When did yours start????

[**whenwillthisend**]

hi everyone i am interested in how or when you became ill with anxiety and panic...what does everyone think was(if any) the trigger??
For me ,mine simply started with a dizzy feeling where i thought i was gonna faint one day (i didnt but never left the feeling alone and carried on thinking i was gonna faint only for it to spiral way out of control...resulting in how i feel 6 months later..like a wreck most days and a hypochondriac)
Looking back i realise i was completley exhausted.. i had a baby, moved house and had a pile of stress..my body was telling me to slow down.
Also with my first panic attack(which was the worst thing id experienced...even worse than labour as there, i knew what was happening to my body)i was unaware what was happening to me so i kept on thinking i must be seriously ill to feel this way....it took a while to realise i had anxiety..the doctors didnt say anything..just go home and rest..and by the time i realised i was sufferring anxiety and panic it had already got a too good a hold..and here i am today!!!!
The story goes on.....................

[hayles]

Mine was a sickness bug, as i have a fear of being sick.
It sent me into panic and from that day on i was convinced there was something really bad going to happen to me. That i was dying........and then along came the health anxiety.....
and so the story goes on x

Hay x

[reddevil]

Hi,

Mine all started from christmas eve four years ago.

I had this headache, which did not go away.

I had this headache 24/7 and lasted for 2 years.

I was afraid of the worse (tumor).
Specialist told me it was a DAILY PERSISTENT HEADACHE.

But this day onwards health anxiety appears to never leave me.

Tony

[kate]

Mine started with a panic attack in Tesco's when I was 19, I'm 43 now.

Thought I was dying etc. Anxiety was diagnosed which persisted, and then depression followed. Also had PND after the birth of my daughter who is now 14.

Kate

"Everybody's changing and I don't feel the same"

[LC05]

Mine started last summer. A few days before I went on holiday my friend kept talking about plane crashes, and i went really dizzy and thought I was gonna pass out. Since then its kept happening and thats what started the health anxiety. Anxiety runs in my family, and i think i miust have just triggered something that day.

[shell100]

Hi everyone :)
mine came on when i was driving home late one night,
i had worked in coronary care for about 10 years & i was convinced i had gone into some fast heart rhythm. i ended up back & forward to my own unit on heart monitors (infact i can hardly remember it it was such a blur)
within a couple of weeks i was so anxious i couldnt even get in my car & go to work. im a nurse & if i had to take a patients blood i got really anxious that i would have a panic attack in the middle of taking it, hence i would be shaking making it virtually impossible. i guess at the time that was generalised anxiety. i became obsessive with checking my pulse, i wanted it at a certain rate else i would get really upset. then i was checking what i was eating, like nothing with caffeine in, nothing with nuts, just spiraled out of control i guess :(. was going thru a relationship split with the kids dad & lots of things really just got on top of me.
7 years on i was doing really well....THIS IS JUST A BLIP THO :) KEEP TELLING MYSELF THAT....

[Greg1983]

Mine started with a panic attack in the cinema of Jan this year. I thought i was having a heart attack and since then i have worried about dieing and other illness since then.

It all started round about the time me and #my girlfriend bought a house.

"UNLESS YOU HAVE BREATHED ANXIETY, TASTED ANXIETY AND LIVED WITH ANXIETY YOU DONT KNOW HOW IT FEELS..
NEVER JUDGE AN ANXIOUS PERSON BECAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW ONE DAY YOU MAY WAKE UP WITH IT YOURSELF..... (Stolen from someone else, can't remember who, but i'm sorry - i just liked it)"

[whatisitnow]

Mine started about 14 yrs ago. My father in law died, i didnt think for a minute when he wen into hospital he would have cancer. I was a very nieve person back then. Since then i have convinced myself ive had cervical cancer, ovarian cysts/tumors, bowel cancer, throat cancer, lung cancer, necrotising faciaitus (flesh eating bug) breast cancer, Non hodgkins lymphoma, skin cancer, and the list goes on and on, some of things ive thought ive had more than once over the years. The awful thing is the episodes of attacks are getting closer together. I used to go a couple of years between, now im lucky if i get 2 months between.

[whatisitnow]

And also the times anxiety attacks come on (out of the blue) are usually when ive been stressed about something going on at the time in my life. That seems to always be the trigger. Having to move house, bad relationship, giving up smoking & stressing about my weight, major events happening in the family etc

[boy]

I had a scare down there in December 2003 that turned out to be varicose veins. I heard something about prostate cancer on the radio in Nov 2004, and after I got over that I found a boil thing on my foreskin, then a couple of weeks later a lump in the side of my head...

in fact today is a year to the day that I became a full-blown hypochondriac, coz after this it was one thing after another.

[clickaway]

Cannot remember the situation of my first panic attack; I think I just felt very tense and nervous at work one day 12 years ago and went to the doctors. Then had panics for next ten years.

Two and a half years ago I suffered stomach pains and that was the start of my GAD. Had a few days off work, but after returning for a couple of days I was then permanantly off sick til I gave up work altogether.

My onset of GAD followed a period of concern about not being valued at work, loss of girlfriend and general depression over war etc - it was the year of Iraq war.

My panics and GAD are the result of bottling so much emotion all my life. They had to come out sooner or later and am currently in very painful process of letting those long-term emotional pains out.



Ray
http://www.anxietyrelease.org.uk/

And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.
~Mark Sanders and Tia Sillers

[shiv]

Hi there

Mine started about 12 years ago. In the previous year, I'd got pregnant, my step father comitted suicide, moved house and had my baby and then one evening I was watching telly (I can even remember what it was- it was a film called "Dave"!!) and all of a sudden heartrate shot up, began shaking and couldn't breathe and well I'm sure you know the rest! I had the first of many trips to casualty the following morning when anxiety was diagnosed and the rest as they say, is history!

Shiv x

[giddy]

Hi - I've had 3 episodes of anxiety/panic. The first was 14 years ago and I had major axiety attacks in shops and on public transport. At the time I was in my final year at uni and was bulimic, I think low blood sugar was the problem. It lasted about a year and then went. My second episode was about 4 years later, I had insomnia and the same anxiety attacks - not sure what caused it to come back, but I was miserable in my job. I am currently recovering from about 4 months of full on constant anxiety, I think it was brought about by stress at work and insomnia agin.
Love Helen

[darkangel]

had nervous breakdown 9 yrs ago due to various stressful events in my life and my lifestyle which left me with panic attacks, GAD, agoraphobia and clinical depression.
Lived 8 yrs of HELL - lost job, marriage break up led to me being homeless, hospitalised due to mental state.
But I turned my life around and still have the odd anxiety symptom but nothing I cant manage.
CBT does work
Darkangel

........life is for living not just for surviving

[manmoor]

Mine started just over 10 years ago when my father died with lung cancer. Ive only recently found out I have health anxiety and I diagnosed myself. Ive always been a pessimist and I think the worst of everything but now daily I live with thinking I have cancer somewhere in my body. Depending what part of my bodys sorest when I wake up by lunchtime I have diagnosed cancer there. Then I wake up next morning and hey presto I start all over again.

Mandy x

[Coni]

Hi everyone,

I first had a panic attack 20 years ago when I was 19. I was in a graveyard at the time, putting flowers on my now husbands grans grave. My heart just seemed to start beating erratically, I couldnt breath, couldnt focus properly and thought I was going to die! In the year leading up to that I lost my dad suddenly, moved away from home to start nursing 3 weeks after his death, and my mum was suicidal and drinking heavily. That was the start of a year of hell and a lifetime of anxiety (and more recently depression) although I rarely have full blown panics now.

Coni X

[anxious]

I started with OCD when i was about 14 and it just evolved from there - i'm 39 now!!

Laughter is a tranquilizer with no side effects

[jackie]

over 4 years ago. all began with a fright that i may die frim my pal anorexia( enemy really)

i realised i didnt want to die but that night i ended up in casulty. i though ti was dying. realised 3 years later it was a panic attack

good question

jackie

[honeybee3939]

Hi,

Mine started around 10 years ago when i was held at knife point by a armed robber with a knife to my throat and made to empty the safe in a local store where i worked, i lost alot of confidence and trust in people, then 3 years later was in hospital with a huge abcess in my stomach(thought it was a cancer tumour) and nearly lost my life due to septecima, my anxiety got alot worse and ended up with Agrophobia.



Andrea
xxx

[Daisybun]

Mine started properly 4 years ago after a thyroid op. I have always been a worrier about my health, especially fear of ancer but kept a hold on it until that time. I had my first panic attack after the op and then it developed into depression. The fear of it all has been with me ever since. The anxiety comes and goes but i realise now that I have health anxiety - every time i get something wrong I believe it is fatal and I am living my life in that way - not good. Latest panic and anxiety started in Autumn last year after incident at work that shook my confidence. Am currently off sick due to this.

Take care
Daisybun

'This too will pass'

[**whenwillthisend**]

hi thanks to all your replies its so interesting to hear how everyones anxiety had a "trigger" of some sort no matter how small or big...i hope we all have the strength to overcome this and hopefully one day lead a normal life!!!
take care

[sxalabarde]

I had a small blood blister in my mouth and I was stupid enough to google it, until I ended up convinced it was a very aggressive form of melanoma and that I was going to die in weeks rather than months. I had a kind of panic attack, and although it seems unbelievable, it was the worst day of my life. The blister was gone the next day, but the fear stayed with me. A few weeks later I had pain in my breast, googled it again, and ended up thinking it was inflammatory breast cancer. It was a blocked milk duct. Since then it has been non-stop one thing after another.

[scoobygirl2005]

Mine has started all on and off. The ocd started just last year, but the rest of it has been on and off since I was younger.

Scooby2005
x x

[joolsukuk]

hi, mine was about 12 years ago daoughterwas 4 months old stopped breathing! first one that night in hospital with her,had aready lost one at birth and couldnt bear the thought of having to bury another baby! shes fine now but ive had attacks since then.

jools xx

[gill30]

I am new to this but it might help speaking to some of you. Mines started 9 years ago when i had my daughter. I was on prozac and couselling and vowed never to have anymore kids but 2 years ago i had my son and from the day i found out i was pregnant everything seemed to come back to the surface so here i am again worrying over everthing. The only difference now is i have depression and ocd and i long to be normal and see a pschologist every week.

[janie]

yep had a really bad year last year - broken leg 2 days before I got married - nightmare year because it didn't mend. Housebound for months - husband in hospital with suspected heart attack -2 tax investigations into our company - 3 new employees - and 4 children and all the stresses and strains that go with them - further operation on leg in November.

Panic attack out of the blue when I went to bed one night at end of March. Felt fine when I went to bed and then wham!!! Have been suffering since, mainly with chest pain. CBT helps, combined with prosac and propanolol for palps.

Quite worrying really that something so strong can creep up on you without even knowing. Very difficult to rationalise and i'm finding even more difficult for those who love you - family are finding it very hard. Will post a new thread about that. Love to everyone xxx