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 😥

OP I picked up scabies when I stayed in dodgy accommodation in the beginning of September. At least that is where I assume I picked it up
It takes 6 to 8 weeks before you get a rash. And it went from nothing to the worst itchiness within a couple of days. The rash went from tiny bit under my breasts to almost covering my ful torso front and back in a couple of days. And also some on my legs and arms. The rash is very clearly lots of straight lines. Treatment from the GP was very simple and effective and no one else in my family has caught it. Just had the second treatment to kill off any newly hatched mites.
Equally my exzcema gets worse when I am worried or anxious or hot.
Try not to worry tonight. Do go to your GP tomorrow and talk about health anxiety.

You're just hyper aware of every spot and every feeling on your skin because of your anxiety.

This it it.

And I know people mean well in responding to OP, but those discussing "scabies, bed bugs" are only giving credence to the irrational thinking that OP is enduring. OP has since responded to those type of posts with pictures of her hands/wrist. You are fuelling what she is feeling.

This is not a bed bugs problem, it's 100% mental.

Your only focus should be working on your mental health OP. First port of call is a GP, and take it from there.

OP. I've been where you are.
My freak outs were based around scabies/fleas/lice/bedbugs. Every little critter freaked me out. The smaller the critter, the worse it was. I drove my husband away with it. Him leaving cured me because that was a much more real, immediate and painful problem. I was too busy fighting to save my marriage to think about it. Luckily for me, he came back but my bug phobia nearly cost me everything.

You need to search "OCD nesting instinct". It's very common in pregnancy/with a newborn. Sometimes it carries on afterwards. Sometimes it shows up out of the blue even if you only have a partner. It's apparently to do with the protective urge and can take over your thinking.

You need some help or you're going to wear yourself out.

As for spots and hives.
When you get this stressed your body can create little spots and hives all by itself. There's no need for any bite nor pest. Stress can trigger an allergy like histamine response. It is then made worse by scratching at yourself. You can also create hives and little red spots yourself just by scratching thinking itchy thoughts. Also a histamine response. I got so het up one night that I looked like I had been bitten all over by the next morning. I took chlorphenamine maleate for a day, calmed down and had a cool shower. All gone accept for a few burst red blistery bits where I'd broken the skin scratching.

Hi OP, I'm so sorry your feeling anxious...I had terrible postnatal anxiety which for me centered around rats. It wasn't logical or rational but for a period took over my life. I found CBT did help and also just trying to work through the worst case senerios that I was always paranoid about.
Please talk to you GP because its such a waste of life to feel like this all the time, you deserve to not feel exhausted and scared.
As an aside I work in a hotel, in housekeeping, we do stringent checks for bedbugs daily and also never reuse unused towels or bedding. Its a large busy budget chain hotel, with quite a high turn over of guests and we have never had a case of scabies.

I hope on some level this can put your mind at ease x

Have you got a GP appointment?

OP so sorry you're in this state. Hope you're back to sleep. Didn't have the time to read all replies but - we've had bed bugs and those marks on the textiles are too black. Not bedbugs.

I hope you find a way to address your anxiety about mothering. It's tough.

You poor thing, this level of anxiety is stopping you from functioning.
There’s nothing anyone can say about the bedbugs or scabies to make you feel better as you’re head space isn’t in a rational thinking place.
it sounds like you gave health anxiety, travel anxiety as well as general anxiety and you really must get help. Sooner rather than later. I have been here myself and in the end after using 3 therapists ended up
going private. The therapist I used was life changing. I did relapse after a while but at that point I was petrified of going back to where I was as didn’t want my children to pick up on my anxieties, so I went on medication. My only side effect was a dry mouth. Again life changing and I am no longer on them. Please please seek some medical help, show them this train of posts so they can see how extreme it has gotten for you.
I wish the best for you.

DD just woke up and asked me to check her leg as it was itchy. It looks like a burrow. She pops into my bed most morning for a couple of hours. I was determined to have a good day and this has set me back massively.

I know people will say she's picked up on my anxiety but I promise I absolutely do not let anything on in front of DC. Her leg was all covered in scratch marks where she had clearly been scratching at night, so not even a conscious thing.

I am not sure I can just tell myself we don't have scabies as we might, but need to work on my catastrophising and anxiety reaction as although unpleasant we can sort it.

Thanks to everyone for your supportive messages and sorry for everyone suffering similar. My fixation was also worms for a while @oakleaffy, until I caught them and realised it wasn't that big of a deal so then I moved on to something else. Also worried about rats for a while after seeing one in the garden. I was convinced the DC would catch some horrible disease playing out there. It seems to be quite a common fixation/type of hypervigilance, I really need to unpack it and get help.

Honestly OP what you're posting looks nothing like scabies. Go to the GP.

Agreed, this isn't scabies. My kids can get random itchy spots for no reason. They just go away. Please get the help you need for yours and your children's sakes.

Thank you this is really good to hear. I definitely have that fear of taking medication so it's good to hear positive stories with so few side effects as well.

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

I'm sorry you went through this but your message means a lot. It makes me feel less like a freak/failure to know this can be a thing.

My DH also gets annoyed about it so I just worry about things in silence now.but it's a very lonely and exhausting place to be.

Psychotherapist here.

Please show your more desperate posts on here at your GP appointment. Could you afford private help? For your children's sake, you need to get on top of this.

Your mind is playing tricks on you.
Sleep really is your medicine here.
I really know how you feel - I get fixated on triggers and catastrophise - which is always made worse by lack of sleep.
As others have said - distraction, sleep, GP to seek help for anxiety.

That picture looks like the smallest amount of dry skin.
She will be picking up on your anxiety and your reaction to these things.
Don't ignore this this time. Get help .
You will feel better.
You don't have scabies .

If it's causing this much anxiety I wouldn't go see the friends.

I've also.had a lot of irrational fears I blow up out of proportion.
I was dx with major depressive disorder because of a particular fear when dd was a baby. Like you, I didn't want medication because I was breastfeeding. But it was the only way to get better.
It all came back despite the meds about 2 years ago - irrational fear of an infectious disease. I saw a private psych who dx anxiety disorder.
Changed antidepressants and whilst they got to work I even had some antipsychotics and valium if I needed it.

I hope you can see a psychiatrist somehow, ask your GP for this or even look privately. I looked for someone at the Priory Group who is a specialist on prescribing.

Do you live in the uk and if yes do you have MIND in your area? If yes you can text them for a self referral. It’s an nhs service and they helped me with my ocd immensely.

I hope my post wasn't too dramatic

I find the idea of an anxiety bucket very helpful- if it gets too full and you can release any, it overflows and that's when crazy worries spill out everywhere

I've been on a low dose of sertraline for a few months now - if I'd known how much of a life saver it would be, I would have started it months (years!) earlier. I struggled on for so long... ask for help @BedPhobia, sometimes the medication is the only thing that can help you get back on an even keel. FWIW I am sitting here scratching and itching just reading this, so it shows how powerful the mind can be.

@BedPhobia I really, really feel for you and I'm sending support. Especially the bit where you said "why is my brain not seeing what other people's brains are?". I have OCD similar to yours - went on sertraline but then GP changed it to fluoxetine. The fluoxetine was like having a new brain, genuinely like having my brain but the bit that was anxious/compulsive/obsessed with checking and reassurance mechanisms just... it was gone. Strongly recommend medication, I have no side effects from it and have been taking it for 8 years now.

I did also do 2 x rounds of CBT but the anxiety was so deeply rooted that I needed the medication to be able to even attempt to put into practice some of the CBT strategies.

After the fluoxetine kicked in I then did 5 years as a psychotherapy outpatient at my local hospital (was fine, still lived at home, went to work etc, no one knew unless I told them). This helped me get to the root of why I had this OCD in the first place, but this would have been a complete waste of time without the medication as my brain would not have had space for the "rewiring" without the meds.

Please please see your GP asap. I wish you all the best. 💕

OP, all the times you spend googling photos to support what is going on in your head, you could be taking active steps to seek professional help. At least do it for your children as this level of anxiety is crippling you and the ripple effects will be felt by everyone around you.

Ps, We have had bedbugs. Brought home almost certainly by my travelling teen (as identified infestation confirmed only in their room) It was horrible but we took action and called in the professionals. When you encounter these critters you KNOW about it.

Please seek the help you need - which has nout to do with bedbugs and scabies!

@BedPhobia, first of all, yes the first marks do look like bed bug poo (the jet black ones don’t, they look like mascara)
Second of all, I say this with complete confidence because I unwittingly brought them home from a travelodge 5 years ago. I won’t say where in the UK it was because they’ve dealt with the problem now and we accepted their apology.
We got an exterminator out once we realised we had them in our home and that’s it, they were gone. It was a lot easier to get rid when you bring in the professionals than google would have you believe.
It is something I do worry about now, but it doesn’t stop me staying in hotels. It’s nowhere near as prolific as the media would have us believe, and it’s not impossible to get rid either.
Raise it with the hotel, give them a chance to explain. It could be totally innocent, it could also be that they did have them but have now got rid-the marks are hard to wash out though