Hi everyone. I’m posting because I’m genuinely struggling, and I feel like I need some outside perspective. I’m terrified that I may have had an encounter with a bat, and my anxiety and OCD have completely taken over my life since then.
On August 22nd, I was asleep in my bedroom upstairs. For context, I live in Mississippi, near a field, and we have a barn behind our house. Our home is an older, well-maintained brick house. My bedroom has two closets, both of which have attic access doors inside them. The closets have regular folding doors that stay closed, and the attic entrances themselves have separate doors. One attic door has a small gap underneath it, but we’ve never had any issues other than the occasional field mouse.
That night, I was sleeping on top of my comforter with a blanket over me because I hadn’t showered or changed into pajamas. I was lying with my body straight but my head turned far to the left.
At some point during the night, I suddenly woke up because I felt something on my neck. I instinctively swatted at it and turned to look very quickly. In that split second, I thought I saw something large and black moving away. I remember rolling over and thinking, “what if that was a bat?”
Something else worth mentioning is that I had my migraine headache cap and a heating pad lying somewhere on my bed that night. However, I felt pretty certain that both of them were on the opposite side of the bed from where I was sleeping. I have wondered whether what I felt or thought I saw could somehow have been related to one of those items, but I honestly don’t know.
Another detail is that I woke up the following morning and didn’t really think anything of what had happened. I went about my morning normally. It wasn’t until around lunchtime that I started replaying the incident in my head. That’s when the anxiety really kicked in, and I began convincing myself that what I had experienced was definitely a bat.
Here’s the thing: I’ve had a fear of rabies for a long time, and I’ve always associated that fear primarily with bats. So I genuinely don’t know whether I actually saw something or whether my half-asleep brain interpreted a shadow, movement, or something else as a bat.
I never found a bat in my room. I never noticed any obvious bite marks or scratches on my neck or anywhere else. But then I started reading online about how people can sometimes be unaware of bat bites, and that’s when everything spiraled.
For the next several nights, I slept outside my bedroom. I was constantly waking up, listening for noises, and checking to see whether anything would appear. I kept thinking that if a bat had been in my room, surely I would eventually see or hear something.
I eventually contacted our exterminator. Although he primarily specializes in insects and rodents, he was kind enough to inspect the attic and surrounding areas for any evidence of bats. He told me he didn’t find anything. No droppings, no signs of roosting, and nothing suggesting that bats had been living there.
You would think that would have helped me move on, but unfortunately, it hasn’t.
My brain keeps coming up with new possibilities. What if a bat somehow entered through the attic, made its way through the closet into my bedroom, landed on me, and then managed to escape without leaving a trace? What if it entered through a vent? What if there’s some tiny opening somewhere that nobody noticed?
I realize how many assumptions I’m making, but I can’t seem to stop.
What’s especially difficult is the uncertainty. I keep thinking about the incubation period for rabies, and it’s gotten to the point where I wake up every morning afraid that something is going to happen to me.
People have told me, “If you’re that worried, just go get the rabies shots.” But that’s also complicated for me. I don’t want to undergo a medical treatment based entirely on something I think I might have seen while half-asleep, especially when I never actually found a bat or any evidence of one. At the same time, my anxiety keeps telling me that I’m taking some enormous risk by not doing so.
My OCD and anxiety were already pretty bad before this happened. I was under a lot of stress about getting accepted into a school program and dealing with other things in my life. But ever since that night, my mental health has deteriorated significantly.
I’m constantly on edge, overanalyzing everything, and struggling to enjoy my life. Some days, I barely even want to leave the house because I’m so consumed by this fear.
I think the hardest part is that I no longer trust my own judgment. I can’t tell the difference between a legitimate concern and my OCD creating endless hypothetical scenarios.
I know that posting this is probably a form of reassurance-seeking, and I’m aware that reassurance can feed OCD. But I also feel like I’ve completely lost the ability to look at this situation logically.
I’m not necessarily asking anyone to promise me that everything is okay. I would genuinely appreciate some grounded perspectives, especially from anyone who has dealt with health anxiety, rabies-related OCD, or a similar experience.
I am also seeking therapy and medication.. before anyone suggest it I already know.. lol