nemasket
Member
Just wondering if anyone can relate to this.
I've always had an irrational fear of getting HIV/AIDS, even from before I was sexually active. Not avoiding anyone with HIV/AIDS or anything, but somehow just having it for no reason. And now that I am sexually active, it's combined with the additional fear of giving it to someone else and changing the entire course of their life.
I went a little crazy after I had a bad break-up about 2 years ago, and had unprotected sex, while very intoxicated, with two different people I did not know. I waited the 3 months plus to have an HIV test (at worst estimate 97% accurate, at best over 99%), and was negative for that and any (detectable) STD.
Now, two years later, I'm still worried about it. My boyfriend of a year just came down with a sore throat and fever, and all I can think about is that he's seroconverting and I made his life that much harder... I mean, to try to ease my mind, I did out the odds that I could be infected from those instances (1 in 4 million at the highest, with the odds of a partner being positive, odds of transmission, and odds of a false negative test), but I'm still worried way too much. I think even a repeat test wouldn't take all the fear away. It's completely irrational - there's always that small room for error in everything that lets me still worry.
Anyone have a similar obsessive fear? Any tips on how to tackle it, instead of just giving in and doing obsessive calculations and probably just making it worse? It's seriously cramping my relaxation time
.
(on a side note, I do research in HIV - probably wouldn't obsess too much if I didn't think about it all day anyway. Kinda like the irrational fear of meteor-strikes I had when I was into astronomy at age 12 - up until 2am many nights wondering "what was that rumble?" ).
I've always had an irrational fear of getting HIV/AIDS, even from before I was sexually active. Not avoiding anyone with HIV/AIDS or anything, but somehow just having it for no reason. And now that I am sexually active, it's combined with the additional fear of giving it to someone else and changing the entire course of their life.
I went a little crazy after I had a bad break-up about 2 years ago, and had unprotected sex, while very intoxicated, with two different people I did not know. I waited the 3 months plus to have an HIV test (at worst estimate 97% accurate, at best over 99%), and was negative for that and any (detectable) STD.
Now, two years later, I'm still worried about it. My boyfriend of a year just came down with a sore throat and fever, and all I can think about is that he's seroconverting and I made his life that much harder... I mean, to try to ease my mind, I did out the odds that I could be infected from those instances (1 in 4 million at the highest, with the odds of a partner being positive, odds of transmission, and odds of a false negative test), but I'm still worried way too much. I think even a repeat test wouldn't take all the fear away. It's completely irrational - there's always that small room for error in everything that lets me still worry.
Anyone have a similar obsessive fear? Any tips on how to tackle it, instead of just giving in and doing obsessive calculations and probably just making it worse? It's seriously cramping my relaxation time
.(on a side note, I do research in HIV - probably wouldn't obsess too much if I didn't think about it all day anyway. Kinda like the irrational fear of meteor-strikes I had when I was into astronomy at age 12 - up until 2am many nights wondering "what was that rumble?"
).
