Yeah, I’m incredibly glad that it happened to be over the summer. I was able to just leave my apartment to stew for a week and crash at my family’s across the state.
I once lived in an apartment infested with fleas. It was a nightmare. I remember looking down at my leg once and saw a good two dozen below the knee. Yeesh, it was not fun.
These days I feel burning and itching on my skin all the time, but it’s just mild eczema. My roomies and I keep things neat and tidy. I go to literal war with insect infestations.
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The first time I became aware of this as an issue, was also one the most effective job adverts I’d ever seen. (In the jobs pages of Wednesday’s Guardian, in the mid 90’s)
Black background, simple white text: “Won’t someone please help this distraught mother get all these insects off her beautiful baby?” The infant sat front and centre in the photo, only in a nappy, was, of course, perfectly clear.
(One of the London boroughs recruiting social workers.)
It also shows that the issue was prevalent enough at that time, that the council expected to need to be able to provide sensitive support. (Lord knows how pared-down that help is now.)
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If it wasn’t a delusion, someone would have come forward with one of these “bugs”, right?.
There was even talk of some shadowy government/business collusion, to keep it from public knowledge, classic delusional idée fixe. Everyone know knows the government can be trusted to keep us safe.
Controlled re-exposure is the way forward with phobias, I understand. Watch The Thing, the 1982 version*. If that doesn’t cure you, nothing could. 
- I really joke there, don’t you do it. It is still traumatic for me to hear the opening notes of the theme music.
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Two nights ago, I had to help my wife open some image files that a patient had brought her. The patient had paid to have some lab photograph specimens from an alleged intestinal parasite infestation. It was pretty disgusting, but nothing to do with parasites. The worst part of it is that she has a pretty high patient load, and it is hard for her to spend the time it takes to convince them that they have no treatable physical ailment. They will not speak with a therapist, because they honestly believe there are bugs. It puts the physicians in a tough spot.
sigh Yes, humans really do have lots of little bugs and mites, many of which have a mostly “yeah, whatever” kind of co-existence. There are human eyelash mites, human eyebrow mites, probably mite species colonizing other human hairy zones. (Note that these are human specific species. They’ve been around for a while.)
That’s normal, unlike bedbugs and ticks, oh my.
If that’s a problem for you, really don’t think about that fact that a 200-pound adult has 2 to 6 pounds of bacteria in their gut.
And never never ever watch the Night Gallery episode, The Caterpillar.
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Oh yah, if you lift the delusional parasitosis rock, look for signs of the Scientology spin-off Genesis II cult, also known as the Bleach Cult. Those people have all sort of induced delusions about bugs and worms, so they drink bleach. Bleach enemas too.
(Not Safe For Gut Bacteria warning.)
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Although not all cases, I am sure some of these delusions are related to stimulant use:
There is a real association with repetitive behaviors, delusions and picking.
“Formication” remains my favourite word for dropping into casual conversation.
Like a religion?
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Those hands look awfully like tardigrades.
Can have its downsides. There was a case documented at Cambridge of a woman with dog phobia. Someone in the psychology department suggested desensitisation, which literally started out with someone walking a puppy on the other side of the road and built up from there.
She ended up with a severe case of labrador ownership.
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I will never look at my vintage kitchen table the same way again.
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I don’t know why I keep reading this thread. Every time I do, I get a paranoid itch somewhere on my body that I can’t help but scratch, even though I’m perfectly aware of what’s going on.
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No-one tried a cat scan?
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Oh yeah. I wouldn’t go see that movie if you paid me a thousand bucks. Paradoxically, I’m fascinated by still images of the various forms of the alien in that movie. I think it’s the idea of it oozing out of people creeps me out.
Thank you sincerely, for that hearty laugh.
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Morgellons. Google it People, it’s real.
Yes, it’s a real and scary example of delusional parasitosis. But the “fibers” aren’t real, and there’s no unknown or suppressed skin syndrome behind it.
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