reasoning in the world won't help you though. You're in deep. You really need to see a mental health professional. Talking on the Internet is just keeping it going. Good luck.

You poor thing, I hope that this thread has shown you that you are really quite mentally unwell.

This is so far from normal, and it seems that you don't quite realise how far from normal it is.

Please, please make a GP appointment and tell them this story, and that this isn't a one off, and you need help now.

Hi OP just want to let you know that you are not alone and I have been exactly where you are. About a year after my youngest was born my anxiety started escalating, mainly that something would happen to my children. I was pass a sickness bug on to them and they may die or I may drop them or leave an earring in their cot and they would choke. The scenarios went on and on.

After several months of this escalating I spoke to my Doctor and started seeing a therapist arranged through my employer due to NHS wait times. I was diagnosed with OCD, and looking back it’s likely triggered by the birth of my second child.

I had medication to help take the edge off and continued with Exposure Response Therapy, followed by CBT from the NHS. I came off my medication this year and am so so much better than I was. I still have the odd intrusive thought, but they’re less ‘sticky’ than they were and I can manage them better.

I know when I’m tired, stressed or hormonal I’m more likely to get intrusive thoughts, so I give myself a bit more grace at this time. My OH was frustrated like yours, but he learned about my condition and that made such a difference to know it was an illness and how he could help me.

Please call your GP and ask for help - my only wish is that I’d asked sooner xxx

Hello, I mean this gently OP but you are in crisis and need urgent help. There's nothing in the last few pictures, I'm worried you're seeing things that aren't there.

My hyper vigilance "anxiety" was actually ruminating thoughts linked to neurodivergence. Once that was treated my anxiety has been firmly under control. Please phone your GP and ask for help.

I'm so sorry you're going through this and that your husband is not being supportive. 'In sickness and in health, for better, for worse' does have real meaning.

Have you made your appointment? Start calling if not. Keep calling. This is a mental health crisis, with children in the mix. It's the single most important thing to do. STOP Googling.

Or I've found that walking into the surgery reception at 08.00 and telling the receptionist face to face I require an appointment that day has worked several times recently. Cuts out the whole 'you are number 17 in the queue' and ghastly waiting music thing.

Write out your statement to the doctor while you await the call - copying and pasting your posts here into a document is a great start; its very clear how you're suffering and how the fear is transmitting itself to your children.

All the very best, hope you can check back and let us know how you are.

--

(I don't know if this is a helpful suggestion or not, but here goes - if you're on Instagram, operation_niki, by Rochelle N. Stewart, sometimes does 'check into my hotel with me' videos, and shows products she takes to use in a hotel on arrival so she feels comfortable. It can include her own disposable sheets, pillowcases and towels, plus mattress spray etc. Helps her to feel confident and carry on enjoying hotel stays).

Sorry you are feeling like this OP.
I'm prone to catastrophising and health anxiety, from being very poorly as a teenager I assume.
I've also realised in the last few years that I most probably have ADHD, which really doesn't help. I'm also perimenopausal, which sent my anxiety into overdrive.
I also hate taking medication, but since being on HRT and sertraline, I feel a lot better. I still get anxious, but it doesn't tend to spiral.
I agree about going to the GP. If you need a handhold with taking any meds, just inbox me.

I'm very late to this thread but just wanted to say I'm very sorry you are suffering with this level of anxiety.

My DH has OCD and the contamination fear sounds extremely familiar. After 23 years of suffering he has finally found some improvement via private trauma therapy, after medication, CBT and exposure therapy proved fruitless. It does sound like there is an element of trauma to your fears. It may not even be 100% specific to causing harm to your children, but letting others down in general. I'd really encourage you to seek some counselling. It's no way to live and you deserve so much better for yourself. You have taken a good step by posting here which shows your willingness for help and your bravery against something that is genuinely frightening to you.

Sending love and hope for a less anxious future 💓

OP if your anxiety is this off the charts here, your generalised anxiety at home must be high too too. If the NHS CBT didn’t help then please follow poster’s advice and get some private psychotherapy and consider medication. It’s very hard for kids to live with a mother operating at this level of anxiety.

You can only get scabies from skin contact including sexual contact.

Burrows are usually in hands between fingers and it doesnt even look like a burrow

You absolutely must contact your doctor as an emergency over this anxiety. I've been there, looped in these thoughts, and medication has helped so much. Yes, you've opened up to us but you're not engaging with the idea of picking up your phone and calling and saying "I need urgent help today" and you should because the anxiety is increasing and you're seeing issues with your kids now and this isn't ok. I'm so sympathetic and that's because I've been there, where you are, and the kindest thing for me would have been for someone to say "you need help" and no one did.

@BedPhobia I promise you, this can go away, this can become manageable but you need to contact your GP now. Now, now. Not 'oh it's Friday afternoon' or 'all the appointments are gone' but 'please please help me, my thoughts are all consuming, I think it might be undiagnosed OCD and I'm spiralling and I'm scared. Please help me now'

I’ve experienced bedbugs and the pictures you have shared are nothing like them. They look like apple pips (bedbugs do). But like others I know this isn’t really about bedbugs. And I appreciate that anxiety is a horrible thing. Take care of yourself OP

its a known medical thing that our natural histamine level rises at night, so night itching is much more common than you think.

take an antihistamine before bed rather than in the morning like you would for hayfever and see if it eases.

OP, I've looked at the photos you've shared of what you are describing as spots/hives and there is literally nothing there. Your itching is psychosomatic. You do not have scabies, bedbugs or any other infection of any kind.

You need some proper help from a psychiatrist. CBT isn't going to cut it for you if your anxiety is this severe. You are obviously having a really, really difficult time and you need proper help because this is not just a low level phobia. You are bordering on delusion at this point, and it is obviously absolutely awful for you to be suffering like this.

It looks absolutely identical to burrow pictures I find online to me. Why is my brain working so differently to everyone else

Your brain is working differently because you are mentally unwell. It isn't your fault, but your brain isn't working normally because you have a mental health condition - just like any other body wouldn't work normally if you had a health condition affecting it.

I'm sorry if I sound very blunt - I don't mean any of this unkindly. But I have a mental health condition myself and my brain doesn't always work properly either. You need to see a doctor as a matter of urgency, and I would suggest you tell them exactly what you've said here about the pictures you've shared of your skin looking, to you, identical to scabies when everyone else says they look nothing like it.

also, i'm another mum who had PPD that didn't pop up til 10 months post-partum, but it manifested as AWFUL anxiety.. i thought the sky was falling, it was HORRIBLE, i could barely function.. i got to a point that i was literally curled up on the floor sobbing and rocking because i thought everything was going to go wrong... like the KT Tunstall song says

"Miniature disasters and minor catastrophes
Bring me to my knees
Well I must be my own master
Or a miniature disaster will be
It will be the death of me"

I had to seek help, i've had a lot of medication, CBT, and Therapy over the years, but it does get better, you have to get help though.

OP, I'm sorry the night was tough and you're struggling so much at the moment. We are now in the daytime and you are able to call up your GP - do you think you could do that today? You might feel better in the moment/temporarily distracted (everything feels better in the daytime) but really you do need to get help for your own sake and for the sake of your lovely babies.

Life doesn't have to be this way - truly, you can break free of these thoughts but you need help to do that. Even if you can't be seen today, I think you will feel better tonight knowing that you have taken a step in the right direction and an end is in site.

Hi OP, sending lots of love first of all. I also suffer from contamination OCD. This isn’t simply anxiety that you are experiencing. I have also been convinced I have scabies and even convinced the doctor to prescribe the cream to me because I felt completely insane and it was the only way to calm me down (despite it actually being discoid eczema, I later had to have a dermatologist be quite strict with me, in a kind way, which helped me to calm down). I’ve thrown away mattresses, rugs, duvets, pillows, entire sets of towels. I have never actually had scabies. When you are spiralling in this mindset it is terrifying and you don’t see things normally, eg. the pictures you have posted are definitely not scabies. Everyone else can see that, but you no longer can because you have spiralled. You would know about it if you had scabies, my own doctor and dermatologist have assured me of this. If you think about head lice, your head becomes itchy - this is the same premise which you have having about scabies, except it’s to an extreme level and you have lost the ability to rationalise. I do think you need to go to the GP, but for support with OCD. I no longer suffer to this extreme, so please have faith that you do not have to live like this forever. When I start to worry, I am not allowed to google, I need to distract myself instantly, go for a walk, go see a friend and talk about something else. You have to retrain your mindset to dealing with things when they happen, rather than worrying endlessly about what could happen. I think having children can definitely trigger this, so I empathise with this too. You will be okay. You need to deal with the root cause of this head on for the sake of your children. You can do this. I have faith in you!

Hi OP. Sending love. I’ve been in your place - with different anxieties - but stuck in a hole that I couldn’t get out of to see the the anxieties for what they were - which were feelings and not facts. Places my mind was going to and catastrophising about.

You’ve had so much helpful advice here that I’m not sure I’ll say anything new. But to add an example of a route to address this -

My anxiety came on after the birth of my daughter around feeding issues. It escalated and I was referred to a maternal CBT course, which helped me to understand so much more about what was happening, what the triggers were and coping mechanisms to deal with them.

A few months later I decided that I still wasn’t there yet and that there had to be a better way to get back to myself - the me that didn’t worry about everything, didn’t Google. I went to the GP and they started me on a low dose of sertraline. Once the first few weeks had passed I was like a different person. I didn’t need to fight with my head anymore. The CBT techniques that had felt out of reach, were within reach, and before long I didn’t need them. I came off sertraline about a year later, then subsequently went back on it for another period after my anxiety was triggered again. I’ve now been off it for around year.

What am I trying to say? You don’t have to live like this. There are multiple routes out and different things work for different people (and different medications work for different people too) but they are options. It could change your life. Medication doesn’t have to be forever - but if it is for the longer term it doesn’t matter. A tablet is a small price to pay to have yourself back.

FWIW - and unrelated to the rest of my post - but I also had scabies once. Itched like hell but was easy to treat with cream (me) the washing machine (sheets and clothes) I never passed it on to anyone else despite sharing a bed with my husband. It is but a minor memory for me. The anxiety I battled and then overcame shaped my life, and the treatment for it got me back to me.

Too late for last night and HRTFT. I do not have OCD but am phobic and struggle like you. I carry Indorex spray (if it's a holiday cottage I'll also take my own bedding and towels). It's what vets use. It's a large can to carry, isn't cheap and doesn't solve your underlying issue but it helps me.

OP, this is classic OCD. You’re stuck in an OCD spiral, and one of two things is going to happen. You’ll break out of it yourself somehow, or you’ll get some help to break out of it. Typically, you’re going to need some help - medication is a good bandaid to get you stable enough to really get yourself more extensive help.

CBT is notoriously not helpful to OCD. Great for other anxiety disorders, but not OCD. The gold standard treatment for OCD is ERP, and ERP is best done with a professionally trained OCD specialist. You can do it yourself, but by your posts, you’re not mentally strong enough for it to be effective. I know this, because you sound exactly like I did in my first real OCD “break” back in 2021.

For right now, the best thing you can do is start fighting the intrusive thoughts. Resist the urge to scratch, sit with the discomfort. Tell yourself you do have bedbugs, shrug it off, and move on. Go through your regular motions. Even if it means crying & shaking for the rest of the day, do it. If it feels scary, do it.

Write down a list of things you’d do if you DID have bedbugs/scabies. What would be your first step? What would be your first course of action? Actually following through on the anxious thought and near acting like it’s actually happening is often the only way you begin the realize “oh it’s actually not that bad”. OCD thrives on fear, and on doubt. It’s why you check and check and check for new spots, or bedbugs. You don’t see any, so your brain goes “ah ok it’s safe” but then the ocd says “but what if you just didn’t see it that time” and then you check again, and the cycle repeats. You have to break the cycle by not checking. Stop scratching, stop counting every little mark on your body, stop it all. It’s going to suck, and it’s going to feel impossible, but it’s the only way you’re going to get out of this feeling

Also agree with PPs that this is not run of the mill anxiety. I have 2 anxiety disorders, OCD & Generalized Anxiety. I’d take the Generalized Anxiety any day, and that made me skip school, leave jobs, isolate, etc - the OCD made me suicidal.

However, as scary as OCD is, you will get through it.

OP I worry about this a do lots of checking as well. I've also had CBT and this sounds like you are having negative chain thoughts to the worst case possible scenario that having bed bugs ultimately destroys your life. Clearly you have anxiety issues and it might just transfer to some other issue but with relation to the bed bug thing - have you ever spoken to anyone who's had bed bugs in their house before? It really helped me to speak to someone who had them because it was no where near where my thoughts were taking me and it was actually fairly easily dealt with!