I read that wormwood is toxic and poisonous and yet it is the main ingredient in parasite cleanses. Do you think it is toxic or safe to take in these products?

Also, how do you know if you have parasites? How do you know when they are gone? Is it really as bad as they say or do all those sites overblow it and use scare tatics? If you do a cleanse, how do you know you are finally totally clean? I don't eat meat and don't have the symptoms - is it more common in meat eaters? Ignorance is bliss!

I read about it by ACCIDENT - DAMMIT! I was just looking up information on heavy metal cleansing and mercury and some stupid page had to start talking about that in addition.

Now I'm totally paranoid. You see I suffer from OCD, germaphobia and with a lot of Pure-O. Ever since last night I can't sleep and I can't think of anything else. And I'm so totally paranoid that every single itch I have I'm totally paranoid. Every little pain and gurgle in my stomach I'm paranoid about. I'm totally irritated and annoyed and disgusted. Can't get the idea and images out of my head. I'm starting to look at everything and the world around me and the people and animals and everything as a lot more clinical of a view and overly hyper aware of all the physical clinical things going on. It's stressing me out.

The contamination fears - germaphobia was bad enough. But at least that was not disturbing so much as germs are so omni-present, passive, mostly beneficial or benign, not intelligent, and I don't really think of them as alive. But to think of real life-forms living inside and in everyone you see, these alien things eating you alive and there is no where to run - no escape - I can't live peacefully with that thought and knowledge. Then paranoid about everything you eat and touch, and other people and animals as well. At least other animals on this earth don't have this self-mental torture of this self-awareness type of thing. I can't escape my mind! It's been torturing me for years, and not this? HELP!

How do I stop thinking about this? How do I reframe this? Pure-O is mental TORTURE! HELP!

I don't know anything about wormwood but I'm very sorry you are going through this kind of mental suffering.

As far as the mental side of it, one thing that might be useful to reflect upon is the interconnectednes of things, or what Zen Master Thich Naht Hahn calls "interbeing." Essentially all these processes and organisms - even the ones we consider malignant, are part of an interconnected matrix of processes, and essentially there isn't any one part of it that is seperate from any other.

One outcome of this thinking is the understanding that the barriers that you create between your "self" and your problems (parasites or whatever) are artifical creations of your mind. There really isn't a "you" to begin with - just a series of processes happening from moment to moment, and thus you can't really be harmed by anything. A deeper realization of this truth yields a compassion for all living beings, including those that you might consider harmful, since they are also part of the interconnected whole. That doesn't mean a kind of passivity against things that are harmful, but you don't need to create all the mental suffering that goes on top of it.

I'm a little groggy and not explaining this quite as eloquently right now. I really feel for what you're going through right now, because I do know how the mind can fixate on things. I'm posting this on the chance that it offers maybe a little bit of help for you.

-DaveK

Thanks so much Dave. That's a very nice way to think about it. That did help a LOT! My mind jumps around a lot and sometimes just gets in this flight or fight and gets overly self-conscious of anything I don't want to be conscious about. And actually the whole spiritual thing is really what kind of freaks me out. When I realize more and more how fragmented the physical reality is and how nothing is solid or how they appear to us from a distance - the identity of them - the more cold, hostile and clinical the world seems to be. The more physical and less spiritual it seems. And then I wonder - maybe there is no spiritual since everything is so physical and so bizarre. Really, my mind just after reading unbelievable and extremely disturbing and disgusting stories gets so paranoid. I keep thinking that I'm feeling things and getting itches in my eye and ears and everywhere else and my mind races that it means something. Yet I don't even know if my mind is what is causing the sensations in the first place - psychosomatic. How can you turn off awareness.

You can't really turn off awareness - actually awareness you want to keep. What's valuable (and difficult) to do is to start letting go of the concepts that cause you suffering. Physical is a concept, spiritual is a concept, cold and hostile are concepts - they're just thought bubbles in your mind. What you can do is just notice those thoughts as they arise and see them for what they are. They are impermanant just like anything else - they come and go. You can actually step back and look at your thoughts this way. Just let go, when the thoughts come back you can just let go again.

I practice meditation, the most basic form is focusing on the breathing, down at your center or "hara" right below the navel. If you focus your attention there and watch your breath you'll be less "in the head" in the world of thoughts and concepts. When a thought comes up, you acknowledge it and come back to the breath. You can do this over and over again, and you can do this all day no matter what activity you're engaged in.

I'm not trying to turn you into a Buddhist or anything but I'm just giving you things that helped me. If I hadn't started meditating and ultimately practicing Buddhism I'd be a complete mess. I'm still a _little_ bit of a mess. But I'm not a mess about being a mess! You can actually be anxious or obsessive and be ok with that condition. What hurts is when you pile more suffering on top of it. The Buddha said it's like a person that gets hit with one dart (some kind of suffering, physical or mental) and immediately is shot with another - the suffering we create on top of our existing suffering.

You can be obsessive and just think, "hey, look at that, I'm being obsessive." When you bring this kind of mindful attention to your experience it kind of lightens things for you.

I realize I'm not on topic for this particular forum, and this thread might get moved. But I couldn't just sit here and say nothing.

-DaveK

p.s. feel free to PM me if you want to talk more about this kind of thing or want to learn more about meditation or something, or start a thread in another forum.