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Extreme hiv fear

Hi everyone, but I am suffering from something, I was put on medication called citalopram but I have this extreme fear of contracting hiv and I am currently in a waiting period because I went for my hep b vaccine and I am convinced the nurse injected hiv blood into me, I even went so far as to telly doc that instructed the nurse to give me the vaccine and she says no that isn't possible as the nurse said there was no blood in the syringe and she is a highly trained professional and would never do that. I am so crippled by this that it's ruinedy life. I question every possible situation that could be a risk and I don't have sex. Like I met a hiv positive girl and I was convinced she injected me with hiv before this, turned out it was all in my head. Someone pls help me.
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Avatar universal
I used to have an awful fear of HIV. Sounds like you are suffering with GAD and Maybe OCD. 28  days is still too soon to see the full effect of the medicine. You should feel a small difference. If not maybe you need a higher dose or a different med. Talk to your doctor. But you also should practice some CBT and learn some techniques to help you live with the anxiety you have without it disrupting you life. I have had major breakdowns and they feel permanent but they are not. Trust me it gets better.
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Thank you so much, it's my second day on fluoxetine and I'm so angry and irritable but the thoughts of hiv still in my head despite recieving numerous negative results. I'm just praying nw that the meds will start working sooner than later
Note that this med is for depression and possibly for anxiety.  It's not going to treat your anger and irritability unless they are a part of your depression.  Those are things you have to work out, because they are part of your trauma, and meds don't treat trauma, they treat symptoms.  Trauma is dealt with in therapy and just the passage of time.  
973741 tn?1342342773
It really sounds like what you need is to get very serious about your mental health.  We don't discuss hiv here, don't ask.  But you need to become serious about psychiatric care.  You're right. Your kids need you.   Want to get better, take steps.  Baby steps if you have to.  Give your medication time, it takes 6 to 8 weeks and often they have to adjust the dose or add something or change something to get it just right.  Takes a bit of time.  Hang in there.
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Thank you so much special mom, I am on anti depressants what is a bit crappy for me is I so want it to work like after the first tab. I just Want some ease in the mind. But I have been put on fluoxetine now and I am going to try it to get better for my family. It's amazing how the mind can play games with you. I always thought I was of sound mind. Wow. Was I wrong. Never thought mental health would ever effect me. It there is a light at the end of this tunnel. I have to believe that
Avatar universal
Who put you on the citalopram?  How long have you been on it?  If it's been over a couple of months, either you're not at a therapeutic dose or it's the wrong med for you and isn't working.  Don't just stop, talk to your psychiatrist first, you need to taper off of it slowly if you choose to do that, but again, if the purpose of the med is to help tamp down the symptoms of your anxiety and you feel like this, it isn't working.  As to your fear, I would ask, do you have a lot of irrational fears, do you have a lot of anxiety much of the time, and are there other things you avoid because of it?  Or is this the only thing that bothers you this way?  Medication won't necessarily help with a problem with just one phobia.  It might, but it shouldn't be necessary to go on medication for one phobia.  But if you have a lot of anxiety and your life isn't manageable at all, that's when medication becomes necessary sometimes.  But whatever you do with meds, you need to find a psychologist who specializes in the treatment of anxiety and figure this out or learn how not to think this way.  Meds can only tamp down your symptoms when they work, they don't cure mental illness.  Your fears are pretty far-fetched, as you no doubt know, as you are basically at the point where you're believing people are out to kill you.  Why would you think that?  It's possible therefore that this is more than a phobia or anxiety problem, and another good reason to see a psychologist for a diagnosis.  I would ask, did something happen just before you started thinking these thoughts that might have triggered such an irrational fear?  
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Well something yes did happen, I am on such a state that when I went for my hep b vaccine I was convinced the nurse injected me with hiv blood, I had to go to hospital for the total anxiety I had. My doctor even phoned the nurse to ask what exact procedure she did and she said at no time was any blood present but I am convinced I saw blood. Anyway it's just this one phobia, contracting hiv.  
I was put on citalopram by a doctor and only for 28days,so I have to take half a tab for 14days and then after that a whole tab for another 14days, but I was feeling so shaky after taking my first half I just never continued with it. I was sexually assaulted and was put on pep and that increased my fear to the max. I had this phobia prior of hiv but since the incident it is horrific. You see when u go through this you get all kinds of medications and I had to recieve a hep b vaccine in the beginning when starting the pep and it made me so sick but my doc thought it was the pep meds, then when I was finish with the pep, I was becoming slowly getting normal again then I had to go for my 6 week check up, and there I had to recieve my second dose of hep b vaccine. The next day I was sick and  that whole weekend but then I dissected and started to think that the nurse who gave me the vaccine injected me with hiv infected blood. I was so convinced of it that it made me so sick. I phoned my doctor and told her and she said that the nurse would never do that but my doctor being the best doctor ever called the nurse and asked her what exactly happened and she said at no time was there any blood in the syringe. But in my mind I'm convinced that in a matter of weeks they going to tell me I have hiv. I have yet to see a psychologist because it takes a while to get to see one here but I have seen counselors. I can deal with everything besides this debilitating fear of being hiv positive. My doctor says she isn't even worried about the hiv anymore because I have had bloods and tests done but it's in my mind and I can't get rid of these fears. It's horrible to a point of suicidal thoughts. I have lost my job and I just hate it.
Oh, them a few days after the vaccine I asked for a Elisa and it came back negative but in my mind it's going to show up in the next test and if not it will in the next test and so on and so on. So I live in this never ending window period. There are times when my anxiety gets so bad I just Wana run I to a bus or something but then my mind calms down and it's like I can feel OK here I am going to feel better now. It's horrible, I can feel when this irrational bouts are coming and when  it ends, it's like I can feel I am slowly going insane and in my mind only when my 3months are over can I finally have a sigh of relief but I am also scared that I won't because if I can't accept my negative results nw what is going to change it then. Am I going to forever be this insane person. I can't even be a mother like I am suppose to be, it's been a week since the whole hep b episode and nw I am again counting the days to get tested again. But also just before this I thought a girl who had hiv also purposefully injected me  prior this, but when I got to 4 weeks negative I knew that it was all in my head and this all happened since my incident which happened last year November. The whole of December I was on pep. And I couldn't handle it mentally that my doc sent me to a safe house to help get me through the last 2 weeks of being on pep and that is where I met a girl that has hiv? She was so nice but yet I thought that crap. And nw I think I was injected with hiv. Everyday is one hell of a battle.mental hell. I was put on citalopram but I am so afraid of the side effects that I won't recover from having another mental breakdown. I'm just at my wits end here and I have reached out to seek phycological help and I am awaiting a call to get my appointment date. I was a substance abuser for 12 years also and I don't want to become dependant on any drug as I am going on being 3yrs sober from drugs. I just pray to God that when my final check up comes I am still negative and this notion that the nurse injected me with hiv I can laugh at and see how stupid I was being but rite now for me it's so real. It's like it's my reality.
You know, it's awful and I get it, I'm an anxiety sufferer.  I also get your fear of meds, it's common.  Taking antidepressants isn't like taking addictive drugs for fun, though.  But unfortunately there are some of the same problems, as in the trouble stopping them, but most people do okay on that.  Still, it's not irrational to be concerned about medication.  It's wise.  But you don't want to raise that fear to the point that your life spirals out of control completely because you're afraid of taking medication.  You probably, if you were a drug abuser, want to take care with benzos, as they are addictive and might spiral you back to abusing drugs, but antidepressants aren't likely to do that.  They're not fun.  They don't make you high.  Taking more doesn't make it more fun.  Either they help or they don't.  They do have side effects, but for most they are manageable.  But in your case, if everything else in your life is okay and the only thing driving you nuts is an irrational fear that people are trying to kill you by intentionally infecting you with HIV, well, again, that's more than plain anxiety and if you stopped working because of it it is affecting your life.  Usually if it's this bad you're going to be recommended to take medication until things calm down.  As for citalopram, you can't just take it for 28 days.  It doesn't even begin to work for most people until you've been on it for 4-6 weeks.  So that makes no sense.  Side effects unfortunately, however, start right away.  Some of them are just start-up side effects and some will be there as long as you take the drug.  We're all different in how we react.  Some have an easy time taking them and stopping them and some have a hard time.  Some have an impossible time.  Different drugs affect us differently.  One drug might give us a hard time and another an easy time.  So it's very trial and error if you do decide you need medication.  As for therapy, it sounds like you have some form of PTSD from your sexual assault, which is common.  Right now you seem to have focused your anguish on HIV, but given how irrational your fears are right now, you can see the anguish is really from the assault.  If you can work that out, come to some kind of peace with it over time with a good therapist, this will go away.  But it will take time and work on your part.  So if you continue to not be able to function as you need to, you may have to reconsider medication.  The longer this goes on the more it will become your new normal.  If you can, don't let whoever did this horrible thing to you keep abusing you this way.  Do what you need to move on.  If that doesn't need meds, great.  If it does, it does.  But you will need therapy no matter what.  In the meantime, do you have any outlets for your current state?  Do you exercise?  Do you have support in friends and family?  Do you meditate?  Do you have a spiritual space?  Do you have access to support groups?  Probably you do.  Time won't ever make you forget this happened, but you don't have to forget to not let it ruin your life.  Don't let whoever did this to you do that to you as well.  Peace.
Omg, you have just eased a small part of my heart rite now by just replying. So far yes I read the Bible and listen to gospel and in my mind it's like I forgot the rape but it's almost like everything else is making me think I have this disease, mind you I don't have a symptom. OK the doctor who prescribed me the meds never made a follow up appointment and I don't know how they could do that as going cold turkey off anti depressants is not a fun thing and that's why also I decided not to continue with the meds. The one counselor I spoke to said it's like my thinking brain over took my rational brain and yes to think the nurse purposefully injected me with hiv is so irrational that it's not even a joke. I mean u am basically accusing a professional in the health system of attempted murder, and why would she risk her job and life to inject a patient. And patients like me she has been working with for 15years. In the forensic side. People who were assaulted I mean. It's so far fetched that it's not even funny. But for me it's still a what if story. What I actually pray for that this is all anxiety and in my head and that I wasn't infected, and yes just this one fear that is eating me up inside. I am actually going to another hospital tomorrow to see if I can get to see a psychologist immediately and not in a months time  because I don't know how I will make it another month in this state. Actually I would be very happy when that month comes because then my full waitong period is over and I can finally maybe have a sigh of relief. So far my 7th week Elisa came back negative but in my mind I got my hep b vaccine at 6 weeks so it's like I'm restarting the window period. The guy who did this to me.... I would never even wish this turmoil on him but in the same sense I wish bad upon him and I know that isn't rite, but why me? Why disrupt my entire soul, why? What I don't get is why can't I just be happy with my results now and accept it, why can't my mind be like it use to be, like a normal human being, when I use to get hiv checks it was a rapid and off I went knowing I was negative, why is it like I'm stuck at not believing my results. The fear is eating my mental state and I'm so scared that I loose it to a point of no return. Unfortunately I was booked into the phsyc ward after the trauma with ptsd and the docs don't Wana admit me again because they said  not mental I'm going through trauma. What I am doing now is I am going weekly for rapid hiv tests just to ease me but that relief is short lived then I'm again thinking. Tha k you so much for caring about total strangers menatl health and well being, u so appreciate you. God Bless. I anxiously await a reply
I Wana take backy life, so I try and concentrate on my son and daughter, but my daughter is in her teens and so she is in that phase where my son is 4 and mom crazy, every time I look at them I jst say to myself "u gotta get better for them" my bf knows what happened and he is the kind that is like of you don't speak about it it didn't happen but don't get me wrong he supports me but he is getting tired of my main episodes of me calling him and saying that I think I have hiv when all the tests so far proves me wrong, and when he heardy latest "exposure" the needle injecting thing he just said oh no, I have to snap out of it. What alot of people don't get that if I can snap out of it I would in a heart beat, who wants to be mentally drained and feel like I'm going inasene everyday? People who don't suffer from anxiety or a debilitating fear has no clue what it is like. OK on the meds side I am so afraid to take anti depressants because of what all the info says and the side effects and basically it's saying it's gona make you go cooky before helping you and I can't my friend, I can't go through more mental anguish than I am without some sort of observation for the first few weeks. It's horrible, I can't. I'm terrified of going through a manix depressive episode again. I went through it for weeks and I would rather die than go through that again. If I was being held in a hospital or something where help is readily available when I can't take it anymore that's when I will start meds maybe or I don't know how this works also but that would be better for me. Just a personal thing, just typing these comments to you are helping, thank you.
Oh just to clarify, I took a Hal a citalopram and I just felt so not rite, I was shaking and breathing wrong and just all sorts of weird and after that 1/2 tab I jst never went on with the meds. I went thru a manic episode without being on any meds, just the pep I was taking at the time. But yes my whole fear and mind is wrapped around the thought of possibly being infected with hiv. That's the whole thing. I'm in my 8 week nw, still 4 mre weeks. I don't know how I made through 8 weeks because it was 8 weeks of pure hell. Well I was getting better by the 5th week then my whole hep b vaccine episode happened. Am I allowing the rape to ruin my life, I don't think so, it's the thought of hiv that is devastating to me.
You say you went through a manic phase.  Are you using that in a colloquial sense, or have you actually been diagnosed with bipolar disorder?  Because you know, bipolar disorder is treated differently if it's true bipolar as opposed to some of the bipolar descriptions used for those suffering with depression then you might be prescribed a whole different class of meds than an antidepressant.  I don't know if you really have been diagnosed manic or you're just using the term.  What I can tell you is, the effect taking 1/2 a tab you wouldn't notice at all, so what you felt was caused by your anxiety about taking medication.  This is a thing.  I have it now because of an awful experience with a medication and other meds after that not working, but again, there's really not enough drug in your system to cause you to feel anything.  And again, I'm not sure what you feel are the effects of taking one making you cooky.  Doesn't do that except in very rare instances and that's generally with very young people who shouldn't really be taking these types of meds anyway.  The side effects you are likely to feel are things like weight gain, sweating, sedation and things like that, not going cooky.  Unless, and this is important, if you truly are bipolar in the true sense of the term (I say true sense because there are several categories of bipolar these days but most of them are not true bipolar, they are descriptions of how depression manifests in a particular person).  For someone with true bipolar, taking an antidepressant can cause a manic episode.  I think you're just saying you got super anxious, but if you have been diagnosed as bipolar you need to see a psychiatrist, which you really should anyway if you decide on meds, because the medication would probably be different and monitoring of it would have to be much tighter.  A regular doc is often too busy doing everything under the sun to truly learn how to use these difficult meds while a good psychiatrist does nothing else.  But it has to be a good one.  A good general doc is better than a bad psychiatrist, obviously.  Again, all the best.
And as for your kids, well, you know, kids look to you as the problem solver.  It's hard for them to understand that right now you need the help.  Your boyfriend is another story.  It's very hard for some people to handle someone who is going through a peak bad time mentally.  It's hard to understand.  It's easy for me, I'm there, but my wife has never been able to truly be there for me because she doesn't want to go there with me.  Mental illness will be easier for us to handle when everyone just equates it with physical illness, but that time isn't now.  If your boyfriend can't handle it, it's not because he's a bad person but again some just can't come out of their own needs to do that.  Focus on you.  For now.  Peace.
Thank you so much for replying and it feels good to have people who understand what mental illness is. Like you said your wife doesn't want to go there with you, and as for me it's the same but on the other hand I don't want him to go there with me either. It's a sad and dark place, today I went for another hiv test, marks 8 weeks nw and I thought I'm going to feel good, well I don't know what I feel, I replay the nurse giving me that vaccine and seeing red in the syringe and thinking ag it's a matter of time before they give me a poz result, mind you it marks the 8 week since my assault but marks the 11th day since the vaccine, so it's like I'm calculating the window period from over, I know I sound all over the place but I hope u get it. Then I was thinking when u eventually get to my original 12 weeks and it's negative, will I be able to move on? Well it's pointless thinking so far ahead rite? But for someone with so much anxiety it's like I have to think ahead and of corse only the worst can happen. Oh this is such a ordeal, and for the focusing on me part, I feel like I have been doing that and am being selfish towards my family. Like I'm robbing my kids of mommy, old mommy, like I use to. The only thing I seem to can also focus on all the time is freaking hiv, terrible. Thank you so much much love
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