So, the place I live, it’s in a large overpopulated metropolitan. The parking area is basically the road and it always had a strong stench of urine and remnants of cowdung, but today due to faulty sewers fecal matter had overflown onto the road and of c, no one had cleaned it. It’s a deadend road so the only people stepping on it are people who live here, but I had to take care of my Motorbike there and had to clean it properly, so I could see stuff on my tires and while splashing the tires with water, I might have gotten a bit of stuff on my legs.
I felt deeply disgusted of my situation, but I felt scared of catching something as I am often exposed to stuff like this. The rented hotel I lived in has foot prints on the lift doors and it smelled of saliva and was painted red by marks of chweable tobacco product. The interesting thing is, I pay a premium to live in this place as every other place I went to smelled of sweat and piss (inside the rooms, this is outside, my room is neat and clean)
P.S: I sprayed isopropyl alcohol on everything I had touched just to sanitize it. But, isopropyl alcohol is apparently toxic and I am not supposed to use it frequently, what shall I do?
How can I keep myself safe and sane in this environment?
You sound like a germophobe, to be honest. Yes, your situation is gross, but the human immune system is pretty amazing. Just look at how many people in New York City survive every day in a melting pot of subway germs.
Fecal matter and other organic waste can transmit disease and infection, especially if you get it in an open wound, but the chances of that happening if you clean and dress the wound soon after are very low. Even if a wound does get infected, we have medicine that can deal with that easily as long as it isn’t allowed to persist for a long time.
In my opinion, it sounds a little bit like you could benefit from therapy to become more comfortable with these feelings of revulsion towards normal exposure to germs. It is good to have sanitizer and stuff ready when you need it, but you also don’t need to suffer through continued panic after cleaning and disinfecting yourself from a gross exposure.
Thank you, this is what I needed to hear.
Fwiw, as a NYer, I’m basically perpetually sick. Even with masking and sanitizer.
It’s even worse with roommates or a partner since any time one person catches something, it’s bound to spread to the others