Now that I have your attention, can I just start with YUCK!!!!!! Just the thought of bed bugs make my skin crawl and today I had to it thrown at me and I am going crazy. If you have read along you know that I work in residential care (if you haven’t been reading, glad you started now on this crazy subject but what has taken you so long to find me!). Anyway back to the bugs… We had a person come to work today saying that he got bed bugs from a client in my building. So we did what any normal person would do, we put anything he might have come in contact with in the dryer. Because if you didn’t know bed bugs can be killed by heat. They usually die at 120 degrees but a dryer can get them hotter and I don’t know about you but I want those suckers DEAD!!!!!
So then began the reaction of my mind throughout the day. I was sitting in my daily staff meeting in my office and there sat the guy’s backpack that had come from his home infiltrated with the bed bugs. I tried not to get anywhere near it. But then the itching started. Not just the simple head scratching of that poor guy, I hope he is able to get rid of them. But more like the I feel these bugs crawling all over me. Wait was that something? My head itches, are they in my scalp? And then it just got worse from there every time I thought about it. So much so that when I got home from work, I stripped down in my entry way and took all my clothes to the dryer. Remember, heat kills!!!
Now I sit here and randomly scratch (fully clothed and showered!) and wonder. Did those bugs follow me home? I sure as heck hope not!!! I have carpet in my house and cats and if that happens it would be a nightmare!
But in reality, my mind is just creating something that is probably not there. It is crazy the power of our mind. I might have talked about it before (can’t remember because my mind tends to block some things out or I have major short term memory loss, you decide. Hey who are you and why are you reading this? :-)) but our mind is a powerful tool. It can cause us to go down the road of craziness faster than we ever thought. We just need to learn to take control. Change our thoughts for the better. Be hopeful.
So for now I am thinking positive, namely that if some creepy bed bugs came home with me that they are now baked in my dryer (sorry family but at least they are dead!) or even that I was just exposed to the possibility of getting them and escaped it unscathed and I need to be more careful next time (maybe it is time to wear a plastic suit to work). I just need to convince myself that the itching I am having is dry skin because I shower twice a day (once in the morning and once after my workout at the gym). Here is hoping that that is the truth.
therunningtherapist 