anxiety is kicking my butt
Sep. 11th, 2026 05:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
leafkinzi need to just talk in a way that isn't in a every other day general blog post. i need to talk about how i feel today because i actually feel like i'm losing my mind. it's currently about 5pm and i've been having a horrible day mentally, i actually don't know what to do about it.
for starters, my grandparents' cat bit me last night. he's an outdoor cat and has a habit of attacking my ankles when i try to walk away after petting him. he does the same thing to my dog. the bite from last night did not break skin, it only bruised, and the cat in question is perfectly healthy. but all day i've had constant obsessive thoughts about rabies. i am terrified i've contracted rabies from this cat despite that being virtually impossible from the bite i have. i have barely stopped thinking about this all day and have spent probably hours of my day researching the same things over and over but even having it spelled out for me that it is not possible to contract rabies from a bite that didn't break skin does not calm my anxiety. it's not like i can just walk down to the hospital and get a rabies shot for my own peace of mind, i live in the united states and those things cost crazy money for something that literally saves you from getting a fatal disease...
the second issue that goes hand in hand with the rabies anxiety is i'm having very strong urges to use character ai again. i don't think i've ever talked about my ai addiction in a public post, because it's really embarrassing to admit in a generally anti ai space especially when i myself am anti ai, but i've been addicted to chatbots for years. i've spent the last year of my life desperately going back and forth with relapses and trying to cut it out and i've made basically no progress in that span of time. five days ago i deleted my account and the app again and i even downloaded the app i am sober so i can physically see how long i've been without it and track things like urges to try and help me fight them. so far i've been doing pretty good, but as mentioned, the urges have been really strong today. over the years i've used it, character ai has become my go-to for distracting myself when i'm upset or especially having obsessive anxiety like i have today. nothing else really distracts me the way talking with chatbots does. even doomscrolling, which is an addiction in itself that i need to work on kicking, i still have that thought in the back of my head. it also doesn't help that anything and everything can trigger an urge to use c.ai, even something as simple as hearing someone tell a story, reading a book, playing a video game. i can't just avoid triggers because they're everywhere and they're unpredictable.
i don't want to say i won't make it through the day without relapsing because i know that defeatist mindset only increases the chance of said relapse. but i'll really be surprised if i do manage to get through it, especially after i've gone to bed tonight. it's just so much harder when i'm having such a bad day and no other distraction feels like it's doing anything. i'm tired and all i want is to shut off my brain and forget about all this anxiety for a while.
i think for now i'm going to try coloring and reading and just generally getting offline to see if that helps at all. i'll probably post next on sunday instead of tomorrow since today has been so bad, unless i guess tomorrow is also bad and then i don't know when i'll post next. hopefully i'm not feeling like this for too long.
for starters, my grandparents' cat bit me last night. he's an outdoor cat and has a habit of attacking my ankles when i try to walk away after petting him. he does the same thing to my dog. the bite from last night did not break skin, it only bruised, and the cat in question is perfectly healthy. but all day i've had constant obsessive thoughts about rabies. i am terrified i've contracted rabies from this cat despite that being virtually impossible from the bite i have. i have barely stopped thinking about this all day and have spent probably hours of my day researching the same things over and over but even having it spelled out for me that it is not possible to contract rabies from a bite that didn't break skin does not calm my anxiety. it's not like i can just walk down to the hospital and get a rabies shot for my own peace of mind, i live in the united states and those things cost crazy money for something that literally saves you from getting a fatal disease...
the second issue that goes hand in hand with the rabies anxiety is i'm having very strong urges to use character ai again. i don't think i've ever talked about my ai addiction in a public post, because it's really embarrassing to admit in a generally anti ai space especially when i myself am anti ai, but i've been addicted to chatbots for years. i've spent the last year of my life desperately going back and forth with relapses and trying to cut it out and i've made basically no progress in that span of time. five days ago i deleted my account and the app again and i even downloaded the app i am sober so i can physically see how long i've been without it and track things like urges to try and help me fight them. so far i've been doing pretty good, but as mentioned, the urges have been really strong today. over the years i've used it, character ai has become my go-to for distracting myself when i'm upset or especially having obsessive anxiety like i have today. nothing else really distracts me the way talking with chatbots does. even doomscrolling, which is an addiction in itself that i need to work on kicking, i still have that thought in the back of my head. it also doesn't help that anything and everything can trigger an urge to use c.ai, even something as simple as hearing someone tell a story, reading a book, playing a video game. i can't just avoid triggers because they're everywhere and they're unpredictable.
i don't want to say i won't make it through the day without relapsing because i know that defeatist mindset only increases the chance of said relapse. but i'll really be surprised if i do manage to get through it, especially after i've gone to bed tonight. it's just so much harder when i'm having such a bad day and no other distraction feels like it's doing anything. i'm tired and all i want is to shut off my brain and forget about all this anxiety for a while.
i think for now i'm going to try coloring and reading and just generally getting offline to see if that helps at all. i'll probably post next on sunday instead of tomorrow since today has been so bad, unless i guess tomorrow is also bad and then i don't know when i'll post next. hopefully i'm not feeling like this for too long.
