Posted Today 12:44 AM (GMT 0)
Hi All. Just want to introduce myself.
I notice that the anxiety forum is second only to the chronic pain forum. It has been said that we live in an age of anxiety- certainly the number of entries in this forum bears that out.
First, I'm around 50 and an English teacher in rural China. I love my job, love my students, and objectively consider myself very fortunate. However, fear of one sort or another always darkens what should otherwise be a very happy life.
Panic attacks and phobias began for me when I was around 25. I had just married a young Japanese woman, and we were in the process of getting her a green card so that we could live in the U.S. When I learned that she would have to undergo an HIV screening, my phobia OCD exploded, and life has never been the same since.
For the next six years my life became a living hell of panic attacks, morbid fixations, homicidal and suicidal thoughts, and full-blown psychotic episodes of bi-polar disorder. After several hospitalization and several different drug regimes, I finally calmed down under lithium, which I take until this day. For the next eight years I was more or less fine and productive, and then crippling panic attacks hit me out of nowhere. After wrestling with the anxiety for nearly a year, I finally agreed with my doctor to go on clonazepam, 2 mg per day along with the lithium. I have been on this regime for just over ten years now and it has served me well.
In my work I frequently must get tested for HIV, among other things. The other things don't bother me much but no matter what the HIV test is a nightmare. To be honest, I've been so traumatized by the darn test that sometimes I wish I did have it just so I could learn to live with it. Because every time I take the test it feels like my head is in guillotine, waiting for a reprieve.
When I get a negative test result, I try to repress any elation or relief I feel, know that it negatively reinforces the OCD cycle. I know that things are not going to 'OK' from now on and I won't have any more HIV worries. I know there will most likely be future tests that will trigger irrational fears. However, the cognitive approach doesn't really work long term.
I always seem to have a 'risk factor' every time I test and it always is about 50/50 chance of HIV infection in my mind. Last time it was needles in Chinese and Southeast Asian hospitals. This time I got married not long and had normal 'unprotected' sex. I felt safe under marriage, and there is no rational reason to think my partner is a likely HIV carrier, though that is possible. In any case, the marriage is not working out for various reasons, but that's a wholly different topic. For the time being, ours is a long distance relationship with no sexual involvement.
My wife was the first woman I've been able to have good sex with in eight years. The last was my ex-wife of 18 years. I've had girlfriends and have been impotent because of HIV and other STD fears. Meeting my wife and enjoying sex showed me how mental, not physical, my erectile dysfunction problem was.
Let's face it- I read over and over again about 'safe sex.' But I firmly believe that normally two people involved with each other may use safe sex in the beginning but sooner or later condoms become more and more troublesome and trust becomes stronger. Nobody really enjoys condoms, and 'unprotected sex' is common in this world. But we are not all getting HIV, nor is the average person who enjoys sex with someone they love rife with STD's and syphilis. The media we read does not balance risky behaviors and treats very low risk sex as just as dangerous as high risk sex. The medical industry view frequent testing as a good thing that keeps on our toes in regards to HIV. The fact is that sex is the reason you are here and that people will continue to engage in it. There are many diseases in this world that you could die from; AIDS is very unlikely (depending on your lifestyle) but as you grow old something will get you sooner or later. It is not only the stigma of HIV we need to remove- it is the stigma of death itself.
Repeated testing has caused a great deal of psychological trauma and harm, not reassurances. My behavior regarding HIV has been as safe as one can reasonably expect. Yet if I have a test waiting, or if I start surfing the Internet, my chances (in my mind) that I could be HIV infected increase acutely. For whatever reason, the medical industry does not want to take a position that alleviate any sufferer's fears that he or she might have HIV, no matter how small the chance. Let's say you had a one night stand, ten years ago with someone you met at a party. In reality, your chances of HIV infection would be remote- but medical professional would see it as significant. They will always recommend your getting tested.
I do not want any more HIV tests but I really have no choice as long as want to continue working in China. The thing I am trying to work on now is stop exposing myself to triggers. I had partial success with both HIV and flying (another phobia) by going into my fears, imaging how life could change and the things I could still do if I had HIV (assume that I did have it in other words), but this sort of strategy is limited and assumes the worse. I don't want to be pessimistic anymore. I want to deny that I'm infected (because I haven't done hardly anything to warrant the risk), and live my life not thinking about HIV, having healthy sexual desire (but not actually having promiscuous sex) with women I like, and not living in fear.
That's where I'm at today. Living a life at least in part dominated by my own mind of a fear of HIV infection. I'd like to defeat it. I really want to try.