Traumatised by Rat phobia
Hello everyone, Kiwi here. I found 7 cups from google and hope to find help for my rat phobia.
I suffer from a crippling fear of rats and go into panic attacks whenever I see one. I am seeing a psychiatrist and am on 60 mg fluoxitine daily. My psychologist is using EMDR theraphy but recovery has been slow. One therapy homework I am given is to relearn what common acceptable reactions are when rats are encountered.
It has been years for me trapped in a fearful and avoidance cycle and I no longer recall what acceptable reactions are. Can I ask the kind souls here to understand what would you do when -
a) you see a rat on the path you are walking towards?
b) a rat suddenly jumps out and touched you or your shoe?
c) you touched or kicked a rat baiting station on the floor by accident?
My ocd will have me washing compulsively and avoiding any place where rats have been seen forever. This has been crippling and causing me depression.
Sincerely grateful and hope to receive any help here.
So are cockroaches especially those that fly. 😂
@HelpWisely what?!? Ewww flying cockroaches😱
Yes, I have experienced those, they will suddenly fly and jump on your neck. It really is Ewww and it happens when you least expect it.
Those *** really know how to scare you. 😂
Another word I have just discovered that 7cups censors: B.u.ggers. 😄
@HelpWisely 😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱
@HelpWisely Aye. The flying ones are nasty. The saving grace is I can still hold out against cockroaches and spiders. Those, I can help you and @Tinywhisper11 squish. 🥲
@KiwiFresh thanks kiwi
@HelpWisely That's what cans of roach spray are for! ☠️
If you feel that your session with EMDR Therapy is showing slow progress,
you may like to consider having your Psychologist conduct
Guided Imagery (GI) exercises with you &
when you are more ready... you may move towards Graded Exposure (GE) Treatment.
For your reference. :)
Thanks @AnalystINTJ. The therapist has done guided imagery before we moved to EMDR. That didn't help much. My present progress is not ready for ERP yet. A close encounter with rat will trigger a panic attack now. That's why my recent therapy assignments are to find out what are the stats of people who died from rat diseases and how the ordinary public react when they have encounters with rats. Supposedly to get me see the factual probability, but its tough when memory of a close family friend dead after fall coma to a rat urine disease is always flashing warnings in the mind.
Hello @KiwiFresh,
Most Exposure related therapies require the client to be ready
and I believe your Therapist probably made an assessment
after going through Guided Imagery with you.
Both GE and ERP may have similarities but
the latter is probably used for the OCD.
I am not sure whether you are open to considering Hypnotherapy
as a form of complementary therapy to your treatment.
maybe you can discuss this with your Therapist.
Some Therapists are also trained in this area
while others may be more conservative and reserved with Hypnotherapy.
I hope it can be an option to help you.
For your reference. :)
As I am not a professional, take my suggestions for what they're worth... If you're that scared of rats, you could try limited exposure first. Find a pet shop in town that sells rodents. Go in there & hang out for a few minutes. Try to do so in the aisle where they have the rodents. They don't have to be rats at first...mice will do. They're a lot like rats but smaller (& cuter, to some of us). Take deep breaths & keep your cool as best you can. Try to do this twice a week.
At some point one of the staff will ask you why you keep hanging out near the rodent tanks. At that point, be honest & tell him/her what you're up to. They might be willing to help. If they are, they could work with you to gradually increase your exposure until you realize that rats are only animals, like any other animal. The captive-bred ones are usually pretty harmless. Some of them are even cute & friendly. They come in a few different colors, too.
@slowdecline48 Thank you - that is good advise. I managed to muster courage to get a pet syrian hamster two years ago. My therapy pet did help me ease my phobia. I would feel heartbeat racing and very anxious when I first brought her home. From sitting on a chair and looking from afar to petting her and loving her as my pet. Being hamsters, their lifespan is much shorter. I secretly cried like a baby when she went over the rainbow bridge.
Although I thought of getting a pet rat next, I have been hesitating over my readiness and also family members' concern.
At this time, my phobia anxiety can distinguish pet and Street rats. Pets are all right. It's the wild Street rats that send me into panic attacks.
PS: You referred to rats as cute to some. Have you ever kept one as pet by any chance? If so, do they bite?
@KiwiFresh Yes, I have. My little female rat was my favorite. Rats are like other animals, though they are one of the more intelligent species out there. That should be good news to you, because it means you can communicate with them if you pay attention to what they do.
Rats do bite but only when they feel threatened for some reason. Same goes for dogs, cats, etc. I'd say hamsters are more nippy overall, because they're not that smart & so are more likely to get spooked. (I had hamsters when I was little. They were cute but Jesus on toast, how they nipped my fingers!...) One thing to understand: when a rat (tame or wild) first sees you, it will feel uneasy at least. A wild one will be as scared of you as you are of it. Consider that you are several times its size, probably over 10x its weight & almost certainly much stronger. The rat has good reason to fear you! Step toward it & a typical street rat will turn & run away as fast as it can. With a tame one, it would be nervous for a few days once you bring it home...remember that you removed it from the one place it knows & transferred the creature to a strange new place. The key to success here is to not shout or speak loudly or do anything else to scare the little one. If you put your hand in the cage--& you'll have to, sooner or later--don't just grab the rat. Let it sniff your hand first so it can get familiar with you...then try to pet it. Scratch it behind the ears or something. But please read my concluding statement first. 🔽
I would not advise you to buy a rat for therapeutic purposes. Best to get over your phobia first. Do the limited exposure thing first, or try any suggestions your therapist might have. The only reason to get a pet of any kind is for company, really.
You described your pet rat with fondness, @slowdecline48. It somehow feels less intimidating and dangerous hearing about them from you. I have tried watching short clips of pet rats interacting with their owners before as part of desensitisation effort. The fancy pet rats do look much less scary, maybe even cute. It's the wild Street rats that look so hideous and dirty in their scraggy grey coat. My mind would just screams danger like a broken car alarm nonstop until a xanax shuts it down.
I do agree a pet should only be kept when I am ready to care for it. Yet, there is the conflict that exposure requires controlled interaction with one. I have suffered so many years and missed out so much because of this phobia. I really want to do my best and work to resolve it as quickly as I can.
I would scream and panic, just like I do when I see other "gross" things, but it would only last a moment before I'd calm myself down. You have my sympathy. Phobias are no fun. I bet you can overcome yours, though.
Have you tried learning about their good qualities? For instance, rats are empathetic creatures who form tight groups. They're rather smart, too. Believe it or not, rats are even considered to be pretty clean rodents. There's more to them than meets the eye. It's worth investigating.
Or maybe try comparing rats to the animals that you do like. For instance, a rat's whiskers help them out, much like a cat's whiskers work. Plus, even wild rats are capable of figuring things out, much like a dog determines how to get a tasty treat by following commands.
Usually, learning more about what's spooked me, helps me tackle the fear. Maybe it will help you as well.
Thanks @GoldenNest2727. I mustered some courage to Google rats. Just the photos of them appear even disturbing but I will try my best to desensitise with the content.
One of the frustrating thing about phobia is how the brain interpretes and accepts information. I trust what you have shared, how smart and clean wild rats can even be. Inside the anxious mind, there is like a million other opposing voices that screams death and danger.
Your advice helps by planting the facts that can be revisited over and over without being corrupted by irrational thoughts.
My wife was deathly afraid of spiders. Wild ones or pets (tarantulas at stores). There was nothing more horrific in all the animal kingdom, and she is any animal lover, since a little girl. So killing them was a panic/anxiety/fight or flight thing for her. She respects all living creatures.
Shortly after enrolling in college for a BS degree, she decided to take a course in arachnology. She started hearing and learning about the great things they do, what amazing creatures they are, what they do for the environment and gardens....and how important they are overall. She was amazed by the mechanics of their bodies and how they function and care for their young. Learning about them, listening and watching the professor have dominion over the spider's biology, gave her the confidence to start "seeing" them differently. I suppose studying them gave her dominion over her relationship with them. If that makes sense. Studying them made them part of the world, and not something "dark" or to be feared.
I don't know if this helps, I don't know if there is a course in rodentology easily accessible to you, but I just wanted to share our experience. All the best in your journey!
Appreciate your support, @neonAcres8376. I hope your wife is making progress on her recovery journey. What she did is very brave.
I think it makes sense to understand rats more like you shared, although it might be a distressing process.
It's hard to see rats as a useful part of this world at the moment. I always hope there would be more cats, snakes and owls etc in this world to eat up all the rats. All the better if they go extinct!
@KiwiFresh
Hi Kiwi,
It takes a lot of courage to share one's fears. You are brave enough to be about it at all.
Even i have a fear psychosis of butterflies, moths or any flying insects/birds. I fear lizards and cockroaches too and feel an innate urge to squash them instantly. I even cry out loud at times.
Your fear for rats is valid too. Even i fear rats and the place where i stay has a lot of rats and i get to see one every other day. I live with other people so the only thing i can do is put a trap to catch them. Otherwise i would have transformed the place into a clean and safe haven.
On seeing one of course i scream and cry, it's a natural way to express your fear. But most importantly i put a trap and if i'm too sacred to put one then i call for help.
Anyway, we all have different coping mechanisms and i hope you can find an effective one.
Take care of yourself!
