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 😥

FWIW OP, I actually worked cleaning hotels for a few years - dealing with other people's actually dirty bedsheets and towels. It wasn't a fancy hotel by any stretch of the imagination.
I also stayed in the hotel overnight, many times, as did others.
I never caught scabies, nor did anyone I worked with.

That was touching multiple people's used linen, sometimes less than a couple of hours after they'd checked out, almost every day, for years - still no scabies.
Your towels are clean, and will have only been touched by the one person who made the room up.
The likelihood of catching scabies from clean hotel towels is spectacularly low!

They don't ''burn everything''.

They use steam and non toxic insecticides.

OP Your post had struck a chord with me. I suffered many many years with anxiety around contamination and your fears are very familiar.
Esp where you have an idea in your head and are unprepared to hear any argument against it being the thing you fear (when the likelihood is it’s not that thing at all.)
I went through NHS therapy, private treatment for OCD and a high lever of sertraline (side effects worth it for the result) which I have now tapered to a low maintenance dose. I can look back with clarity at some of the insane things (sorry but mine really were) I used to do to get through a day.
it’s exhausting, you don’t have to live like this.

Thanks @moomin34. Would you ever leave towels for the next person if they hadn't (looked like they hadn't) been used, or is it protocol to change them all between guests every time?

Thank you @Apollo365 i think it may be time for me to try the medication tbh but I'm just anxious about the side effects. Glad to hear it has helped you.

We always changed them all, every time. If you're in a chain hotel housekeeping staff will have instructions to do this. (Even if someone wanted to be lazy - there could be makeup marks etc on a towel that looked unused, so it's not worth the risk of complaints when it takes no effort to switch them. There's no point skipping that step, you can be quite confident you have fresh towels!)

If you bothered to RTFT you'd see that the OP has already considered the issues I raised.

I swear, some people....

Those marks look like dirt/oil and yes, while I'm sure everyone would prefer they weren't there, it looks like it's on the mattress protector not the sheets that will be in contact with your skin.
Sleeping in a clean bed is far better than on a less than clean floor/dusty carpet or, god forbid, a park bench.
Get help for that anxiety. It's illogical and debilitating.

The side effects were only for a week or two. The anxiety had been crippling me for years. That was the push for me. Also thinking of my children as they were starting to show signs of anxiety too and I realised they were picking up on it.
They weren’t too bad really, just nausea and feeling panicky.

He did, treated the room & bought all new carpet & bed

No need to be off hand

Ever considered a small motorhome? You never have to sleep in anything apart from your own bed and all the facilities (cooking, toilet, shower) are under your control.

Lovely idea but very dangerous and isolating for someone with MH struggles. It doesn’t address the underlying anxiety. CBT would have you confront your fears.

They change all the towels. They tend these days to put 1 bath one hand only out and get you to ask for more (or they're on a shelf somewhere).
They're white because they wash them at a high temperature, coloured ones wouldn't last without fading

OP, let me help you rationalise it a bit:

we have had bed bugs at home. No idea how we got them, we think they were in the skirting from previous residents.

It was a bad infestation. It took a long time to treat and cost a lot of money. It did affect my mental health and took me a while to get over it and relax again

And honestly here I am. I have lived to tell the tale. I am comfortable in my own bed again.

The worst outcome is really not all that bad.

Meanwhile I can tell you from experience these are 100 definitely NOT bed bug marks. The colour from their marks is nothing like this dark, and nothing like this pattern

Please sleep on the bed. You need to rest. When you get home, just to feel safe, put your clothes straight into the washer at 60 degrees, don't take your bad upstairs. And keep your bag and clothes on the metal legged bag rack (they have metal legs to stop you taking any with you)

Does anyone have tips on getting me through the next few days? The anxiety doesn't seem to be coming down. I have rationalised the bed bugs but am now absolutely convinced and terrified that I caught scabies.

I feel if I had just slept on the clean sheets it would have been fine but I turned the whole room/mattress/bed over looking for bed bugs and exposed myself to every bit of dust/dirt in that room.

I'm terrified I have caught scabies and will pass it to my children. When I got home there were so excited to see me and have been all over me wanting to cuddle and for me to lay in bed with them and all I can think is that I am contaminating them, it will be resistant scabies and they will suffer from months.

I have been scrubbing my skin although I know it will do nothing for scabies. I am thinking of getting hold of medication and treating myself just in case.

I've read everything about scabies online and am terrified.

There is nothing anyone can say that is going to make you feel better about this OP, and that is because your fear is not rational. Anything anyone says will just give you more cause to Google, and to try and refute what they’re telling you.
You need proper help, not reassurance from people on the internet.

Seems unlikely that you would catch scabies like that

The mites are living things and need warmth and moisture to survive - almost always close person to person contact

Agree with @WiserOlderElf that this or other information is unlikely to reassure you

.

Gently op, you really must pull yourself together for the sake of your children.

You do not have scabies or any other contagious disease.

But even IF you gave your children a contagious illness, that would still be better than the living hell that is living with an irrational, anxious parent. I'm speaking from experience.

I think you're framing your thoughts as wanting to protect your children. But actually it is self indulgent to dwell on these thoughts, and it is harmful to your children and other loved ones

You need to make an appointment with your gp and explain all of this. They will be able to put your mind at ease.
Scrubbing your skin won't help.
Your kids need you to be rational and calm. Longterm your anxiety and irrational behaviour will harm them more then scabies

You catch scabies through close contact with an infected person.

you would have to sleep in infected bedding. A hotel will not be infected, it will be new on, boiled to death bedding.

scabies don’t live long off of people so any disturbance from rooting around won’t have infected you.

No more googling OP. You are banned!!!

Also stop trying to punish yourself ❤️
You checking did not increase your chance of catching things. You are doing ok

Thank you for your kind message. I definitely like to beat myself up. I've been crazy itchy the last couple of days with the odd hive but trying to remember it's probably in my head/stress... I have stayed away from any further googling.

Having a really bad time... i had moved on since coming back and was feeling positive. However the itching has really ramped up in the last couple of days and I am now so sure I do have scabies. The timeline, symptoms, pinprick feeling/burning, location of rash&pimples... it all matches up. I have a doctor appointment on Monday but in the meantime I am in bed shaking trying not to get into a full blown panic attack. I've had DC in my bed the last few nights too and could be sick at the thought of having contaminated them. I just don't know where to turn and how to make it through the next few days. Please be kind :(

You don’t have scabies, but if you did it isn’t dangerous. You’d treat it and it would go away.
You could call 111 and ask for help.
A friend had very similar symptoms to you, down to the fears about passing things on to the children. Eventually it was realised that she had psychosis and with the correct treatment she recovered fairly quickly (compared with how long she had been ill).