To ask for help with this anxiety

[HouseInThePrairie]

I have been mentally fine for weeks but during a casual conversation with my sister at the weekend she mentioned that she had stayed over at a friend's the night before and had lots of itchy bites on her arms and casually said "maybe they had bed bugs".

Since then I have struggled to sleep and breathe during the day, been reading the whole Internet, and tried to find a way to cancel our holiday which we are leaving for at the end of the week.

We will be staying in an Airbnb and I am now convinced we will pick up bed bugs and our lives will be ruined. And even if we don't, my sister is due to stay with us for a couple of nights next month so we will definitely get them then.

There is no alternative possible scenario in my mind and I am thinking of cancelling everything and staying home to lower the risk.

Beside the bedbug anxiety, I'm also very tearful to think that this is my life. Ive wasted the last couple of days to anxiety instead of enjoying my sweet little babies. My LO has been playing on his own a lot while I googled and hatched a plan for when we get bed bugs.

i realise it's not healthy but isn't it also my role as a mum to make sure I do this to protect my children? Should I be cancelling the holiday and my sister's visit for their sake? I don't want them to get bitten by bedbugs, and not be able to sleep peacefully in their beds. I don't know what to do for the best.

Oops I didn't mean to enable voting

I don't know what helps you but I like to make plans to help with anxiety and restore a semblance of control . Bed bugs exist and it isn't possible to know when you book (no-one deliberately books a place with bed bugs) but there are certainly things you can do to help manage the risks.

First of all the holiday make a pros and cons list. Discuss with OH to help get the pros and then look at the risks and think about how people can manage those risks e.g. the raid website has a little checklist for travellers raid checklist now clearly there is a difference in the risk of bed bugs depending on where in the world you are and some people might consider that 'too much' but I think the issue here is you can look at such suggestions with OH and decide how much to do to make you feel comfortable with the risk.

I suffer from health anxiety so i can totally feel your anxiety. What i would do in your shoes is just have a little talk to yourself. What you have have done is have an irrational thought and in the panic have ran away with it. Try anwering you're fears with rational answers. Like so what if we did get bed bugs they wouldnt kill us it would be treatable. I find every time i answer my fears they greatly reduce. Good luck and have you ever tried CBT for your anxiety it can really help. Sending love. Never beat yourself up for trying to protect yourself or your children.

im assuming you’ve had therapy or counselling in the past? What did you learn than that can transferred in to here? Even simple things like CBT that you can rely on the challenge the thought process ie what is the likelihood your lives will be ruined if you have bedbugs? Remember just because you think it, doesn’t mean it’s true.

Please don’t transfer anxiety on to your children by cancelling the holiday. Look for practical ways to manage it and model to them that it’s okay to feel nervous or anxious but that it doesn’t last and can be managed.

Thank you so much. I had CBT which really helped, I was starting to get bad insomnia and haven't had a bad nights sleep since.

I do try and apply the techniques but it's not helping so much in this case.

Usually I can realise that even if my fear materialises it would ultimately be fine (e.g. if I catch a vomiting bug, which is one of my triggers), or realise that I am massively catastrophising and my scenario is unlikely (e.g. I have a slight headache so I must have a brain tumour).

But in this case I genuinely feel the risk is real and that it would be a disaster if it happened so it's tough. Everything I read online says it's really hard to get rid of them and 80% of people with them end up with anxiety or insomnia or some form of PTSD. So I feel like I wouldn't cope at all mentally.

Thanks for the checklist @howdoesatoastermaketoast I feel like I would want to do all of these for my mind to be slightly at rest but that with 4 people, 4 pieces of luggage, soft toys etc it would be an impossible task, and such hard work that it's not worth going on holiday at all.

After reading so much about them today I honestly feel like I never ever want to go on holiday or have anyone over at my house ever again. So scared DC might bring them home from school or sleepovers. I wish I could live as a hermit with my babies.

I don't know where you were planning to go OP but I think there's two issues here, one is a relaxing break for you and the other is the interesting and normal experience of going on a holiday for your children. I think if you judge the holiday only on the former (will it be a relaxing break for me?) then no it probably isn't worth it - the anxiety of going to new places and loss of control of the environment extra work etc. probably far outweigh the actual relaxation opportunities but for considering the latter (working harder short term to give DC this 'normal' experience) it probably is.

Huge amounts of sympathy and good luck whatever you decide.

Yabu. There are ways if treating bed bugs if you do end up with them but its really unlikely, you don't even know your dsis has them for definite.

I just can't sleep for worrying. Ill go ahead with the holiday as the main thing CBT taught me is to not avoid doing things. It will be a slippery slope if I cancel this time, realistically we will never go on holiday again and that's just awful for the DC.

I'm wondering whether to tell DSis not to come to be on the safe side. We're very close but at the moment it genuinely feels like I'd rather not see her and damage our relationship forever than take the risk. The thought of bedbugs in my home is too unbearable.

Oh OP. I suffer from awful anxiety which comes, and goes, and comes back again with a vengeance. So I absolutely know how you feel and I've been there.

Reading this, your anxiety seems SO irrational and like you should be able to just snap out of it! Yet I know it's not that simple. I actually think that reading this will help me to deal with my next big anxiety because seeing someone elses is really eye-opening about how ridiculous anxiety is an how it makes us worry ourselves sick about totally irrational things. I'll remember this thread.

I want to give you a virtual hug!

Sounds like a form of OCD rather than anxiety. I have something very similar, I stop obsessing over one thing, I'm fine and fancy free for a day or 2 then something else takes it place and the cycle continues!

Thank you both.

Yes @Flangelica I also sometimes read irrational anxiety threads on here and think gosh, how ridiculous and far-fetched! It all seems so much more real when you're in it though aaahhh...

@Carpy88999 interesting that this may be OCD. You sound just like me, last month I was absolutely petrified of my son having threadworms, wouldn't care about threadworms now I have googled bedbugs. I am riding the wave hoping it peaks soon and I start feeling more normal but this one's a real struggle. I find anxiety ramps up generally before holidays or any change in routine anyway. I do sometimes get a few weeks between obsessions and life is so amazing!