ridiculous level of fear of unlikely events that are bad

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I got tap water up my nose and when I read an article on it I found out something called "naegleria fowleri" exists

which is a rarely infectious brain eating amoeba that gives you 7-14 days to live, with about 2-3 cases surviving out of about 120 total, 9 of which happened in pakistan this october the 10th

MELTDOWN.
still having it oh god oh god oh god oh god

what's yours?

I'm much more likely to die of a heart attack just from waking up (especially when it's because of the idiot teenagers at the school across the street this morning, setting off what I think are firecrackers that are normally used to scare away large numbers of birds: BANG!! !), choking to death on a piece of toast, falling down the stairs and snapping my neck, and being hit by a car while crossing the street outside my apartment than get some very rare brain-eating amoeba that the media has publicized. Of course, that doesn't really make me less afraid of getting it, it just makes me more afraid of waking up, eating, walking down stairs, crossing the street, etc. etc. etc. and etc. ...

good point I guess, for some reason dodging fireworks shot right at me scares me less than amoeba

I'd scrub my arms but I know that doesn't work anyways

I wonder if being drunk works... not that I'm going to try, I just tend to obsess over every little detail when I get worried about something and check every potential thing in dealing with it as a way to calm down, not that it works very well

I think I see why people just ignore stuff sometimes and pretend it's not there... oh god oh god

so THIS is what fear of death feels like... certainly educational about what they mean when they say "live every day like it's your last"

oh god..... wow this focuses the mind well

Its a vicious circle and its a loop thats herd to get out of-I have fallen into that loop and a couple of times the situation I was worried about happening actually did and was worse than I expected. When I told people how I felt about something and people would say "no no no I know something different that you don't know" and it turns out I was right and made to feel foolish believing it was going to be ok.

I know quite a bit about parasites. It's become a mild special interest for me because of the amazing Animal Planet show Monsters Inside Me. To quell your fear, Naegleria fowleri usually occurs from lakes and rivers and other freshwater systems, not tap water. Just use noseplugs if swimming in lakes/rivers/etc. US tap water is very well treated by disinfection and filtration methods, so that even parasites not commonly killed by chlorine (like Cryptosporidium) are eliminated before the water reaches your house. We in the US are very fortunate to only have to worry about pathogens in our water during water main breaks and the like.

As for my illogical fears, I have many, as I have severe OCD. But my illogical fears are not "typical" OCD fears (and are hard to explain), because I'm a pure obsessional and because most "common" OCD/illogical fears (like contamination/germs) can be explained away BY logic and scientific evidence for me. Like, I'm much more germphobic than the typical person (I'd never swim in a lake, for instance), but I only am germphobic in scenarios where contamination IS obvious. Not in everyday situations. So, for a lot of my obsessive fears, my fear lies in situations that have risk, even if it's small. Like, I could never go to Africa. I'd be petrified of malaria, even if I were on anti-malarial prophylaxis.