I have a bed bugs story, so you can laugh at me. I used to do very high pressure work and push myself very hard, and on top of it, I volunteered to work 14 hours a day instead of 10. I was staying at a hotel. And on my day off I broke out in bumps all over my torso. And I blamed the poor hotel for bedbugs. Self-righteously. The hotel tried to defend themselves, but I wouldn't hear it.
And then several years later the same thing happened. Different hotel. Different job. But same me. Somehow I had figured out that it wasn't bedbugs. It was hives. So I called the on call nurse and she told me to take a high dose of Benadryl. And the "bedbugs" went away.
I was so completely out of touch with what were my feelings and needs, and held so much stress that my body erupted in hives.
There used to be a mother who posted here not long ago named Elsie. She would talk about the third arrow. It's the arrow we turn against ourselves. We don't have any control over the bedbugs but we do have control over the arrows we turn against ourselves when the bedbugs show up.