Christers
26-11-11, 00:08
After a year and a half of pretty much constant worry about every bodily sensation: twitch, niggle, pain being a sign of some dreadful illness that was going to rob me of the chance to see my child grow up and leave my husband a widower (despite 4 gp's, an ENT and neurologist telling me "it's anxiety!!!") i've have decided finally that enough is enough. I've worried myself so much about becoming ill that i've actually MADE myself ill! After constant worry about my health as well as other stress as a result of my recent wedding, i developed my second bout of dizziness...whilst on honeymoon in beautiful Rome!! On my return home and return to work, my dizziness remained and the worry about the dizziness made my heart palpitate and, for the first time in my life, made me feel like i couldn't breathe...constantly! The more i focused on these sensations, the worse they became. One benefit of these recent turn of events is that i have now (EVENTUALLY!) realised that I'M doing this to myself. When I'm occupied with something (Like at work: my school is about to go through an inspection), i'm fine. When i go home, my symptoms return. Sorry if this is long winded, but i just feel we need to focus more on recovery than spending hours trawling through the health anxiety forum, which i have done on many occasions! (and which has relieved anxiety on some occasions for a short while). What i'm finding now is that NOT focussing on the fact you have anxiety, that you are feeling, dizzy, breathless etc. etc. actually leads to these symptoms slowly fading into the background. It's not easy and i'm not there yet, but i feel i'm heading in the right direction. It's as simple as this: TELL yourself "it's nothing, it's a twinge. it's a pain, it's not life threatening"....and then move on and do something else! DON'T FOCUS, DON'T OVERTHINK! The hardest bit is getting your brain to stop going "but what if...?". Instead, Go out and live life again and your body will forget that once it was anxious (I'm hopeful of this!). Best of luck everyone! I hope to not visit this site quite so often now (and i mean that in the nicest possible way!):biggrin: