Why was I just mindlessly browsing YouTube? Please help me un-see this.

May 20, 2018 1:00 PM

Not sure how this came up in my suggestions, but ugh, I really need to burn this image of a certain household pest out of my mind. It's not graphic but is gross and unpleasant, and gave me nightmares. (Link in description.)

The offending video (SFW but don't watch if squeamish or afraid of rats).

The worst part: apparently it has happened in real life. Please convince me how infinitesimally unlikely it would be to happen while I'm actually doing "my business" (I don't so much fear the presence of a rat in the house, just it coming up while I'm there) and/or how I can kill the fucking image of it in my head.

It's not a deep-seated phobia or related to anything traumatic, I just want it gone from my mind!

Maybe imagining the rat as a cute chipmunk or squirrel?

posted by Seeking Direction to Health & Fitness (9 answers total)

Best answer: You can't unsee it. There is no erase function in your brain. But the harder you try to erase something (like posting this on Metafilter), the more likely it is to stick around. Deliberately thinking hard about chipmunks is only going associate chipmunks with this image for the rest of your life. Just take your head somewhere else but with a totally different goal, not with the goal of eradicating this. Take a walk, read a book, watch a movie, listen to music, cook something good for supper, talk to friends, learn to knit, whatever.
posted by beagle at 1:13 PM on May 20, 2018 [4 favorites]

Best answer: Imagine the rat wearing a cute little outfit. Like a swimming outfit with goggles. Or a pink dress.
posted by ilovewinter at 1:36 PM on May 20, 2018 [6 favorites]

Best answer: Something that has helped calm me after seeing a disturbing image has been playing a mindless, simple game for a while. Something like Bejeweled or Dots is just the ticket.
posted by lampoil at 2:36 PM on May 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: This happened to me irl. The surest way I know to get rid of dreadful images (and I look at images for a living) is to plunge into something that is the exact opposite of what you saw. If it’s a nighttime gory red shot, go for daylight and fields of green. Do a google image search for fields of white flowers and immerse yourself.
posted by Ideefixe at 2:48 PM on May 20, 2018

Best answer: The thing you saw is very very unlikely to happen, especially if you are on a closed sewage system that is relatively modern and up to code. I have been on the internet a very long time and known lots of people who talk about household stuff and I still do not know anyone who has experienced anything like it except in a literal outhouse, and that was more a case of woodland creatures using the building as a home, not a bathtub.

Honestly, you could think about the thousand other things that animal would *rather* be doing than that. We've got rats right now, my every day involves far more Rat Strategy than I ever wanted in my life, but they are just super busy shitting on everything, taking oranges from my orange tree, and thwarting my attempts to block their entry points into the house to ever give a shit (ha) about the sewer system.
posted by Lyn Never at 3:19 PM on May 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Went for a nice workout and almost forgot about this until I saw the tab was still open! Thanks for the feedback, everyone! I forgot to mention that my sleep schedule has been completely messed up (I struggle with this if I don't make it a point to get to bed at the same time every night) - that probably doesn't help matters any.
posted by Seeking Direction at 3:29 PM on May 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: (This is a sincere, not flippant, comment.)

Would it help to look at pictures of cute (domestic) rats doing adorable things that are a million miles away from a wildie swimming in the loo? That might help partially or fully overwrite the image in question being the predominant one in your mental folder marked "Rat".

If so, let me know, and I will link some here, or MeMail you a ton of pics of our pet rats being fluffy and non-ominous.

(If you would really, really rather not see another photo of a rat for a very long time indeed, I understand!)
posted by Morfil Ffyrnig at 7:51 AM on May 21, 2018

Response by poster: ^ Yes, please! :)
posted by Seeking Direction at 9:26 AM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: It's awful when you find yourself getting fixated on something you really would rather not think about - I can empathise. The very best of luck in successfully shifting this from the forefront of your mind. (And seconding that it is vanishingly unlikely to ever happen to you.)

(I forgot you can't send attachments in MeMail!) I've created a ratty Tumblr sideblog here (which I've been meaning to do for ages!), and popped some pics of our gang up there for you to view, curated for maximum fluffiness. Hope they help. :)
posted by Morfil Ffyrnig at 11:25 AM on May 21, 2018 [4 favorites]