Not all bad things are caused by cults or other evil groups. They aren’t all-powerful, despite their grandiose claims. It’s a great way to spread fear and to divide people into two camps, those who believe their claims and those who don’t. Sadly, “Divide and conquer” works very well.
As a child, I believed their boasts and threats. I blamed myself for all the harm they told me I had caused. I hadn’t caused it, I wasn’t capable of causing it, and I had never even heard of it. It was a heavy burden of guilt, and to this day, I still at times struggle with it.
Part of that burden was the belief that I was powerless to do anything to stop what I supposedly had started, and I couldn’t protect myself or others from it. Layers of guilt and remorse piled up. Powerless and hopeless, I became passive in the face of any danger.
Yesterday, I faced a real and nasty threat and took steps to protect myself – something I wouldn’t have thought of doing in past years. I want to brag a little and share what I learned in the hopes that I may encourage others to protect themselves, too.
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Protecting Yourself from Ticks
Gardening season is starting! (And so is tick season.) Ticks can be infected with bacteria, viruses, and parasites. Like mosquitos, they bite you and drink your blood, transmitting whatever disease they are carrying. Trust me, you don’t want to get any of those diseases! Luckily, they can be treated if caught early enough.
Here’s the list of tick-borne diseases found in the US: Anaplasmosis, Babesiosis, Borrelia, Bourbon virus, Ehrlichiosis, Heartland virus, Lyme disease, Powassan disease, rickettsiosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, STARI (Southern tick-associated rash illness), Tick-borne relapsing fever, and Tularemia.
Immature ticks live on the ground and like to hide in dry leaves. Adult ticks climb up grass stalks or the branches of small bushes. Your feet and lower legs are, therefore, the most vulnerable parts of your body. Obviously, it’s not a good idea to go barefoot in the summer.
If you are not allergic to chemicals, there are two that reliably kill or repel ticks and are considered safe by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the States (usually that state’s agriculture office.) O.5% permethrin kills ticks in under 30 seconds, and DEET repels them. 10% DEET wears off quickly and has to be reapplied hourly., but 40% DEET lasts up to 5 hours. Both are found in big box stores and garden centers.
Permethrin is sprayed on clothes, hats, gloves, and shoes. It is very irritating to the skin, so wear gloves, sunglasses, and a mask while spraying clothes. If it gets on your skin, wash it off with soap and water. It also kills mosquitoes and can be used on mosquito netting and tents. It lasts for about six weeks of use or five or six washings.
DEET, which repels insects but does not kill them, can be used directly on your skin. It’s the most popular and effective insect repellent available. It is not oily, does not smell bad, and is available as an aerosol can, pump spray bottle, stick, lotion, cream, or wipe. DEET can also be sprayed on your clothes for an extra layer of protection.
When you go out, tuck the bottom of your pants into your socks or shoes and your shirt sleeves into long gardening gloves. Wear a treated hat and scarf. Add sunscreen and sunglasses to protect yourself from the sun. You are more apt to spot a tick if you wear light-colored clothes rather than dark ones. And if you wear clothes made with tightly woven fabric, they tend to slip off, while they grab on the coarsely woven fabric more easily.
I bought spray pump bottles of Sawyer Products SP619 Premium 0.5% Permethrin and “Repel” Insect Repellent Sportsmen Max Formula Spray Pump 40% Deet. It took a couple of hours to treat a shirt, a pair of blue jeans, socks, and gloves. My hands were sore afterward.
Today, I found a company called Insect Shield, which sells treated clothing online. You can also send them your own clothes, and they will treat them for about $10.00 per item. The treatment is guaranteed for the life of the clothing.
You should shower within two hours of being outside in the summer and check yourself for ticks, especially around your feet, in any place with hair, your neck and scalp, and any place where one piece of clothing meets another. You are also supposed to wash your clothes each time you use them, but I am sure I would just dump them on the garage floor – if I had a garage.
It was a lot of work, and, in the long run, I think doing it myself would be more expensive than buying a pretreated shirt and pants.
What if You Get Bitten Anyway?
If you remove an infected tick within 24 hours, it will not transmit any disease to you. The risk of infection rises dramatically after 48 hours and is practically 100% by 96 hours (4 days.) So don’t skip checking yourself each time you invade their home territory.
If you find one, forget the old-fashioned advice about using nail polish or Vaseline on the tick or scraping it off with a credit card. Here is what is recommended today.
Tick Removal
1. Use fine-tipped tweezers or forceps to grasp the tick as close to the skin’s surface as possible. Pull straight up with steady, even pressure. Don’t twist or jerk the tick. If you can’t remove the mouth parts easily, leave them alone and let the skin heal.
2. After removing the tick, thoroughly clean the bite area and your hands with rubbing alcohol, an iodine scrub, or soap and water. A topical antibiotic may also be applied.
3. Save the tick for identification. Make sure the tick is dry and seal it in a small plastic bag or vial for testing later, in case you develop symptoms.
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These are the articles I used to research that information.
TickEncounter: Field Guide to Ticks (Lots of useful miscellaneous information – my favorite!) https://web.uri.edu/tickencounter/fieldguide/
The Prevention of Tick Bite and Tick-borne Disease: Tick Checks and the Use of Insect Repellents. https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/caes/documents/publications/fact_sheets/entomology/repellentfactsheetnewformat2015pdf.pdf
Diseases Transmitted by Ticks / CDC https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/diseases/index.html
Tick-borne Diseases: Recommendations / CDC https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/tick-borne/recommendation.html
Insect Shield. (This company comes up first in search engines, and its products are listed on Amazon. However, it was sued by the government for falsifying lab results on quality control testing of soldiers’ uniforms. They subsequently settled.)
Here is a list of companies that carry treated clothing. I haven’t checked them out to make sure they protect against ticks.
Aventik, BALEAE, Bayleaf, Ben’s, BUFF, Cedarcide, Duluth Trading Company, ExOfficio, Forloh, Gamehde, Hadley Wren, Insect Shield, L. L. Bean, Legendary Whitetails, LYMEEZ, Pang Wangle, Sawyer Products, Shoo for Good, Simms, and Tyndale.
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More on the Cult
It’s silly to think that making a shirt, blue jeans, gloves, and two pairs of socks tick-proof could combat cult programming in any way. It’s not like they tortured me with ticks. Nobody paid attention to ticks in those days. So why did it make me feel stronger and safer?
Cognitive dissonance, that’s why. They had taught me that they could create and control any evil thing that could ever exist and that there was nothing I could do – nothing anybody could do to stop them. And I proved them wrong!
Not that ticks are evil – they don’t think in those terms. But they do carry diseases that could make me very, very sick for the rest of my life. And I, little old me, acted to protect myself from that nasty fate! After a couple of hours of work, I felt more capable, more competent, and definitely less afraid. Not bad!