Hi All,

This is my first day on this site, and just as any other member am very pleased that there is a specific area only for people with health anxiety! i have visited numerous other forums before where people were writing about GAD, OCD...but not specifically HA.

Here is my story...I soo need to find a few people out there that feels like me too, it is so frustrating to be the only one who has this specific issue.

Okay a long story made short....my brother committed suicide about a year and a half ago, he suffered from scizophrenia previous to his death for 6 years and on top of that there were continuous conflicts between him and my father, my mother too sometimes. My father is the worst kind that you only see on films...you know the one that abuses his child emotionally....makes him feel smaller than an ant, takes away self-confidence and on top of that he physically tortures you too... oh and he drinks and makes EVERYTHING to be YOUR FAULT!!!! His bad temper, his drinking....everything was our fault! At times he -my brother- had to go without food for days...being locked out of the house and left to wander the streets by himself...etc...terrible memories for me.
I escaped this fate by leaving home when I was 19yrs old. I am 26 now.

Then almost 2 years ago I experienced my first panic attack. I was taking exams at college, getting married 3 weeks after the exams and move house too. Another 2 weeks later a very close friend fell under the train drunk and he has lost a leg, so i had to go visit him in hospital...up until that time I was fine, but on the way home from the hospital I had a huge panic attack on the bus. It was the wierdest thing ever...mine was not so physical at all, it was just the vertigo feeling and feeling of terror...suddenly I felt afraid to get on the bus...and my thoughts were....okay schizophrenia just hit you too...I was going through absolute distress for days I was contemplating suicide. My brother was still with us then. Then I finally went to see my Gp feeling terrified and she was so patronizing towards me...like as if I was just making no sense ...which just reassured me I have just gone mad and am just delusional...horrible experience. i remember her asking me, but what are you afraid of? And I told her I was afraid I have just been striked with scizophrenia so she sent me to a pscychiatrist who asked me a lot of questions and finally he said he didnt think I needed his help....but at the end nobody told me what was wrong with me. Luckily I knew a friend who had dealt with anxiety and panic attacks previously so she helpmed me enormously by just telling me how it feels and so I could see it was more likely just anxiety.

But my health anxiety started right then and there...since that day its just getting better and worse then better again and worse again....like that. I have had some counseling right after my brother's death...he died exactly 2 weeks after my first panic attack. Being so self-centered at the time I didnt even grieve properly...I felt angry, guilty and scared in the same time.

So yeah, my health anxiety is ALL about scizophrenia. funny thing is I know that I have just as much chances of developing cancer and even dying from it, but that doesn't scare me...death doesn't scare me..okay it does sometimes but I'd say its hardly ever on my mind.

I made the mistake every one of us does...I read up on scizophrenia, read personal stories...HOW I WISH I DIDN'T! For a start it is not something that you die of...but you have to LIVE with it for the rest of your life and there is NO CURE, no hope for recovery. Then I read about another guy's story where he explained how he was hearing lots of voices...that was months ago and now Im a total nervous wreck...ever since I read that thought is on my mind CONSTANTLY! I mean Im sitting on the train/bus listening and anticipating that it will happen to me at any moment. Have had endless nightmares where I was surrounded by voices not leaving me alone...sometimes I freaked myself out because the screaching of the train