SKIPPY66 advice please?

[illgetthere]

Dear skippy I no you cured yourself from health anxiety with no help no meds or anything else but question to you is this?.
1. How did you turn it round?
2.how did you stop fearing everything?
3.how did you change your mind set?
4.how did you overcome fear from dieing?

You say your cured so you don't ever think of the things you did before you don't ever fear anything anymore your back to how you was before anxiety struck you?
I'd be grateful of a reply
Best wishes Vicky

[skippy66]

It wasn't an overnight miracle cure and it took a while for me to get better, but it was basically down to shifting my mindset about life (letting go of control) and using willpower & distraction techniques to get off Google and claim my life back.

Imagine you're on a plane journey. You can sit there pale-faced and rigid, gripping the arms of the seat for the whole journey because you are terrified of being on the journey, and every little bump of turbulence you feel is magnified, and sends you into a panic. You start to fear the next bump and try to anticipate it. You are in a constant state of fear and anxiety. When the plane reaches it's destination you breathe a sign of relief and what you've just been through doesn't seem so bad. 'Why did I make such a big deal of that?' you think.

Your other option on this journey is to completely let go - totally relax your body in the knowledge that you can not do anything to alter what is going to happen on this journey. You must trust the pilot to get you there safely, and you let the bumps of turbulence happen knowing that you can't affect it and they are most probably harmless. You let go of trying to control the plane journey as you know you can't. You actually start to enjoy the flight, the sensation of being in the air, the views from your window. When you get to your destination you look back and think 'I had a good time on that journey'.

It may sound cheesy to you but you need to view life and your health in the same way as that plane journey. It's going to be bumpy at times and there's not a lot you can do about it except to accept it and enjoy it for what it is.

For me this realisation kicked in when I was approaching 30. I suddenly thought 'where have my 20s gone?' I am never going to get them back ever again. I then realised that for a lot of my 20's I had been worrying myself sick about what may or may not be wrong with me, and guess what - HUNDREDS of scary symptoms over 7-8 years and I was still standing. It suddenly dawned on me that I had a choice to make in my 30's - would I carry on like this, and look back at 40 thinking that I had ruined the peak years of my life by worrying about my health, or should I just think 'to hell with it!' and enjoy whatever time I had left on this planet regardless.

The above realisation helped me to let go of trying to control everything in my life. I started to enjoy the ride despite the bumps. THE THOUGHT OF LOOKING BACK AT MY LIFE ON MY DEATHBED AND THINKING "I WASTED MOST OF THAT" IS FAR MORE SCARY THAN SOME CHEST PAIN, TWITCHING, STOMACH ACHE OR HEART PALPITATIONS THAT MAY OR MAY NOT KILL ME. Had to put that in upper case as it's the key to my recovery.

In addition to this mindset change, I got myself distractions which kept me off Google, I did several things to reduce my overall stress and make my body fitter, and once I was a lot better I found that going back to Google (to forums like this) was no longer a problem to me as I had fought my way out of the vicious cycle. It's amazing - a few years ago I was scared to watch any medical programmes on TV because it would feed my health anxiety - now I can watch them for fun, they don't bother me in the least.

The final thing I recognised is that the human body is not perfect. Things go wrong from time to time for no reason, and get better for no reason. Experiencing hundreds of weird symptoms has helped me realise this. I look back at how low I felt during a time when I used to count the number of muscle twitches I got (hundreds per day). I was CONVINCED I had MS. Utterly convinced. Now I get maybe 5 per day - I don't know because I no longer pay attention to them. At the time, the thought of being free of muscle twitches was unbelievable.

Hope this helps, I would like to add that apart from the occasional diazepam a few years ago when I was at my lowest point, I haven't taken any of the anti-depressants that were regularly prescribed for me (I was scared to take them due to reading the side effects leaflet and boy am I glad I didn't take them). Nor have i gone through any expensive CBT therapy sessions. I have done this on my own with the help of a couple of books from the likes of Claire Weekes.

The key thing to take away from this is that even though it doesn't seem like it now, it IS possible to make a full recovery and it's not as hard as you think.

[illgetthere]

Thank-you for replying to me and your post very much makes sence I feel I have made progress a lot in 2 years from November 2011 I was so close to admitting myself to a phycriatric ward but that didn't happen but I just can't seem to stop the thoughts I'm so fed up with thinking constantly about cancer or heart attack its soul destroying frustrating they just won't go :(

[TheScript]

Woah! Skippy66, That is very good advice!

[SarahH]

Nice post Skippy:D