Anxiety over Pregnancy

[Nak1]

Hi there,

I am having a lot of anxiety over situations where I know pregnancy cannot happen but I still get super scared. For example, one time I got extremely anxious about master bating in a bathroom and worried what if trace amounts of semen left on a door handle could get a girl who comes in bathroom next pregnant. Another time, I was with my girlfriend on a couch and we were both fully clothed and I had a scratch on my upper inner thigh. I had some Pre-cum on my penis and got scared because I started to tell myself what if I accidentally touched my penis while itching or what if some of the Pre-cum dripped onto my thigh and then i touched it? Because then I reached up her skirt and touched her inner thigh and butt (she had underwear on) and that made me anxious about a pregnancy scare.

I know this is not how a girl pregnant, yet I’m still having these worries. What steps should I take going forward in order to help ease my worries? My college offers counseling sessions; could that help?

Thanks!

[Heather]

By all means, this kind (or any other) or irrational anxiety is something usually best helped with therapy for anxiety. I don't know what kind of counseling your college offers, but you can certainly look into it and find out. If you can schedule an intake appointment, I'd do that, and you can ask them what they can offer you in terms of anxiety treatment. In the event that's not a kind of counseling/therapy they provide, they may be able to refer you to other services.

In the meantime, it might help to look at this piece to see if you can identify -- and maybe change or address -- any of the common things often at the root of this kind of irrational fear: You're Not Pregnant. Why Do You Think You Are?

[Nak1]

Thank you so much for the quick response and helpful article. I honestly don’t know a whole lot about the types of counseling the school offers, but once I’m back on campus I will surely check it out because my fears have been rather intense and I really want it to stop. Thanks again

[Heather]

You're welcome.

[Nak1]

Sorry, but one more question. Is it normal for me to have this anxiety? I feel like my male peers don’t have this problem and it makes me feel a bit embarrassed

[Heather]

By all means, this fear is irrational, and not something that people generally have when they know the facts about how reproduction happens. But you know, pretty much all of us have at least one thing (and often more) that makes us different from other people, or that might be unusual.

Mental illness, however, which anxiety is, is actually very common. An awful lot of people struggle with mental illness, whether that's anxiety, like you have, or depression, personality disorders or other kinds. There's a lot of cultural stigma still around mental illness because of a long history of cultural ignorance about it, but that is changing. And just because people were ignorant -- and some may still be -- doesn't mean you should be ashamed. Mental illness is like other kinds of illness: mostly just something that happens to people by virtue of being human.