My first post about my health anxiety which is doing my head in!

[SimonGT]

This is my first post here. In fact this is the first time i have ever used an internet forum to discuss my mental health. My Health Anxiety ( a much kinder term than hypochondria isnt it?) is really causing me to have very little quality of life. It will probably help if i make contact with others who suffer the same. I won't feel so alone with it hopefully.
Eighteen months ago my health anxiety kicked off bigtime. I hadn't heard from it for a number of years, but for the last year and a half its been constant. I'm particularly obsessed with oral cancer and have been obsessing about some mouth ulcers and oral thrush i have had. If its not that, its blemishes or marks on my skin that terrify me. One thing after the other. When there's a period (increasingly brief) where there is nothing i can find to panic about, I cant relax anyway cos i know its only a question of time before I find some other minor symptom to catastrophize about and completely blow up out of propertion. So its anxiety 24/7 really. With Health Anxiety, I can see myself doing it, but i cant help it. Its like some kind of schizophrenia. When its is full on, as it is most of the time, as i said I have absolutely no quality of life, as all i can do is obsess about getting ill and dying. Thoroughly miserable place to be. I'm in a bad mood all the time and gripe and snap at people. I see others laughing and having a good time and i'm filled with sadness and resentment. There is part of my head that buys into the health anxiety, and is utterly terrified, and "prepares myself for death", and there is part of my head that tells me to get a grip cos its my health anxiety and there is nothing really wrong. Its a constant tussle between the ill and the sane part of my brain arguing with each other, with the ill part mostly winning out. It's so exhausting!!!!!! I can't stand it !!! Sometimes all i can do for relief is to try and read spiritual, and life after death books to convince myself death isn't so bad after all. How low has the quality of my life got to be that i have to do that just to cope?
I am on Mirtazapine and Propranolol which kind of take the edge off. Thank God for the meds, without them i'm suicidal (entertaining suicidal thoughts as a kind of pre-emptive measure).

I'm on the waiting list for one on one CBT.. Will that help?

If I knew for sure that life after death and heaven existed and that death wasn't a terrible thing, I'd be fine. Sometimes i think that the only cure for my health anxiety would be one of those sublime near death experiences you hear about where people come back from being technically dead and from that moment on any fear of death is removed cos they know that a place of bliss awaits them. How i envy those people. To be free of fear of death..

Hoping to hear back from folks

Simon

[Jean18]

I struggled for 6 months with my health anxiety before i actually realised that it WAS health anxiety that I was dealing with and that my fear was and still is irrational. I tried for ages to be rational, to shut up that crazy voice in my head that was like "that's it, you're a gonna!". I found that when im in the middle of a panic attack or on the verge of one there is no point trying to be rational I just need to breath and sit for a bit, maybe have a bit of a cry too. I went and saw a counceller which did help but it also reaffirmed for me that It is up to ME to get better. For me I was convinced I would catch HIV- from touching a contaminated surface, from not scrubbing my hands properly. As a result i am now a chronic OCD hand washer. It is silly coz i've studied microbiology and I know how hard it is to catch HIV, that I would have to literally rub an open wound in contaminated blood. I'm also aware that only 300 people in my city of thousands have HIV and that most people are on antivirals so their levels are so low they are almost non-infectious. These are all rational arguments that I have with myself but i'm still having a bit of a freak-outy moment which is why i'm on here at the moment. BUt as I type this out i'm reminded of just how far i've come in the last 4 months, i'm not freakinng out nearly as much, i'm calming down and steadying my breathing. I think what helped me is that after I sank to an all-time low I realised that every minute I spend worrying about dying or getting sick, is a moment wasted. I don't want to live my life in fear because it's no life at all. I read on this site about people that have suffered from anxiety for years, people that don't leave their house! I never want to be like that and I will struggle through my little freak outs until I realise and truely believe that I'm not going to die from a lack of hand washing and if I get hit by a car tomorrow I don't want to die knowing that I wasted the last few days of my life worrying about catching a disease that I WILL never get unless I participate in some stupid risky behaviour.
My advice is to not be hard on yourself, you need to support and love yourself coz at the end of the day you are the only one you can truely rely on. That crazy voice in your head- as painful as it is- is really only trying to protect you, it's just going about it in the wrong way. Talk to yourself- when you freak out remind yourself that you have HEALTH ANXIETY and that you are not looking at the situation from a rational perspective. And try not to encourage your anxiety- for example I have watching people make my food/drinks, I hate watching them touch the stuff i'm about to but in my mouth with their less than clean hands- so I don't watch. For you- stop inspecting yourself, don't look for marks don't look for blemishes (easier said than done but you have to try!)
If there is no life after death- well then we all need to stop wasting the one we have.

[SimonGT]

This health anxiety has kind of taken me by surprise. I am trying very hard not to buy into it. I had an intervention with a psychotherapist who seemed convinced, in fact certain that the root cause of my health anxiety is due to my my mother abandoning me when i was about 10 months old.
Apparently when the so called 'primary carer' (psych jargon for mother) of a child suddenly leaves the child, the child can become a health anxiety sufferer in adulthood. Because there is not that familiar face and voice and touch any more to soothe the baby when it feels uncomfortable, or in pain in any way. So when baby feeld pain/discomfort with no mum to soothe and reassure, baby freaks out and sees it as a signal that baby is going to die , or in baby's mind as he/she does not know what dying is : 'do i exist?'.
This was explained to me by the psychotherapist. Blew me away. Had me in tears.

[Jean18]

wow that's intense! for me I think it's just from studying microbiology and working in a lab where i have to wear gloves and keep everything sterile- i'm too aware of all the tiny little things out there able to do me harm. I think CBT will help you- I found that I started to get better when I first admitted to myself that I needed help and started talking to people about it. This site helped a lot- it's nice to know you're never alone in your fears.

[SimonGT]

Be interesting to hear if any other health anxiety sufferers were infant abandonees. I'd like to explore this. I will at some point in some setting.

These days I tell myself that i am unwell, and i try not to beat myself up for being so utterly self-obsessed. I tend to think anyway that self-obsession in a person is deeply unnatractive and very uncool. But i mustnt think this way. In this case its more self-preservation. I'm making a bad situation way worse if i give myself a hard time as well. . So to talk to other people that behave how i do makes it easier. Suffering alone with this can be quite terryfying. Being ashamed to talk about it, which i have been

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for example I have watching people make my food/drinks, I hate watching them touch the stuff i'm about to but in my mouth with their less than clean hands- so I don't watch. .

On a lighter note... this might amuse you... I was in my local Sainsbury's supermarket a while back and i went up to the delicatessen counter and the guy serving had a really bad cold. In a friendly manner i suggested that his being there was a health hazard. He told me that his boss would frown upon him taking time off for just having a cold...

[Jean18]

sigh* people just don't realise how gross they are, but that's life and it's why we have an immune system which really is amazing when you think about the daily battle it fights- learning a bit more about how the body fights off disease and cancer might help you perhaps, just an idea ;)

[tiff123]

hey Simon, what you say about HA being exhausting, I think we can all relate to.

I hope you can start to focus on your recovery from HA, rather than the HA itself.

[SimonGT]

Being a member on this forum last 24 hours has been a move in the right direction. I have read some useful suggestions, and i do not not feel so alone with HA, so thanks to you all