Feel like my luck must be running out....

[Iced_diamond]

Health Anxiety is a real pain! I wish I could take all the years, months, days and hours which I spent worrying (pointlessly) and turn them into some productive time-spend-like maybe enjoying myself. I have been suffering from worries about my health for about 7 years, but in the last two years it reached its peak and I have become more obsessive. I work on a full time basis, but I always skip social events and generally events which mean getting together and having a good time, because I worry about picking up things from other people. Winter is the worst time for me, as everyone and his brother is ill and there are a lot of events to go to. I feel I have done well the last 4 months and have pulled myself together and done things despite my fear. A lot of the time I have been pleased to say afterwards: See, nothing bad happened. You're not ill.
But now, I feel like my luck is running out. I feel that I'll definately pick up some nasty bug or flu from someone and get ill ( which I dread!). Yesterday a friend I was due to meet asked if we could meet later as she didn't feel well. I immediately said we should cancel, but my friend insisted, so I met her. Only to be out with her for half an hour before she said she felt so awful she needed to go home. The symptoms she was describing were not nice (nausea, aches, shivers) and I really don't get why she met me, especially as she knows I suffer from HA badly (part of me wonders if it was maybe deliberate-or maybe that's mean of me-as she's had a bit of a rough ride lately). Anyway, that's not the point, now I am obsessing that I have caught something from her and feel really sloppy, depressed and anxious today! It's like I can NEVER be happy, as the threat is always there. Constantly. At first I thought well I will just live with who I am, but now I am starting to feel a bit doomed-I don't want it to be like this forever. HA is ruining my life really and has also had a negative impact on my loved ones.... I'm fed up of it. Has anyone got any inspiring stories, ideas/tips or just feels the same and wants to let off some steam?

[cattia]

Maybe it would help to try to work out what you are really scared of. If you were to get flu, it would be unpleasant, but it would go away again after a week or so and your life would be the same as it was before. Please don't think I am belittling your fears, I know just what it's like to have irrational fears and how hard it is. I just wonder whether you're somehow afraid that if you get flu you won't get better, or you won't be able to cope with it. Where did these fears come from?
As for feeling like your luck is running out, I can relate completely to that one. I mostly fear cancer and I have had so many symptoms which I have thought were cancer, but so far they haven;t been, so I think that statistically speaking, soon it will be cancer, like it's bound to get me sooner or later. Have you had any help for your HA?

[Iced_diamond]

Hi Cattia, don't worry, I understand you fully. :) The annoying thing is that part of me knows I am being irrational, but then a larger percent of me is just really freaked out and scared all the time. I can't just accept things for how they are as my mind wonders from one extreme to the next. Any normal person would just see it as: Well, ok I feel a rubbish at the moment, I'll take a few days off work and soon I'll be fine again...I don't think like that. With me it's always the end of the world and jumps from one thing to the next like: What if I get really really ill in the night? What if something really bad happens and I have to go to hospital or something.... Then it jumps to, what if I can't go to work, what if I lose my job, what if my employer gives me a bad reference, what if I can't pay my bills anymore...it just jumps from one thing to another...I don't know either. I really must learn to be more chilled out. But, I have just done some exercising and feel pretty good and health confident today...just have to try and be positive...:)