freaking out & can't sleep « Got Bed Bugs? Bedbugger Forums

Got Bed Bugs? Bedbugger Forums » Psychological and Health problems caused by bed bugs (besides bites)

freaking out & can't sleep

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stayawaybb

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Joined: Aug '09
Posts: 2

Posted 3 months ago
Mon Aug 10 2009 0:53:59
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Basicly 2 weeks ago the lady who cut's my husbands hair was telling us about her trip to Las Vegas. Yes... the hotel room they stayed in was infested with bed bugs. I never knew anyone personaly who had to deal with something like this. It really freaked me out. I couldn't sleep that night and have been pretty parinoid since then. I have been checking all the bed's in the house and haven't seen one bug (besides spiders) << wich I hate as well. I washed my kid's bedding and sprayed their beds and floors. I have been feeling itchy but it could just be in my head. I think this because I have no proof of any kind of bugs. I find no bugs, droppings, spots nothing. I don't know what to do. I'm afraid to go to bed. I think I have seen every youtube video of bed bugs and now I'm super freaked out. It''s all I can think about. Every one is sleeping but I feel the need to wake them and check the beds again because I know they come out in the dark, but on the other hand I don't want my family thinking I'm going crazy. What should I do????? Please help.
stayawaybb

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Joined: Aug '09
Posts: 2

Posted 3 months ago
Mon Aug 10 2009 1:17:07
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It's after midnight and I had no choice but to get my big flashlight and search all the beds where my kids and husband were sleeping....... they all think I need to stop researching it. What I need to know is how do I prevent getting them. I'm just super freaked out by the whole thing. I absolutely HATE bugs.
Just itching to get rid of them

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Joined: May '09
Posts: 124

Posted 3 months ago
Mon Aug 10 2009 8:53:47
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You are reporting no evidence of actually having bbs. Interestingly you are freaking out the same way people do when they have bbs until they solve the problem. You report no bites, no sitings of actual insects, no fecal stains etc. Sounds like your anxiety is just focusing on bbs. That woman who told about her bb experience in a Las Vegas hotel really scared you! It's kind of like seeing a really scarey movie and worrying about the scarey stuff you saw afterwards. Assuming you don't have bbs, you are in a pretty good place now. You are educating yourself about them and how to prevent getting them. Don't bring in used furniture. Follow the protocols of inspection, and protecting your luggage when you go to a hotel etc. However, there is a bb epidemic. You could get them in the future. Yet all the knowledge you are acquiring will help you recognize the problem quickly and do something about it. Unless that happens, relax. We can spend all our time worrying about illnesses we don't have, and other bad things that can befall us, but then we only make ourselves and our loved ones miserable.
buggyinsocal

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Joined: Jun '08
Posts: 1,130

Posted 3 months ago
Mon Aug 10 2009 11:16:47
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Stayawaybb,

It sounds like the problem that you're dealing with is an anxiety-based problem, not a bed bug based problem.

You haven't been knowingly exposed to bed bugs. You don't have signs in the home that you have bed bugs.

Given that neither of those things are true, yes, this is a good time to educate yourself about bed bugs so that you can minimize the chances of bringing them home from a possible exposure and so that you adopt good practices so that if you are exposed in the future, you can increase the chances of discovering an infestation early.

However, the behavior that you've described here is not behavior that falls into either of those categories. It sounds like you're in panic mode. Panic mode is pretty common to people who are suffering from bed bugs, largely because bed bugs feel like an invasion of our homes, and they affect our ability to sleep. When people are actually dealing with the stress of a bed bug infestation, that's an unfortunate but understandable effect.

You asked what you should do, so I'm going to be as blunt as possible in my response.

First, you should not read the boards here or bed bug related websites after the middle of the day.

Secondly, please understand that even the most enthusiastic advocates for inspection do not suggest inspecting more than once a month unless there has been a particular event that increases the chances of exposure. Why not more frequently? Well, if you don't know exactly what to look for, when you start doing close inspection of things, you're going to find a lot of "Oh my God, it could be beg bugs" sorts of things that have nothing to do with bed bugs. It turns out that we all live with a lot more insect life and general dirt in our homes than we like to think. We've seen a lot of people posting photos of dirt or lint or beetles or flea dirt all convinced that they had bed bugs without other compelling evidence. If you're prone to anxiety anyway, looking for proof of bugs that you have no suspicion you've actually been exposed to does nothing more than provide fodder for an awful lot of false alarms.

Third, yes, you should educate yourself about bed bugs. You should know about their behavior, what the signs of a possible infestation are, and how to take basic precautions to minimize the chances that you'll bring home a hitch hiker. But if you cannot do that without going into a full blown panic, and you don't travel regularly or work in a place that dramatically increases your chances of being exposed, perhaps stepping away from the topic entirely until you can find a way to think and learn about bed bugs without going into full blown panic mode would be the healthiest option.

The description you've provided above expresses more panic than I've seen rendered in text from people with confirmed bed bug infestations. I'm a big proponent of people educating themselves about bed bugs before they're exposed. I'm a big proponent of people making their homes less bed bug friendly both through how they set things up, the items they purchase, and regular inspection.

But that's all bed bug related stuff, and it presumes that people won't have a disproportionate response in terms of anxiety and panic to the actual threat level. You're at a threat level of 1.5 and acting like you're at a threat level of 10.

I can't guess why you're having that response. And I can't really give you information about how to deal with it. I can tell you that people here with bed bugs who've had high anxiety levels have either stopped reading the boards for a while, or dramatically cut and controlled their reading time to make it easier for them to function.

Again, I applaud your desire to educate yourself before you develop a problem with bugs. We all need to encourage more people to do that. But there's a way to do that without repeatedly waking family members up in the middle of the night to inspect their beds when there's been absolutely no sign of bed bugs in any way that would warrant those kinds of extreme measures.