HIV fear and contaminated food

I experienced something very similar and for the longest my main obsession was HIV fear and thoughts and rabies, i would constantly scan myself for symptoms and was too afraid to do anything. Later i learned that sitting with the anxiety and letting it naturally drop was best. The best thing is for ERP. My therapist had me watch videos on rabies and sit with my anxiety without doing any compulsive behavior and letting my brain kinda “get bored” of the fear

I have also catastrophized about getting HIV from a haircut once and couldn’t shake it for 6 months. It was 100% my ocd and intrusive thoughts, I did not get HIV from a haircut. It is impossible to get HIV from anything other than the exchange of bodily fluids through sex/oral sex and/or in even rarer cases a bloody knife fight (this is information I gathered from HIV Vancouvers website). Conquering OCD doesn’t mean reassuring you, but I wanted to reassure you so that you can obtain a level head and get back to a state of calm - but the previous commenter is correct that ERP can help you with this ❤️

Also, don’t do internet research because it’s a bunch of random people, including doctors, that don’t actually know enough about HIV and how it works. You can’t get it from sharing food. The only time that can happen is a mother/father with HIV chewing up a piece of food (why would they do that anyway?) to give to their baby. So again, not something to worry about. Ignore any internet research you’ve done telling you otherwise.

I struggle with this A LOT all I can say is sit in the discomfort. I was exposed to someone else blood at the doctor and have been so fearful ever since. I got tested then. But I can’t do that anytime I think I may have been exposed. It sucks. What if’s with things like this are awful. Sending hugs

I know the feeling so well. You are not alone in this! It’s like I’m reading a post about myself. I feel I have to agree with the responses above. The best way forward, is to sit in the discomfort and not give it power. When we do that, we “feed the beast”. It’s the only way through. Give yourself a hug. This too shall pass.

Thank you all for the words of encouragement. I just don’t understand why these odd situations happen to me. I have never bled from my mouth before while eating so how do I know it was my blood? I did have what looked like a cut/red spot but I’m also like trying to think of the situation and remembered having a cut on my left but saw blood on the left and right side of the spoon. However that could have just spread or I could have cut the right side and not known it. I did have what looked like an irritation on the right side too. Also I’m like would I have noticed if someone put a spoon in my snowball? I feel like I would since I was holding it the whole time. I hate that I think like this. I’m also pregnant and now I’m freaking out I’ll give the baby something. This is really upsetting me 😭😭