What makes "us" different?

[nj]

I mean, I know in it's simplest the answer is: it's the anxiety.

But sometimes I really wonder. I'm a few pounds overweight and something I'm really working on correcting. I've been absolutely panicked over having a heart attack.

But I see so many people that are obese and/or smoking and wonder, do they worry at all? Wouldn't it be nice to not fret over every little thing?

[Ats666]

I think this all the time. I look at people and I am envious of them not having a are in the world, just getting on with life and not worrying. :weep:

[Beagle]

I try to put a positive spin on being anxious. My anxiety has made me look at who I am and what part I play in the world. It has been an excrusiatingly difficult journey but I look at others with their 'blissfull ignorance' and wonder if their 'shallow' life experience is lacking any real relevance. On days when I am feeling bad though the 'shallow' life appears to be the best option in the world, but it would remove a part of what makes me an individual.

[Arnie365]

Hi

I never really had any worries about my health before i developed anxiety 7 months ago and rarely gave it a thought as I was lucky I was hardly ever ill and didnt visit the doctor often.

What Ive now learnt about myself with the help of therapy and reflection is that ive always had a fear of death and having a heart attack. i think this comes form seeing my grandad have one and die when I was 5 though i dont remember it at all. So things from your past may be sat behind this or you may have had a parent or family member worry about their health or go through a serious illness etc. It all sits in your sub conscious until it comes to the surface. Thats what happened it fine. Id unknowingly bottled it up for years then it went off like a volcano with my massive first panci attack i thought was a heart attack. of course sub consciously I will have told myself, see i knew it was going to be a heart attack that killed you. You are now going to die. Its taken me 7 months to get to a point of accepting its anxiety rather than heart related. Still have many moments of weakness where doubt creeps in but im just going to keep plugging away at my therapy and going to the gym until i stop the doubts totally.

[AuntieMoosie]

Beagle and Arnie are so right :)

Anxiety doesn't always have to be a negative thing, I know the symptoms are horrendous and petrifying, panic attacks are just the most awful things:wacko:

But the one good thing that anxiety does is to make us all take a long, hard look at ourselves and makes us address issues and makes us eventually change our lives for the better :)

I grant you, it's not at all a pleasant journey to start with, but it is an education and will eventually lead us in the right direction :)

So it's all really a learning curve and, thought that, we will become stronger, more confident and we'l have learned an awful lot about ourselves :)

[Justinf]

I think that on the whole 'we' seem like intelligent normal everyday people, but our ability to think logically when it comes to health anxiety is what sets us apart.