When a HA fixation happens to someone in your life *possibly triggering?*

[textsfromthemoon]

Hi, please excuse me if this is in the wrong place, I'm not sure if there is a certain place to post possibly triggering content?

Anyway, I've had anxiety/emetophobia since I was a kid and in recent years this has sort of developed into more extreme health anxiety issues, I've gone through all of the "regular" things; fearing cancer, fearing MS, for a while I dealt with a rabies fear after being scratched by a cat and brain tumors.

Recently I'd actually had my HA pretty under control, things were good and I was recognizing my symptoms likely had a link to my anxiety.

*next is the part that may be triggering for some*

However, on Thursday morning my mom had a seizure in our kitchen and was taken to the hospital where they found two small masses on her brain, she was operated on immediately the next day, they were able to remove both masses completely, she was given a body scan and nothing else was found, she is now home and recovering.

Obviously this was extremely anxiety inducing because I was worried for my moms health, but having one of my huge fears actually hit so close to home has really messed with my HA again, now that I know my mom is okay I feel that my HA around tumors has come back full force, I'm starting to experience "symptoms" that I hadn't for a while and I'm starting to hyperfixate on seizures and a fear of having them. Has anyone else had an experience like this? Where someone they know experienced something that related to their health anxiety? If so, how did you cope? Any tips would really be appreciated, thank you!

[mrmartyd]

Same as above, anybody suffering health anxiety susceptible to symptoms they read about may want to not read this.

When I was suffering from health anxiety very badly one of my biggest worries was the usual suspect MS. I was having twitches, funny vision, numbness and all the usual symptoms.

During that time my grandmother was diagnosed with motor neuron disease. Not MS but ultimately degenerative and I went in to a total meltdown. Just before her diagnosis I remember my mum telling me the doctors had told us to expect the worst. She said they had found a quiver on her tongue which was apparently an indicator for MND. I didn't even really know what was meant by a quiver and to this day I still don't, I don't want to know, but within the hour I was feeling tongue twitches.

My grandmother had also begun to have trouble speaking and suddenly I found I was having trouble speaking, or as I know now I was noticing my mouth moving more and picking up when I mispronounced things like any normal person does from time to time. I was online looking it all up feeding the fear which now years later I know is a terrible idea, Google is evil as far as symptom checking goes and no one should ever do it.

In the end it was one of the things that started me on the way to recovery. I watched her fade away over time and it put my imaginary problems in to perspective. I figured that if ultimately I end up the same way one day then I should probably make the most of what I have. It got me to thinking about how there are people that actually are suffering from terminal illness who really don't have long left and I reflected on myself and how I was wasting my life away worrying about the likelihood of illness and the inevitability of death.

I could say try not to think about it but we all know that's a pretty hard thing to do. Instead use the experience to realise life is short and use it to encourage you to enjoy what you have with who you have, that's how I went about it and I haven't had HA for something like 13 years now. It's not easy by any means but putting a somewhat positive spin on it could help.

Anyway sorry for the essay, good luck!

[textsfromthemoon]

Wow thank you so much for replying, knowing you overcame your HA really helps a lot, I am very sorry to hear about what your grandmother experienced though and I definitely agree about Google, Ive been trying to steer clear of visiting Dr. Google since this all happened lol it’s hard but I know it’s not productive.

Another thing that helped me as I’ve been reflecting on all of this and I’d really like to post it for anyone else who might read this, is that even the things we fear the most, aren’t always as bad as we think they may be, even super scary things like brain tumors. Obviously having a brain tumor is not a GOOD thing, but even with TWO brain tumors, my mom is going to be completely fine, she had them removed completely, the surgery did not effect her negatively in any way (other than her complaining that the incision is super itchy now LOL) and her body scan came back clean, she went through one of our worst fears and survived it, she is tumor free and is able to continue forward to a long and healthy life! it makes me realize how amazing medicine is in our world today and how even scary things can be removed/cured in a lot of situations, sorry to ramble like this haha but this perspective has really helped me realize that even the scary things we fear don’t always mean “this is the end”, thank you again for replying it really means a lot