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Irrational needle HIV fear

I had an incidence with a needle stick from a discarded needle while clearing rubbish at a local beach/park. I ended up accidentially sticking myself in the leg after the needle poked through the rubbish bag.
After this incidence I somehow look for needles everywhere I go (store, parking lot, park, soccerfield etc.)
A pretty stupid thing to do and be afraid of I keep telling myself.
Any advice of how to forget about this event and move on would be very appreciated.
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Avatar universal
Hello, I’m replying to you as a fellow needle/HIV phobe. I can’t offer you expert advice but what I can say, is if I am trying to be overly cautious and aware of my surroundings, without fail - I will see or feel something that I need to question. I might be walking down a country track and see a glimmer in the grass and automatically conclude that it must be a needle. The only thing that has helped is to force myself to distraction and trying to remember that the actual chance of coming across something is tiny. I know this will be hard for you having already had a traumatic experience. Have you explored PTSD following that incident?
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1 Comments
One way to move on might be to realize you had zero risk for hiv. You have to quickly share the needle and inject because hiv is fragile and dies instantly in air so a prick is not a risk for hiv at least. If you were injected accidentally by pushing on the plunger then you would have had a lot of pain.
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Comments anyone?
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