When I was a child, I had a fear of getting rabies. This probably came from my mother cautioning me not to pet every stray dog and cat that wandered in my direction. Instead of ceasing to pet them, I petted them and then obsessed over it — “what if he slobbered on a scratch on my arm and he had rabies?”
Rabies is a legitimate thing to be worried about. It’s virtually 100% fatal once symptoms show up. And the incubation time is somewhere between 2 weeks and 2 years. So it can come out of nowhere. The biggest thing, though, is that it results from something I shouldn’t do, and it’s” the ultimate getting caught doing something wrong.” Like pregnancy but fatal.
I had nightmares about getting attacked by rabid animals, usually cats, although bats and raccoons also showed up in my dreams. It was through dreams that I overcame the fear. I can lucid dream — that is, I can dream aware that I am dreaming and change the outcomes of dreams. I started taking control of my rabies dreams — by killing off the rabid animals and sending them in to get tested. By getting the rabies prophylaxis shots in time. I did the right things and survived.
This helped me when the bats were getting into my house and my cats were taking them down. I got so I could put on the leather gloves and scoop the bats up to be tested for rabies. It turned out the colony in my attic wasn’t carrying rabies, and we eventually stopped the bats from living in our attic. I think I would have been a total mess if I hadn’t gotten over my hydrophobiaphobia.
Words Like Me 
interesting 👍🏻🤩
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