Irrational HIV obsession

Hi everyone! I joined this site in hopes of getting a little support for my problem with an irrational fear of HIV. This isn't the only issue I've ever had with anxiety, but it is what's currently bothering me.

It started in 2008 and lasted for about 3 years along with other things too. I feeling good up until this past April. I was actually laughing at myself for ever having that fear. But then one day I went to a friend's house and while I was chatting with him, I think that a bit of his saliva landed in my mouth. You know how it just flies out in the middle of you talking? Well I'd been biting the inside of my mouth for a few days prior to that because I was really anxious and nervous about who knows what. I immediately thought that it could've landed on that spot and, since his lips were chapped, there could've been blood in it and I would've contracted HIV.

About 2 weeks later, I had a sore throat that lasted for a week. No other symptoms. Just a scratchy throat. Now, I'm sure it was allergies. It was the start of that lovely time of year. The soreness started after I woke up from a nap on the couch. In the next room there was a shirt soaking in bleach so I thought maybe that irritated me (but for a week?). I also had a lot of phlegm in my throat as well and I kept clearing it. But it fed into the whole thing of catching HIV, and to this day, I'm still hanging onto this dumb situation. I keep saying to myself that people DO get sore throats, but it doesn't seem to help me. I'm struggling every day with the irrational thoughts. I keep hoping that I'll get another sore throat with no symptoms so that way I can prove to myself that it was nothing.

Does anyone else have any experience with an HIV fear? I keep debating whether it would be worth it to just confront that friend. I tried to get back into counseling, but I have a hard time talking about this out loud since I know that it can't possibly be true. It's like half my brain thinks it's perfectly normal and makes sense, but the other half is saying that it's all fake and I just have another idea "stuck" in my head (which has happened with other things than HIV). I'm hesitant to take any medication because I had a horrible experience with them before. They actually made things worse.

Any response would be greatly appreciated. I just need someone to talk to.
Thanks for taking the time to read this!

You don't have HIV. If you had caught it that way, you would be making medical history among all the people who have far more extensive contact with HIV-positive people than this. No-one has ever caught it by kissing, let alone by this minimal degree of contact.

Which, I know, doesn't help. As you say, it's not rational. Someone else recently posted with a similar issue, and I haven't been in these forums long, so I'm sure there are many others. [It's in a more explicit forum. sexuality/topic93747.html ] So it's not uncommon. Would getting an HIV test help? It might give you a baseline for telling yourself that this isn't true. If you need counselling to help, that's what it's there for. It doesn't matter that this belief is not true, that's the point, that it isn't rational. It's just your brain hanging onto something when it shouldn't.